May 2016
6 / 39
May 2016
Jun 2016
AnnaLandin
May '16

Okay, here are a few things to keep in mind.

You're always going to have a LOT more views than subscribers. This is okay, and happens to everyone.

On the contrary, it IS that hard! I have literally hundreds of thousands more views than I have subscribers - it's the nature of the game, honestly.

How long have you been posting your comic? I clicked on your forum-profile, and it says you joined the forums 43 minutes ago. I'm assuming you only just started posting your comic? You need to be patient to get anywhere in webcomics; there are no overnight successes. When you see a comic with thousands of subscribers? Those subs took a long time getting there. Either the comic has been running on Tapastic for a long time, or the creator(s) had fans on other platforms who followed them here, too.

How to gain subscribers, a handy guide:

1. Post your comic as often as you can, and as regularly as you can.

2. Be as active in responding to comments as you can; people like seeing creators who engage with their fans.

3. Promote your comic on your social media-accounts. Twitter has a very active and friendly webcomics-community, with the weekly #ComicBookHour and #webcomicchat events, so that's a good place to start! If you use Facebook or Instagram or Tumblr, use those places to promote yourself as well!

4. Be active on Tapastic. Posting in the forums is good, but you should a.) not spam links to your comic in threads where it isn't relevant, and b.) you need to manually add the link to your comic to your forum-profile, since Tapastic doesn't automatically connect the two.

4.b. Being active on Tapastic also means finding comics you like, and commenting and engaging with them. DON'T SUBSCRIBE TO COMICS JUST TO MAKE SOMEONE SUBSCRIBE TO YOU! But do find comics you enjoy, and subscribe and comment. It is all part of establishing connections and making friends.

Also, if there are community events, like the Tapastic Winter Fest from last year, try to participate in those!

5. Be patient, and keep making comics. You will not be an overnight success. NO ONE is an overnight success. Look back at your comics and number of subscribers a year from now, and I promise they will be a lot different!

zelkatsThe One Who Flags
May '16
1

Too bad the topic below has been unpinned:

My main advice is to focus on making good or better content. Or be a little patient for results if you just posted your comic on Tapastic.

Greg_Dickson
May '16

500 views sounds pretty good to me. I've been posting my comic for 2 weeks and I've got 136 views and 17 subs. I'm not posting a higher sub count to gloat though. But if I can offer advice on getting subs, it was me updating every monday and staying active on the forums, which caught the attention of some other people. I also made an effort to subscribe and comment to some other comics. A big thing I recommend, at least early on, is if someone subscribes to you, if they have a comic, at least check out theirs. You don't have to subscribe to their comic, but I find it's worth the effort to check theirs out too, just in case it is something you may like. Because if it is something you would like to subscribe to, you can mutually check out each other's work, commenting and helping each other out.

Finally, I highly recommend going into your forum profile settings and putting a link to your comic. In a thread like this, more people can check out your work, and in other threads, people may click on your profile and see what you're making.

Sanz
May '16

Advertise. But don't spam. Make freinds here on tap and use social media as a networking tool. Twitter is good and so is instagram. Facebook works too but only if youre branching out from a page otherwise its just your family and freinds...unless youre one of those people just accept anyone. Then use it to your advantage. Do fan art. Art trades make some freinds. Show the world what you got and just do it.

sarrowsmith10
May '16

I second that. Post a link so we can all go over and take a look (and maybe sub too!) smile

TristanJensen
May '16

My advice would be this. Patience is a virtue. It has taken me well over a year to get to where I am now with 2k (and I was absolutely horrendous when I started, no clue how to draw whatsoever, Ikinda learned as I went along) Just keep going and more and more people will see it.
Also try drawing fan art and guest comics if you can. Ive found it gets you on people's radar and it can help promote you if done correctly (and it's really fun in general which is the main reason I do it XD)

One last thing, was your first subscriber named Owen3 with a dog or something for the profile? Just curious

itzewulf
May '16

Yeah he was, I need to put another sentence here because of the 20 character limit on this forum

Aspie_Gamer
May '16
itzewulf

I used to be in your shoes until a couple of months ago. Here's what I learned.

  1. Be social.

1b. Treat being a web cartoonist like its your job. Be frequent with your updates so you can get a steady stream of views for your comic and ad revenue if you have it enabled each week.

  1. Sub to comics like you mean it. Talk with the creators of your favorite comics.

  2. Being a forum regular never hurts. Post a link to your comic in the appropriate threads.

3b. If you don't know how to post links, go to your comic. highlight the url, copy it, click the chain link icon when typing up a post here in the forums, delete the http://, paste the url of your comic in the bar, click ok, and then type the name of your comic in the link below. For example my comic is named Life of an Aspie so if you did it right, it should look exactly like what you see below this paragraph.

Life of an Aspie3

Hope this post helps and I hope to see ya around smile

Mane
May '16

I really can't give any other advise than the old and worn "you must have patience". Aside from a few lucky gems out there that managed to get noticed immediately, most stories, even currently famous webcomics, started out with a small audience. Constantly working on it, updating regularly, and with quality content, that's the recipe if you ask me. I've been working on my current project for 2 months now, and just recently I've started to gain more attention, but still nothing to write home about yet. Slow and steady I tell myself, and I appreciate every new follower, every new view.
Advertising is important , but you shouldn't invest more time on that than on actually working on the comic. It's a trap I almost fell in, trying to find more platforms on which to post my work and get more readers instead of focusing of giving them something to read.

demthorshie
May '16

Pretty much what everyone else is saying here. Post often and post consistently. Promote as often as possible, in forums, social media, etc. Reply to any comments you receive on your comic and most importantly, be friendly. I like your comic so far btw, it's cute and fun! xD

Kyosu
May '16

4 ways:
-update your comic regularly. (for example a new page every 2 weeks)
- patience........lots of patience
- make an original and interesting comic
- friendship