How do you feel about advertising your work?

[QueenofBabyLoon]

You are a genius!!!

Guest artists!!! Of course!!! For comics!!! DC does it all the time, doesn't it? They just let another artist draw a panel for one of their series to show the style of that other artist. I remember when I was reading "Injustice" (the only DC comics I could come near to without dry heaving), every few panels the art would change and there would be mentions of other works produced by the artist who made those new panels.

That is SUPER efficient for me. I hope other artists see this! This would be such a cool way to get more advertisement. But at the same time, I assume for comic artists, it would be very difficult to include a panel of another artist into their stories.

What Chinese webcomic artists do is that another artist will make a tiny short story of a few panels about the work of the artist that is hosting them for an episode. And then that tiny short story will be put at the end of the episode.

Shows that you worked in commercial media. You know your stuff.

[AmysGames]

I definitely have a hard time with advertising, where sometimes it seems like everything I try doesn't work—including paid advertisements, which just felt like a waste of money when I tried it. But I'm also constantly in a mental battle of "it can't hurt to advertise this" vs. "this isn't interesting enough for a general audience" and usually end up just quietly dropping a link on social media, so that probably doesn't help my case.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

Must have feedback loops in place. Need way for new readers to tell you how they heard about your comic. Then it just a matter of allocating more resources to advertising methods that work better.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

guest comics

Writers of webnovels could do something similar in the form of side stories.

[cosgo]

I am very shy to promote my work. The language barrier. My language is Russian or Polish. I pay a professional translator for translating a comic. But I have to do promotion for myself. like this.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

As long as you're paying your way, you might want to consider renting banner space from someone with a similar comic and also their own website. Can be surprisingly affordable.

Advertising is like a race. You don't always get first prize, but you won't win anything at all if you don't participate. Word-of-mouth doesn't work so well on the Internet.

[cosgo]

1. I have not yet fully understood the American culture of conversation . (I do not mean anything bad. Each part of the world has its own traditions)
2. I don’t have so much money to pay for advertising yet. But I will gladly do it. When the opportunity arises. You are absolutely right.

[Kann]

I don't like to do it and I really have no clue how to do it effectively. xD

Life would be so much easier if we could just sit and draw and our stuff would magically get noticed.

[gempompadour]

I don't like doing it for some reason. I always feel like a pervert standing on a shady street corner trying to get people's attention. I spam links like serial flasher and disappear into the night before I'm recognized.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

When you realize that artists with worse art make better money because salesmanship.

[ForLackOfStars]

I don't like promoting my work, or drawing attention to myself in any capacity, but I see self-promotion as a necessary evil. Most work doesn't get discovered organically, and whether you like it or not, you have to be willing to work to get word of mouth about your work out there.

When I'm invested in getting my work noticed, I try to just do a little bit every day to help spread the word about it. It's best to focus on creating the best content possible, do advertising on the side, and be happy when results start rolling in. Self-promotion and advertising are long, slow processes, and results are anything but instant.

[Freemints30]

"Why hello there fellow human, would you like to take the time out of your busy day to read my crappy comic, If you do so now you get a second one for FREE!"

Im not a social person and it feels super awkward.

[QueenofBabyLoon]

The big problem with advertising and promoting is that … the time you invest in promoting, advertising and building yourself a network of friends, contributors and helpers, is time you are not investing in your art and story. You need to strike an equilibrium, I guess. Not that I would know how to do it, to be honest.

[LilithFairen]

I've tried advertising my work on various sites.

And pretty much nothing came of it.

So trying to no avail kind of dissuades a person from trying more.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

How you advertise tho?

[AmysGames]

Must have feedback loops in place. Need way for new readers to tell you how they heard about your comic. Then it just a matter of allocating more resources to advertising methods that work better.

Seems like good advice, though I know for a fact that most of my readers (or at least the ones who say anything about it) are friends of mine, lol. Maybe I should make more friends?

(Not even a joke, I've been gradually expanding my social circle and that seems to be working more than anything else has so far. )

[Geek_Aflame]

I try to balance advertising/self-promotion out with replying to other posts to keep non-promotion topics alive and not come across as spammy. I do feel icky posting to novel advertising threads myself but I've honestly found most of the lesser-known comics and novels I read through the promotion threads. If I post on one I look through it and pick out a few things I'd like to read.

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

Promo codes are good example of feedback loop. They freebie for buyer and data-gathering method for seller. They indicate in direct way which thing that they sponsor am responsible for the greater number of sales.

[ivanskilling]

I'm comfortable with advertising/self-promoting my work and I see it as an equal part of being a writer besides the actual writing. It's sort of fun for me but it does take up a lot of time, so I do get a bit tired of it occasionally.

[UrMom]

My thing didn't quite align with the poll options. I don't necessarily find it humiliating but I do get burned out with self-promoting really easily. The monotony of copy/pasting the same lines over, and over, and over again is just too much for my brain. After a while I start wondering if anyone really cares, or think more paranoid things like "what if everyone muted or blocked me and I'm just yelling into the void?", or wondering if everyone groans and roll their eyes like "Urg, not this person again. Can't they just go away?"
On top of that I'm just not a good sales person. I don't really like acknowledging my own comic outside of actually working on it, I've never even read it. In a community where almost everyone prefers more escapist stories or romance, it's hard to make my comic sound appealing without over embellishment. Only recently a few really nice people helped me brainstorm a decent pitch.

To save myself from spiraling into an over-thinking, paranoid fit I've started only self-promoting whenever I feel like it, which is maybe once every two to three weeks. If there is a relevant event going on, or I'm in the mood, I may post more than once in a week.