Potential New Tapas Feature? (Suggestion)

[therealbereth]

Yeah, it's basically impossible to NOT neglect at least some people under capitalism. And if Tapas were to go about another angle, not functioning as a company per se anymore, or just giving smaller creators more opportunities to earn money (which would seriously impede Tapas' revenue): what would happen to the premium creators and their income?

If gaining more revenue for myself would mean taking it from people who have worked hard (and had some luck on top of it) to get where they are now, it wouldn't sit right with me at all.

[LordVincent]

I didn't want to enter another discussion like this because whenever I do, I become the target of "small creator rage" coming from... a few frustrated individuals. But here goes.

but also, if they give the exact same earning mechanics to the community creators as to premium creators - and premium is the wrong word imo; theyre not superior, the difference is theyre on the payroll - it creates an issue where the payrolled creators are investing more (they have contracts, there are rights negotiations, idr what else) but getting the same stuff out of it, or where tapas is investing more into payrolled creators (i dunno how theyre paid? per page? per unlock?) than community creators, but for the same earning potential.

i still think it is true that tapas prioritises paid content, but this isnt due to the moral failings of anyone on staff.

See, that's the thing. If all the premium benefits were released to free creators, it WOULD be unfair. Unfair to all of us that signed a contract to obtain them.

There are of course more reasons they should remain premium only. Primarily:

1. Tapas can make sure that the series using their pay-to-read function have content that either belongs entirely to the original creators, or where the permission to use content owned by others has been obtained (for example, adaptation comics). I can imagine Tapas faces enough of an issue with fan content earning ad revenue despite this not being technically allowed from a legal standpoint. But they can't make it harder to get ad revenue because well... people would complain. Those of us that had to sit through the process of getting rolled into webtoon's ad rev share program know the horrors that would ensue. And even then a few fan comics would slip through. When there is a contract involved, Tapas are protected and have those grounds covered. When there is a process that involves contracts and that much communication, Tapas can also be sure that the content can be legally monetized.
2. It allows for curation. Now, a lot of you may have some premium comics in mind that you personally believe are low quality either in the art region, story region, or overall. But you cannot deny that the majority of premium comics hold a fairly consistent quality throughout (within each comic) and update in a consistent manner. Similar episode length, specific update schedule. These are qualities customers can expect from premium comics and quite frankly part of what they pay for.

This being said, there is one premium "benefit" that I think should be released to free creators, and that is the ability to choose multiple genres. This is because it's not something I regard as a benefit, and certainly not something that should require signing a contract to obtain. It's something that would improve the user-friendliness of the site overall and help creators across the board better represent their comics. It helps give a better first impression of Tapas as a site and app and I don't see any good reason to keep it premium-only. It's usually a basic feature when sorting and searching comics/books/movies.

With that all in mind, let's shift focus for a moment. Being excluded from premium doesn't mean you can't better utilize ink to your advantage, and it also doesn't mean you can't provide early access.
Being an independent, uncontracted creator comes with its pros and cons.
On the negative side, everything's up to you. You have to create your own solutions using the tools at hand, and you have to make sure they succeed.
On the positive side, everything's up to you. The main person in control over your own success is you.

You can create an early access feed using tools available on Patreon. If you want, I can write up a guide on how to best do this based upon my own experience of years of using patreon and experimenting with different methods.
I also have a previously written guide on how to create and manage a tipping reward system on Tapas (so you can still make use of ink!) https://forums.tapas.io/t/advice-to-creators-how-to-get-more-tips/21592

[KRWright]

I'm not going to directly reply to people here, but the argument about Premium creators irks me a little. Tapas have exclusivity rights for my work, and in return, they are pouring hours of staff time into editing and working on my content. That costs the company money, and there's no guarantee that any series will make a return on the money that they are pumping in either. Tapas have to be selective and have to curate who they choose to spend that time on. To get the services Tapas are providing right now, I'd have to pay thousands of dollars in the self-publishing industry normally.

I know talented novelists and artists who are not Premium Tapas creators, but who are making money from their work here, getting publicity and generally doing fantastic things for free on the site (and earning on the side through Patreon or selling on Amazon). I see this as another avenue for those creators who are treating Tapas as one stream of revenue. Of course, it is only going to work for those who are good at marketing themselves, just like the current system is, but there are definite positives with having fewer clicks between someone reading your work and parting with their money which will benefit those who are not already Big Time Creators (whatever those are).

(Separate issue - @LordVincent I'd be very interested to see how you manage your Patreon if you have time to type that up! )

[ajcrwl]

I would like if I could schedule more than one page ahead of time.

you can totally do this! you can pick different times, or as I do often just schedule everything for the same time and episodes will be published in the same order you uploaded them.

I was wondering if in the future, it would be possible for people to donate some ink to get access to episodes earlier.

Honestly, last year when I registered my account I was hoping this would be the thing when I saw that there's a donation option, but then figured out what was what at the time. This really could motivate me to make more stuff and schedule it, instead of going my usual way: "made the thing, impatience kicks in, published the thing immediately" xD

Of course, I see that there is concern about quality, etc. Well, they could let us enable it after a certain amount of subs, just like ad rev. In fact, my initial impression was that it was the next "achievement" after unlocking ad rev.

Quite often it's incredibly hard for people to get Patrons. Tipping on Tapas is cheaper than $1 and doesn't require registering on yet another website, figuring out payment schemes, etc etc.

there is one premium "benefit" that I think should be released to free creators, and that is the ability to choose multiple genres.

YESS

[SuperRazz]

Yes to multiple genres! But maybe limit to two, I could see how it would be disadvantageous if it were more than that.

How about a feature that shows recommended comics that are similar to the comic you're currently reading? It could be placed at the bottom-most part of the page of each episode, below the comments section. Similar to youtube's 'recommended videos' that shows at the right side of each video.

[LordVincent]

I'm not going to directly reply to people here, but the argument about Premium creators irks me a little. Tapas have exclusivity rights for my work, and in return, they are pouring hours of staff time into editing and working on my content. That costs the company money, and there's no guarantee that any series will make a return on the money that they are pumping in either. Tapas have to be selective and have to curate who they choose to spend that time on. To get the services Tapas are providing right now, I'd have to pay thousands of dollars in the self-publishing industry normally.

As valuable as all of this is, for some of us it wasn't the reason we signed into the deal and would not be enough on its own to convince us to sign one. There are many different reasons that users sign into these deals and they should all be kept in mind when making changes to the parts of the site that relate to it.

As for the Patreon matters, I will make a thread as soon as I find the time! Possibly tomorrow as I have the day off and don't have any plans with family and friends.