How did you build your reputation to attract viewers?

[globuline]

Hi guys,

I've been doing A frog's life for a year now, and just recently started translating it in English. I have found it so time consuming to communicate online and build an audience, and didn't find the results necessarily worth it. Having a full-time job and only a couple of evenings a week to promote it doesn't help either. I have used facebook, and recently twitter, plus forums, and I even got the chance to be invited as an author at French comic festivals with some goodies to go along. Still, I don't find it so rewarding.
But when I see some comics receiving thousands of views and more in just a couple of months, I'm wondering if it's because what they do is just exactly what people like nowadays (and not me), or if they had a proper promotion plan.

How about you? Are you lucky and talented or did you have to work your ass off to pop out of the crowd?

[marulilu]

Well, it's hard to promote a comic when I'm new to the industry. I've started drawing comics for my university newspaper and that started me with some recognition. Your viewership looks quite promising, considering how your series started less than two months ago. It's doing better than mine.
Besides, what I'm studying is unrelated to comics, so I guess in some parts I was lucky.

[MrSlackerJAW]

Right now my main focus is to build a healthy library/buffer for people to read before officially trying to promote.
But once I get to that point I'd just guess the best way i can promote myself is through simple word of mouth. Heck I'm sure even posting here in the forums is an awesome way to start since we are all here for basically the same reason and from here we can spread out.

[Drezz]

For North Americans, I find that reputation building is dependent on the content of your comics. You'll see high traffic on gag-a-day comics about geek culture, because those are the types of people who are interested and attuned to reading comics online. For those who prefer longer stories, sci-fi and fantasy seem to do the best online, followed by slice of life.

The other major genres like action, superheroes, etc tend to fight for the remaining scraps of interest and a smaller demographic of webcomic reading folks. It's very easy to get buried when there are SO many comics out there, and people don't have the time to actively search, so you're forced to go out of your way and try to draw attention to yourself.

I've been doing El Cuervo for over 3 years, and it took a long time to gain traction because it is a constant grind on social networks, forums, comic cons, podcasts etc. to get your name out there.

Tapastic is a bit of a different beast. It's almost like a cable TV provider where you choose what you're interested in reading, and have a handy guide to look for and follow the comics you enjoy best. In some ways, part of the heavy lifting is taken care of since you're in the stream of content with the other creators. But it's still up to you to actively promote and get eyeballs on your series.

[kotaotan]

I wish I had some answers for you. I've been at this for 13 years, 7 of which have been my current series and I've seen my readership rise and then suddenly fall. Promotion doesn't seem to get me any readers. Advertising provides a temporary spike in page views but no retention of those numbers. I've adopted the view that I'm doing this to tell a story and because I love it. If I were doing comics to be popular or rich I would have stopped ten years ago.

[scudderkidwel]

Amen brother. I SO understand...

[globuline]

Thanks guys, those are really interesting answers.
@MrSlackerJAW, I started to do the same as you, waiting to build a strip collection before advertising it.

I wonder if there are proper market info about comic preferences, although I tend to agree with @Drezz . And it's pretty much the same in France.

@kotaotan, did you understand what happened?

Overall, I have the impression that it's a mix of doing what people like and be lucky enough to see it become viral.

[kambreapratt]

With Shadowbinders we thought about attracting an audience from the beginning. When we developed the story, we wanted to make sure that it had some elements that would give it a broader appeal. We are predominantly a Fantasy / Steampunk comic, but we made sure to cross into other genres as well. Slice of Life, Action, Romantic Comedy, Mecha, etc. We wanted to appeal to men and women and our demographics are actually split almost 50/50. Skewing slightly more male.

Before we put this comic together we already did have some friends in comics. We used to work on print books and we were part of a few comic groups. That helped us to get some readers at launch. Since, we were already on a couple of different social media sites, that also helped.

From there we created accounts on Social Media for Shadowbinders specifically. We made sure to interact with other creators and readers. Then we waited until we had enough pages to make it worth advertising and we started to run ads. After we started picking up readers and commentors we made sure to interact with them.

I think being on Tapastic is a good step anyway because it is a great site with a constant stream of readers. When we started we had to gain all our readers on our own. Being part of a collective gives you an edge to begin with.

[kotaotan]

@globuline Not really. I've never really understood the whole advertising thing or how to attract readers. I do the stories I have in my head. It's all I can do.
Then again, I'm not much of a reader any more so I'm probably out of touch. Badly.

[hannahmcgill]

The easy part is purchasing and working advertising...You can run Google Adsense and Facebook ads that help a bit. I think DeviantART has an ad service too, and people who use DeviantART strike me as people who like webcomics. Project Wonderful's good too, and if you get handy with that then you can find yourself paying for your own advertising by putting a couple of PW slots on your front page.

Physical advertising is a must. Use meetup.com to find local comic reading and creating groups, but you can also go out and meet people in sketch groups, art groups, 'nerd' and 'geek' groups, etc. who will also likely be interested if you bring a print-out copy of your work and something to hand out that has your URL on it. Is your comic sci-fi or fantasy? Sci fi and fantasy groups are great for that too, you will find readers that way for sure. You can also buy tables at conventions and sell merchandise! Buttons are super cheap and can include an url, so are freebie postcards and business cards, and prints are great to sell if you're just starting out. Handmade zines can be sold at conventions or to local comic book shops.

Free places to stick your link, but require more work to become part of the community:
Reddit.com, where you can dive into /r/comics as well as /r/webcomics, get a nice little piece of flair next to your name to help you promote your comic as you discuss topics that come up in those subreddits.
Somethingawful.com, which has a Creative Convention subforum and a comics-making megathread, where you can both post your comics for critique as well as make a banner that can be permanently featured in the OP if you have enough of an archive to justify it.

Research SEO tricks, too. Sticking appropriate meta tags in your homepage will help Google bring your comic to people, for instance.

Free places to post your comic, but only after using Tapastic :
InkOutbreak
Tumblr
Twitter
Deviantart.com
Facebook
Penciljack.com

(Just remember to tag your images with a link back because once social medias get a hold of them, it's frequently hard for people to find the source otherwise).

Plus, check around for comics that are similar in style or content to yours. Maybe you can swap guest comics with someone, and trade traffic streams for a day. Fanart for webcomics you admire can also act as a permanent ad for your comic, provided the comic has a permanent fanart archive. Link trading is fun and effective too.

...And finally http://justthefirstframe.com/ is a free promotion service, all you need is an RSS feed for your comic and this awesome person will personally crop the first frame from every page you post, and turn it into an advertisement on their site the day you post it. So, every time you update, you get an ad.

Even with all the effort involved in promotion, the HARD part is making the comic and keeping it going, and where I've had the most struggles. Being a steady presence is where most webcomics fail. D:

[jmhenry]

I do the stories I have in my head. It's all I can do.

Hear hear! It's pretty difficult, at least for me, to predict where the reader trend is going to go and for how long. Creating the sort of stories that I'd like to read just feels like the right way to go.

[brianorlando]

This has been a very enlightening thread.

@Devin @infinitenap @KellyAngel

What about you guys? You seem to have a pretty significant following these days? Any tips?

[Devin]

Hopefully these three tips will help. They did for me

1. Less is more. Don't waste too much time promoting your own work. Exposure is good but don't over do it. You're on the internet! There are thousands of people who trying to do the same thing thing you're doing. Chillax. Moderate promotion is equally effective if you know where to promote. If people are genuinely interested in your work, they will promote your work for you.
2. Respect your followers. Don't treat your followers as a social media commodity. Never. No. Don't do it. People will lose respect for your real fast. It's better to build an audience within a specific community then branch out than to convert your pre-existing followers towards a different community. People, unless they're hardcore fans, generally like to stay with whatever website (FB, DA, Tumblr, etc) they found you on so forcing them to change is only going to make things worse. Don't think of your followers as minions, think of them as your family. Let your followers make the switch on their own terms.
3. Be positive. I know it's really hard especially if your work isn't being recognized but if you're always depressed, that's going to reflect your work. Even if you only get one follower every month, there's always next month! Rome wasn't built in a day and neither should your comics. Just focus on making awesome comics. As long as your comics are out there, someone will pick them up and read them eventually.

Note: From a SEO marketing standpoint, tip #2 is completely useless. You want to group all of your followers from all the different social media sites into one unit and direct them to one specific source. That's great if you want to be someone like The Outmeal with mindless fans that will repost your comics on every marketable websites. But as a follower of a lot of comics myself, I feel like my way is a better...Well, if you're into that whole traffic shenanigans.

Relevant: http://blog.tapastic.com/more-visitors-fans-comics-comments/

[infinitenap]

I agree with everything Devin says - especially 1 and 2. Don't treat your readers poorly by drowning them in promotions and advertisements. If they like your stuff, they'll keep reading it, and chances are good they'll show it to their friends, too!

I'll toss in a few points of my own. My comic has expanded/been kept alive because of three important things:

1. Dumb luck. When I started Infinite Nap about a year ago I honestly had no intention of it "going" anywhere. Most of the popularity my stuff has gained has been because of the Tumblr community and, a couple times, the Reddit community. It was just a matter of one or two key people putting my comic(s) onto those those sites, and then they happened to get spread virally from those points. I don't really know how to explain how to achieve this - heck, I don't even know how it happened to me. The internet is fickle - most of the time it doesn't give a darn about your work, but once in a while it will take it and be all HEY EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS THING IT'S FUNNY LOLOLOL GUYS.

2. Quality over quantity. For me maintaining my readership has largely been a matter of finding a balance between the two. It's different for everyone, but I'd encourage you only to put something up if you're really confident in its quality. Don't skimp on hard work and thoroughness just to be able to throw something onto the internet. Content is just as (if not more) important than post frequency.

3. Making friends in high places! Obviously don't just use people for your own benefit, but try to develop friendships with people who are where you want to be. Ask them for advice, ask them to help promote you (again, of course, within moderation), and see if they can introduce you to any other people it might be good to know.

[brianorlando]

This is awesome advice! Thanks man!

[brianorlando]

Awesome. These are really good. Muchas Gracias Claire.

[globuline]

I have to say, I wasn't expecting so many good advices here!
Cheers guys!
Now the hardest... Apply them correctly... ><

[KellyAngel]

Most everything I could say has already been covered but I'll add my bit anyways

I've been drawing comics and putting them online since (roughly) 2008 and it's only been this last year that I had a really significant increase in followers. I started posting more than I had been before in 2012 and in 2013 even more (and to a schedule), so there's probably a connection there. Before then updates were very sporadic, 7 month intervals don't really work well for gag-a-day comics haha. My main intention when I started making comics was just because I wanted to make comics/tell a story/joke. I wanted people to read them of course but it was (and still is) mainly an act of love (I may be wording that weird...).

Treat your followers well, if you have time try to reply to comments and answer questions. Be careful not to get taken advantage of (some people will ask unreasonable things) but show people you're not ignoring them.

Take advantage of social networking. I've found Tumblr to be really good. Not everyone subscribes to RSS feeds (if you have your own site for your comic) so making use of social sites like facebook or twitter are a good way of giving people an easy way to follow your comic.

There's no one way of gaining a following, what works for one person may not for another. The main thing, in my opinion, is just to keep doing what you're doing as long as you love doing it. Patience is very much a virtue and it will, most likely, pay off.

:¬)

[brianorlando]

Thanks so much for all the good advice and words of encouragement.

[hannahmcgill]

Yeah definitely, just keep at it and keep making stuff. You only lose by giving up.