Thank you! I've been wanting feedback on my comic... it's hard to get good critiques sometime.
lol, I guess that could work on appearance. If people see that you have 100 subs, then maybe they will give you more of a chance. but a little too shady for me lol
Aside from people just enjoying your content, I find that people get more exposure when they interact with other people's work, and more exposure obviously increases your chances of people subscribing when there's more views.
Like sometimes when I find a comic/novel I love, I'll sub and comment on it, then I'll see the creator sub to my comic the next day. But it's kind of awkward, because then you're stuck wondering if they just subbing because you did (and I'm stuck hoping that they don't think I subbed expecting a sub back).
Oh, and definitely interact in the forums too -- I've found a lot of great works on there and after subscribing to the ones I enjoy, I've had some people do the same with mine.
Edit: I'd also recommend interacting with lesser known comics/novels! I think those creators will be more willing to check out your work because they're in a similar position, so they understand what it's like to be ignored or passed up. And it's just nice to spread the love, y'know? A lot of awesome works go unseen for various reasons.
- Consistency. Make and follow an upload schedule.
- Be active on art communities, post on forums.
- Advertise and promote your comic. (ie: DeviantArt, Twitter, FB, IG, etc)
Honestly, this is so relatable, but that's why I like forums. I would love to read your work, just send a link on here and I'd love to check it out. Also forums also consist of people who genuinely love feedback so just keep being active!
I honestly don't think patience is (one of) the answer though. Dude has been here for 6 months (not rubbing it in, just calling it as I see it).
There have been a lot of threads addressing this problem. It is typical for people to take years to even grow to a decent audience size. Lot of professional said that 5-10 years, even. I'm sure OP isn't the only person here who has been on Tapas for a while but still has a fairly small sub base.
All I can advise is be patient, post consistently, advertise your comic around (people don't just automatically find your comic and take interest in it right away, Tapas is notorious for that. You have to make your presence known.)
"Getting Subs" is this weird combination of pitching your work well, being persistent and consistent, having good work, engaging folks wherever you can, and then just happening to be seen by the right people.
So, how do you get more subs? If you engage people on social media, will you get more subs? Well...... building a presence there and making connections can lead to more subs down the road. If you make your comic's art or writing better, will that get more subs? Same thing -- it won't immediately make your subs shoot up, but it'll mean that eventually, when people run across your comic, they'll be more likely to get interested. If you just keep updating consistently for a long time, will that be what gets you more subs? Well, that's part of it, but it doesn't mean that people will flock to you just because you exist.
That's why this is tough question to answer, and why the answer ends up being "just keep going!" It's sort of, all of these things put together, over time, pay off in the long term. So there's nothing anybody can tell you to do that will make your subs go up RIGHT NOW -- it's just a matter of, keep finding new places to connect with others, keep watching and learning from other creators, keep creating new work, and keep improving!
If you're prioritizing subs and popularity over the quality of your work it'll show. Being impatient will only make you lose focus on your goals. Yes patience is one of the most important things anyone starting can have. Give time for your target audience to find you. There are many readers who sign up for tapas everyday, in the mean time research and find out what you can do to improve your work so when someone does find it, they can see something worth while.
Since I'm back on this page again, another thing is encouraging your audience to share your work on social media.
The consistency thing is why I decided to just bite the bullet and upload what I have atm to tapas. Previously was waiting to hit 20 pages....Main thing that I'm getting from the responses here is to:
Show Up (upload something)
Be cool. (talk to people)
- Repeat 1 & 2
I agree that impatience will cause you to lose focus in a sense. I guess the way I see it, patience tends to be a double-edged sword, because it can easily turn into a crutch where you tell yourself to wait it out, and end up not putting in enough work to figure out why it's taking so long, or if there's something you're doing that isn't working or needs to be improved on. There needs to be a sense of urgency involved IMO.
Hey.
I don’t have that many subbers myself at the moment, (just breached 200), but from what I can tell, I honeslty don’t think waiting / patience is your saving grace at the moment.
It’s important, but maybe not as a main tool for now.
First of all, I think you should advertise your comic online to any existing watcherbase you have! I know I got at least my first 30ish subbers that way. It can give it a good push towards getting more recognition here too, especially since you’re advertising to people you know have the same tastes (for example, I think if you post on reddit you’d get more traffic since your art style might fit more closely with what’s usually posted there).
Secondly, I think something that nearly wasn’t mentioned here was art style? It’s definitly a factor. I think your style is very western adult cartoon-comic (family guy, tim buckly) which is essentially just very different from the mainstream on tapas. I don’t think it necessarily means this is the wrong place for you to post your comic, but it may be in your interest to find a site with a mainstream more similar to your style (maybe a social media site rather than a comics site) and redirect them to your comic here.
Work on your style and art quality as a general can be pretty good for your comic too, it’s definitly the first thing people notice, so focusing your effort on improvement and finding your own unique style will, without a doubt, help your comic watcherbase grow, too.
I second this.
The only shortcut is if you have a famous parent or you've got heaps of money to throw around.
If there were poor man's shortcuts, people would be using them.
Actually the most subbed premium comic has nowhere near the subs of the most subbed free-to-read comic. A lot of tapas users are young, of which some are too lazy to get coins and get pissed when they find a comic they like and realize it's premium. It's an ongoing problem in the premium reviews/ratings, where most people giving bad ratings are just people who think a few cents for an episode is "expensive". 
Most tapas users are looking for free to read content. I think the amount of people reading premium will expand as tapas grows and works to expand the amount of people that are able to earn coins.
I've seen those reviews on some of the Premium stories. I feel like no matter what, people will always complain. I do see what you mean about younger readers looking for free stories over paid ones.
Then again, I don't know how it works for comics. In the Novel Section, the only books that seem to get reads are the Premium ones and the stories promoted by the Staff.
In the end, it doesn't seem to matter though. I've found that all these websites basically work the same way aside from how they handle ads.
The only thing creators can do is post their work and see what happens.
