How does a story even reach 500 subs?

[jmccubbins]

Ah ok! The only reason I even noticed or asked is because recently I reached pas on hundred and I was trying to think if I could even reach that. Thank you!

[SleepingPoppy]

If you made it to 100, then you'll probably eventually make it to 500. And if you don't on this project, there's always the next. We only grow and get better from practice.

[jmccubbins]

Isn't that true! Thank you for these tips I'm going to take them to heart! I mostly focus on my writing quality. Because I feel its about quality not quantity! Just recently i rebooted the beginning so i could make it better.

[SleepingPoppy]

You're welcome! I know I sound cheesy, and my way isn't the only way to think about these things, but it works for me.

[Kaydreamer]

Novels have a harder time here, because Tapas is predominantly a comic platform. It's also got a smaller active audience than other places. It takes a lot of time to build up a sizeable audience, so you need to be patient, and just promote your story broadly so people who may be interested in it can find it and read it!

Sub for sub is actually really bad. If you have a lot of dead subs who aren't reading, liking, or commenting on your story, the algorithm will assume your story isn't very good. Whereas with a small but active readership, with people who like and comment often, that same algorithm will assume your story is actually really engaging relative to its size, and you'll be more likely to show up in 'recommended series', or in the algorithmically selected sections on the front page.

The main thing, over anything else, is to just have really good work. Compelling characters, an engaging plot, and clear, immersive writing skills will take you far. Make good work, and people will want to read it.

[Eiranyx]

Hmm... is this for comic or novels? because I know the growth for both of it are a little different and I'm from the comic side so I'm gonna share my thoughts based on my experience.

1. You have attractive assets - like thumbnail, cover, banner, and an interesting description it helps A LOT. Most people tend to click on a thumbnail that interests them at first before reading the description and if you're making a comic, they gonna look for good art (most of the time)
2. If your comic matches with your cover art- of course its because people expect that your art is as good as your cover art -- they like it more consistent. --- now you don't have to be good at art but at least when someone reads it, they can still make out what's actually happening in the story.
3. Your first few chapters can hook the reader - Art isn't enough, your story must have something going on with it that can get them hooked. I know some stories takes time to build up to the good part but it will be helpful if you can execute it in a way that it won't be dragging for the readers to actually has an idea on the plot.
4. Marketing - Sometimes you have to think out of the box to market it, you can't just promote your work in one place, I'll be honest here, the forums is very limited, you have to get yourself out there because there are other people outside the forums that are potential readers.
5. Timing- The trends are there for a reason, make use of it, trends tend to move fast as well so take advantage of it while you can.-- My work has vampires on it, and spooky halloween themed works are promoted so of course I marketed my work on Halloween and released it on that time.
6. Connections- Making connections really help a lot.

Do you gain anything from being that high on subs?
I say not much on the ad revenue but I noticed my growth is slowly and steady -- for me it's more like a first hurdle to indicate if my work is marketable on a specific site, it's a good information to have because publishing platforms differ in their own way. That way I can familiarize myself with that sites the next time I release my next work.

Is it all about readers or sub for sub?
I can't really tell since I didn't joined sub for sub threads but most people are saying there's not much on sub for sub -- the good side, you gain subs but most likely its gonna be a dead sub that won't do much interaction with your work. It's good if the sub for sub are works with the same theme as your work because chances are those people will check it out more since you have the same interest(?)

Do the paid stories even reach this?
My work is actually pay to read on another platform (it's non exclusive for that platform btw) and I would say it has waaay more subs on that platform. The advantage is that they promote your work so it has an advantage on gaining readership plus you have an editor you can consult with as well. ^^

[rajillustration]

I think it's fully possible (like in the big scheme of things 500 is not nearly enough to make a living from passive income alone, you need tens of thousands for that. But, 500 would be enough for some patreon donations or ink donations to help out along the way.) It just takes time, and it may not be feasible for every type of story out there. Some stories and art styles just struggle on this website and that's really all there is to it (speaking as a person who has written that type of story before, you gotta find the right place for your story and not take it personally if it doesn't take off)

We don't really see how many comics and novels someone has done before they come to this site, and even those on this site may have done dozens of overlooked stories one by one before they hit one that started being successful. Some types of stories hit the algorithm sweet spot better than others (so a gag comic posting once a day is going to have a huge advantage over a comic posting 2 times a month) and having the skills in order to meet the demand of your audience takes time to develop and figure out.

But Tapas itself is just a hosting site. They really don't have good tools to be seen posting on this website alone, even if your work were perfect. You can wait for front page, but those opportunities are few and far between: it's easier to do steady promotion on social media sites and organically develop a viewership over time (and so far I've not hit 500, in all the comics and years I've been here despite being a professional illustrator. So when I make goals, they're more about my own development than a sub number.)

[jmccubbins]

Ah ok!
Thank you very much!!

[ratscout]

Through hard, hard work my friend. If you're like me, anyway. XD I have to really struggle for every sub I have through managing to make my story trend on the landing page via and through read-for-reads. Other people are little bit luckier since they often utilize popular genres or just have really good art in the case of comics.

[snowy]

To be perfectly honest, don't think I would have gotten there without staff pick.

[carloswebcomic]

Staff pick, and to be fair, considering how little visibility anyone gets these days on Tapas, I have no idea how you can do it these days.

Couple of things you got to consider.

1 - A lot of artists already have a following before their comic starts. You get nowhere with sub 4 sub and forum promotions. You need to create a following outside of Tapas.

2 - 500 subs is not a lot. I don't know where people get this idea that you can make money with webcomics. The only ones getting anything out of this is Tapas and maybe the premium creators.

3 - There is no secret to getting a following. Do something that a lot of people want to read and a following will create itself. What that "something" is though, it's anyone's guess.

[jmccubbins]

What that "something" is though, it's anyone's guess.

This ....this made laugh and i don't know why lol

[darthmongoose]

It'd be really hard to do without getting a feature on the front page, so it's sensible if you're trying to get 500+ subs (and to move beyond it) to first try to make something that looks like it could go on the front page to maximise the odds of that happening. This means that for novels especially, your cover and thumbnail becomes hugely important, and to a lesser extent, your blurb. You want to make them as polished and professional as you possibly can within your available skills and budget.

My advice is don't bother with sub-for-sub. It's an awful lot of effort for meagre sub gain and often a lot of dead subs. You need engaged readers for likes and comments to give you visibility and organic growth. The thing you should give readers in return for their sub should ideally just be an excellent, entertaining story. If your comic or novel is really fun to read and gripping or funny, you shouldn't need to pay people with a return sub for them to read it. Ideally, your thumbnail, cover, blurb and content alone should be so good that even just posting those somewhere without any further incentive should result in you gaining readers. This is a good idea for people aiming for the front page too, because it may not happen often, so you need your time on there to result in the biggest increase in engaged readers possible with a really eye-catching cover.
By all means, use the forums for promo, along with social media, but if people never click on or start reading your work purely based on just seeing it on a thread, or thinking you have interesting things to say about writing, art etc. your response should be "hmm. Maybe my cover/thumbnail/banner/blurb need to be more clear/attention-grabbing!" and then to put some work into improving them so people DO click on that link, rather than saying "Hmm, people aren't clicking on my work based on the cover/thumbnail/banner/blurb.... I know! I should offer them a reward for subscribing!"

Obviously I wish there were more opportunities for our covers and thumbnails to get seen on the site, and I hope Tapas changes some of the algorithm or layout or something to help with that soon. That's out of my hands though, and whether they do that or not, the best thing I can do for my comic's continued growth is to keep trying to make sure I have strong presentation and trying out marketing strategies to see what works best.

[mx_Jinn]

I second what Darth said.

Personally getting my novel over 500 subs took a lot of offsite marketing and promoting it. People liked it and I have a small reader base from those subs that have subscribed to my novel. Think I get roughly around 10% engagement from it.

Good luck in achieving your goals!

[jmccubbins]

Ah ok! So then how do I tell witch cover is more marketable to readers?
One like the one i currently have ? on my novel

The blood wars | Tapas

Edit i put the link because the original image is on an old busted computer
Or this art work?

[darthmongoose]

The current cover you have is stronger as a cover than the other piece for a few reasons:

• There's nothing behind the title text so that's easier to read.
• It's less busy and has a clear focal point (the character)
• It's higher contrast so much clearer when at the small size you see it on the screen
• It has a cohesive colour palette.

I would recommend making the title font considerably bigger though, and maybe changing the colour of that text to something brighter, like white, that'll really pop from the background. I can't read it on that thumbnail view.

[jmccubbins]

AH ok! ill see if i can do that! I just have to bring an old computer from the dead! Edit.. I did it!
here is the new cover with white text!

[Panpan]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[jmccubbins]

Yeah I had ben on hiatus a bit sense January because I realized I really wanted to get serious about writing so I hired an editor. I really focused more on the beginning of my story, how my characters develop and improving my writing. Like what i really want to do is be able to publish it on amazon. But i need honest opinions on my plot and how my story is doing from a readers perspective so lastly I thought that reaching a high sub goal would make that happen. To just get some honest opinions. So thank you it means a lot!

[darthmongoose]

BIGGER.

MAKE THE TEXT BIGGER!

There's a good tutorial about this stuff for Tapas here:

https://tapas.io/newsfeed/107

Look at covers of popular novels in your genre for ideas about how big the font should be.

I'd also maybe recommend removing that banner at the bottom there. It looks wobbly and that comic-sans like font doesn't fit the tone. If you feel like there needs to be text there to balance the design, put your name instead.