Dump months? Does this exist on Tapas and Webtoons?

[kaiwang868]

Hey guys, just a question. I read this Wikipedia article about "Dump Months". It basically is the time of the year when movie studios don't release major movies because everyone is too busy with school and work (January and February, and then September). Link below:

Does the same thing happen on Tapas and Webtoons? Is there a drop in traffic in January, February and September?

Dump months

[VibrantFox]

i think there's definitely low traffic periods within the year but i don't monitor enough to know when they happen specifically. School and work are definitely influences so I'm sure people who have witnessed/experienced it can say with more certainty when the drops occur.

[fleohr]

I noticed a huge amount of views in August, it was better than May, but my subs number did't change much hm, I wonder if this month I'll have a huge drop again

I didn't upload anything in July, because I was on hiatus

[kaiwang868]

What happened in March? That's a huge jump in views!

[fleohr]

I got promoted by Tapas staff, my comic was on the front page for 2 weeks and then it was recommended on daily snacks

[kaiwang868]

Oh! By that do you mean the Noteworthy Comics/Noteworthy Novels section? My novel ELINA is currently being promoted there. I've never been on the Daily Snack section though

[fleohr]

Yep, that's the name of the section!

I also had another comic there, but I think it was too niche, so it didn't get that popular lol, it currently has 187 subs, most of them are probably from my first comic

[punkarsenic]

i think the commonly held belief is that may-june are often pretty quiet because of finals, and holidays have higher traffic. but i dont think its anywhere near as severe as the cinema, because stopping to read two pages of a comic on your phone and going to watch a 2 hour movie in town are very different levels of effort and time spent

[yozhikisblue]

@punkarsenic That's true- but when it comes to picking up new comics, I can see how dump months would take effect- considering that you may have to read through several weeks of pages before catching up to the current one? I believe there's a feeling of effort involved there that's different from going to the nearest cinema- not because driving to go see a movie isn't an effort, but I suspect there's a psychological thing for many people where reading, whether it's a novel or a comic, can feel like "work" and watching a movie doesn't.

I'm just theorizing here though.

[punkarsenic]

oh yeah watching is way easier than reading, as an avid film and book fan i can vouch for that. however, the ability to split reading up into little bites and carry it around with you is an advantage that softens the blow of dump months.

this all said, idk how much dump months rly hold up these days, bc theres so many blockbusters coming out that incredible blockbusters like black panther are coming out in february

[OneHappyChap]

Kind of related, but are there any days better for posting than others? I see a lot of people post on weekends and Wednesday, and was curious if this was only coincidence or if there was a real reason for it, stastically speaking.

[yozhikisblue]

@Beau_Van_D I wonder about this sometimes as well. Personally I just chose a day that worked with my schedule (Tuesdays i.e. today in this case) but I wonder if anyone puts more thought into their choice of day than that. It seems very difficult to genuinely choose a "strategic" day if your goal is to be seen by more people, since if you took it really seriously you'd have to go consider the potential location and age of your audience and how that translates into when they're most likely to check the website, if that's even a correlation that exists. Most people doubtless don't have enough information to make an informed decision like that, or even the tools to collect it (you'd have to do surveys...actually get people to respond to them...I used to work as a research assistant, so the very thought is giving me flashbacks...x'D)

[OneHappyChap]

Sorry for the flashbacks.

Hmm, I'm aware that these statistics are more or less calculated when it comes to big social media platforms (e.g: https://blog.hootsuite.com/best-time-to-post-on-facebook-twitter-instagram/ ), but I haven't seen anything around for Tapas.

Although I have yet to try this out with said platforms, nor can I guarantee how accurate these articles are, so please take this information with a grain of salt.

[yozhikisblue]

Ah yeah, I am familiar with the social media platform stats. Actually timing your posts to fit within those windows is a whole other matter though- and then there's time zones to consider. Like...12-3, great- but for whom? The west coast of the United States? United Kingdom? Australia? Since we're online, we do technically have an "international audience"...

[OneHappyChap]

Yep. Maybe if you figure out the percentage of users that use Tapas the most from a specific timezone, see which socials they use most, and time it to that... Good luck to anyone who tries this in either case!

[Shanny8]

My worst months currently are February & March- around the time period when I'm winding my webcomic chapter down. My best months weirdly are July & August- right before the school season starts.

[ZombieOwl]

interesting thought :o I've noticed I haven't been getting as many subs this last august compared to other months (I've been wondering if it's just my content stagnating...) I guess we'll see how things go in the later months :o

[YangKoete]

I think it involves more of advertising your work.

Fridays and Sundays are ok for my two comics.

[kaiwang868]

When I was active on FictionPress a few years ago, I noticed that January and February are horrible. And September too. After September, from October - December, there'd be a steady increase in views, then fall on a straight cliff on January 1st and stay like that until the end of February. Then from early March to end of August there'd be steady growth again.

[mrtoontastic]

Yes. Kinda. Sorta. I think majorly it's also how active you are on Tapas/Webtoons for it to happen. If you post daily/weekly content with little to no breaks, a dump month is surely likely. Plus, we're on the internet. Everything's expected to be around as fast as possible that breaks/burnouts are more likely than ever.