I recently came to the realization that most of the comics and novels I have bookmarked and read regularly are Premium, which means most of the hard-earned coins I get (so…many…ads…) go towards unlocking them, rather than towards tipping other artists. Which is really rather sad, because if you look at it, Tapas is more than happy to promote the Premium stories, and I don't think I've yet to see a Premium story with less than a thousand subs. But what about the free stories? As far as I can tell, they rarely get featured on the Tapas homepage, and when they do, they're already really popular with a huge, or at least decently-sized, reader base. Like Centralia 2050 or whatnot. It takes a long time for those small, unpromoted/featured stories to get enough subscribers to even get tipping, and then once they do, how many people actually remember to tip on a regular basis?
So I've been trying to think, how can small-time creators get better noticed in a crowd of big-name stories? I know it's common for comics to take a few years to really get started and really get a base, but hey, we have an awesome tipping system here on Tapas and it should be used to support artists even more than it has been.
I think I've got an idea for a way to help, but my question is, how interested are you, fellow readers and creators, willing to participate?
My idea is to have a "feature" comic, in which once a week, I feature a comic/novel that doesn't yet have enough subs to get tipping, or has only barely crossed that threshhold, and then to encourage people to read, like, sub, and tip. Of course, I wouldn't feature anything without the creator's express permission. I know there are plenty of promotional-like threads here in the forums, but to be honest, I rarely come on the forums, and I'm sure there are many other Tapas users who don't either. So how likely am I or they to stumble upon a unknown, fantastic comic? Not very likely. So with a weekly comic with features, instead of a thread just on the forums, maybe even more peope would be likely to find these stories and support their creators.
In order for this to work, I'd need enough people who are willing to participate and support, however. Both in finding comics and novels for me to feature and in subscribing and tipping to those.
So what say you, Tapas community? Is this an idea worth pursuing?