Almost 10 months after joining Tapastic, these are my current stats:
My comic falls under "slice of life"; all episodes can be read separately but there's also a story and character development behind it, so you get more if you read it as a whole.
Getting noticed/getting subscribers/etc is a topic that has been discussed often around here, and so far the best I can tell you is close to the good old "life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're gonna get" - while there are things that can help you get noticed and eventually gain more readers, there's no set formula for this.
I started my webcomic on March 2014, but started posting it on Tapastic around August. I posted all of the old strips at once (I had around 20) and then started updating once a week, at the same time as my main site (Tapastic is more of my main site these days though, things change!). Soon after I started posting my comic got into New & Noteworthy (which now I guess is the Picks category), which made it catch attention quickly. After a while, exposure works like a snowball: getting to the front page gives you more views, which will eventually bring you to the front page again, and so on.
I had some people reading my comic before I joined Tapastic, but it wasn't nearly as popular as it got around here (to this day I have around 120 subs on ComicFury, but the userbase there is pretty small to begin with). For most people, "getting noticed" in comics takes time! I started Postcards only a year ago, but I've done several other webcomics in the past, most of which didn't get much attention. With time you eventually learn what helps you get more visibility, and it's a process of constantly learning new things.
Anyway, here's some advice I can think of:
"Overnight success" is something that does happen sometimes, but never something you should expect. This is mostly just luck and so you can't control it.
Having good art helps because it catches people's attention, but for comics art doesn't just need to be "good", but also legible. If your comic is too messy or cluttered it'll be hard to read and that will turn down readers, even if the art is good. This also applies for lettering, if it's hard to read people will be less likely to read it.
Having constant and stable updates is best! once or twice a week is the most usual, but you should see what update schedule best fits you. If you can draw more comics, keep a buffer and schedule your updates! a comic buffer can be your best friend
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Networking with other artists and readers is key, but don't turn it into shameless self-promotion!! there are always threads here on the forum where people post links to their comics, but I don't know how many people check those. The best thing to do is to interact with the community, participate in discussions (like we're doing now), comment on other people's work! I treat it as less of a way to gain readers and more of a way to meet new people and make friends, with having more readers as a side effect.
For the love of all that's nice, don't go around posting links to your comic in other people's comics on profiles, that's super rude
"Do to others what you want others to do to you" - if you want people to share your comic or leave you comments, share other people's comics that you like! comment on other comics! tell your friends about comics that you like!
Getting your comic "out there" takes work and is clearly not as simple as posting your comic and then waiting for subs to rain on you, but even then nothing is set in stone and a big part of it is just luck, so it's all hard to say. Also, the number or subscribers a comic has is in no way an indicator of how good the comic is!! for example, The Girl Who Flew Away still has less than 500 subscribers and it's one of my fave comics in here! (it's so gorgeous please check it out)
Anyway, I should be getting back to work now and I think I've said enough for one post XD
