How to stand out when you don’t make what’s “popular”

I sometimes wish some popular, brutally honest no-bullshit foul-mouthed reviewer somehow write an absolutely scatching review of my series so it would get into "My Immortal" or "Twilight" infamy of bad and people are rushing to check it out just to see how bad it is (or anyone if you are interested).

I don't know, I feel really desperate and worthless that if I could be the best for being the worst. I will take it.

My novel is the worst supernatural-fantasy-mystery series on Tapas! Please check it out.

Just think of it as working your way up in a job...with no pay...sadly it takes some longer than others, unless you luck out or you have the money/following already. But I see it as more time to grow before getting a bunch of judging eyes on your work, if that ever happens...for now, less pressure lol.

I have a little bit of experience in this area. I started my writing career writing historical fiction, which isn't a very popular genre. I struggled a lot with finding an audience on the platform I was using at the time (Wattpad), and it was really disheartening. I started to wonder if I just wasn't good enough. It's easy to say to not care about popularity, but let's be honest: we all want people to see our work. The thing that helped me the most was reaching out to fellow writers who were writing what I was writing. Building those connections. Eventually, you find your niche, and you start seeing more views. By the time I was done on Wattpad, I wasn't a popular writer on the website at large, but I was up there for my niche: alternate history.

I won't lie: it's hard. But with a lot of work, you'll get there.

Dwelling on something that is 99% luck like becoming part of the zeitgeist will kill your passion. I've spent a decade chasing the dragon and it nearly made me quit altogether.

Most stuff posted on here on Tapas will never get a large, sustained audience. I've found it is best to just enjoy the small victories and moments and tell my stories because I am compelled to. You mention you've already been told this sort of stuff before, but it is coming from a lot of people, so that should tell you something.

You also mention shining in a sea of content, but there is the problem right there - you are producing drops in a sea. Statistically, the odds of your drops being noticed are very, very small. The best you can do is keep splashing around and hope you don't drown.

That's the best the majority of us can do.

Unfortunately I don't think I can help much, admittedly I don't feel like my comic gets lost, it kinda stands out given my choice of medium and story... or the amount of CWs it has. Lol but there is a bit that I do, maybe you'll find it useful-ish?

So my comic is super niche, not a normal drama, not a thriller, not a horror, it's in a weird spot and advertising is kinda hard. Normally I just do the standard advertising on social media with related hashtags, but an extra thing I do hang out in the horror crowd and occasionally advertise with them. Even though it's not a horror story, it's still closer to horror/thriller, they're very open and accepting of varying works from my experience. I also openly promote it as a dark cathartic story, and there is a small group for that.

I don't know what type of story you have, but maybe figure out what genre it relates to most, and promote it to that crowd? You may also be able to use what makes your story different as an advertising point, there will always be someone looking for that specific thing, or want to get away from the usual types of stories. Hanging out in fiction and webcomic related servers also helps, there are a few out there that do 'Story of the Week' and stuff like that where you can apply to have people read and discuss your work, or you could submit your work to popular review sites, there are some that do it for free. Also there's Webcomic Chat on Twitter and Reddit, they hold a Q&A every Sunday so you can advertise.

Honestly there's no real surefire way to get eyes on your work, it's pretty much about luck. The best you can do is keep on keeping on.

I've been going through similar issues for years, especially since I don't even like drawing fanart very much. It's hard to say what the best course of action to take, because unfortunately a lot of success is derived from already having a following or pure luck. However, this is some of the stuff I've done that's helped me get a bit more focus on my art:

• Art shares, art shares, art shares! If you aren't already participating in some, they can be a great place to get your work out there, as other artists will be looking through the replies to art shares on Twitter. They can be tricky to find at first, but if you follow a few artists who participate in them regularly, you're bound to see a bunch you can add your art to. I recommend replying to art shares within the first day of them being up, especially within the first couple hours. That way, people will see your art as more come in to reply to the share.

• Reach out to a community. This one can be hard, coming from an introvert, but communities can really help you gain a footing in the art world. Sometimes I feel like I'm cheating by having people in my comic discord follow and read my comics, but it just means I've found people who also enjoy my work. Connecting with others also means you can benefit each other in terms of the algorithm by commenting and liking each other's work. It helps in encouragement and with getting your art out there.

• Cut off what's not working for you. I recently stopped posting my art on instagram due to barely getting any traction, and it saves me more time and the stress of algorithm flops. I recommend cutting out art, media, or any part of the art world that causes you more stress or a lack of enjoyment.

These are just the main pieces of advice I can give, as each has helped me feel better and raised my art following a bit. A lot of advice I've gotten on similar issues is to just draw what's popular or to keep doing the same thing, but that really doesn't help much. Hopefully some of my experience in trying to stand out helps a bit!

You ever watch that movie 'Field of Dreams'?
I haven't, but it's literally not possible to have grown up in the 90s without having heard its incredibly famous quote:
"If you build it, they will come."

It's not nearly as simple and straight forward as all that, but in general, there's an audience out there for you, for whatever niche genre you want to write in. My own comic is a fucking Power Rangers series for Christ's sake, it doesn't get much more niche than Tokusatsu, even in Japan where the subgenre originated.
The audience IS out there. Sometimes the audience is hard to find, sometimes they're small and spread out, and sometimes they don't even know they're a part of your audience yet, but they ARE out there.

Of course, You can't just build it and expect people to show up out of the blue or anything:

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But you can pour your heart and soul into making something worth coming to see.

The best piece of advice I've ever received with regards to perseverance is that you have to be your own first fan. You have to believe that what you're making is cool and interesting and worth checking out, because if you don't believe that, then how the hell do you expect to convince anyone else of it? You have to be a genuine fan of your own work, you have to be actively excited to share it with everyone, to win them over through sheer enthusiasm if nothing else will work. Believe that what you're making is worth sharing enough to share it everywhere, and you won't ever be discouraged enough to give up on it.
I'm not sure if that's necessarily relevant to your precise issue here, but it's something that I consider extremely important and worth sharing regardless.

I just went and looked at your work, and it DOES seem as though you're a little scattershot with your approach. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it makes me think that perhaps the above advice might be more relevant. It also might not, so take this with a grain of salt, but I have to ask, looking at so many short series that jump to a ton of different topics, is there one that you're genuinely more passionate about than the others? A single, continuous storyline or central concept that really grabs you and won't let you stop thinking about it?
I'm not here to tell you what you should or shouldn't prioritize in your own work, nor am I going to try to tell you that you don't care about what you're doing, it's just that in my experience, those types of stories and concepts are the ones that actually gain some traction.

All that being said: Big audience =/= good audience.
I've been doing this for a while, so I know how difficult it can be to divorce your mind from the numbers game: having a big following on Twitter/Instagram or a bunch of subscribers on Tapas and Webtoon and etc. etc. definitely gives your brain The Good Chemicals, and that's worth something in and of itself, but it's not the end-all-be-all of your career as an artist.
To be perfectly frank, as hard as it would be to admit, I would take 100 fans who genuinely love what I do with the same kind of passion and excitement that I have over 100,000 fans who are just mildly tepid about my art.

(Edit) Actually, come to think of it, I actually DID have something like this happen to me. My primary source of income is as an adult illustrator, and back in 2012 or so, I was mostly on Tumblr. In 2017, Tumblr decided they didn't want ANY NSFW content on their site at all, and I was basically booted off of my home base wholesale. I transitioned over to twitter, and I literally lost 90% of my audience. I went from 15,000 followers on Tumblr down to 1500 by the time I made the full transition to Twitter, and you know what? Basically nothing changed. I still got likes and engagements on my posts, I still got commissions and patrons, and my discord server was as active as ever. That 10% of my audience who stuck around were the real driving thrust behind my ability to support myself doing my art to begin with, so losing over thirteen thousand followers didn't actually do much to impact me.

Being 'the big popular' sounds really nice in theory, and it probably would come with some upsides, but it's meaningless if the following and interactions you get are shallow and lukewarm. Like I said, the audience is out there, for every story, it's just a matter of finding it. Sometimes that audience will be small, but oftentimes those smaller audiences are the ones who most fiercely love and support their creators: They know there aren't many of them, so they know how loud they have to make their voices in order to encourage more of the content they want.
Once you find an audience like that, and it is just a matter of time until you do so, then treasure them as closely as any friend or family, because fans like that are hard to come by.

Apologies if this is more esoteric than what you were looking for. As far as practical stuff, I think everyone else here has you covered: Post consistently, get on all the socials, art trades, fan art, etc. etc., but when I see discussions like this, my mind usually wanders in the direction of the mindset and the all-but-unavoidable defeatism that can come with it, so I try to combat that with different ways to think about what you're creating and why you're creating it. I hope it was able to be of some use.

I have the same feeling sometimes. Like last night, couldn't sleep so my mind just wandered in the darkness. Going through alot of what ifs etc.

And I feel like Im like you. I'm VERY VERY niche. Mostly because I am doing a story I want to see, and what I want to make. Honestly as soon as you said sonic fanart it really hit home. (Huge Sonic nerd. Gotta stick together lol).

But what I found that has kinda helped me mentally with the whole "popular" bit is really networking. My twitter isn't anything to write home about, I had been published and been crapped on by a bunch of old fogies (literally 40 year old comic nerds messaging me in the middle of the night yelling profanities at me. Wasn't good with for the ol mental health). Just because my comic wasn't appealing to them. But I found that networking has helped me with feeling okay with my story and feeling better about myself as a creator too.

I made a few friends on here through a particular forum thread and started chatting and getting to know fellow creators through discord as well. They like my comic and I like theirs as well. Granted it hasn't led to much money but if you REALLY get to know folks and use that time to do so. (Ask how their day is, how they're feeling and literally treat them as a human being rather than a cash-cow). Then yes, some money might lead your way but also you make some friends who will check out your stuff and literally like and comment on your art and stories. Its helped with my confidence since I started and my art journey, or comic rather. Was bumpy in the beginning. Its hard to maintain but I found that networking and making friends is something that I find helpful. Helps with the ol socialphobia after awhile too so Im constantly feeling like "What do they think? Am I annoying??" etc. Which might also help with any mental health problems you may have as well. I dont know. Im just probably spouting bullshit lol.

But networking I feel has helped and actually being friends with folks will help you grow and others grow too. Granted, Since life has been in the way of me. Ive been a TAD slack but those others still stick with me and talk to me and are super duper friendly.

Also, Fellow sonic fan? Might like my comic. Heavily inspired by it:

Just saying, you might like it. Okay, Ill shut up now =3=

One of the most effective things I've found so far was doing a banner swap with some comics of a roughly similar level of notoriety and with a similar sort of vibe and audience. People who love niche stuff are usually desperate for more stuff in that niche, so often it's a case of teaming up with other people in your niche.

But yeah, obviously I can't describe my stuff as some sort of runaway success. If I find some magic technique, I'll be sure to let everyone know!

I've read through the thread and what I mostly see is like...a lack of focus?

It's one thing to be niche (by definition that means you'll have a smaller share of the whole comic/novel-reading audience and that's just what it is.) But it's another thing to try many different tactics across platforms. And that's what I feel like I'm seeing here.

If you're all over the place then your audience doesn't have anything to latch onto. And honestly, you cannot expect the readers to keep up with you; they have their varied interests as well and only so much time and energy for your or anyone else's work.

Now there's nothing wrong with having lots of interests. I do too; there's a huge variety of genres I want to write stories in, but if there's one thing I've learned the hard way is that you have to finish one story at a time. There's almost no way around this if you want to have a good cohesive story as well as something your readers can follow you for. Also working on one story at a time means that as you finish things, you build a catalog of finished works that new readers can explore and you can be proud of for finishing.

Yes it's technically possible to do multiple stories at a time but...in my experience that spreads you too thin. And trust me I've tried, over and over and over for the last 6 odd years and it has not worked. It's only when I hunkered down and focused on completing ONE story at a time and not working on any other stories during that time did I start to see not only greater productivity on my part but also more success in my patreon and on tapas. It's hard to do when you have other interests, but anything worth doing imo is hard to do. If it was easy, then we'd have loads more successful creators wouldn't we?

I don't have a clear picture of what your goals are except to:
Have engagement from the followers you do have. (based on OP's most recent post)

The only way I've learnt to do this is in Comics (I can't speak to fanart cause I don't make any unless I LOVE a thing and want to make art for it for myself, its otherwise a waste of time in terms of building an audience cause they rarely cross over to original work): At the end of every update, I have my own comments or questions for the audience in my Author Note. This encourages people to talk to me.

Early on, and as often as I can now, I replied to every. single. comment. Every one. The best way to keep the readers you have is this: Post consistently, finish the dang story, talk to them in the comment section-even if it's just to say "thanks for taking the time to comment' or 'i'm so glad you love it'.

So many readers don't expect authors to actually reply and talk to them. But when you do, it helps a lot. Because Other readers will notice how you engage your audience and that'll become part of your brand. You can't control whether or not they engage with your work. All you can do is make good work, post it, and then reply to the people who DO engage.

Final note. You want people to engage with your content: Which content exactly? You have to realize that if you make a variety of content, you're going to have various audiences that won't necessarily cross over at all.

Is it fanart of things you love and would draw ANYWAY? Then make more of that; pick One platform and learn best practices and then decide that if you're willing to do something once, you should be willing to do it dozens if not a hundred more times before you decide it's failed. [this is how I approach any new strategy for getting my content out there]

Is it your comics on Tapas? Same thing. Finish one story at a time, build up your library and let your readers follow one thing at a time cause that's all the time and energy they have to spare for your work. Finish a story first before you spread it to other platforms, cause then you can sell the entire thing, not just a work in progress to people who potentially don't read serial comics while they're in progress.

This this doesn't work for you, disregard all I've said.
This is the tactics and mindset that's worked for me so far so you can take what's useful and abandon the rest.