Hosting your own site (Tumblr, Wix, or?)

[PeeDee]

Hi hey hello howdy

I'm new here-- but I've been lurking the forum for a little while and thought I'd ask a question thats been on my mind pertaining to webcomic-ing. I hope this wasn't already asked/discussed--- but if so-- SORRY

BUT, on to my question;

What platform do you find is best to host your webcomic independently?
Meaning, how do you go about making "your own site" for just your comics content.

I am personally thinking of two options.

1. Tumblr: I've seen a lot of creators use tumblr as their main comic posting hub-- where they get a custom url or they life-hack it so the url (that seems custom) goes directly to pages which the url is not necessarily custom. The pros with that being is that its a familiar thing to work with and theres like.... 5000 tumblr layouts you can modify and even a few JUST for comic posting.

2. Hiring a webdesigner; Now, personally, I am POOP at code/designing/etc.. So I feel like gettin' someone that knows the ropes to help me out would be best. I really like the idea of haveing a website of my own without haveing to use a.. "platform" of sorts?? I know there are a lot of other more techincal benefits of going about hosting your comic this way vs tumblr.

I'm teetering between these two ideas. Both have pros and cons.

idk! I just mostly wanted to get perspective from creators that have thier own site. My comic is currently still in the works, this isn't anything immediate for me. I tend to think very far ahead I guess? which idk is a good thing or bad thing in this case--ANYWAYS THIS POST IS SO RAMBLY OH MY GOD IM SORRY.

I apologise if what I'm asking isn't clear or that my explanations are confuseing. Anyways! thank you to anyone that gives some insight on this

[nessiefynn]

I used to use a Tumblr for my comic, but now I just use a wordpress/comic easel with own fancy domain name and everything right here and I love it.

While Tumblr kind of worked for me while I used it,, it was always a very boring and generic looking site. The customization options were rather limited. The plus, however is that it was very simple to use, it took me under an hour t get a comic Tumblr set up. Still, I could never stand how unprofessional it looked so I eventually switched to getting my own site and just using Wordpress.

Now for getting your own site, I don't think hiring a web designer is really necessary if you're willing to do some tinkering. I knew literally nothing about webdesign/html while making my site, and I think it came out pretty decent, and I only had to write like half a line of code. The Comic Easel plug in I used with Wordpress already gave a lot of options for customization, and I've seen some people make pretty cool sites with it. It can take a while to learn how to use Wordpress, but once you've got the hang of it, it's pretty simple.
The main con of having your own site is the cost. I think on average a domain with hosting costs around ~$50 per year, assuming you don't get insane traffic.

Overall, I prefer having my own site a lot more now that I have one, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it. Tumblr is perfectly functional, but I just don't like using it because of how samey all tumblr webcomic sites look. If you're just dipping your toes or are tight on cash, a Tumblr might be better for you.
Good luck with getting a site set up!

[PeeDee]

While Tumblr kind of worked for me while I used it,, it was always a very boring and generic looking site. The customization options were rather limited

This is very true! I would like to be more ambitious in layout of certain tabs/info tho. I guess Wordpress would give way to much better customization--and I could always self-teach me some stuff.

I knew literally nothing about webdesign/html while making my site, and I think it came out pretty decent, and I only had to write like half a line of code. The Comic Easel plug in I used with Wordpress already gave a lot of options for customization, and I've seen some people make pretty cool sites with it.

Overall, I prefer having my own site a lot more now that I have one, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it. Tumblr is perfectly functional, but I just don't like using it because of how samey all tumblr webcomic sites look. If you're just dipping your toes or are tight on cash, a Tumblr might be better for you.Good luck with getting a site set up!

Wordpress does sound very appealing for what I'd want out of a site. Tumblr seems like a very good-beginers stone building up to that? I feel like tumblr might garner also a better reader-base as well--maybe. I mean.. original made work on tumblr is hard to get recognized..but I can be an idealist for a second.

Maybe what I'll do is start off with tumblr, see how it goes, and then eventually upgrade when I see fit/when I can ! I don't necessarily mind being kind of.. "same old same old" I guess in terms of layout... humble beginnings I suppose???

Thank you very much Nessie ! This helped a lot!

[inkorporate]

Tumblr is good to test the water I guess, but I don't see much benefit compared tapastic or webtoons.
I personally use Wordpress with a similar same setup as nessiefynn. It isn't too hard to setup, but I am a web designer so I pushed the team to where I wanted it. The main advantage of Wordpress? Revenue. If you can get a good following, you will eventually be able to sell publicity to Google and other providers and be able to pay for your hosting cost. Having your own site also allows you to host your own shop, which I did as well.
Wordpress.org offers free hosting I believe. You can try to do a dummy site to try it out.
If you like to see what I was able to accomplish, you can check it out here: http://tfti.inkorpora.com

[candaceandco]

I've been told it's a good idea to post your work wherever and whenever possible, and, while I seem to be reaching the most people through Facebook and Instagram, I'm thinking about checking out Tumblr, too. Although I know nothing about creating my own website, I got a lot of help from my brother, and I update it every day. If you do go the website route (which I'd recommend), be sure to include the backlink everywhere else you publish to. While I have no idea how successful that has been for me, I view it as giving my site free advertising.

[agentfink]

I got my set up on Tumblr for the very same reason that it was easy to set up-- I think my domain name costs is-- 10 or 20 for the year with cheapdomain.com.

Is it easy to set up a wordpress, customize it, and then switch the domain name from my Tumblr to the Wordpress site?

[nessiefynn]

Setting up Wordpress isn't too hard, especially if your hosting provider has a way to install it automatically. Customization is also pretty simple, even if you lack coding knowledge. The wordpess theme comicpress when paired with the plug in comic easel gives you lots of options for customization. You might have to add some additional plug ins if there are certain features you want on your site, but they're all pretty simple to use. c:
Now switching over the domain I'm not too sure about because I never used a custom domain for my tumblr. I don't think I can help you there, but I do know it's doable!

[PeeDee]

Maybe I will try a dummy test at some point!
Thank you for your insight on this! Maybe I'll just get both a tumblr and main site hahahaha (:D;;」∠)....

but yes! Thank you for your input!

've been told it's a good idea to post your work wherever and whenever possible, and, while I seem to be reaching the most people through Facebook and Instagram, I'm thinking about checking out Tumblr, too. Although I know nothing about creating my own website, I got a lot of help from my brother, and I update it every day. If you do go the website route (which I'd recommend), be sure to include the backlink everywhere else you publish to. While I have no idea how successful that has been for me, I view it as giving my site free advertising.

Ah yes! I think linking that sort of thing everywhere you can is a good thing!
I just might do both tbh hahaha. But maybe have the wordpress site have most of the extra info (character bios, about, etc). BUT! Idk! I'll figure it out.

[PeeDee]

Thank you to everyone so far that have commented/gave insight!!

I marked the forum as answered but people are free to give more input and give other options out there if they feel like it! It might be a helpful forum for other people!

[inkorporate]

With a wordpress site, you can automatically post to tumblr as well.

[Shanny8]

That's the obstacle I'm facing. A year ago I did the Go Daddy thing, but never put my site together. I didnt like their GENERIC website templates; none of fitted what I wanted to do. I dont want my site to be too customized, but not plain & boring looking either. I may sit down and start researching what I can do with Wordpress- I feel like every day that I dont have a site I'm losing potential readers and opportunities to expand my readership.

[PeeDee]

OH thats super helpful!

[PeeDee]

I dont want my site to be too customized, but not plain & boring looking either.

I also worry about my site ending up like either of those.
From the sounds of it I highly recomend looking into wordpress! Seems customizable enough and simple enough from what everyone has been saying and what I have snooped around with on my own!

[Silerna]

I got my own hosting with wordpress installment. However I don't host my comic there. I use Tapastic and Smackjeeves as hosting for my comic. But what I miss on Both sites is that you have limited options in adding other languages to your comic.

[quietsnooze]

I host my own webcomic with Grawlix. Not only did it have a really user friendly learning curve, but there are many resources the creator has provided to help learn how to make adjustments to themes, particularly this web design for artists resource (relating specifically to Grawlix CMS). The asterisk theme also walks you through what's what if you want to learn that way.

Mine isn't too far off the original base theme, really. I changed a few colours around, added my banner, that kind of thing! I'm a huge fan of the backend as it's really easy to navigate, organized, and made with webcomics in mind, which was my biggest gripe with Wordpress.

[PeeDee]

Ooooh boy
that deff looks like something way more up my alley to be honest. (your comic also looks like something up my alley, gonna deff sub to that)
I love that they teach you things-- very important things from what I've skimmed over. I really really like your comics layout and how full the page feels. Even if it's not steering too much away from the base--it still looks really sleek and unique. comparing to what I've seen in wordpress webcomics.

But YES I also really like this for webcomics essentially. I think this might win me over wordpress tbh haha. Because this is exactly what I've kinda been wanting/looking for. Something resourceful and meant for comics.

I'll deff look more into this! Thank you so much for showing me!!

[quietsnooze]

No problem! If you have any issues, reach out to them on twitter - they've saved my butt a few time when I accidentally managed to break something haha

[PeeDee]

thats awesome! I use twitter a lot, so that is helpful! Thank you so much, again!

[Ghostie]

Comic Fury is another site that you can upload your comic to, and it has a bonus. There is a section there that lets you make your own website: it can either be from a template, or you can design it yourself through HTML. The other added flavor to this is, they give you the option to choose what kind of .com/whatever on it. So it could be .webcomic, .wc, something simple like that. And it also gives you the option to hide ads from Comic Fury on it.

SO. It gives the entire illusion, going by those choices, that it's entirely standing on its own website, without CF attached to it. AND. When you update the comic there? It goes to the front page of their actual website where their members can see it, and you gain traffic. IT'S ALL FREE. There is no charge for doing anything there.

VERY much recommend it.

[jennula]

Wordpress and Comic Easel. Any day. I love the freedom to costumize your page to look exactly like you want it <3

I've set up some tumblr comic pages for friends and while I understand the fanbase can get bigger there, I think tumblr is very clunky to work with if you want to customize your page (for instance, if you want to have a custom archive page that looks just a bit different than the default one, you have to do a lot of manual work to make it happen).