How Can we encourage more engagment to our comics? Like? comments?

[danitasibert]

I'm sure I'm not the only one with this dilemma... but maybe i am i don't know, If i happen to rant slightly i do apologize...

I share my work cross different platforms, i try to learn how to market myself a little bit. the only thing i struggle with is being consistent, i have 2 jobs and its not always easy to come in after a 10 hour shift to draw, plus i have to make dinner and its just becomes hard to upload let alone draw, but then people say you shouldn't have to upload everyday for people to care about your work.

but then i feel like people are seeing my comic they are just not engaging with it and i don't know what else to do.
ex: i have an upload with almost 200 views but 1 like and no comments, that sounds terrible
i want to know from people who view my work if I'm doing alright or if I can improve, but i just don't know how i can get response our of my subscribers.
I'm just afraid with what i work so hard for, my absences ruined that relationship with my readers....

if anyone else is going through this I'd like to read how you all are going through this, maybe you was able to get more involvement with your readers later on.

I feel like everyone has engagement but me on this site and I don't know why... i apologize i don't want to offend any of my amazing subs, but what can i do?

[Kaydreamer]

This is such a shame, because your work is of good quality, but there are definitely a few things I can notice immediately which will drive down growth and engagement.

Tapas

• Posting individual pages. There's hardly anything to comment on when you post individual pages. Instead, I'd recommend waiting until you can post a small batch of them. It gives readers more to potentially talk about.
• I don't know if you ever did sub-for-sub, but that tends to create a very unengaged audience. There's not much to be done now if you have, other than just not doing that again.

Webtoon

• I know you don't have much time, but you need to stack your panels vertically on Webtoon. The vast majority of readers on Webtoon read on their phones, and your font is way too small for that. Just chop the panels and stack 'em, and add in digital bubbles with larger lettering. You don't need to do anything too fancy.
• Mature tag. This drastically reduces your visibility on Webtoon, and there's not much more you can get away with just by adding it anyway. They still crack down on nudity and excessive gore, regardless of if it's tagged or not. I'd suggest removing it. If you ever have episodes pulled down, just remove or censor the panels in question.

Both

• Use a larger, more standard comic font. I can hardly read the one you're using, and I'm on PC right now. Komika is a good choice, and it's free.
• Ensure each episode has something interesting happen in it that the audience can talk about. A joke, a new piece of information, a plot event. That sort of thing.

Hopefully some of this helps!

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

I've seen similar questions come up in the novel category & the usual consensus is that people just forget to like & comment. Besides they're busy, you know, & can't be bothered. IOW, it may not be a reflection on your comic, just a reflection of the average readers' desire to just read vs to engage.

[Rhonder]

Pretty much this On average only a very small percentage of readers will leave any sort of engagement, be it like (more common) or comment (much less so), even for super popular series.

As a random example, I decided to click over to the Webtoons Originals tab and found a series with 6.4 million subs (True Beauty, in this case). Looking at their most recent page of episodes,it looks like they've been getting ~140k likes per episode recently, roughly 2% sub -> engagement rate. And then looking at the number of comments on one episode, only 2.3k. 1.6% of the people who liked, and .035% of the subs overall.

Engagement is difficult to drive up and a relatively rare treat, unfortunately.

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

I've noticed similar small percentages on YouTube, too. A popular video may have a fantastic number of views but often 10% (more or less) in Likes & 10% or less of that number in Comments.

[danitasibert]

first thanks for the advice I'm definitely gonna make time for that, I don't do the sub for sub its not legit to me, i stay far away from those post,
OK, I'm still learning so I'll have to re-do my text for sure less is more with it comes to dialogue.
I've been working in Photoshop, which I'm sure is not a good idea, but I've been looking for a free alternative anyways. I think I have a better concept with what I'm creating then i did 5 years ago, (i guess confidence you can say) so I'm looking forward to seeing what others think in the future. again thank you for the pointers and I'll work on text along with changing formats for webtoon I was thinking of getting back to that site. I mainly focus on Tapas, but its changing so its best for me to find another place to upload.

[danitasibert]

@Ordinaryaverageguy @Rhonder

i see what you guys mean, those are some big stats i guess mines are too small to notice.
but they still have something, even creators around my stat range has more engagement, but with what @Kaydreamer
I have some things to fix up, maybe it can help.

thank you all for the comments and info, I'll just try to get better and make the best comic i can!

[Kaisei]

Most of your readers aren't going to engage. That's just stats. As a reader, I forget to "like" most of the time because it's a useless function. Obviously, if I'm a dozen episodes in, I like the comic sufficiently.

However, I very much agree with the suggestion of a more mobile-friendly format (eg font size). I tend to read on my phone (easier to slip in a comic now and then, rather than waiting until I'm working on the computer). If I have to squint to read a comic, I won't subscribe. Mobile readability means giving up the conventional comic format, unfortunately, because the Tapas app is vertical. You may want to consider whether your target audience is more likely to read on a phone or a computer.

[danitasibert]

I've been thinking of a plan to change and I'm not afraid of fixing my earlier chapters, I've been looking into it actually, cause as i continue to learn how to make a comics I wanna understand so i can make it easier on my reader if im making anything hard on them. thank you again for your feedback!

[thedude3445]

Best way to encourage engagement is to post consistently for a really long time, Easier for novels than comics, but in both categories, it takes a really long time to see much out of Tapas, even years for many authors. Readers still don't comment much, but the longer your story goes consistently, the more readers will at least leave a like.

Exclusive secret tips for novelists on Tapas for engagement:

1. Build up a really big backlog, so big that you can get at this story for many months in posting. It's easier on Tapas which forces you to have shorter chapters, compared to other sites. Then, when you build it up really far, I'm talking like 100 episodes or more, just start posting every single day, or 5 times a week, or some other super consistent schedule for a long time (don't post more than once a day though). If your story is good, and you do at least a little bit of promotion here and there, you WILL start seeing a little bit of engagement. Results will vary, and Tapas is smaller for novels than some other sites, but I can almost guarantee that any decent-sized story that fits into any of Tapas's many niches will build up steam over time.

2. Write a GL novel. There's a lot of "small genres" in novels that have barely any stories in them, like Comedy, Action, and Non-Fiction (all are under 500 stories total, probably 80% of which are dropped), but GL currently only has 245 stories total, and only 20-25 update per day. This is a genre that actually gets a lot of views, but there just aren't many stories yet with GL as the main genre; you'll be on the Fresh and Trending lists basically eternally just by updating consistently, and there are some pretty loyal readers who actually comment. Take advantage of the gap and write in this tragically underserved genre!

[Kaisei]

I've seen some creators put a little question at the end of their episode for readers to answer (something relevant, but simple). Perhaps you could try that on an episode and see if anything happens.

[danitasibert]

very interesting, thanks for the advice!

[danitasibert]

Alright, that a great idea!
I'll definitely have to try that!