How do you post bonus material for your comic? As a reader, how do you like to see it done?

[revisionstudios]

Hey guys!

It occurred to me recently that I have a ton of art for my comic that my Tapastic readers haven't seen, so I'm trying to find the best way to make it available to them. What do you do? Is there a place you prefer to see it?

I personally really don't like it when people add it in to their main comic updates, so I want to avoid that for my own, but feel free to talk about your experiences with it if it's something you do!

I feel like Tapastic is pretty insular, too, in that readers by and large don't follow the social media of the comics they follow. Even for myself, I typically follow people on social media FIRST and then find out about their comic and sub it, not the other way around.

So far my options are either just posting on my wall and notifying subscribers (seems engagement is pretty hit and miss) or creating a "side series" for it. I'd love to hear other suggestions though if you have them!

[Tanisha]

Yeah a side series is usually what people do. I sub to a few them! I've also seen people just post extras/concept stuff right with the series. Like right after each page they post. I don't mind this either so long as they don't put too much of it in one episode that will make me scroll a lot ^^ I would go with a separate series so people have the choice of whether they'd like seeing it or not.

[AnnaLandin]

I post my extra stuff on Patreon! Means my patrons get access to stuff regular readers don't, and I don't have to spend tons of extra time producing it - I mostly post stuff I'd be drawing ANYWAY (like architecture sketches, costume designs, etc.), which means I can spend more time on drawing the actual comic, and people still get bonus materials.

If you want to post it in public, though, I definitely recommend doing a side-series. Wall-post notifications don't reach all readers (people who use the app exclusively don't get them, IIRC?), and a lot of people ignore them anyway.

[eleoza]

I was going to say patreon too. Special extra's for people who want to see more of your comic and character.
I create chibi comics as bonus material, Recently I made a public chibi comic to make fun of a current scene in my comic, and uploaded it on tapas as well. Because it fits, it relates to the story in a funny way.
I don't think you should upload random art or sketches as comic episodes though, unless they really relate and add something to the comic. If you do people will just be dissapointed not to see an actual update.

Also if you add something related to your comic it would be a good idea to upload an actual page right after that too, to avoid said dissapointment.

[timinabox]

I see a lot of people do side series, or just keep that stuff on deviantart or something
but yeah it bothers me when I expect a new page of comic and it's just some random stuff D; if I wanna see additional art or such, I can manage to find that other link to it
/altho sadly I feel like a lot of people can't be bothered to do that damn you people/

[revisionstudios]

Thanks for the responses guys! I do have a Patreon, but it's more set up like a "you get to see these things first", and there's a ton of stuff from before the Patreon was even a thing that I could show people (that's posted on dA currently).

I'm glad to hear that a side series is fine, that's kinda what I was leaning towards! There was a thread from last year where a lot of people had a pretty negative opinion about it, so I was curious if anything had changed.

[aFistFull]

I would've never thought about a side series but it's a good idea. I tried posting on my wall but to no avail, deviant art is usually my next stop. In fact, I have to upload most of my stuff there first because I can't directly upload it to the forums (but that's a separate problem.) I've not really looked into Patreon, feel I should but I dunno.

[candaceandco]

I haven't tried some of the above suggestions myself (but I plan to soon), but I really like posting both my comics and side projects relating to my comics on Instagram. I don't get the thousands of likes that some folks enjoy there, but with access to half a billion users, I'm definitely getting stuff noticed by people. Just thought I'd mention how I like to do it.