Is It Just Me Or Is Promoting A Chore?

[bulgariansumo]

I know advertising and promoting are necessary to get eyes on your work, but does anyone else find it the biggest drain? How do you balance between promoting your work and the rest of your life? I've only put my novel Galactiquest (feel free to like, comment, and subscribe! ) in a few promotion threads, but I think it just ate up two hours of my time. Maybe I'm overthinking how I promote...

(The "like, comment, and subscribe" thing was a joke about how annoying I feel I come off promoting so much, unless... )

[RainbowCat]

YES I know it's necessary but I really don't enjoy promoting. I tried to promote my work on Instagram and... it just feels so... annoying. Now I've started a TikTok account because people told me that's great for promotion but making those short videos takes forever
But I know that I overthink how I promote and I'm not really good at social media stuff

[bulgariansumo]

Ohhhh, I've heard of people doing short videos on TikTok and Instagram to promote their writing. I feel like I would die if I attempted that, so good luck to you. I don't know if I'm really good at social media stuff either, so we're in the same boat!

[TheLemmaLlama]

It's definitely not just you, though I personally don't relate that much these days. In fact, I feel like I talk about my comic way more than I should right now considering not much of it is even out yet :'D

What excites you about your comic? It probably helps to just think of it as discussing your passion with friends/random strangers at a party rather than promotion :] I could easily sink 2 hours into a writeup about my comic (now if I could only put that much time into working on the comic itself XD)

(TL;DR - have a secondary motive in addition to getting eyes on your work. That way, if you don't succeed in one goal, it doesn't feel like a complete waste of time :])

[Zhengo]

Yeah, I'm more interested in the creating and promoting. I definitely think I should still do more of it as it currently stands. But some days I'm just not in the mood for promoting, so I just don't. There's always tomorrow

[ShidoDraws]

I don't like the promoting part of the process either. Even though I did a ton of promotions during the first month of my comic's release I have strayed away from promoting my comic and instead I decided to wait until at least two more chapters completely release because I would actually have something to offer in my story. I don't do well with pressure so I promote as slow as my pacing. Haha!

[doublemelon]

It is a chore when the promotions don't work. But when it works, it feels like magic.

And most of the times, it doesn't work lol.

[smokesalty]

I put as little amount of time into regular promotions here (I just paste a synopsis, put in my cover art and link) because it's not that exciting. For me it's just become a part of letting people know I updated.

I also sometimes show off my art/comic in twitter promo threads but sometimes I just cannot be bothered to go looking for my art through my phone so I just don't or I save the thread for later.

Don't love it but I'll at least do what I consider the bare minimum for me if I don't have the energy just to get a couple eyes on my comic.

I love talking about my comic, so I will happily discuss in discussion threads. If one of my tweets on twitter do well I'll put a sneaky little link to my comic which seems to work decently.

With tiktok, there are days where I'll sit down and make a bunch of videos at once because I know I cannot bring myself to do it everyday, so I'll just post a bunch in one go.

So yeah, sometimes it is a chore, depends on the day

[NickRowler]

I hate promoting. I don't think I am good at it. I sort of wish I had a hundred gremlin fans who just did all the work for me. I just wish I could use social media to do something more fun instead of dry ass promo tweets.

[Caro]

I have spent YEARS posting every weekday and then one day realized I hated the grind of it— but having the numbers I did was what got me work doing comics for websites, WT, getting animation work, and getting publishers so it sort of became a necessity (I think it helped anyway).

Right now, my books just kinda sell by the way of being in comic shops and though I know promoting them better on my page will sell more I am infinitely more happy not posting more tan I feel like it now. Sometimes I go whole months without posting anything. My number one focus this year is to keep the momentum up with my books so I can start relying less on my own promotion powers because ultimately I just want to make comics. Not be a professional social media manager. I also feel like comics is a medium full of introverts so promo stuff feels like the hardest thing in the world for a lot of people.

[TheSingularitySeed]

Yeah it can be a little exhausting.

It feels like taking a pick axe to the iceberg of social media algorithms. Until something breaks through, it can feel unproductive so I only post things I like which can also hinder growth.

I've committed to posting something small on Twitter and Instagram about once a day for a month to see if it's worth the time sink. so far very meh

Results might be better on Tiktok, Instagram Reels, and Youtube Shorts which I haven't tried yet.

[bulgariansumo]

@TheLemmaLlama Oh, that sounds a good way to approach it! But I think part of what I'm worried about is what you said about talking about it more than you should. Though I don't consider either of the novels particularly spoiler-worthy, there are some things I wonder would be better if I saved them as a surprise, you know?

@Zhengo Yeah, there's always tomorrow!

@ShidoDraws My story's also fairly slow-paced, so I wonder if I should go with that approach.

@doublemelon It's kind of like gambling that way, isn't it?

@smokesalty

(I just paste a synopsis, put in my cover art and link)

Is there a way to do this without the system seeing it as spam? I feel like I got warned about that before.

@NickRowler Meee too

@Caro Oh, that's interesting you're selling physical copies! I imagine promoting is waaay more important in that arena. I'm glad you have enough momentum to rely less on it, and I definitely understand the sentiment of "I want to create, not be a professional social media manager." And yeah! With promoting, it feels like you have to put on not only a more extroverted personality, but a charming one (whatever that entails.) I can't speak for everyone else, but it's a real drain on me personally.

@TheSingularitySeed It does feel like that. Hopefully your experiment works out!

[AlydaB]

I hate self-promotion and most social media in general. I see it as a chore and a drain for sure, but also as a sad necessity if I want anyone to read my work. Which.. I guess I do lol, if I'm going to put that much time into making this time-devouring thing I genuinely believe is good and worth reading.

I think most of my loathing for promotion stems from my being very, very introverted in a way that's made me unaware of social etiquette (online or irl). Interaction with the group (rather than the individual) feels like a bunch of hoops I gotta jump through in an elaborately specific way that has been deemed correct through majority consensus and is therefore effective. Everyone else knows the rules and what should be said and done, but I missed the lesson.

When I try to educate myself on said rules, I find that I really don't want to follow them because they make me feel false. It's unnatural. Forced. Like work. Which it is, now that I think about it. Bleghh.

I've found that I can get myself to work on promoting myself more only if I turn it into something fun or engaging. Participation in discussion threads, challenges, art trades, collabs, or creating pretty promo art to share is more tolerable than posting regular updates for the algorithm..

Ahh. And I'm now reminded that I have not posted on my Instagram in over a month :')

[rumpenstiltzkin]

It drains me so much I practically dont promote anymore unless I happen to have a little time over and feel like I can do it without stressing over it.

It is what it is, I may not get that much traffic to the comic but my mental health goes first

Joining challenges here on tapas forum/other places can be a way of promoting that is a bit more fun tho and doesnt feel as much as a chore and not as stressful!

Making your own challenges Ive noticed also helps as a bit of promoting - I did a dtiys in the beginning of my comic and now Im holding a new challenge and Im thinking that when other ppl join in and they post it on their social media and talk about it spreads a little bit at least and can maybe catch someones eye and check out where the challenge comes from

[TheLemmaLlama]

I think most of my loathing for promotion stems from my being very, very introverted in a way that's made me unaware of social etiquette (online or irl).

I wouldn't say I'm introverted, but I am definitely also very unaware of social etiquette! But that actually makes me more comfortable interacting with groups than individuals, because the way I see it, in a large enough group chances are there's someone who will defend me or at least internally sympathise with my foot-in-mouth syndrome and not assume the worst, whereas interacting with one person is very swingy; they either disapprove of you or they don't, and being disapproved of with no-one to back me up is way scarier imo :'D

When I try to educate myself on said rules, I find that I really don't want to follow them because they make me feel false.

In my experience at least, online communities don't seem to care about arbitrary, unnatural rules as much as people irl. I find it quite different from politicking around at uni/work/family gatherings, which is definitely not fun for the reasons you mentioned.

I think the thing that makes it worst for me though is the high stakes involved; there's more pressure to following the rules if the people you're talking to are keeping you fed, or have your professional reputation in the palm of their hands.

I guess this is no different if you want to be a professional comic artist as well, and want to be seen as reliable as well as good. But I think (in this day and age, at least) you can still get eyes on your work without caring that much about professionalism, which eliminates some of the stakes. In a low stakes interaction, it's safer to stand up for what you believe in and refuse to follow pointless rules. In fact, I think a good number of people would respect you for it :]

I've found that I can get myself to work on promoting myself more only if I turn it into something fun or engaging.

I think that's the most effective form of promotion anyway! In fact, there's a lot of people out there who give creators crap about not being 'genuine', so forced promotion might sometimes do more harm than good (even though I personally don't condone that attitude; it's one thing if they're being spammy, but I don't like calling people 'fake' for sounding a bit awkward or stilted.)

I've actually always thought of regular updates as a content creation thing rather than a promotion thing, but I guess the whole point of it is to get the algorithm to show your series more often, so it actually is a promotion thing after all XD ... Okay, I guess I hate promotion more than I thought

[smokesalty]

Is there a way to do this without the system seeing it as spam? I feel like I got warned about that before.

I mean for me I don't write entirely the same synopsis, I change things around. I only really promote my series as a whole when there's a thread I haven't promoted in yet (so it's not enough to be spam). Otherwise, when I update I'll usually show off new pages

[darthmongoose]

Promotion is a pain, yeah, and I know very few artists who actually enjoy it.... Or perhaps it's more accurate to say I rarely make friends with or enjoy spending time around the kind of artist who likes promoting themselves more than actually making stuff! Realistically, though, I find very few of those sorts of people actually end up in comics, because they're so labour-intensive, so people who like to talk about their work more than actually making the work more often end up as Fine Artists, or drop out of art and make self-help books or similar, or go into Design, play office politics and become Creative Directors.

Something I often find annoying is when people think that because I dutifully promote my work regularly and try to follow the rules of "professional conduct" like always speaking positively about my work in public and managing my "personal brand" by always jumping up to be like "hey! It's Pride Month! I'm a lesbian artist! Look at my work!", that I must be somebody who loves promoting my work and have an easy time of it. It's really not the case, I actually really hate promoting and a perfect world for me would be one where everyone has equal visibility regardless of location, gender, race, sexuality or background and it's literally just all about the quality of the work. Anyone who knows me in real life knows I'm actually a shy, awkward, extremely anxious person and I really agonise over promoting myself because "taking attention" feels unfair. I just happen to have friends and family who really encourage me to get out there, so I try to encourage others to promote themselves too.

Honestly my favourite way to promote myself is helping other people. I like when people check out my work because they thought my advice or reviews of other people's comics were insightful, and they want to see how I apply my knowledge and experience to my own work. To me, that's a big compliment, and it feels fairly earned. I'd much rather people read my work because they think I'm a skilled storyteller than because I'm a gay autistic woman, but making use of opportunities designed to showcase identities marginalised in print comics is unfortunately a necessity because the industry is so skewed (and I know some will want to debate that, but I've been on the print comics scene for years, I've seen it with my own eyes, I've experienced it personally, it's not something I came to believe through just reading stuff online). I hope to see a day when it isn't, and I try not to take advantage, like I didn't participate in Women's History Month on Tapas because it felt unfair when I just got on the Bonus Program to take a place that could feature a lesser known female creator. Really, though, I want to be respected for my skills, and I'd really prefer a fair fight where people decide if they want to read or not just based on whether they like the comic.

[GumshoeComix]

it's exhausting, and not worth the very little traction it gets for the amount of effort I have to put in. I honestly just hate social media in general, I want to just make my comic, post updates, and leave it at that.

[steffiemusings]

I find it to be so much of a chore, especially when the outcome isn't worth the energy spent on it. Trying to gain more readers just stresses me out.

Then again, I'm just feeling very cynical about self-promo nowadays as it feels like I'm shouting in the void, even when I tried so hard to engage with other creators.

Nowadays, I'm just going to spend all that energy on my webcomics and just aim to finish them.

[powerplantanimations]

My brain just turns off when I do it if I'm being honest. Like it's natural. This is gonna sound weird, but I've been practicing since I was a kid. I would always write lists in my notebook as if my games were going to be successful. I got nothing to do all day in class but come up with fictional promotion deals.

Although I'm being real, the frustrating part for me is figuring out what works and what doesn't work. Like I wanna be more efficient, so I try to shed off some of the stuff I do. For example; I stopped posting on Amiino and stopped going Buckwild on Discord. I stopped doing YouTube because no one was watching my videos anymore. TikTok would be easy if I had a new phone. I don't get any attention on Twitter. Same with Deviantart. There's also groups on Facebook, but eh. Yesterday I found out that Insta was my lifeline. I tried out different tags on this picture and I got 9 views. I usually get 15 views or above but it just dropped.

I'm currently developing a new YouTube Channel and I plan on rebooting my Twitter account where I make funny comments and memes instead of coldly advertising my comic. Hopefully that'll do the job. At least I know Holiday specials give me a significant boost.