Everyone's got some great advice, but I also want to add: please oh please make your text legible!
Too many times have I given up on a series just because I find the text too sloppy to read.
If you're writing the text, be sure the width of the pen/brush you're writing with is not too big nor small.
If you're typing, choose a font that is not too stylized and give letters, words, and lines space to breathe.
Sorry but as a former graphic design major I am very picky with text.
If you want to accumulate a ton of subscribers you'll need to strategically market yourself. There are lots of different methods you can find online to see what sort of promotion works best for you. The best advice I can give is to figure out what type of audience your comic attracts and where you can find similar groups of people. Most often you can find these groups in similar comics. Then it's a matter of how to attract more readers through advertisement and self-promotion -there are tone of resources on this topic alone. Outside of advertising, you can also collab with other artists and participate in those groups. It's a really slow process regardless, but eventually it'll pick up. Good luck c:
Oh boy. That's a tough question.
Unfortunately there's no exact science behind this and it sometime it's just plain luck.
Mass appeal.
If you want readers, your art needs to have mass appeal, whether to the general public or a specific group. If your art doesn't draw people in, they won't hang around to read your comic.
Get noticed.
This one is out of your control. You can advertise and market your comic, but if you don't catch the eye of the right people, it will not help.
However, you maximise your chances of getting noticed if you become active in forums and such.
Consistency.
It is extremely important that people know that if they come back next week, they'll see a new comic. There's no bigger turn-off than trying to follow something with sporadic updates.
Also, keep the art and theme consistent. Don't suddenly jump the shark and change the comic's direction.
Stick to it.
This one is hard. Sometimes you just have to stick to it to make it work.
I'm the worst at this (there are even a few entries in TV Tropes where I'm placed as an example of someone that can't stick to the one comic), but try not to despair and give up too quickly before giving people the chance to warm up to your work.
thank you so much for all the advice...
this really is a good example on why Tapastic is so great...
thank you all,
dylpdx
yeah i wish i had the answer to that one, i read all the replies to your question and for the most part, they're all the same things anyone can really tell you "be active in the community and upload consistently" which like i said is really the only advice to give. but then again i see a random comics pop up with 3 or 4 pages, that in the first 2 days get 15K views and 2.5K subscribers....and i really have to wonder how it happens so often, you dont just meet and become friends with 2.5k+ followers like that, i do tend to wonder if there is something to all of this i'm not being told. haha ok ok.. well anyways my advice to you would be to do what everyone keeps saying i guess, be active and keep uploading and keep your chin up and all of that.....
Sometimes, the people behind those comics already have a huge following on a different website (or the comic's own website) prior to uploading the comic to Tapastic! I know that that was the case with GaMERCaT, for a specific example. There's also another comic that was uploaded to tapastic who got like 200+ subs on the day the artist uploaded it, but that was because they have a sizeable following on tumblr who was interested & waiting for them to upload their comic : p
But yeah, patience is a virtue - especially in the webcomic world.
yeah that would make a lot of sense, i had also considered that, i guess the thought of having that many followers just boggles my brain, but then again everyone must have felt that way at one point
so, i got to working on this...
let me know what you think of this....a little more eye-catching?
http://tapastic.com/series/drawling-moment58
i changed up the banner while i was at it....colour even
=)
i'm going to work on maybe re-lettering and/or finding/making a good font...i'm not very good with typography and i prefer to "draw" my lettering....the bad thing, digital drawing distorts my normally descent handwriting....it's not beautiful by any stretch, but using a stylus on a digital drawing tablet sure leaves a lot to be desired....yuk...
working on it....any advise on what fonts are decent? i'm no good with picking fonts...i just went and found a ton of them....hopefully i picked a couple good ones....
thanks for the advice and criticizm....i'm working to make my stories into realities....
Most of the fonts on Blambot6 are pretty decent, and a lot of them are free!
I hand-letter digitally, and I have to zoom WAY in to get clean lettering. Like 600-700% zoom!
But as far as good fonts, I second the Blambot recommendation --- I'm particularly fond of Ashcan4, which is mixed case and seems like it might be a good fit for your indie-ish style!
here's what it looks like on one of your pages:
i actually just re-lettered that one last night....slightly different font....
i'll post it for you later on
thanks for the kind words/advise
I was on Font Squirrel5
there's some good stuff on there that I may try
Everyone pretty much gave some pretty awesome advice. definitely want to add though is don't let the amount of years it takes daunt you from wanting to get out whatever it is out of your webcomic. I think definitely writing down small goals you've done for your comic would help out a lot. regardless if its just simply updating. because at the end of the year you could look back and reflect on it. ( do this with subscrbers too if you want to) if you'd like to it every month. almost like keeping a sort of database i guess. it might sound complicated, but I think it could work especially since it can be really hard to see where you stand and when it feels like no one is reading or paying any attention to your webcomic.
but regardless I think subscribers will always come. just very, very slowly. and that's where you'll have to be really, really patient. like everyone else said. keep grinding it out and pretty much just be awesome at what you do.:)
