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Merryweatherey
Dec '16

Keeping your audience coming back is one of the most important things in webcomics. Suddenly seeing subscribers leave can be a very scary thing for new or experienced webcomic creators alike.

But what I've noticed with some of my comics, is not drops in subscribers. That usually stays the same or keeps slightly rising. What I find more scary, which has happened to me a lot of times, is suddenly getting 1000s of views less than I'd normally get for an episode.

This doesn't tend to happen when I keep putting out comic pages, but sometimes when I upload an illustration, or a fanart corner type thing, or an announcement for a contest, or patreon, or whatever. The moment it isn't an actual episode of the comic, I notice a drastic change in views for the next real episode.

It'll usually go like this:

Episode 1 - 5000 views
Episode 2 - 4800 views
Episode 3 - 4780 views
Merry Christmas! (Artwork) - 4700 views
Episode 4 - 3500 views
Episode 5 - 3400 views

Has anyone else noticed this?

  • created

    Dec '16

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    Jan '17
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Down_the_Rabbithole
Dec '16

Not really. I have a pretty small audience and I get about the same amount of views each time I upload (about 20 something the first day). Maybe it's just a problem for bigger comics and I have no real input here. Shrug

keii4ii
Dec '16

Sounds like the situation with my comic: subs rise slowly but steadily, but views keep falling.

The first few episodes having a ton of views, I think that's natural. People check out the first few episodes to see if the comic is their bag of tea, and naturally, not all of them stay. But it's weird to see the views continue to drop after, say, the first 40 episodes.

I don't have any artwork episodes, though, so I don't know what my problem is.

Kura
Dec '16

One thing that could be adding to it but not completely responsible. I noticed there is a group of people that feel cheated (and this is not guessing, this is from conversations with them) when they don't get a comic page and get art instead. It's like a "I came here for art and it was a F**KING patreon / picture / guest art" response from them. Depending on how often that happens people will start un-subbing or just not coming back (they still like the comic, they're just sick of not getting the comic), as they came for a comic not a gallery, and after enough 'gallery and patreon ad updates', will just hit the 'mark as read' because "it's probably another extra episode anyway, I'll binge later when after a few more updates and hopefully there will be comics there" which sometimes leads them into a habit of doing it and never getting back, or just forgetting about the series entirely.

Another interesting note that is that usually if the art/advertisement/guest art doesn't feel like it's "replacing the episode they were waiting for" they generally don't care and continue on their way. Just as long as they got their episode as well.

I think that group is pretty small though?? And generally I've actually only seen them on Tapastic and LINE. But I could be wrong.

Shanny8
Dec '16

That's why when I did post my holiday pic, I posted it AFTER I posted a weekly episode; I didnt want viewers to feel like they didnt get their weekly fix. The holiday pic was an extra bonus for them to look at.

Emberguard
Dec '16
keii4ii

It probably in part has something to do with the length of story and how engaging it is for the audience to stay within that story. For those that are staying with the story from the start and seeing it as it is formed I can't say what the ideal upload amounts over a period of time would be. However a long story that seems like it's taking forever to get anywhere will lose interest. A story that is updating so frequently that it starts to drown viewers in episodes will also lose interest.

Once the story is completed new viewers will either find it interesting enough to read the whole thing or will get bored part way through and only read some of it

Certainly the ones I find lose my interest the most are those that continually restart or re-do the whole thing when they've already gotten upto a major part of the storyline. Most of the time when a story is re-done it's such a minor change that I can't even tell the difference between what was deleted and what they replaced it with. So it ends up being months or years of just waiting on a story to catch up to where it already was prior with no guarantee they'll ever get upto or beyond what they had done before.

Emberguard
Dec '16

@reonmeriwethe I assume this is your tapastic account? https://tapastic.com/Merryweathery9

If so i can see the problem with Winter Mage. Right now it's jumping all over the place. One moment we're looking at the priestess the next we're on the mage and then we're back on the priestess with zero explanation for the Mages actions or any bonding time with the character. The second half of Ep. 3 in particular just destroyed the atmosphere the comic was building. There's just something about massively OP things being randomly dropped in a story without explanation that destroys the flow of a story. If the Mage's actions didn't seem so completely random or if it didn't seem like we were focusing on them out of nowhere when we were in the middle of something else it would have been fine.

punkarsenic
Dec '16

ive definitely noticed this. i assume its mostly down to A: people coming to your comic, reading up to wherever and then deciding its not for them and B: readers who save up updates and binge read later. also, dead weight subscribers, but (hopefully) thats not the main cause.

keii4ii
Dec '16
Emberguard

Which puts creators between a rock and a hard place, when the only apparent options are: A) continue with a story that's proven to cause people to lose interest, B) reboot (hopefully to fix the things that made people lose interest) and cause people to lose interest anyway.

aquatorrent
Dec '16

if the comic is so bad to begin with, i think it's better to reboot or ditch the story completely.
otherwise, i think it's better to improve the comic in the next chapters to keep your loyal readers.

anyway, if what @Emberguard said is true that it's his/her tapastic account, i sub some of his/her comic and the problem that i found is that while the story of his/her comics are promising, the updates are very lacking (to the point that i forgot what the story is) and whenever i see an update, it's always a fan art. i think people just get bored with that and ditch the serie entirely. it's just my 2 cents tho.

insomniumeye
Dec '16

I find that the best way to keep them coming back is to engage them. Add a cameo of them, have an inside joke, etc.

They usually love seeing themselves drawn or referenced in some way.

Merryweatherey
Jan '17
Emberguard

The views of that series hasnt dropped at all.

Herofeeder
Jan '17

people dislike notifications .they are annoyed i noticed that when the people i subbed to start doing it .
I welcome people to unsub from my comic bcs they dont even follow it or like it or anything which doesnt help me at all with progress
inactive subs are not needed for people that are trying to make something of a small comic