On growing a following

[mountainwolves]

I was about to respond to a question made about how to grow a following, but the discussion got closed off the forum. This was going to be my advice (feel free to give your own opinions or oppose mine):

This are the things I've learned after a little over a year on webtoons:

1. Understand you'll have a learning curve, and that this includes how often you'll update. It is meaningless to follow a rule on the amount of times you should update per month or whatever, when you haven't yet discovered the creation process that is the most adecuate to yourself.

2. The quality of chapter 1 is key (first few chapters actually). It is worth revisiting it and fixing it a few times.

3. Give a meaning to each chapter. Make it have some sort of "punchline" or structure. Give it a reason to exist. I say this because people tend to wonder so much about the length of entries, that they totally mess the flow of it and fail to hit the mark. Chapter lengths can and will vary, what you should definitely aim to is giving each one some sort of cliffhanger or reversal. Don't let them feel meh or meaningless. Webtoons has a limit of mb per chapter, so you can't drag for too long, but don't be like the people who upload a page or 2 panels per entry just to "get followers". Again, there are gag comics that are really good that way, but they are meant to work with short length entries.

4. Don't set thing up for too long. Move to the cool shit quickly. This was something I realized recently. My comic is sort of gritty fantasy, so I spent like 9 chapters having my protagonist interact with all sorts of mature people. Recently I introduced a cool looking guy and my followers had a great boost. Going back to point one, people will most likely read your latest chapter (scan the art), and if they like it, they will go to the first. Make sure you are drawing/writing cool shit and not only setup, character exploration, and world building. They are necessary but you want people to pay attention.

5. This might seem counterintuitive, but don't waste your time promoting, honestly. Don't do it on any platform. Webtoon readers are on webtoon. Reading. Places like this are full of creators. They are good for reviews and talking about interesting topics, but the only way to increase your readership for real is updating. The most readers you'll get is from your comic appearing as an update under your genre. The more chapters your comic has, the more trust readers will feel about you as a creator, and the most rapport you'll create. This all takes time. Which leads me to:

6. Be patient. This takes time. There's a lot of comics out there. The amount of stuff that comes out everyday on canvas is insane. Patience is key. Do this because you love your creation, that's the only thing that makes it worth it. It's what I feel about my comic.

7. Have your character designs be attractive to your reader. There is not a set way to do this, so have people review your designs. As a creator, you might feel a certain way about your characters backstories, their role in the plot, and the way you envisioned them, but your reader knows nothing of this. Furthermore, when first reading, he or she probably won't care about any of your plans for the characters. Comics are visual first, narrative second. Different artstyles pursue things in different ways, but they all try to elicit feelings on the reader, and characters that look interesting to them is primordial. I reiterate, get outside input on your character designs and take it to heart. Don't expect people to sugar coat it or agree on your vision of them, your readers probably think like them

8. Finally, ask yourself what are people getting out of your comic. Don't only think about yourself, give readers something to look forward; be it fun, being amazed by your skill, feeling related or inspired. You want followers? Give them a real reason to follow. Don't do it for your ego.

[TheLemmaLlama]

don't waste your time promoting honestly.

At first I was like "wait, so you should promote dishonestly?" But then I read the rest of it and I get what you mean XD

Be patient. This takes time.

This! I feel this so hard. My real issue right now is that I HAVE JACK ALL CONTENT, and creating more of it is going to do me more favours than any amount of promotion Though I do see some comics out there with lots of content but not that much engagement, so I do think the advice of "just keep chugging and the audience will come eventually" might not always be enough

[nkapit]

thank you, this is all great advice!

[mountainwolves]

That is why I talked about chapter structure, interesting content and art. Yes, it is not only about increasing the archive of your series, but also giving the reader a quality experience. I think it is fundamental to understand what people look for in a series and offer it to them through your work. It is also important to do it for the love of it.

[mountainwolves]

Ultimately, the quality of the content is what matters.

[nayrnixon]

Good stuff here, thank you!

[system]

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