Promoting a comic before it's even out?

[jamontoast98]

I believe that a strong way to promote a comic is to advertise it before the first chapter is even out, that way you know you are guaranteed to have readers instead of posting chapters and waiting for readers to come across it.

I'm trying to up my social media game as is (spam-linking your comic ftw) which sucks because I've been trying to improve it but nothing has changed. All the advice I receive is to 'make connections' and 'be genuine' etc. but I don't know how to turn that advice into action, which is why I've just been spam-linking over and over.

Anyways, I have a new idea for a comic. I know that gaining readers ain't the be-all-end-all, but it would at least be good practice. So I was wondering if any of you guys have any experiences to share trying to promote a comic w/o any chapters out yet

[HGohwell]

Just being here on the forums talking to people can help a lot. People will get used to you as a person so when you announce your comic, they'll be more likely to give you a chance, even if your comic isn't their cup of tea just because they like you or a lot of your opinions and tastes line up in other ways.

Other things you can do is look at how things like anime and movies promote. Teaser trailers, or imagines, posters and things like character announcements with character sheets or just character designs. Those are all things that can help get people excited before the release.

[jamontoast98]

Thanks, I definitely have to get talking in this forum more. There are so many great people here!

[AwesomeSoFar]

my webcomics take a while to come out, so I definitely have experience promoting them before even uploading the first chapter. that's literally all I can do while I wait for them to be drawn. I usually just ask my artists for permission to post their early thumbnails/character designs, then add a caption like "can you guess what's happening in this panel?" or "can you guess who's this new character?"

[jensrichard77]

In my experience it is always hard to start as fresh.
You need to be someone first, to gain people's attention.

Just like the very basic in any storytelling. Make the readers care for your characters and they will follow the story.

That same thing goes for you as the author. Make us care for you and we will gladly see what you come up with.

I too have a story under work. But I try to make side works and other stuff in the community and beyond to let people know I’m here.

Now and then I tell about the very big project I’m working on and even have a webpage where you can follow the progress.

And if I have done my job right, you already know me and what I’m known for and what big series I’m working hard on.

And if not? I hope that you are curious and want to find out.

I wish you all success and good luck.

[SundaeOrange]

I'm in the process of doing this right now, and so far it's been going very well for me, so maybe I can offer some insight.

I managed to get 4k followers on instagram and 12k followers on tiktok within the past 3 months, both of which were exclusively made to build hype for my upcoming webtoon. Starting out was by far the hardest part, because I hadn't really used social media up until now. I started by researching successful artists on both platforms; stuff like the quality of their art, their niche, how often they post, etc. I highly recommend doing this for artists within your niche (indie comic artists, webtoon artists, OC artists, etc.) so you can better understand how to reach your target audience.

Some things I found that help a lot for promoting your comic (success varies depending on the platform):

• This one comes as no surprise, but you should at least aim to have decent art quality if you want to be noticed. Solid anatomy, basic perspective, passable colors and decent rendering will help you massively in the art sphere.

• Take the most proficient skill you have within art (in my case, character design) and try to exclusively post that. Consumers like following artists who exclusively focus on one subject because they know what to expect of them. For example, I post character sheets of my webtoon characters on my platforms because they are the most well received. Experiment a little, see what people engage more with on your feed, and then focus on producing similar content.

• Don't spam-link. None of the artists I follow or comics I've read have been a result of me clicking on some random link in my DMs. The same applies for a vast majority of readers. Let consumers find you through the quality of your work, not by begging them to check you out.

• Participate in trends with your comic characters. Tiktok especially loves comic creators who make short funny clips of their OCs mouthing along to a popular sound. It's easy for them to understand who your characters are and become more invested in them. You can use preexisting panels from your comic or just simple sketches; it doesn't need to be time-intensive.

• Post short videos of you working on your comic. This has, by far, been the most useful thing for my social media growth. I posted a 30 sec video of me drawing a character design for my webtoon on instagram reels and it reached 300k views! Similar videos have also gotten anywhere from 10k - 90k views. Many social media platforms are currently pushing the short video trend hard, so it's extremely easy to reach a wide audience with them at the moment. Make sure the videos are under 30 secs, don't linger on a shot for more than 1-2 secs, and use popular/trending/recommended sounds when uploading.

• Hashtags are a bit finicky in terms of usefulness, but I still think they're better to have than not. Try to use a few broad hashtags (art, comics, illustration), a few mid-popular hashtags (webcomics, digitalart, characterdesign), and then a few very niche ones to reach your target audience (webcomicartist, indiecomics, webtoonfantasy). This ensures that if your post is successful in the niche topics, your post can reach broader audiences later.

• Networking with other social media artists is great! Honestly I don't do it as much as I should, but following similar artists, leaving relevant comments on their posts, interacting with their stories/videos, etc. are all very effective ways of building a relationship with them. Eventually they might follow you back and share your content to their audience, which is already happening for me. And don't be that person who tries to guilt-trip a more popular artist to share your work.

Wish you luck on your project!

[jensrichard77]

What a great insight!!!
You just made me very curious about who you are.
Also, as you said, it is for the visual show of the fine art, but I’m a writer and need my artists to be my frontiere.

@nathanKmcwilliams when time comes to this point where we are ready do blast the So-me, I will make you a battle plan and get you famous.
We might need @Chita with us here too.
But for now, we are not ready to do this, I’m just collecting data.

[Dialusion]

I've done that as well. Even if it doesn't reach anyone at the moment or if you don't see any engagement, it's starts some good habits. Not being afraid to put yourself out there and committing to the decision to make your work. You could also use it as a bit of marketing. Tease characters, production and early events in your promotion. In a sense, that's how you can make connections and be genuine. Nothing more genuine than showing the work you're putting in even if no one's eyes are on you.

It's also great practice to see what works for you marketing wise. Which hashtags work best? what times are good for me to post? How frequently? What do I want to promote and show? What do I think is the feature of my work? What would attract eyes to my story?

Full disclosure, you're probably not going to see engagement for a while, but it's important to stick with it and be open to change. This is the time to experiment and have fun with it. That's how you make connections and be genuine as well. Play with your promotions.

[lomcia]

Normally I promote my main comic sersies, but I'm also working on new one (only 8 episodes) and sometime I share wips on my social media or here on forum. discord is also a good place to promote your comic!

[jamontoast98]

update: Putting this into practice is hard lmao

[hakei]

Thank you so much on the tips!! I've been hearing that I should make a TikTok if I want to market myself/my comic, and so I've made an account — but I have no idea what's popular, what's efficient. This helps so much.