How do you interact more with your readers?

[chocolatteboss]

When I first joined Tapas it was other people that approached me first and I kind of got to know them and we started reading each other's stories and leave comments. That was so much fun at the time. Most of them left now and I lost touch with my readers.

How do you interact with new readers again and make friends?

[DruidPeter]

Well, I suppose I mostly just go to the forums and find posts that I can reasonably contribute towards. I've only recently joined, (Or, I guess I should say, started making webcomics again. )so most of my readers are pretty much people who have only seen the first 4 pages of my own webcomic. And since none of them have commented save one, that doesn't leave a lot of room for interaction, lol! hyuk, hyuk!

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure there'll always be people who will approach you, but it's always a nice idea to approach others, too. There's so much awesome stuff out there. I really don't have to go far to find awesome creators, and I so I end up literally tripping into good stuff! xD And if I think it's good stuff, I usually leave a comment saying so. :3

Other than that, I guess I'll have to wait till the comic gets along a little further before I really have to think too hard about this, @chocolatteboss. Hope this helps.

[KoreanTacos]

Usually if i talk to other creators on a personal level I keep it private by direct messaging them on their walls or find a social media site/means to communicate.

[kip]

I’d love to know this, myself...

I found as a reader, after awhile commenting on comics me and the creator of said comics tend to have a kind of typical back-and-forth sometimes delving into longer conversations but I haven’t had the chance to really take that a step further into friendship with anyone- it doesn’t seem impossible though?

as a comic creator, with my readers I found prompting responses tends to get people to comment and interact- for example my slice of life (not biographical) comic has a little Q&A section at the end of every other page called “Question of The Day” where I pick 1 question from the comments to answer, which gets a lot of questions when those pages post, haha. In my other comic, drama, since there was a very big plot twist, that got people to theorize a lot and interact within the reader’s community talking about what’s going to happen next/ why things happened.
I sometimessss check out super active reader’s pages but haven’t had any friendship yield from this either. Just some things I got a boost of interaction over.

as a content creator I found a lot of friends though this forum, and the discord groups surrounding it

[QueenofBabyLoon]

To be honest, I am a fanfic writer. So I have this advantage of almost delivering a service to my readers. I write for the fandoms they love. In exchange, I get such a load of love and emotional support that it is frightening. I get more affection and commitment from the readers of my fics than from my friends. I guess, it has to do with the fact commitment goes both ways in the fanfiction realm.

What generally really works well for me, but is also hugely time-consuming, is every time I get a follow, favorite or review, to go into the person's personal messages and write them a personalized, thought-out message. I tell them about how much their support means to me. About how it made my day, if my day was bad. About how it helped me dissipate bad feelings or what the characters mean to me, what sides of them I try to explore or put an emphasis on.

By writing about myself, without making it all about myself, the readers see that I am not an automatized screen that just poops out updates. I am a human being with my ups and downs, with a passion … Just like them. Sure, like 70% of the readers don't care about me and never reply back. But the 30% there … those are pure gold. Some of my best friends I met writing fanfic and have been in touch with for over eight years now.

Don't make it about reviews, subscribes, make it about the other person as a human, look at what their art tells you about them, write them thought-out reviews on their work that show how you engage with it. And be sure that when and if they leave Tapas, they will take you with them (whenever I left somewhere, I left emails, Skype IDs, Facebook accounts behind for them to be able to reach me … and anyways, leaving never was an individual decision, the friends I made writing were also allowed to express themselves and were active players in my life, just like my IRL friends).

[TheFalseVyper]

Honestly, the best relationships I've made on Tapas were from commenting on stories I genuinely loved or someone commenting on mine. Over time, it became less of a reader x creator mentality and grew more towards just supporting one another.

Interacting in the forums has only improved my experiences, so I do believe you are on the right track!

[Penni]

What @TheFalseVyper and others have said.

I will always comment back if someone leaves a comment for me and I try to comment as much as I can on someone's wall or work. I've even chatted with people through PMs too!

Just put yourself out there, like you are in the right now, and you'll start interacting with all sorts of people

[unknown_user]

If you have enough of regular, interested readers, I would suggest to begin with just letting them know, that you like to discuss your work. Knowing that, some part of them will be glad to leave the comments. How to let them know this? For example, by liking and answering already existing comments. Also by telling it directly and possibly start discussions by yourself.
For example, not long ago I've made a survey about my comics, and several readers have answered it. Then I've commented its results on my Tapas wall, and some of regular readers appeared to be interested and discussed it a bit additionally. They have said some good words and have given a couple of useful advices.

[Kura]

I'm horrible at social media and responding to comments, but I have a discord server that I use to talk to fans. Most of them are very quiet and just sit there and don't say much, but there are a few that will start some sort of conversation everyday.

[Buurd]

Most my readers who became friends are people that replied to my stories on Instagram. I post a lot of my progress/w.i.p's while working on updates (or just everyday life stuff) and some people end up replying to those and we end up talking more. Some have asked for tips on comic making or smthing, and I ended up just making a small group chat for people who are working or wanting to start a comic - a few of us regularly talk there now.

But yeah, I'm not even very active with posting on IG, but I share to my story a lot. Whether its w.i.ps, life stuff, gaming, shows, or some of those story templates (i.e: artist bingo, never have i ever, ask my my top 3, etc) and I find thats were most of my interactions come from ^^

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[beta1042]

Most of my friends have been through here, discord, and a few from IG. For me it took awhile to get friends, but just slowly being active on here and in a discord server really helped me break out and get to know a lot of creators.

In terms of my readers. I've held Q and As and I've have polls for favorite character, fav couple. I have them vote on what type of bonus holiday content they want and that usually drums up interaction. I also made a discord for my comic and have some readers that have joined that and talk to me there, but that is less comic and more just we chat about whatever.

[RiidDisBuk]

It's good to interract with your readers that way, but you don't have to go so far as to make friends with them. Not that it's wrong or I have anything against it, but if readers stop commenting on your story, that means they lost interest, or you don't have a social media link in your desc or elsewhere.

[LT1986]

I still have a long way to go when it comes to interacting with readers and creators.

I used to spend most of my time trying to improve my art skills and didn't interact that much with others.

I've started responding to comments, leaving comments on the pages of other creators, making fan art, commenting on forums, created a forum thread, and critiqued some comics.

[demthorshie]

I'm a Twitch streamer so I usually get a chance to plug my stuff either on my stream chat or via twitter. This has been really helpful to me in terms of being able to meet new people and get new readers. Other than that, be sure to reply to peoples comments under your comic and have fun with your current fan base. And on a final note, social media works wonders when promoting your comic, I've had the most success with twitter.

[danitasibert]

I'm cautious about this, i want to have more interactions with my readers, but every time i update its not getting received by them, I notify the bell, but i feel I'm doing something wrong
I want more of a connection with them instead of just producing my work.
I always look forward to comments and anything really, I want to know what they think of my work and if they like it?
or other things i may have missed.

[lynestjules]

I have a very hard time interacting with my readers online, mostly because they don't comment for the most part and I came to the conclusion that nobody reads it online. Yet, I still kept going.
I've had a few interactions on Deviantart when I first started, but it has died since then. I have next to no interaction on Instagram, a little on Facebook, very little on Tapas, none on Webtoons for obvious reasons.
But, I realized last year, that people DO read my comic. But, that was only when I got my face to face interaction with readers at a comic expo. I got amazing feedback there. Their passion towards the story was the greatest gift someone could have ever given me.
I just think that online, it's really hard to interact, since everything is right now and leaving a comment takes time out of doing something else. Which is a shame, because we need them.

If it weren't for the fact that I do conventions and stuff, I would of never known. Plus, the interaction I had with readers and new readers was amazing. Especially that one that ran through the entire artist alley searching for me to talk about my comic and buy the new one. Did the same thing the next day, just to tell me how much she loved my new book and talk about it in dept.