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Jun 2023

so... I think this is pretty straightforward, right? I started posting my novel 3 months ago. I tried to promote it on TikTok and Instagram as well as here in the forums ( but I wasn't aware that just posting my story anywhere on different topics was not very effective and, well... frowned upon, for good reasons of course) So yeah :sweat_smile:. Now I'm wondering: what should I do? I can't seem to gain any attention at all even if, as I said earlier, it's been 3 months. I know that typically, comics are a lot more popular on tapas than novels, but still!:sweat: I would love to be given some advice and guidance from kind souls :heart:
It would be very appreciated. Thanks!

Here's my novel by the way:

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    Jun '23
  • last reply

    Jun '23
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I’m not the best at promotions, but let me give some tips. First thing I think is having a specific posting time that you’ll keep true to; like maybe once a week on Fridays, something like that, a deadline will help you take things seriously, and if you keep popping up on newly updated that particular day of every week, eventually readers seeing the updates would check it out.

Also, engaging in the forums is also a good way to get views; I still think most of mine came from this forum. Promote under promotion tags but do not spam cuz people might get tired of seeing your work everywhere, and engage in discussion threads too if your work is capable of participating in that discussion, might work.

There’s also the shamelessly plugging your work in places sometimes, I dunno how to do this, but it might work, but take care to not plug too much or, like I said earlier, you might chase people away. Well, that’s all I can say. I also started releasing my novel 4 months ago, and I’ve had a decent bit of success even though I’m aiming far higher, cuz yeah, the goal is a webtoon. Here’s my novel if you want to see how much growth I’ve had:

I am going to start off with a welcome. Starting a novel is always an accomplishment. To answer your question - there are only two sure-fire ways to build an audience - time and patience.

General advice for marketing- while people DO read novels on serialized sites like Tapas, no one likes talking about it. People have the same general reaction to these sites as most of the online community does to the finding out that the latest trendy YA/NA toxic romance film franchise is a Wattpad original. And the sites where you CAN make money as a writer are extremely hard to get into and you risk losing your IP.

Now, I don't want to discourage you. It takes a LONG time to build an audience. Give yourself that time. Make sure your work is polished. Take care of your mental health. When you're ready to move on, do your homework. Learn what sells and what you want to write. Don't take offers at face value.

And eventually with time and patience, you'll get readers.

Thank you so much, you are right, maybe I came in here with my expectations a little too high :sweat_smile:
everyone has flaws and one of mine is my lack of patience. I think I was a bit discouraged to see that it wasn't growing the way that I envisioned it to, but I'm working on it though! I'm going to continue working at a pace that is healthy for me, so I don't neglect other spheres of my life. Thanks for your response!

My god! I'm impressed by how fast your novel grew! good for you! and thank you so much for your advice. I indeed planned to post updates on Thursdays from now on and I hope that this consistency will help bring new readers my way. I will also participate in forums more, at first I was kinda shy to do so because I'm not really comfortable talking to a lot of people and, you know... giving opinions on stuff ahah. Thank you for your reply! I will make sure to take a look at your novel.

Welp, welcome first of all, congratulations for starting your Novel!

For have started 3 months ago I want to tell you that 7 followers (I shall focus on those 142 views tho) is not a bad number, engagement and having people checking your series is a hard task that even peolpe that have been longer here also struggle with.

Now, here are a few things that I've noticed that could help you get a bit more engagement:

  • I like the Cover, I think is a plus if people use their own artwork, it gives a sense of originality
  • I believe it would be good if you also did a banner by yourself to continue providing to that originality
  • While being passionate and excited about your story is amazing, I would recommend keeping a steady posting schedule, like once a week and in a specific day, that way those interested can get a heads up about when it updates and it will also help you form an habit.
  • I'll recommend checking your text as there are a few mistakes, being spelling and such. As well that when characters talk to avoid using - and instead you use " since the formatting of the website will make the hyphen look like a dot and that is something that bothers some readers, especially those that speak English (In my country, hyphen is used compared to quotation marks)

General advice from mine which may be a bit depressing.

You are a person, from the millions that post on the platform, everyday, at every hour, all year long. You're also dealing with the Official series which are promoted by the platform, you have popular independent authors, veterans and more.
So, it's logical that your content gets buried or doesn't get as much traffic, growing takes a lot of time and is mostly about being consistent, patient and perseverant, so that's why it is important to self-promote as well.

There are lots of ways to do it, be it by sharing original artwork of it on social media and put the link to your series on the post, announce when there is a new chapter posted (Here you can do it too, but in the appropriate Topics created for that purpose), participate in Original Character's prompt lists or activities so people can get to know them and then if they are still curious can read the novel.

Engagement is always great, being able to make a few friends that'll get interested in your work (Of course, don't do it with this as the main goal), there are a lot of things you could learn from other writers or artists, as well while this place is mostly about creators and not readers, it's not bad to try to search for places where readers engage, this may be a bit petty or tricky, but if you have a personal account totally related to your work, you can actually pretend to be a fan and slowly talk about the series "you're reading" and generate interest with fellow readers by engaging in other things you also have in common.

Thank you so much. I'm not a native English speaker and may let some mistakes slip, especially when I rush to post episodes. But! but but but, as you said, from now on I was planning to post at a specific time and day of the week and I will make sure to use quotations marks from now on. Now that I know that the dot thing can be annoying and in English they don't typically use -, I will make sure to make some changes. :sweat_smile: I will also follow your advice on the banner. I kind of knew that it would be better to do it myself but maybe, just MAYBE...I was lazy and didn't want to do it :sweat_smile: Thank you so much for your advice!

You call it to your office, tell it what its new title is, and pay it a higher salary :]

...what? :sweat_smile: I don't understand what you're trying to say, sorry lol :sweat_smile: is this a joke? cause it went riiight over my head.