Have you ever been featured? What happened?

[CandyDaisies]

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[KUUPID]

1. I've had the honor of getting featured a few times! Though, each time, I was taken by surprise since I never got a notification or anything But, nonetheless, it's always an exciting experience! ^^

2. Readership-wise, I think I'm fortunate enough that I have a pretty good amount of readers enjoying my work Of course, that's not to say that everyone who subs to me actually reads my work-- probably around 40-55% of my subs are dead. But I'm hopeful that one day they'll decide to give my novel a read

3. For tips... Hmm. For me, I think it's essential to update as consistently as possible. Also, interact with your readers and fellow creators as much as you can! I honestly love the Tapas community since there's no unnecessary drama (most of the time) and people genuinely support your work/ effort. T^T

Most importantly... Just have fun with your work~! I've learned that stressing out on a chapter/ update generally doesn't yield the results that you want. So if you ever find yourself wanting to give up, relax and take a breather~ It'll all work out in the end!

[CandyDaisies]

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[doitlikeomar69]

Shiiiiiiiiiiiii I wish

[BoomerZ]

No idea what the process even is to be featured. They seem to pick the same "type" of comics from what I've seen.

[hakei]

1. Were you surprised or did you expect it?
First time I was very surprised because I got a sudden influx of subscribers but didn't know where it came from — turns out there's no notifications or anything if you're featured. A friend had to tell me that I was on the front page.

2. How did it impact your readership?
An easy boost to the readership, especially from Staff Picks more than Community Comics.

3. What did you learn/what are your tips?
Your mileage may vary on exactly how many readers you get from a front page feature — some people get a lot, some don't. But once you've been featured, you'll likely be featured again in the future. Not sure what the feature qualifications are for novels, but for comics it does seem to be having decent art and have multiple chapters up,

That said, I get much more growth of readers when I do my own social media marketing instead of relying on any front page features.

[CandyDaisies]

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[ivanskilling]

1. Were you surprised or did you expect it?
I was lucky enough to have a few of my novels featured several times when Staff Picks for novels had just started. I think I was only informed once that I had been featured, so almost all the time, it was a pleasant surprise to open my Tapas dashboard and find a surge of subs.

2. How did it impact your readership?
Back in 2019/2020, the features tended to be on the front page of the app and closer to the top rows. Readership boosts were really big at the time. Then, they experimented with pushing Staff Picks (for novels) to the bottom row of the app - readership boost dropped quite a lot. Not to mention, the Staff Picks for novels on the desktop version (that side panel) has not been updated for more than a year now, so that may also have affected the readership boost.

I can't tell how big the readership boost is for the current Staff Picks in Community tab now because my novels haven't been featured since end of 2020.

3. What did you learn/what are your tips?
Always promote your stuff lol! Have a good book cover. For some lucky people, once you're featured, your series will tend to be chosen again. (Sadly for me, that's no longer true haha)

[Teira]

Yeah I've been featured twice for Black History Month.

1.Yeah I was really surprised at first..didn't think I would ever make the front page since my comic is in black and white plus I didn't have many readers at the time.
Was even more surprised when they featured me a 2nd time.

1. My reader ship definitely grew because of it. Now I have over 300 ppl subscribed to my comic(which is now complete). And it also shows up in the popular section in Horror because ppl like when I update.

2. I think the best thing is to be consistent with your updates. I would post once or twice a month, that kept ppl sticking around and invested in my story.

[ShidoDraws]

I did got featured once but that was when I just published my story, not even the first chapter, just the first two parts were out. I don't remember much but I don't think I was featured too long cause I think violence was on the last part of chapter one.

The featured didn't do much for me since I lost the same amount of readers I got after chapter one. Should I have put the mature tag? That doesn't sound right cause there's no gore just one scene of child abuse. But my story is doing good right now, I've gotten more interactions last month compared to when Tapas featured me. Basically don't put too much hope on being featured, most of the success you see is by knowing people and advertising your own story.

Then again, my story has 30 parts at this point so it is likely to be pageviews most of the time. My opinion may be shaped based on that.

It's been a couple months since I last heavily advertise my story, I've been thinking about advertising again since my story's plot has been picking up.

[darthmongoose]

I've been featured several times, so it's kind of an interesting one to answer...

The first time, it was a surprise. I'd just been put forwards for a "community feature" here on the forums, which was something Tapas were trialling at the time, and so I was like "YES! Finally! I will get some sort of feature!" having been updating nearly a year and clawed my way up to around 275 subs without one... and so I was waiting excited for my community pick to happen in the next few weeks... and then immediately got a staff pick, so I was sort of blindsided by it!

Nearly every feature I've ever had has boosted my numbers at least a bit. The most effective ones tend to be anything higher up the page, so my very first staff pick back in 2020 boosted me from around 275 to just a smidge over 500 subs. The least effective feature I've ever had was a little while after that, I got featured in collection called "Adventure!" which was right at the bottom of the page, and everything else in there was a premium comic. At the time, I hadn't really thought that much about my thumbnail, and some Tapas features were still using thumbnails not covers, so I was like... right at the bottom of the page and looked kind of crappy compared to the rest of the group and only got maybe 10-15 subs off it... it was a learning experience!
Another good one was of course being on the "Feed" and more recently community banner features. Tapas emailed me asking for a banner for that and a tagline, and while it was maybe only roughly as effective as any other feature, there's something kind of special about seeing your banner up there.
I've also been in the Pride collection, which is better for subs than I expected, and the Tapas easter egg hunt, which is terrible for subs, but good for views

In terms of tips, the big one is presentation and looking like your comic/novel would look like it belongs in a group with other, more popular Tapas comics or novels in a similar genre.
So in my case, I think a big reason Errant gets regular features is that the cover, artstyle and palette look like they belong in a group with other action/adventure/fantasy focused LGBTQ+ titles like Pandora's Devils, Hard Lacquer and Alien Heart. Tapas likes to feature those comics, so it's easy to throw in Errant too to round out the group, and there's strong readership crossover between them.
A professional looking title font and a bold, polished cover will get you a long way. For novelists especially, I'd urge them to get an illustrated cover in a style that matches premium or popular titles well, this has paid off so much for titles like "The Saintess and Villainess". If you have friends with design experience, get some advice! If your cover, banner and blurb are things you just threw together because you wanted to focus on just making pages or writing chapters, that's something you'll want to fix if you're looking to get a feature.

[Iris-Grimoire]

That's because they cycle comics that have gotten into features before. Keep an eye out on their discord announcements for something that fits your work, and if you get picked there, it's bigger chances of showing up later without even submitting anything.

[ratscout]

Several of my stories got staff-picked in the past, and I did get a nice boost for most of them! Especially Inheritance. Some of them that were short stories got smaller boosts, but were still nice little chunks. The problem with boosts like those is that, while you do get a lot of subs, it's not a guarantee that these new people are actually going to read the story and give you likes to keep you trending in the algorithm. I actually did get a fairly nice boost for Inheritance again recently when I was featured on the community tab for a collection called, "old stories by awesome writers." (I feel so called out for being featured for a story I'm so passionate about that I've worked on for years and have gotten so little for LOL) or something.

It was actually one of my most useful boosts yet just because the people who subbed bothered to leave likes and comments to keep the story trending. XD Anyway, I haven't been staff-picked in a long time and Tapas just isn't friendly to creators like me anymore. They tend to pick premium stories or stories that already have a lot of subs for staff-picked novels these days and they just rotate them over and over (they seem to favor romance, BL, LGBTQ, and Isekai action stories). They do sometimes sneak one or two less known ones in there sometimes, though.

My tips are: Don't rely on getting staff-picked! XD Do read-for-reads and exchange comments and likes while you're at it! It keeps your story trending in the almighty algorithm. Find the people who are interested in your work because they enjoy it. Also, have really good book covers and take the time to edit your work. I have also found that people tend to enjoy posts on your wall so long as there are pictures, hehehe. Even if you aren't that great of an artist, people like seeing your characters drawn. You can also try updating often and consistently, but you face burnout if you update too often, so I would just stick with consistently. Some people luck out, but the rest of us shlubs have to treat getting our novels attention as a 2nd job where you're constantly promoting and doing read-for-reads to improve the story and help it trend. XD

[powerplantanimations]

I appeared on Tapas's community social media twice. So I guess that counts? I got a boost in viewership and likes. Sometimes I'm SURE I get put on the front page and I just... don't notice? Like I get these unusually large spikes and I'm like "whoah that's weird".

Could be from TikTok tho. Seriously, I need to update that more. I dunno why I'm so complacent in that area. I remember someone on Discord being like "Today I just found out that there's an isekai about stick figures" and another (that became a friend of mine) who was like "YO! You guys hear about this stick figure thing?!?".

[hakei]

aa;ldfalsdk I'M EMBARASSED pretend you didn't see me here

[CandyDaisies]

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[rumpenstiltzkin]

When my comic was really new I got my first staff pick (i think it was staff pick), and a major boost of new readers and subscribers, it was really such a great feeling to be picked

I think I got featured 1 or 2 more times after that, within a year, and after every new time I got a feature it wasnt as great a boost as the first time (I think it was around the time they changed a lot of where they placed the features on their first page so it wasnt as easy to find or something?)

But I'm still very thankful my comic got a feature and such a great early boost

Im not sure what I learned from it more than it felt very random how they pick someone to be featured? First time, my comic was really super new, didnt have a lot of pages posted at all! So was just really a happy surprise

I was asked for a banner thing over a year ago but it never got featured so sometimes I wonder if I have done something wrong for the comic to not be picked again, but then there is so many comics to feature so its probably nothing

Im not so good with social media and promoting myself so much so I think those very early features helped me a lot, but right now Im really content with my current readers, and im always overwhelmed by those who come back and are keeping the comment section active

[TheLemmaLlama]

bitwam got into 'New from the Community' when I first posted it :]

• Were you surprised or did you expect it?

It was pretty unexpected; my art is pretty sketchy and I deliberately put no effort into polish so I didn't think it would get featured :0 I also kind of feel bad because I always intended to take this series super slowly and would not be riding the 'momentum' afforded to me by the feature, so I'm kind of worried my early subs will leave me because I'm taking too long to update, and thus 'wasting' the very generous feature I got :'D

• How did it impact your readership?

I think it got me 50-something subs

• What did you learn/what are your tips?

If I had to guess why my comic got featured, I assume it's because of a strong sense of identity, or a strong introduction, which establishes the premise and vibes of my comic quickly and in an uncommon way. (I can't say for sure though; it's not like they tell you why they chose your series to be featured XD)

[Nugtown]

Most of the time if i've ever gotten featured in anything, it was here and there, whatever i've done they kind of just float anonymously between fringe circles. Seeing the one little thing you did just appear in videos around the net is a surreal feeling and leaves me with a strange sense of pride.
I'll admit it would be cool to be promoted in earnest, everyone wants it, I so want it, but I never found myself expecting it to happen. Somewhere along the line I realized that companies are only going to promote work if it's sanitized and friendly enough.

[system]

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