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river121693
Mar '22
4

Recently, Webtoon creator and youtuber n.d.bern created this petition4 asking for more resources for Canvas staff. She also mentions the lack of behind the scene insights and lack fo ways for canvas artists to find audience.

It got me to think (more than usually) about the relationship between these platforms and creators, especially ones that's becoming as monolithic as Webtoon. I don't fully understand the power/financial dynamic, but I know that it's very asymmetrical.

This research paper2 does a good job highlighting the relationship (Note: it was published in 2019 so some some info are outdated, and the focus is mostly on the South Korean side of Webtoon)

"Webtoons have become economically prosperous, with resulting financial repercussions for the Korean comic book/magazine market. The Webtoon market is valued at US$368 million, and this is expected to double to US$894 million by the end of 2020 (KOCCA, 2017)."
" According to government research, copyright sales of Korean Webtoons are currently estimated to account for 18.8% of the country’s entire comic market"

At the same time:

"Webtoons are no exception, and the “self-study” several interviewees referred to was seen as a form of free, extra labor, in an extremely competitive environment, where, for instance, the opportunity to sell copyright was limited to those who are famous and popular—only 1.8% of all Webtoonists gain the majority of their annual earnings from selling copyright (KOCCA, 2018, p. 75). In the case of Naver Webtoon, approximately 120,000 amateurs uploaded their content on basic and second tiers every month; however, only 0.03% of them go on to be commissioned by the platform (DIGIECO, 2013, p. 15). Moreover, according to many of the interviewees, the average monthly compensation for amateurs’ work is set at around US$360: a figure that falls far below the minimum wage. Thus, some scholars argue that the working and living conditions of the majority of Webtoonists remain exploitative and precarious (Jin, 2015, p. 201)."

If I remember correctly, Webtoon has also raised the requirement for canvas creators getting paid by a lot since 2019, despite the platform's success. Now they're planning to roll out a tipping system, which I'm very skeptical about because it's likely a way for them to circumvent giving its resources to creators. There are a host of issues I have with the way the platform highlight creators. The Canvas team is doing their best, but the platform itself generally focuses mostly on trends and popularity, rather than sharing works of all creators; this create a lot of constraints on creativity if we want to financially succeed on Webtoon. In addition, there's a lack of transparency and statistic for us as creators to understand our engagement.

Some of this apply to tapas too, I just don't have as much info on them.

As the paper points out later, Webtoon has a lot of benefits. It's a space to find audience. t's crucially a place where amateurs can show off their work. Finance and popularity isn't necessarily why we do this in the first place. But I still believe that webtoon needs to do a lot more to make it a fair platform to creators.

I'm wondering what ya'll think about the dynamics between webtoon and creators, how we can continue to advocate for ourselves as creators, and what are you think these platforms can do better to support creators.

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powerplantanimations
Mar '22

I just want a damn Pay-ee feature like in Lulu or Zazzle. That's ALL I care about. All platforms. Like I heard Tapas was making a merch store, yet they want YOU to split the money. They probably think "Hey, the artist is also the writer" when there's people who work in groups. It's too much of a hassle. Take advantage of me all you want, just give me a DAMN pay-ee feature.

This goes for Ad Revenue as well. I really don't get why you have to wait for a contract for everyone to be paid equally.

river121693
Mar '22

what's a pay-ee feature? Is it a way to automatically divide income between multiple people?

darthmongoose
Mar '22
1
powerplantanimations

They probably haven't implemented it because the amount a work on Tapas makes in ad revenue isn't generally enough to even withdraw until you have a large enough following to likely get a contract. Ad earnings can only be withdrawn when you accumulate $25 or more, so most people under... I dunno like 10k subs, probably only get to withdraw revenue when it's combined with ink donations, usually at inksgiving. I've made a couple of hundred dollars, but only because of ink donations. In pure ad revenue, my comic with 1440 ish subs makes about $0.17 per month.

It doesn't pay out automatically, you have to withdraw it to your paypal and it takes a few days to clear, so I'm not sure how Tapas could do this splitting. Would you write in multiple paypal addresses to split it between? Would it still be at $25? Or would it need to be $25 each? It sounds like a lot of fuss for something that's a pretty rare occurrence (like once a year in most cases) on any comic below the kind of readership where they'd just offer a premium contract.

rajillustration
Mar '22

Honestly it comes down to if there's competition. As more and more sites appear who want to get into comics, they create more places that are tempting for creators to post their works. If they make better systems for income, people will absolutely ditch what isn't working for them in a heartbeat.

So right now we're just in a weird position where there aren't many competitors with the foot traffic of WT or Tapas, and so while there are other sites that will allow you to do things like customize your own site, or allow for future episodes to be behind a paywall without having to be a special creator with a contract (which like, why? Why can't anyone have a paywall? Makes no sense to me) hopefully one day we'll see that implemented at sites like Tapas and WT when competitors show that it can be done and it is successful.

But we are in a weird place right now because while webcomics are not new, webcomics making this type of money is new, and this format is new, and dealing with things like the apple app store is new--just a lot of things are a bit of a Wild West situation, and so we probably won't see more support for creators who are trying to make this their living, until the gig economy, in general, starts being legally accountable.

But until then (and who knows if that will ever happen), things like a better search, the ability to have unlimited tags that we can change so people can find our works better, better reccomendations, things like that would help a ton for all creators. But I don't think that's their highest priority right now, especially since the front pages of both sites must be curated or else the apple store will ding them if they show a boobie or something from a non-approved comic.

river121693
Mar '22

Yeah one of the conclusion that midsize webcomic sites focuses more on creators and having those competition is important to holding Webtoon accountable for the same too. But for the same reason, Webtoon’s growth is more worrying to me. I don’t know if there’s going to be a better platform in the near future or if I’ll be around for it. As big as it’s getting, webcomic is still a niche. If creators don’t ask for more now, it’s going to be a lot harder if Webtoon becomes an even bigger monopoly.

I have no idea why we cant have paywalls either. Possibly because free content is what draws readers to the site?

1 month later

closed Apr 20, '22

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