Is there a good way to gain subscribers quickly?

[vongcw]

You know, I'm always thinking there must be this super secret everyone is withholding from me about gaining subscribers because I'm not cool enough of something. But everyone tells me that it's all about time...

Hahaha - so I ain't got no advice for you but to say I feel you man. And every day I gotta remind myself that I got a good reason that I'm doing comics and that if I'm faithful to my craft (which includes promotion etc) success of some sort or other will come in time.

As my wife always lovingly chides me, "Darling, don't forget what you told me. You're playing to win the long game."

[shazzbaa]

My answer is that there is not a good way to gain subscribers quickly, but there are probably things you can do that will help you gain them slowly.

• Posting on the forums and sharing your comic here can give you a good start, though you're unlikely to shoot up, it's very likely to give you a little boost!
• Getting a social media presence doesn't pay off right away, but it's a big help as you grow. For now, just getting a twitter or tumblr or instagram or whatever and getting the hang of it is a good idea -- following other creators and figuring out how they use social media, and posting some of your art or thoughts and participating in communities there can help you start to grow an audience. You can't just jump in and post your comic and suddenly get noticed, but you can start to find friends and followers there.
• Update consistently for at least a year! Everyone might be sick of me saying "at least a year" on here, but that's actually the short version -- the cartoonist who gave me advice when I was starting out told me to keep it going for 2 years before I decided whether this was something I really wanted to do. But seriously: don't worry about whether this is too few subscribers or if you're not doing enough or whatever until you've been at it for at least a year!

[shaneoid77]

@vongcw I honestly think Aetherwar has a shot at hitting the big leagues, if you look at your competition, you're definitely tapping in to the zeitgeist of your contemporary webcomic creators, and your art and story is solid from the start. I think it'll be only a matter of time before you get a feature on here and you'll be flying, but Webtoons has a lot of this stuff and is very popular over there.

[vongcw]

@shaneoid77 Man. I'm like the feels over here! Thank you. I really mean it. I've been wanting to be a comic artist my whole life.

And yes, I took your advice to open a webtoon account and its over here. Pretty fun start and I'm still trying to figure out the nuts and bolts of it all (which is always part of the fun). Found and subbed to HOTWAB over there too. Is awesome.

[indagold]

well be true to yourself and be true to your work. Advertise it modestly and try your best.

If you care about subs only then turn into to a slice of life comedy with extra yaoi.

[Aspie_Gamer]

Yes and in this short video presentation, I'll reveal 3 ways to quickly gain subscribers for your fledgling comic (and then once you are hooked I will try to sell you my program full of more cutting edge advice for the low low price of $69.95), but hurry up. Angry webcartoonists are upset with me and are trying to have this video pulled down as quickly as possible.

Seriously though, as somebody who at the beginning of the year had less than 10 subs and only recently has passed the 100 sub mark, I can easily tell you that there's no one weird trick out there that will instantly get you new subscribers for your comic every time. However, I can say that by networking both here and on social media, you will over time see an increase in your sub count. Word to the wise however, don't pull the "NOTICE ME SENPAI" crap or some variation thereof. That will make you come across as desperate for attention and you do not want that to be people's first impression of you. Instead, check out other peoples comics. Like and subscribe to them as well as leave genuine comments relating to the story being told or if you can relate to it in someway, then that's the sort of commentary that will mark you as someone who's not just another subscriber in the eyes of the creator. Chatting up other creators is also something I would recommend particularly if both of have shared interests.

Updating consistently is another way for depending on how much traffic your comic generates every day combined with sharing new updates on social media, it can get your comic into the sites "trending" section which can help earn you new subs depending on what sort of comic you are making. In fact, it helps to have a load of finished pages sitting on your computer ready to be published one at a time and that way, should something come up, you can still reap the benefits of consistency while you are unable to draw new pages. Hope this advice helps.

[navyzerimar]

There is no quick way to increase your audience...

Keep working hard (update regularly), interact with creators around tapastic and share your work in social media, it helps a lot but there is no shortcuts about growing audience for your work. The most important thing is to keep working at it, be passionate about what you are doing and slowly but surly you will see your audience grow...

Just like indagold says: be true to yourself and your work

[haleymewsome]

Creating a variety of social media outlets for your work is a really good step, you never know what's going to work out for you, I actually have more subscribers on Youtube than I do on Tapastic right now, and I use that to grow my audience here. And if people follow you on multiple sites, they start seeing you as a person/creator rather than just a machine for comics, which may increase their interest in you.

[J.Lovelace]

I'm glad I am not the only person here noticing the "Tumblr-style" around.
Like, I even thought it's only me calling it that way XD

[pwh13]

Either be a BL webcomic, or, as a few have mentioned, post consistently for over a year. I was not a believer of the year thing at first, but that changed a few months ago (which was around my first year of posting my comic.)

I think subs kind of come in ebbs and flows, at least, from my experience. Unless you're one of the following: Lucky, or BL.

[kencoon7]

In addition to what others have said, Offer Money. lol

[antimekii]

Idk if this would help but create an enticing thumbnail and banner. It's usually the first thing people see, people come for art then stay for the story. Also like they said you need luck on your side or go pander with the popular genres of the site.

[danrafter]

I'm new here, too. I'm focusing on hitting very small goals and then moving onto newer, slightly bigger goals. For instance, my first goal was to get 100 views on my comics here. I did that and that hit my next two goals of 200 and 300 views. My next goal is to get to 500. For subscribers, my first goal was to get to 10. I did that -- not easy, though -- and now I'm aiming for 20.

That's kind of a boring way to go about it, and those initial goal numbers probably seem laughably small to most posters here, but you have to start somewhere.

Dan

[shaneoid77]

Well, to quote the bard, "Expectation is the root of all heartache". Perhaps it would be a more pleasurable experience overall to enjoy the journey rather than focus on accruing the numbers.

[J.Z.Castillo]

It worked for me

[eleoza]

Aside from what people already mentioned I personally think leaving pages with cliffhangers is working to gain intrest too. Not all pages of course, but ocassionally pull the cliffhanger card so people look forward to what'll happen on the next page.

[AtaraxiaStudios]

Is there anything in particular you did to reach your goals?

[joannekwan]

You guys forgot that in addition to the BL tag, the art must be in color and drawn in an in-offensive unoriginal way preferably with influences from manga/anime or stuff floating around tumblr derivative of Steven Universe and other series and/or artists with large fanbases over there.

But in all seriousness, just put up the best quality you can muster consistently. Advertise on any social media accounts you have and definitely don't be a stranger here on the forums! I pretty much know of everyone here and the respective series they do.

[miesmud]

There is literally no way good way. No tricks, nothing.

I got quite a lot of followers on my comics by doing nothing special. For instance: I don't have any following on social media, I don't update frequent, I never think about what my followers would like to see, I don't really interact with my followers nor with other people on Tapastic and I'm not active on the forums at all.

So I think not caring about your follower-count, but just making the comic you want to make, is the best way to get a followers. Because that's really the only thing I did.

BUT telling your friends and family to look at it may be rewarding, my mom was one of my first subscribers haha.

[mg78]

quickly? spam everywhere with everykind of media and modality.

Put 'BL' on the icon?

ownage XD