We have two OEMs exclusively here on Tapas:
Crowned!
My My Tenshi Life
As far as success/struggles, getting eyes on either series has always been a challenge and we're constantly experimenting with different ways of promoting them. "Trending" has been generous to us when we've managed to land there, getting about 10-20 subs each time, but external marketing has been our biggest source of growth. Currently we're using Project Wonderful and Amazon. Amazon is getting better results but is much more expensive. We're looking into several more marketing avenues, namely Google AdWords and TopWebComics, that we hope to be launching in the near future.
We know there are a fair number of "purists" out there with disdain towards OEM but fortunately we've never been directly attacked by them. For the most part they just don't read, a choice which we respect. The majority of the negativity we've received are mostly readers who demand more frequent updates.
We figure the best way to break the OEM stigma is to produce the best we possibly can. There was so much low quality material sold in the 2000s that the genre has a negative reputation. We hope that what we produce can be part of the movement that changes that reputation. Eventually there will be an OEM with both such exceptional art and storytelling that it breaks the purist barrier and the industry will be better for it. Creators should be able to create what they want to, not feel pressured to do something a certain way because of reader stigmas or a doomed-to-fail perception in the industry.
Our biggest concern going forward on Tapas is the invisible barrier a lot of OEMs and OEM styled comics face. It seems once series reach around 3k subs, its quite hard to advance further. Apricot Cookies! and Four Leaf are two excellent series that are prime examples of facing this barrier. AC! has been at it for two years and just does not want to break out, for whatever reasons.
Because the readership demographic of Tapas is more inclined to reading primarily gag-a-days and BLs, it does create an increased level of difficulty in finding success here. We've been encouraged by both readers and other creators to try other platforms for our series. Every platform has its positives and negatives and after careful consideration we think that Tapas is still the best choice among all the non-gated platforms available to creators.
We're not sure what the solution is to resolving the issue of demographics. The best we can come up with at this time is to continue to externally market and bring in a new kind of readership to the platform, which will benefit all OEM creators on the site. If enough OEM creators join Tapas they can attract a collective new readership which could lead to a lot of positives for all creators on the platform.