New Author, seeking to understand Tapas better

[Crusoe]

I've been having good experiences on tapas! Don't expect too large of a viewership compared to some of the comics on the site, especially in the first few weeks, but in general my readers have been very kind and some even very active in the comment section!

The audience for romance, BL and fantasy is in my experience the biggest, but other genres are also upcoming. I recommend posting 2 episodes per week for a novel, having a steady schedule and having a big backlog in case anything goes wrong if you want to ensure a steady growing readership and favour with the algorithm, but it's in no way a requirement for getting attention from readers.

This is all my personal experience, so good luck and I hope you'll have fun here!

[Johnny]

Hi, welcome to Tapas!! I've been here for a little under a month. It'll be a month in about two weeks. Ever since then I've been publishing my book called "The Cataclysm" and it's gone well-ish I'd like to say. I post a chapter every week and the first few have gotten their share of views!

As for forums, I'd say promoting yourself in any way is acceptable here for the most part. I usually spend selected days writing in the forums, getting myself out there, and finding other cool authors in there that I read as well! I'm sure you'll do great here with a nice audience and tons of nice colleagues!!!

Also, I'd definitely say try and ask questions or join discord to help understand your writing style and improve it!! :))

[cherrystark]

Welcome! Tapas has been a pretty good platform for sharing my work. What the others have said is dead on. Create your schedule and interact with others on the forums. I will also add that if you create posts asking for help or feedback - take the feedback with a grain of salt. Learn your writing style and how you learn/work best. Once you've learned that, you can adapt the feedback into something that works best for you.

Good luck on your work!

[Goats]

From your experience, what is the demographic of this site?
Is it geared more towards teens or young adults? Is the majority readers on this site Native English speakers or English as a Second Language? Is it more North American or European/Asian?
I hope I'm not overwhelming you with questions just trying to get a wider picture.
Oh, also! What is the one thing you love about Tapas?

[Goats]

Would you say the forums serve mostly the writers or the readers? Maybe a healthy mix of both?
What would you say is the one thing you love about Tapas?

Edit: I've noticed there's a fresh category, is there a limit how long a story is considered fresh? First 24hrs? First month?

[Goats]

Thank you for replying!
What would you say is the one thing you love about this platform?

[cherrystark]

People here are actually willing to give non "trendy" genres a chance. I came from Wattpad and I struggled getting readers. Here, readers will give your story a chance as long as you advertize.

[Goats]

Advertise as in posting on the forums? Or as in buying advertisements?

[cherrystark]

Posting on the forum. You will see a lot of threads marked "promotion". Once your link is up, you can either post to those threads or browse those threads for something to read.

[Johnny]

I'd say it's a healthy mix of both! And my favorite thing about Tapas is it's live community. There's never a dull moment here.

Um I believe 24 hours? But I'm new and have no clue.

[Crusoe]

I would say... Both. Like anywhere in a range of 16 to 25 I would say. And there's a lot of romance and BL on the front page so primarily girls I would say tho. However, I've seen people from anywhere between 13 to like 35 visit the site.
English is heavily preferred to gain traffic and readership although a not perfect grasp of English is not a deal-breaker for a comic.
I don't actually know how the readership is divided nationality wise... Though it does appear to be more us/euro centric to me at least.
I love the community here! If you search well enough on the forums it's easy to find some writer pals who will help you with your work if you need to. I also like how tapas is very creator centric, the site has lots of fun challenges for creators and actually allows smaller creators to monetize your work! (Even if you don't get a lot of money if you have a small audience naturally.)

[Crusoe]

Hope that helps a bit!

[Goats]

It really does! Thank you so much
Last question from me is, the monetization is the "Ink Support"? How does one unlock it?

[Crusoe]

You unlock ad revenue when you hit 100 subs I think, which means you can opt to put ads under your chapters. However, this only gets you a few cents for every couple of hundred views. When you hit 250 subs subscribers can donate the sites currency 'ink' to you which gets converted into USD. When you get $25 dollars in ad revenue and ink you can withdraw the money from your account via PayPal.

[SleepingPoppy]

Edit: I've noticed there's a fresh category, is there a limit how long a story is considered fresh? First 24hrs? First month?

A story can only appear in Fresh once per day, but you appear there everytine you update. So if you update twice a week, as long as they're on different days, you'll appear in Fresh twice a week.

Also adding to what @MeLovesTacos said on ink. You can unlock it early by e-mailing staff around the time of Inksgiving- it will be announced on forums, so just keep an eye out as we approach Easter/Spring.

[Goats]

Thank you for clarifying!
Weird question, but what are the likes I see on novels? Can you give a like on individual chapters?

[Crusoe]

Yep! Your readers can give likes on your chapters! They have an influence on how well you do with the algorithm as well, but don't worry too much about it

[KJWhitten]

Hello and welcome to Tapas!

Just going to share this thread with you here, it should help you figure some things out: https://forums.tapas.io/t/the-big-thread-on-how-to-succeed-novels-edition/46790

[Goats]

Oh wow that's a super helpful thread! Thank you so much for sharing it with me!!

[KJWhitten]

You're welcome Goats!