How do you promote comic?

[suhanidh12]

Hi! So i have this question, i have a story and i am no artist. So i have an artist (this information was completely unnecessary to tell).
Anyways, we will be starting the comic in a few days, and i wanna know how to promote your comics.
Like- how did you promote yours? In what ways and how did it turn out? What would you suggest others?
I actually only have an idea of how to promote my novel, this is my first comic so i actually dont really know? Should i promote it like i did to my novel?
It'll be really helpful if you suggest me some ways, thank youu

[katewindloft]

I always stay active on forums and to do art trades.

[suhanidh12]

Hmm i see, I'll try doing that! Thank youu

[darthmongoose]

Well, I've managed to hit 1k subs, which is nothing huge, but doing all right. Here's what I've tried and how effective it was:

• Advertising on the forums. This can be pretty effective and my approach was to make sure that there was a link to my comic in my forum bio (if you haven't done that yet, do it) and to avoid sub-for-sub threads, instead concentrating on threads that involve either talking about or sharing images or pages of the content of my comic. I also did stuff like reviews and helping people out, which would often result in people clicking my profile to see my work.

• Joining discord communities. If they're with the right kind of people you vibe with, you'll get great support, make friends and get some engaged readers from this just by chatting about your work and having fun. Engaged readers are great because comments and likes will help you gain visibility on the site.

• Social Media: Different comics are effective on different platforms. For me, Twitter works best, but for some people it's Instagram, Tiktok, Reddit, Tumblr or even Facebook (no, really!) so try to have a presence on a few and test things out. I was relatively lucky on twitter that I've been in the UK comics scene a while, so benefitted from some signal boosts. I also have a decent twitter following for...uh... voicing a cartoon alien on youtube and making D&D jokes which helped!

• Paid ads: For me so far, I've found ComicAd much cheaper and more effective for getting subs than Instagram, but I've heard running insta ads through Facebook Business can work better? I may experiment in the future.

• Adding yourself to every list and wiki about webcomics you can find. Hey, it's worth a shot, right!? I have no idea how effective this was!

• Banner Swap: I did a banner swap with some friends whose comics were of a similar level of readership and a similar kind of genre/audience. It was pretty effective, but partially because we were all around 800+ subs when we did it. Each of us gained somewhere around 30-50 subs from it.

As a general guideline, it's not just about WHERE you promote, you need to make sure your promo assets look good too. It doesn't matter if you spend $100 on a prime ad spot if your banner looks crappy, and having a polished looking cover and banner also helps you have a chance to get a staff pick, which is the absolute crown jewel, more effective than any of the other methods I've mentioned (I got staff pick at about 275 subs and it pushed me to just over 500), so if there's one big thing you can do for your comic, it's learn or pay for solid typography for your series logo and put effort into a good cover that reads well at small sizes.

[suhanidh12]

Ooh!! Thank you so much for these ideas, However one of them is off the lost for sure. Discord, let's just say i didn't have a good time in that place so i don't like it.
Anyways, thank you very much!
May i know your webcomic name? I kinda wanna check it out

[Llyrel]

Lots of good suggestions already!
A few more things:
-Start with a longer episode. Doesn't have to be necessarily 70+ panels long, but a little something to help people get a general idea what the story is about is good. From what I can see, most comics that get a recommendation early on tend to have 1-5 long-ish episodes at the start. After the first chapter or so, you can switch to shorter updates! (note: make sure to have a consistent buffer if you want to do this. Having a good start is nice, but burnout is not )
-Follow the Tapastry/Webtoon accounts on Twitter and keep an eye on them. Webtoon especially has those "Canvas Marathon" events that can be REALLY useful to gain more followers: they're events that last from a few days to a whole week in which readers can read Canvas series and get coins in exchange, which then can be used to unlock premium episodes. If you update during a Canvas Marathon, there will be A LOT of people online to check out free comics... and it's a very easy way to gain new followers. Granted, not all of them might stick, but a good amount of them will. During the last marathon I gained around 50 new followers. As for Tapas, the Twitter page also has events for creators, during which you may get a chance to promote your story. The new Tapastry Discord server also has plenty of events!
-Put your comic on webcomic archives such as The Belfry WebComics Index, The Indipendent Comic Database, Webcomic Library and Piperka. Some of these have some... rather outdated graphics and I didn't think they'd be much effective at first, but hey, turns out that they do work! According to the Belfry Webcomic Index, there are about 8 people following my comic from there, and somebody even cared enough to edit my entry and add some tags to it!
-Put a link to your comic on Random Webcomic. I know for sure that I got at least a new reader from there, so I can confirm that it works
-Last but not least: if you're already a part of a community (e.g. have a Tumblr blog, an Instagram page, whatever), share WIPs of your work to your followers to get them interested in your project. Not everyone might actually end up becoming a subscriber, but some may definitely check it out!

[darthmongoose]

May i know your webcomic name? I kinda wanna check it out

It's in my profile if you click on my username (that's why you should put your link in your profile), but it's Errant:

Errant | Tapas

[suhanidh12]

Hello! Thank you very much for helping me. These suggestions are so good! I'll definitely try them out!

[iHateFridays]

Hmm I think the best way is interacting with other creators, or promoting yourself on social media

[suhanidh12]

Ok! Thank you very muchh