Feeling discouraged as a small creator

Comic.Kikikora 2021-01-06 16:34:16 UTC #1

Not sure if anyone else thinks the same ... hehe ....

Believing if we keep working on the series, we will eventually build up reader bases & got discovered ...

But then see some completely new series just released for few days ... they achieve much more sub/likes/comments than what I can achieve in a year .... that means their view-to-sub ratio is very high!!

Just can't help to feel .... prephaps i don't have the potential to become a cartoonist, is my series that bad? ... should set a time to give up as it won't pick up?

Although I will keep on drawing until the end ... but these negative feelings are annoying tho ....

whinging only ...

Wocalich 2021-01-06 16:38:25 UTC #2

We all get discouraged from time to time but as long as you keep it up, your works will improve. Even if what you're writing/drawing right now doesn't attract readers, that doesn't mean this will be the case forever. Don't give up and one day you will have your goal in hand.

thel3tterm 2021-01-06 16:41:00 UTC #3

Hey Ozone! I just checked out your work, and it looks like you're doing VERY well for the amount of time that you've been posting already! DEFINITELY don't give up. You seem to be on the right track.

I think the types of series you're thinking of usually have built in follower bases for the artist. Also, sometimes people just get very lucky and accidentally stumble into a niche that no one really knew existed.

Just keep hanging on, improving, and putting out pages. I think you'll do well for yourself : D

Tangentially, we definitely all feel that way sometimes. (Heck, I beat myself up about my work every other week.) I think it helps to look at the earlier work of people we already admire, and compare it to their most recent stuff. A few authors and creators I look up to weren't that great when they first started out, and you can bet they weren't runaway hits on their first project. It's the fact that they kept going that really matters, though! We're only going to improve from here. Just keep at it!

domisotto 2021-01-06 16:42:16 UTC #4

It’s a natural reaction, but in the end, they are they, and you are you. It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on the books that explode out of the gates, to see if you can do something different, celebrate their success and hope that one day it might happen to one of your stories too.

Not going to lie, sometimes you won’t be able to understand why a story became popular the way it did. In these cases, I say what Conan the Barbarian says to deal with all the mysteries of the universe: Crom.

The online world is highly competitive, so one of the best skills as a content creator is to harness the competitive streak and convert it into the positive creative energy.

Good luck, and don’t feel discouraged!

oOafterburnerOo 2021-01-06 16:48:17 UTC #5

I have felt like that all my life.
But your comic intro had me hooked and made me laugh right away so I think you're doing a great job, keep it up.

ninjashira 2021-01-06 16:48:29 UTC #6

It can be especially hard early in your Tapas career to gain any kind of an audience, and it can be a little frustrating. You never know if your comic is going to take off and become popular, or live in mediocrity for its entire run. My growth on Tapas started fairly slow, but I was happy every single time I got one new person who liked it. I stayed consistent in my updates and turned out fairly decent work (it's gotten better lately but the first chapter was a little rough). I have nowhere near the following that some of the very popular comics do, with their tens of thousands of subscribers and hundreds of comments every episode, but I'm very happy to have the audience I do have. But it took me about a year to get to a thousand subscribers. It's definitely the long game.

Puck 2021-01-06 16:48:31 UTC #7

First you need a smashing idea, a story and characters people can relate to.
Does your story and the characters have the potential to speak to a lot of readers?
Are you convinced about your story and characters?
If you have all that then it´s a question of presentation and a question if there
is a group of readers who might be interested in that genre of story

Comic.Kikikora 2021-01-06 16:55:37 UTC #8

Thank you for all of your encouragement.

Actually what really puzzled me is ... I clicked into some of these creators and they don't seem to have previous projects ... so cannot tell if they have built in follower bases ... prehaps it is just simply anyone viewed have subscribed and commented ... which is really amazing as after doing webcomic for a while, I know this is really difficult to retain active readers.

Comic.Kikikora 2021-01-06 17:03:09 UTC #9

Getting over 1k sub on Tapas is really not easy, congratulations!!!

cassidybueter 2021-01-06 17:04:00 UTC #10

The people that start with loads of followers and viewers probably had big social media followings to begin with. But if there's one thing I know about webcomics, it's a long game. A lot of people fall off in the first few months. Also, I've found that crossposting to Webtoon helps.

TedGravesArt 2021-01-06 17:23:03 UTC #11

Quality does not equal popularity. As online creators we have to be responsible for marketing ourselves as well, which is a completely different skill set that's really difficult for a lot of artists, myself included. Little things can make a huge difference, like posting individual pages rather than chunks, or posting on forums to get your name more visible. There's a lot of noise in the creative space these days and often the platforms that we use to drive traffic to our stuff actively suppress smaller creators. Keep consistent, and don't get discouraged!

Puck 2021-01-06 17:32:15 UTC #12

I got what you mean but I also think that the really popular stuff is just simply good in a way that it speaks to a lot of people.
You can do a lot with promotion but only to a certain level

darthmongoose 2021-01-06 17:32:58 UTC #13

There can be all sorts of reasons for a person seeming to have no history on Tapas but having a fast growth due to an established fanbase or experience that allows them to make more polished work. For example:

This might be their first comic on Tapas, but they might have made comics on another platform, maybe an older one like Smackjeeves, or a less comics-focused one like Tumblr, or perhaps they previously posted on Webtoon.
This might be their first webcomic, but they may have made lots of print comics on their country's small press scene.
They could have made a comic on Tapas before but deleted it or made a new account because they put it on hiatus or don't like it any more, or they're rebooting.

I don't have any previous work on Tapas, but I've made comics on other platforms (Drunk Duck, Smackjeeves, Hypercomix, Deviantart... some of these don't even exist any more) done print comics for a bunch of UK anthologies over the years etc. Errant definitely isn't my first comic or even my first webcomic by a long shot. I'm still working my butt off to try to hit 1k because Tapas isn't an easy platform for Action genre comics (but it's the most LGBTQIA+ friendly one so.... Grind grind grind, I guess).

ninjashira 2021-01-06 17:43:53 UTC #14

Thank you! I'm fairly convinced that only about 40% of that was my hard work, and the other 60% is dumb luck

BrambleberrySquirrel 2021-01-06 18:48:35 UTC #15

Visibility and the gate to popularity as a creator on the internet is mostly ruled by algorithms. It can be really discouraging when machine god doesn’t smile on you for whatever unknowable reason. But, whether or not a soulless collection of equations decides your art is worthy of praise does not reflect on its value or on your value as a person or a creator.

You can’t give up on your art, that’s the only sure fire way to insure that it goes nowhere and no one will ever see or appreciate it. You’ve gotta keep pushing through and know that you will find your audience. Maybe it’s not even on this platform, but there are billions of people on this planet and if even less than 1% of them take notice and enjoy what you’re doing that’s a massive audience.

These feelings are normal and I certainly deal with them myself on a regular basis. I’ll work really hard on a piece of art or a comic update I’m really proud of and think shows some big improvement and once I chuck it out into the void of the internet it’s met with silence or just a handful of views and likes. It’s hard, but you can’t let yourself drown in that feeling. Those few people who liked what you made matter and they’re not wrong. You just have to keep moving forward and pursuing your passion as a creator. One day you’ll look up and realize it was all worth it.

migxmeg 2021-01-06 18:51:01 UTC #16

This is exactly how I feel too . And it's important to be proud of yourself and your own work as well.

cherrystark 2021-01-06 18:54:02 UTC #17

Don't give up hope! All good things take time. I'm still miles away from where I want to be as a creator but I'm heaps better off now than I was a year ago. Keep moving forward!

TheYaoiEmpire 2021-01-06 18:58:26 UTC #18

I get discouraged a lot, been working on my project for six years, wrote a novel the size of three lord of the rings books, but I got told it was, waaaay too big so I am currently redoing it into seven different books. I get discouraged because of the lack of feedback and the years of silence so deafening I feel more alone than a party clown that has social anxiety at a large party he was determined to go to at first, but the fear of rejection holds him hostage constantly.

But he goes to the party and performs regardless, because he can’t give up, it’s his dream to be a party clown that people enjoy.

Rhonder 2021-01-06 22:39:29 UTC #19

I think it's a pretty common feeling among smaller/newer creators. I think the main thing to keep in mind is that these things:

DO more often than not happen, but often times not as fast or in as big of numbers as we hope. It depends on a lot of factors and many of them are out of your control. You can't make people read or subscribe or leave likes after all. The best you can do is to work your best, try to do what you can to get it in front of more eyes, and see where it goes

Lastly is that it's not uncommon to see better results on your 2nd, 3rd, 5th, etc. project than on the previous ones. Little by little you build up familiarity and a base readership, so even if your first or second project doesn't take off, they're not necessarily for nothing. All of it builds up your brand as an author~

domisotto 2021-01-06 23:23:12 UTC #20

My second novel had a harder time than the first in terms of visibility because of the genre. The first one could make trending and popular fairly often, the second never does. By now, my second though finally gained as many subs as the first did before it was featured, but far less reads. I honestly don’t know how to compare the two.