PLEASE use extras sparingly

[smokesalty]

I'm gonna first note that this is my opinion! (I just tend to word titles like this so that the topic is quickly explained)

In short- I think extras (ESPECIALLY at the beginning of a comic) should be used sparingly because they tend to disrupt story flow and turn away readers.

I've seen a lot of comics use extras after only a few pages have been posted, and it can be frustrating as a reader so it's also something I take into account as an author. I personally recommend not using extras until you've established your main hook and gotten a bit of your story out. Keep in mind that the first couple episodes you post will have the most views.

I think this topic also relies on genre. If you're more comedic I think that extras will not bother the story flow as much, while genres like fantasy, horror, mystery etc don't lend themselves as well to having a ton of extras inbetween plot points (I guess this also depends on what kind of extras you're doing.)

I feel like extras work best at the end of a chapter/arc in the story where the story is paused at a point where it doesn't feel disruptive.

What are your guys' opinions? Feel free to disagree, I'm curious on what people think.

[BoomerZ]

I completely agree. You first couple episodes should focus on the main character and maybe a support to bounce off of. Or if a romantic story, the two leads. Too many writers want to jump as quickly as possible to their story but the audience doesn't know who anyone is. It's all completely new to them. Start slow and introduce the characters so we can know them, then add the drama and the story. Build your story. Then the end can be a pay-off to your set-up.

[NickRowler]

Is this an attack on me? The reason I do it is because a 2 month hiatus in order to get the next chapter done can be sort of damaging. And I want to have something nice while people wait.

But I have also seen series that turned into nothing but guest comics and holiday posts, which can be a bit annoying. Especially when it is like 20 in a row.

[AlydaB]

Wanted to jump right into creating a bunch of fun extras for my comic, but after asking around the forums for advice on this lately, I agree.

As with anything a creator adds to their story, extra content deserves consideration to decide how it should be handled and how it'll be received. Put yourself in the shoes of your readers, who don't have your familiarity with the story's world and characters yet. If an extra would introduce a jarring tone shift, disrupt the main plotline, or even consume time that you should/could be spent creating more story content, might be better to skip it.

I'm considering saving this kind of thing for my social media when possible... at least until my comic's made it past the introduction lol

Edit: That said, how do you guys feel about fan art features? I didn't think a single artwork after the end panel would be too disruptive, but maybe it's too early even for that.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I feel like you should tell at least one complete story beat before you even think about giving your readers 'extras'. Like, for instance, 'MC finds out they have magical powers, meets their magical mentor, and arrives at the magical school'-- an amount of story that could comprise at least 1 full episode of a series.

I mean, they're called 'extras' for a reason...they're supposed to supplement the story experience, not interrupt it or replace it. They should take place during natural pauses between the story beats, and they should build on what the reader already knows about the world and characters.

Which is why it makes no sense to try to throw them in before even 10 comic pages of story have been told-- the reader barely knows anything. It's like trying to give someone dessert after they've had just one bite of the main course; at least let them enjoy and finish their meal first. :T

It's probably tempting because comic work is so slow...those first 10 comic pages might have taken half a year to produce; it feels like it should be okay to start playing around with the characters, since you've already spent so much time with them. But you really have to keep the reader's perspective in mind in these cases. ^^;

[Aleksei]

I did extras ALWAYS!
But I didn't do a new episode for that, I included them as a one page 'extra info' at the end of every chapter, and every chapter is a whole in istelf, you don't need 4 or 5 submissions to have a chapter, so I think that's the exception to the rule?.

But I also think, after that experience, that extras should be used carefully, because you may run out of extras! I recently went dry with them, so I just stopped adding them, unless something particularly interesting should be added,

[smokesalty]

Oh I make extras during my hiatus as well, so I understand that. I'm taking hiatuses after the end of each chapter, so positing an extra gives readers a bit more to read and check up on until you return.

But yeah, there's a difference between a couple extras at the end of a chapter and posting a ton of extras in the middle of the story.

[TheLemmaLlama]

a 2 month hiatus in order to get the next chapter done can be sort of damaging. And I want to have something nice while people wait.

extras should be used carefully, because you may run out of extras!

Hmmm, do I spy an opportunity to push my loading screen agenda? (I am using this as an opportunity to push my loading screen agenda)

Introducing ... temporary extras! Make all the extras you want, but you don't have to worrying about them clogging up the main story or running out of ideas for extras, because what you do is have one extra up at a time (probably as your latest episode), but delete it and replace it with a different extra every week or so!

That way, the extras won't sit around in your archive and get in the way of bingers and new readers, but you also get to 'update' on a regular basis with content that would be new to most of your readers except the oldest ones who has been around from the very beginning and saw every temporary extra you've posted! And even if you run out of extras, just cycle the ones you have! They'll still feel relatively fresh of you have enough of them to cycle!

Now you too can have the best of both worlds ... with temporary extras!

[DiegoPalacios]

For comics that have a strong continuity, is better to use extras sparingly and between chapters to avoid interrupting the story flow.....

Another alternative is to have a separate comic for such extras if there happen to be too many of them.

[RocketAxxonu]

Agree! While most of the comics I've read are fanart and so I may already be familiar with the characters, my experience has been that the majority of comics out there don't seem to get very far, because of how much time and intense mental effort comics take to produce. Hence, whenever I read a comic I'm interested in, I'm also subconsciously reading into the subliminal messages the creator is giving off, about how reliable they are likely to be about continuing the project consistently in future. Extras might be faster and relatively easier to produce, and too many extras can inadvertently send a signal that the creator enjoys/is mentally geared more for shorter one-off content than commitment to a long comic, and it's hard to emotionally invest in something you're leery will ever get very far.

Also, it depends on what the extra content is, but I'm more likely to be interested in it for those projects that are really my favorites that I'm super invested in, which is something that only happens over a longer period of time and reading. So I'm more likely to enjoy the extras after having read actual story for a longer period of time, and if it comes after I've had time to get to trust the creator and their commitment to the core content first.

[Kaydreamer]

I thought at first by 'extras' you meant large casts of side characters, and as I'm trying to slowly wrangle my very large cast into the story, I was curious to see what people had to say. But I see you mean 'extra content'.

This is an interesting conundrum, because people who post content weekly will be rewarded with increased visibility. Can't speak for Tapas, I'm hecka inconsistent here and don't track metrics. But I do on Webtoon, as it's my main platform. I post once every three weeks. This is my average sub growth since getting ad rev there enabled - an important thing to mention, as turning on ad-rev on Webtoon places you into an algorithm which recommends your comic to new readers.

On the week I post, I average around 40 subs per day.
One week later, it's about 20 to 30 subs.
Two weeks later, around 15 to 20.

Clearly, the ad-rev algorithm stops recommending you to as many people the longer your comic sits without an update.

So I can absolutely see why many creators post extras. Especially as they start to rely financially on the revenue generated by ads, and extra especially that nice $100 bonus from their Creator Rewards program if you hit 40k views in the month.

I only really started caring about this since getting into the ad-rev program - before that, it didn't matter as much, as my growth was much slower regardless of when I posted. But $100 a month is nothing to sneeze at, that's my petrol paid for - and the sub growth is also important to me, because I'd like for comics to eventually become my main source of income. I've been resisting the urge to post extras, because it can mess with the audience response when you post genuine content - but I'm very tempted to start creating little black-and-white funny shorts to go in-between main releases - which I'd delete once the next real episode drops. Simply so that I can maintain more momentum.

I do take issue with those huge creators posting side-content every week - especially when that means never giving other comics a shot at getting into the Top 5 of their genre. (Something which rotates weekly.) But putting up a bonus thing every two weeks seems fair, and deleting it so that it doesn't wreck the story flow for new readers also seems like a reasonable approach. (Making extras a 'limited-time-only' thing would encourage people not to drag their heels on reading them, too!)

[darthmongoose]

Like many things, it's one of those "it depends" things, because gag strips or slice of life comics can get away with a lot more of this kind of thing, but of course I have my general rule of "no extras in the middle of a chapter", but even that, if I was making longer updates than an average of about 10 panels, like if I was making a long scroll comic where an "episode" is almost like a chapter, I wouldn't necessarily think it was terrible to put an omake or a piece of fan art at the end.

If I had to distil it down to a "rule to live by" I'd say this:
The reader should never click your comic and feel disappointed by what they get for doing it.

If you keep putting scrappy doodles or irrelevant gags into the middle of your story, you train your subscribers to feel like "ugh, whatever it can wait" about your updates, and if you put off moving the plot forward too long, they might even lose that sense of excitement about what happens next. If you want to build an audience, you have to keep people excited about your story and make them feel like, "oh hell yes! Update!" when they see that notification and jump right on it.

A common issue is people who think of their characters as "OCs" who want to short cut over to the readers caring as much about their characters as they do, so they start making like... Q&As, side gag sketches, holiday dress-up art and all sorts of things that would appeal to a fan of an established character that fans know and love...before they've established the character in the story or made the reader love them. You can't just take a short cut and skip to the part where we're invested in the characters; you have to put in that work of introducing them, letting the reader follow them through tricky, intense or funny scenarios and building up that relationship readers have with a character by making pages first before you can get a response just by putting up a picture of the character in an amusingly appropriate cosplay, or a 4-koma comic riffing on funny stuff that happened in the plot.

Pages are nearly always better than extras. Extras should either be something readers get in addition to pages, or the audience should be aware that what they're getting is filler to tide them over for more pages, like during a hiatus or between chapters or seasons. If it's an illness or something and you let them know there will be fillers for a while, readers will understand, but if it becomes normal to click an update, expecting story content and then, "Oh... it's just another sketch of the characters", don't be surprised if people stop clicking. Always be thankful for people clicking your comic. Never take it for granted.

[powerplantanimations]

Like I've said before (since extras has been a hot topic recently), I'm only doing them inbetween chapters. Due to me having to take a five week hiatus for a rebuff, I plan on doing the following:

1) Comical Mid-Season Credits (Week 1)
2) Art Dump (Week 2)
3) Filler Gag 1 (D&D Session with Naota and D) (Week 3)
4) Filler Gag 2 (D&D Session with Naota and D) (Week 4)
5) Naota Log (Week 5)

I WILL NOT interrupt my stories anymore. I swear. But please understand when I do in between seasons, it's because your boy is working tirelessly non-stop to give you good, meaty homefried content.

[migxmeg]

I completely agree with this. We won't be making a peep during our hiatus because I'll never forget being really disappointed when a comic I love posted something during a long hiatus and I was so hyped thinking it was back but it wasn't . Of course I'm not blaming the creator and not saying there aren't good reasons to do that but it stuck with me as something I prefer to avoid doing to anyone that enjoys our comic. Up front communication about where to go for updates and extras can help too - that way anyone interested in more stuff can go check social media and it won't bother anyone who isn't.

Consider the readers' experience. I mean, hopefully you're already doing that for how you deliver your story. It should also go a long way towards deciding if it makes sense where/when to post non-story extras. I find them very fun provided I already care about the characters and it doesn't feel like a constant interruption!

[gabriellabalagna]

Agree! Also, I want to add that my view on extras has completely changed.

Originally I thought...
- I should do extras, q&a's, and collabs because everyone does them.
- extras would be useful for promotion

Now, I think...
- extras take time away from drawing comic pages
- holiday themed extras are only relevant for a small part of the year
- sketches & finished panels can be used to promote the comic on social media
- they break the flow

[SynergyEclipse]

I agree about posting extras into the episode list sparingly, and posting them after the characters start to get established. From a reader’s view, that’d be frustrating to think they’d be getting a new episode when it was yet another update in a row, so I put the extras on my site and blog. I remind readers to check those out for regular updates between episodes.

My update schedule has slowed down a lot because the last few episodes and the one I’m working on now have lengthy productions, but I’ve been posting extras every week in between episodes so there’s something on a regular basis. These extras are WIPs with details about the production process since there’s a lot I’m learning that I also hope can be informative.

Although I said extras should be used sparingly and after characters start to get established, art or writing challenges can be good prompts to help build onto characters. I’ve used art challenges that way!

[system]

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