I'm curious.
I always imagined that sub for sub would result in "high sub count" but low engagement but I guess it cant hurt?
Does having subs help some sort of algorithm?
Sep '21
Sep '21
I think the only time sub for sub helps is when you are just starting out. I heard that there is a minimum sub requirement to reflect in the app. I don't think sub for sub can be useful anywhere else, in fact, there have been many discussions on the forums where people say it messes with the algorithm and harms your series instead
It doesn’t help, and if you do it too much, it actually might negatively impact you. Let’s say you’ve got a lot of subs, and they’re all from sub4sub, so you get no likes or comments or anything like that. That’s going to make your story look like it had an ok first couple pages but it got worse later so no one bothered to read it, make it look sus, or make it clear you did sub4sub (which will give the impression of being a beginner)
We can't prove or disprove if it messes with the algorithm, but the problems with sub-for-sub are:
It's just ignoring the issues that are causing people to not read your series. If you're advertising your series around and about and not picking up any readers at all, like nobody at all sees your thumbnail/banner/cover or sample pages or the blurb or a description of what it's about and thinks "yeah! That sounds like my jam!" then you have a problem on your hands. You can either pretend the problem doesn't exist by bribing people to read your work with return subs, which is only a temporary distraction from the problem, or you can fix the problem by getting advice and critiques from people you trust to have your best interests at heart.
It has a natural cap. The forums only have so many people on them and turnover is relatively slow. Only a proportion even do sub for sub. I think the highest I've seen somebody get through sub-for-sub is around maybe 300 subs? At some point you just run out of people, and then you'd have to face the grim music of my previous point.
Sub count isn't what readers even see. The whole "Oh it makes my comic look more popular so people will read it! Like when you're busking and you put a few pennies in your hat to tempt people to put more in!" argument falls apart if you realise that: 1. Likes are what appears under your comic/novel in the rankings, and 2. Likes are what decide your comic/novel's place in the rankings. So basically nobody is gonna see your work if your readers don't leave likes, and your work isn't gonna look popular if readers don't leave likes. That's why you need actual readers!
Basically it's possible it's not harmful, but it's really not helpful, and contrary to what some sub-for-subbers will insist, it won't suddenly result in a series hitting some magical milestone where people legitimately start thinking it looks great and subbing. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Ideally, the only incentive people should need for reading your work is the entertainment your work provides them.
I think it helps at the beginning, yes.
When you have zero subs, and start searching for them, you start talking with other people and make friends. Some of those people just come and go, obviously, but some others stays for the long haul, and those are the ones who likes your webcomic/novel at the beginning, and comment on them. More important than the sub, that it helps get you on the front page, its the support from those people that helps you keep writing and drawing that makes the first steps of sub for subs something necessary.
Yehh. To elaborate on this, at least as of March of this year (when I had launched my most recent series and ran into this scenario), that threshold existed at 15 subscribers. Below that and your series wouldn't show up in "Fresh" on the app, but could still be searched, would show up in folks' libraries, etc.
Personally, I still wouldn't want to sub-for-sub to get over that hurdle for several of the reasons listed in darthmangoose's earlier reply, but it is at least more understandable in this context lol.
As discussed above, there's a distinct possibility that the lack of engagement relative to sub count harms you algorithmically when it comes to your series ranking in trending lists. (That's a maybe on Tapas. It's a definite on Webtoon's Top 30 lists, there's no question there.)
I'd absolutely avoid it for that reason alone. I get way more subs through ranking in the CANVAS Top 30 Sci-fi list on Webtoon whenever I post than I could have possibly got through sub-for-sub.
It also makes you look desperate. If your work is of good quality, it'll accumulate subs through normal promotion. If you need to bribe people to sub to you, I take that to mean there are some glaring issues with the comic which make people not want to sub unless there's something in it for them.
Just don't do it. It's a bad look, and can hurt your series algorithmically, long term.
It helps you get past those certain thresholds to unlock ink support, ad revenue, etc., but beyond that it's not really helpful at all, and all the Promotion threads clog up the forum big time.
I don't really like the idea of sub-for-sub because I don't want to force myself to read something I wouldn't otherwise be interested in, nor would I want to force anyone to read my comics like that. And if we were just subscribing to each other without actually reading each other's stuff, then what's the point?
That said, if the creators involved show legitimate interest in each other's work, I think that's great! It can be a great way to build friendships and can lead to some cool cross-promotion opportunities. But you just can't guarantee that with sub-for-subs, especially since promotion threads like that tend to fill up so fast that there's no way anyone could keep up with it all.
This is what I've observed -- I don't really buy that empty subs affect your ranking (or if they do, it's only in trending, which might as well not exist since it's not on the app).
Honestly I'm not sure why "like for like" threads aren't a bigger thing -- I'd much rather have somebody like every chapter in my novel then peace out than have a sub who never reads anything. At least that would move me up in popular, which is how actual readers can find you.
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