Lack of Engagment How To Stay Postive?

Lack of engagement is definitely the worst feeling when you spend a lot of your time on a piece or a project. Sometimes you have to put those feelings aside, though, and just keep on creating. Hopefully, with each new thing you make, you're improving your ability. It might take a few years of silence from the "audience" but as you focus on improving, hopefully the work you do begins to receive more attention and feedback. Waiting for that and staying positive can be really hard sometimes when it feels like your shouting into an internet black hole, but the alternative is to just stop all together, which I think is even more sad.

If at all possible look for an IRL friend (or a specific online friend, someone you can talk with one-on-one) you can share pages/art with. Maybe show the page to the friend a day early so they can feel special too, and know that you look forward to what they have to say about it.

You can be responsive to people's comments and questions when they do happen and that's helpful, but there's no way to make them happen -- and sometimes trying to prompt/force that kind of engagement is even more discouraging.

It's definitely tough to get through periods of feeling like no one is listening. I had similar feelings about tumblr early on ("oh, I see my homestuck fanart got 200 notes and my comic got.....1.... should I even be posting this here???"); but now I get more feedback there than any of my other social media presences. I agree with @starsyscomics that you just have to keep making things and promoting them despite the lack of apparent appreciation in order to ever get that audience.... but yeah, that's hard. If you can find anyone in your life that you can share things with, it's easier to know that you're making this for someone.

(as an aside, a bunch of people here have said dA seems to just have less commenting than it used to; I don't think that fault lies with you).

My routine is horribly sketching a good number of pages in advance and making them available only to close friends who are familiar with my characters, so they'll have an easy time knowing what's going on. At first I don't tell them anything to see if twists, cliffhangers, jokes and so on work as intended, and if needed I can still ask for specific feedback afterwards.

By the time I actually get around lining and coloring the pages, I'll have "forgotten" the sometimes frustrating amount of time that went into paneling and sketching. Instead I'll remember that I did get feedback on it and think of it as a chance to improve it. By having multiple pages done in advance, I don't focus on how much time I spent on a page and how much feedback I'm "expecting" when I'm actually posting it. That used to be one of my biggest mistakes years ago that caused me to quit all the time; I posted pages right after finishing them and always felt unsatisfied even though lack of reader engagement is "normal" up to a certain degree. Posting things too soon also made editing a hassle and I ended up with pages I didn't truly like and everything about updating comics was just frustrating.

Now I'm assuming a lot of people are already doing exactly this, and it's not my "main" key to staying positive either. What seems to help the most is completely disengaging myself from thinking like the author and look at my comic from a reader's point of view. Is there really much to say about the latest page? Has the story moved on enough? Did I even get to the "good parts" yet? My answer is usually no, even when I think of the chapters I drafted in advance. I don't go crazy over non-indie things I like within only a few chapters either. It's usually a much longer process, so I'll have to give readers the same amount of material it takes to really get into it. Hard work? Yes. Rewarding? No idea, but I'll never stop believing in it.

Sometimes being a little in your face but not too much can help boost my motivation too. Showed the first few pages to a group of friends who I met in a game half-expecting them not to like it because it's quite different from our shared hobby, but I gained an amazing supporter and very nice comments from the group. They enjoy it--I just had to ask. A lot of (potential) readers aren't writers or artists themselves and might not realize how much of an impact feedback has for us. Whereas others might feel like their feedback might not be appreciated even though it obviously would. I just don't focus on the negative sides of people not commenting, instead I guess they might not have much to say, be shy, or think of it as a "no news is good news" kinda thing.

I made a post on my Tumblr blogs where I have over 300 followers each and the response was rather small. When I'm being completely honest with myself though, I know that 99% of my art blog followers came for Haikyuu fanart, while the other blog had its focus on another fandom. They didn't follow me for my original work in the first place. And if I'm being even more honest, when I follow someone in a certain fandom, that's what I'll be looking at first and anything beyond that will need a little more time to convince me it's worth reading or looking at. So if that's how people react to my posts, I probably won't like it, noone would, but I definitely understand.

tl;dr having a casual feeling about posting pages, lowering expectations, engaging friends and thinking like a reader tend to help me the most.

There's also a sense of "nothing's going to happen if I quit or restart all the time, but if I keep going, maybe I can bring others the same joy I get from drawing and writing about my characters" in the back of my mind. All the time. Even when your confidence or whatever is telling you that it seems pointless, take it as a challenge to prove that nagging voice wrong.

I didn't even think of this one but it's super true for me too! When I post stuff right away there's a lot more expectation of a response, as if I just finished it and put it in front of someone's face and I'm waiting for their reply. Putting space in between creating and posting it helps a lot with needing that feedback, because I've given myself time to figure out how I feel about the piece, and input or lack thereof can't hit me as hard.

THIS ONE TOO. I have done this exact thing on my comic, when I went through a particular scene where the amount of comments I was getting dropped off. It was really worrying, but I realised it was also a scene with characters the readers didn't know as well, and also one where they weren't sure what was happening yet. I mean, as much as I would never get tired of hearing it, there's only so many different ways to type "I wonder what's going to happen next!!" so a scene where readers couldn't speculate or put anything together on meant they all went quiet.

These are ALL suuuuper good thoughts though!!

What you're living on DeviantArt IS happening to me right now, and I know, it feels awful. I actually started to simply not going there, it just makes me feel sad, I'm seeing if I'll leave definitely or not so for now, it's like a hiatus from DA.
Fortunately, I found a friend with I can share my things and she helps me to cheer up and continue drawing, but now I'm mostly here in Tapastic, working in my comic, I actually get more attention here and it's better to talk with people here, I even get constructive criticism and I love when that happens cause they help me out
My friends on Facebook also helps me to stay positive about the things in my comic, so I don't fall that much in negativity.

Something that helped me too is making a facebook page, I have a descent number of followers and less than half are people I actually know--so that caught me by surprise. Also getting an Instagram for your phone is loads better than posting on tumblr, I've noticed.

I only posted 8 WIPs and gained a faster following than all the things on tumblr. (Which i don't update as much, but it showed how there's people openly looking for artists' work)

The idea is to find something a lot of people use but also have the community: you post webcomics on tapastic because people here WANT to read webcomics. Instagram is much the same, aside from taking photos of food, there's a pretty big artistic community there, and as for facebook, almost everyone has one and all they have to do is click like.

So stay positive, and try to reach out via other sites and alternatives. I've heard twitter's great too but I personally can't seem to get into it.

PS, this is the most inspirational topic I've read so far, so thank you.

I pretty much agree with what everyone else has said in this thread. It can be extremely difficult to even continue working on a comic when there is lack of engagement. I've been doing comics for quite some time and what has helped me during down times was sharing my comic pages with friends, especially on pages i've spent 24+ hours on! You kind of make it an effort to make sure 'someone' sees the page if you've put in the effort xD!

I actually experience the same thing as you on DA, but that might be because I only post things a few times a month on there. I think getting a lot of exposure on any platform just takes time, unless some big celebrity comes along and shares your work or something. It took my 2 years for my second comic to really take off, it was about 100+ pages in at that point.

Oh yes, dA has definitely dwindled down in the interactivity field recently. I'm thinking the novelty's worn down. Kids online grew up around it and it's not as fresh and intrepid as it once was. Tumblr removing their reply system certainly hasn't helped pick up the slack but that platform was never very helpful for new artists. So... I feel engaging others is a lot more difficult now even when you extend a hand.

That being said, getting face-time with someone you know is KEY! Once I graduated and moved, I didn't have friends to show/talk to about my art. So I finally turned to my brothers, which was really hard because they tease me a lot about my cartoons, hah^^ But it was worth the nervousness! Now I'm getting (hilarious) feedback from a third party and it's helped my confidence loads. Plus, you can whine around about not getting much of a response without the guilt of appearing whiny online! X]

Yes, a very common feeling of dread when a post doesn't receive the same amount of reciprocated love that you put into making it.

My solution is I tend to try to forget about things once they're posted and I'm done advertising it all over social media, I stop thinking about it and start working on the next page to post. I, of course, will respond to comments and interactions that I do get from it, however, I don't let myself get wrapped up in it. I have too much work to let that happen haha

However! There are also ways and methods that artists can use to make themselves more appealing to engage with. I explored the concept a little bit in the first post of this thread.

The question is also brought up in this thread post too with lots of great advice:

I agree that Deviant Art has gone down hill, many artists are abandoning their profiles, and engagements are quite terrible there, but I think Tapastic yet again excels in this area. Interactions on Tapastic are great with so many happy positive readers that it's the main site I focus my efforts on for really having fun and being engaging.

Each site has their own social norms. Tumblr is more of a blog site so beyond likes, reblogs, and the occasional short comment string, it's also not the site for engagements for me. It's more of a place to post art process posts, WIPs, extra sketches, a few update links, etc.

This is another one of my favorite forum posts on building a social media presence you might find informative:

Above all remember that as an artist you create because it is fulfilling to you. You have to have a burning desire to create and let it out. The audience will come.

Like everyone said it's tough, some content quality aside will just be more engaging than others. I just keep making stuff, if the last thing I made didn't get the response I like then I'll just move on to the next thing.

Make the kind of work only you can make and it will get out there.

I go out of my way to engage with people I follow who may or may not be a follower of my comic. Offering guest comics (if they want them) isn't a bad way to not only help yourself, but also help the person you like as a creator here on Tapastic.

If you want engagement from them, you're going to need to engage them first.
People don't care about your burning passion to tell a story or how much work you put on a page, they want to know YOU'RE TALKING TO THEM.

For example, one way I drive interaction is by placing Easter eggs in my comics. Little hidden things that address the reader directly like a sign somewhere where I ask them if they want a coffee or little in-jokes that break the fourth wall so they are aware that the comic is self aware and that it is talking to them directly, not the nebulous internet.

If you simply tell them a story, they will sit there, quietly. If you address them directly and talk to them, they'll answer back.

The mysticism dispelled in breaking the ice, perfect! This is precisely how to be genuine in an approach with someone. The fluffy, rose-tinted lens of "my passion will get me seen" doesn't necessarily work if you aren't passionate about work in its whole which includes the people you're showing your work to... which I never even considered until recently! All by stepping outside of yourself, outside of your work. Give 'em something to talk about! X]

This is true for a good number of people, INCLUDING viewers who are creators themselves. But here's the flipside: if you had to ask, can you really expect the response to be as genuine or enthusiastic as an unsolicited response? This is the biggest factor that holds me back from asking. I don't want to make people feel pressured to say nice things about my work. Not saying solicited responses can never be genuine... but ehhh.

Another worry is that if my comic is just pages and pages of uninteresting stuff that's just required to be there for the good parts to make sense, is it really worth reading -- ESPECIALLY to people who don't even know whether the good parts are ever gonna happen?