How to gain readers? Are subs4subs worth it?

[Vayvaction]

Does all these sub 4 sub actually gain you readers or just subscribers that will never actually read your story?

What are your experience in gaining readers?

[turbojunior18]

i dont have much subscribers, but i think it is worth it, but nt all the time, getting subs increases your chances of your book getting recommended to others and it also makes your subscribers read your book whles you read thiers after every update, so its good in my view, but im new so ill let the experienced handle this

[moontokkym]

In terms of long term growth: sub4sub is not worth it.

There are a few people who engage in it genuinely, like I seem to remember headypigeon was either doing sub4sub or going around all the promotion feeds to read and comment what was on there like an absolute angel, but people like them are rare.

Most people will sub and unsub in the next few days, or just sub and give you an empty number which hurts you in the long run as the tapas algorithm measures your "success" with some ratio of how many reads, likes and comments you get to how many subs you have. Basically having a small but active readership is way more beneficial as it gets you on the app's "featured" and "popular" by genre lists which will help natural growth, whereas sub4sub gives you bigger numbers but barely any engagement and makes it so much harder to get on those featured lists and grow.

I know some people also do it in an attempt to get to 100+ subs to unlock adrev because they don't have a sense of scale for how much money adrev would actually get them even with 100 very active followers (spoiler the answer is 0)

Tl;dr : I know it's frustrating when you want the numbers so bad because it feels like that measures your success, but don't risk killing your chances with sub4sub. Building this stuff takes time and success isn't measured by these metrics.

[turbojunior18]

thats a very good answer, ill use your advice!

[Vayvaction]

thank you! I've been seeing so many threads on sub4sub and whenever i do there always one subbing and unsubbing. But also because they tend to never actually read anything. Although, the forum is filled with sub4subs

[turbojunior18]

Now that we know the truth im gonna focus on real subs, so when promoting your books, i say something like if you like my book, sub to not make it a sub for sub

[moontokkym]

You're welcome! I hope it can help!
I think a lot of people do sub4sub are either new so they don't really understand how the algorithm tends to work on tapas yet (which is totally normal) or they may have been on the platform for a while and not seeing any growth and it's getting them down so they're trying what they can to get anyone to react. It can be soul-crushing to feel like you're putting so much work in and no-one's even glancing at it, so I understand the draw.

I've never done sub4sub personnally because I read very slowly and I knew I'd be overwhelmed if I had to read everyone's comic, plus I was warned early on about how the algorithm works. Luckily the algorithm worked out for me, I got boosted to the community tab a couple of times thanks to people liking and commenting my comic, usually only a couple at a time because my comic was so small.

Also I want to say that there are a lot of people who see the number of subs as the only success metric because it's the easiest to observe. However it's really not representative of the actual meaningful success you're getting (usually "how close am I to living off of my art?").

Just taking my own comic as an example, it's still really small in the grand scheme of tapas success, but what you don't see on the subcount is I recently raised nearly 3000€ to get a print run done (which is currently being shipped to customers) and a small amount are on shelves at one of the biggest bookstores in my area as a test run, which is a dream I never thought I'd live to see. The only reason I could do this at all is because the small audience I have is composed of a ton of lovely people who are actively engaged in the story, because judging only by the sub counter numbers my project should be dead in the water.

[Vayvaction]

The thing I feel like the forums are flooded with these posts. And even if it not, it gets turned into one. Like someone will reply 'I subbed to your, can you subbed to mine?' and then it feels like I have to subb.

[Vayvaction]

Bumping this because i would like to hear more thoughts on this

[turbojunior18]

Actually this is the most useful post ive seen since i came here

[turbojunior18]

i recommend to get real subs start a post and find real fans, im trying but i cant say i expect better or worse, i wanna know my real fans

[kyupol]

Definitely worth it. Got exposure that way and got a few people who regularly read my stuff. I'd say 1/3 of the actual subs often read.

[stella]

i'm new at using tapas. I know it's hard to find an actual readers, but using sub4sub will make it harder, i prefer to prompt my novel with interested readers.

[Vayvaction]

The only thing is that the forum is flooded with these type of posts

[Leyelle]

I don't think sub for sub is the best option. While you can do it, it should definitely only be if your legitimately like each others stories.

From my experience the best way to gain subs I think is through consistent, unique and interesting marketing. And also consistency and quality of content. make sure to put out the best possible product, so when people read it, they'll be more likely to subscribe.