If offered to be featured on webtoon- would you take it?

[smokesalty]

I know this is very unlikely for a lot of people including myself, but I was thinking about the possibility and I've realised that I lean more towards 'no.'

Please comment your answers below!

It's an amazing opportunity, so maybe I'd change my mind if it actually happened who knows.

Here's why I'd say no currently:

1. I don't want to have to make a certain amount of panels in a week. I tend to average 12-20 panels a week, and thinking about making the usual 40 panels sounds like a nightmare to me. I feel like it would decrease the quality of my work. And I would not have the schedule to complete that much work.
2. Health- I tend to overdo making comics usually, because I love working on my comic which can cause wrist issues for me.
3. I would have to stop posting on places like tapas and instagram (I have an account just for comic pages.) I feel like it would suck to build a following on these sites only to have to remove it and remain on webtoon, at least for me.
4. I wouldn't be able to post the page version of my comic anywhere, or sell volumes of my comic until the contract with webtoon has ended (I'm not sure if that's exactly how it works, but you are exclusive to webtoon). I like the scroll version of the comic, but I'd like to have my page comic out there.
5. I've noticed a lot of featured webtoons are long running and also tend to stretch out the plot. I don't know if this is because of webtoon, the editors or the artist, but I wouldn't want to stretch out my story and make it unenjoyable to me and readers.

Anyways, keep in mind I don't know too much about being featured, so feel free to correct me.

[darthmongoose]

I would really prefer to have a premium comic on Tapas over webtoon. Webtoon is really impersonal and opaque, while Tapas is pretty open and transparent about their contracts, and even with their exclusive premium series, they don't also take the rights for stuff like print editions (see how Magical Boy is being published by Scholastic in print). Friends and contacts I have who have premium stuff on Tapas have all praised the contract because they are SO much more creator friendly than most industry contracts are in terms of rights and stuff.

I don't know about webtoon, and it's seriously hard to find intel because they really don't make this info readily available, but if Tapas offered me a premium contract, or even just to be on the early access programme, I'd leap at the chance!

I don't know about expected panel count for Tapas, but it looks from comics I follow like Pandora's Devils, that they do have a system of "seasons" to try to mitigate the stress somewhat. I currently make in the region of 6-12 panels a week on top of a part time job, so I'd have to look at what was expected and decide based on that. They do tend to provide helpers for things like flatting or lettering though, which would be a serious boost to my output and perhaps make it possible.

[Llyrel]

Judging from what I've seen, I seriously doubt I'd be able to take a Webtoon Original contract. Here's why:

• Their panel requirements are way too high for my taste. With my current job, I can barely find enough free time to draw one print format page a week (around 5-7 panels). I know that Webtoon usually asks you to redraw your series from scratch and to simplify your style so that you can produce more pages faster, but even then, I could get maybe... what, 2-3 pages a week done without leaving my job? To keep up with their schedules, I'd have no other option but to leave my job... which brings us to the next point.
• Webtoon contracts are for one webcomic series only. You may get an offer to do more series with them, but there's no guarantee. That means that I would get to work on my series for one, two, maybe even 10 years... but then, once it's over, I'd be in my mid-to-late thirties (possibly even in my early forties) and unemployed, in a country where finding a stable job is incredibly difficult for young people and pretty much impossible for anyone over the age of 29. No, thanks.
• The salary doesn't seem to be that high? Judging from what what little info I could find, I'd be getting less than my current salary and only for a limited amount of time. I can barely afford to live on my own with my current salary, I definitely can't afford to get less

I think Tapas does allow a slightly lower amount of panels, so perhaps a contract with Tapas would be more feasible? °° ...But yep, I'd have to take a look into their salaries and expected schedules before making a decision.

Basically: if the contract allows me to keep my current job and become a premium creator, then yes, sure. But if I have to leave my current job for a lower salary and zero stability, nope.

[Aeneas1]

Probably not. One often hears mixed reports about Webtoon.

[Zino]

No, because i have a full time job so squeezing, what, 60 panels a week on top of that sounds like a nightmare for my shoulders. Plus then I'd worry that what if i run out of ideas while deadlines are approaching etc. It's much more relaxed just to work on my comic at my own pace and take breaks whenever i want/need.

[Lev404]

well if I even was legal age to get contracted by Webtoon I wouldn't take it because if I posted in several places I think I would even get more money out of ad revenue than the low salary that webtoon provides and plus I can publish whatever content I want without restrictions of gore and stuff, and in my own time rate, and with webtoon the company itself put lots of pressure to modify the story or prolonge it to the follow standards

[Lev404]

And the salary, sure some creators get over 100,000 a year but if your series isnt as succesful you can get as little as 10,000

[Kelheor]

but if your series isnt as succesful you can get as little as 10,000

No, it's stated by some creators their basic salary is 2K\month and that's without any ads or anything.
The problem starts when they need to get a few assistants and they pay for the help themselves.

[Lev404]

yeye I was talking about yearly salary

[Caro]

I did it before and I would not do it again!

[Shanny8]

Nope. The amount of money they pay for featured comics/webcomics is not worth it to me...right now I'd say that I make a lot more with my current FT gig than I would if I worked on webcomics full time.

The extra revenue comes in from sales & stuff outside of working on the comic(like streaming, P*treon, and commissions); I'm pretty sure there are cases where so-n-so's comic might be popular, but they aren't making the outside revenue...

[Lev404]

@Caro what was your Webtoon???

[euphisa]

I would. A minimum salary of 2k per months seems low, but if my webtoon becomes successful, I might be able to live a comfortable life off making webtoons.

I'm only a student, so financial stability isn't my top priority. I'd hire assistants to meet the weekly quota if I have to, many featured webtoon creators have assistants anyways.

I heard webtoon is very understanding in letting their creators go on hiatus, so I could take a break whenever I feel too stressed or if anything happened that would delay my webtoon.

[Swamp]

Yeah, I already have a full time job, and not great baseline health, but I would love to spent more time creating so would consider accepting. My stories already tend to be longform, so what I'd need would be
-Enough to pay assistants to keep work doable
or
-Enough to quit my job and go all in

[Caro]

We don’t talk about her 🥲

[rajillustration]

On webtoon? We'd probably not agree on the contract just because my style isn't really meant to be at that output and I don't have enough following to prove that I can still get the page views anyway. If it were an early access non-exclusive thing with Tapas? Sure. I already have a huge buffer, I can do things three episodes ahead. But overall, I can't say yes or no, because when you do a contract agreement, it's a lot of back and forth and negotiating. I've heard some creators talk about how they work up to 60 panels a week, and I've heard other's say they negotiated down to 30 every other (which is like...I could easily do that). It really depends on what you can get for your salary, your rights, and all of that.

For right now I'm just focusing on trying to build an audience, because without that, I'm not going to be approached by nobody, youknow

[masi]

Hmmm….the earning seems to vary very wildly from what I gather. From news articles i’ve seen the average korean authors get around 200k per year last year or two years ago I forgot. Some top titles get millions and the top title gets upwards of 10 millions. But the keyword is it varies wildly. So I’d assume that some people would be struggling to get an assistant or two while the top creators make millions. I don’t know if I’d take the offer and take the gamble since my style is kind of time consuming right now and I’m scared if they don’t guarantee assistants for me lol. Base salary is so low it’s not that reassuring.

Webtoon CEO Sees Massive Growth And New Opportunities In U.S. Market

[yoboketto]

I would love to take the opportunity, but I’m a full time High School student, who is taking College classes, as well as babysitting.

Since there seems to be a mandate of 1 episode per week that has 40-60 panels, I don’t think I could whip something up that quickly and good quality!

[RedLenai]

Well, I was approached to pitch a series to be a Featured one. Personally speaking, I wasn't what they were looking for but they told me "If your series becomes popular, we'll come back to you! We encourage you to publish it on Canvas!". However I believe they didn't actually care about my pitch since they first mistook the name of the Series for 2 another ones I worked on but never mentioned to them, as well for the fact they ignored the main focus of the series and only cared that "Comedies aren't really popular on the platform" (But my story was not a comedy, it was a Urban Fantasy )

Back then, they were launching Webtoon Spanish so they wanted "series oriented to Gen Z to appeal the latinamerican cultures" So I based my story on Argentina, focused on a teenager girl who was going through the phase of discovering her identity, what she wanted to do once she finished high-school, working part-time for her brother at his Pizzería and on top of that, supernatural creatures (From latinamerican mythology) living among the human society. Basically I wanted to make a drama involving leaving the comfort bubble of childhood to enter adulthood, and the crash of said worlds and perspective.

Usually, webcomic making specially on Webtoon has a long period of backlog making so you won't have to do weekly episodes of 40 panels with a short deadline. Usually, they work with artists and authors for nearly a year with preparation before starting publishing the series as I've seen some of Spanish authors that became Originals delaying their debuts at least twice. This is according to other people who became Featured authors, but obviously, if your series doesn't meet the criteria it can be cancelled at any time or become a 40 episode story at least, you're not only being paid by the amount of panels but by viewership if I recall correctly but these "plus"s are only added to the later episodes, not the first ones. Webtoon has this thing that they need each episode to end up in a cliffhanger and their formula it's always pretty much vanilla when it comes to plots when it's not an action/adventure/suspense story and yes, they stretch it a lot and fill in between.

A lot of Canvas Authors actually reject becoming Originals not only because they'll have to re-draw their series, simplify them, color them (Yes, grayscale or white & black webtoons are usually rejected) as well to modify the time pace of their story according to an editor but because they earn more money with Ad Revenue and their donation platforms than with what Webtoon would offer them on contracts. And of course, assistans/any additional help is payed solely by the author, be it colorists, background artists, secondary editors, letterist, etc.

I got contacted too to apply to be the artist for another of their pitched series but I rejected the work since even if they didn't provide me the name of the other author or the series, the plot alone was... too boring and vanilla to me, as well I already worked for a romance story so I didn't want to work for another one back then.

Right now I'm working on three different series, so I have my hands full, as well I like to have free time for myself be it to doodle my own stuff, make art for friends or simply taking naps. I'm not struggling in terms of money so that's also another reason.

[akitsukino]

I’be genuinely been thinking of trying to pitch to Tapas Premium or at least Studio Tapas but I’ve had trouble finding out more info on it. When it comes to how Webtoon works behind the scenes you can sort of hear rumblings through the grapevine about how it works (like that one thread on here by a featured Webtoon artist). I can’t seem to find that from any Tapas artists and, aside from Magical Boy, it seems like a lot of non-Korean Tapas Orginals / Studio Tapas / Premiums series haven’t finished/ are stuck on indefinite hiatuses.