Promoting your webcomic: Where to find interested readers?

[Klaustasya]

Actually this is not a direct question.
Two months ago it just happened that i posted some pages of a webcomic i was working on, here on Tapas; after publishing i created a post in the forum:

This one --->

Promoting your comic on Tumblr and Twitter: How? Tips + Tricks

Hi guys! I'm the newbie here ehehe, and i just started publishing my webcomic (though well...it's already on a small hiatius due to college's exams lol) and i'm having some trouble promoting it on my socials, such as Twitter and Tumblr. Do you guys have any useful tips? :slight_smile: (meanwhile, i'll leave a link to my webcomic here; Odd Front)

And @TomDellaringa gave me a very nice answer! ----->

The thing I've always thought about the @ mentions on Twitter is that the READERS of those accounts are just more and more creators. If you are looking for an audience, you've got to escape - or reach outside - the "webcomic circle of death." The WCOD is self-promotion within groups that only contain other artists. Sure you might pick up a couple readers that way, but generally they are not supporters. For lack of a better term, we want "real people" to find us, and follow us and ultimately b…

So i decided to open a topic about this!

Promoting your fresh-out-of-the-oven webcomic on social medias such as Facebook, instagram, Twitter, Tumblr and more, is one of the most common way to try to get some readers out of the Tapas or Webtoons community. But how much is it effective?

Most of the times we try to follow webcomics or art-related groups/pages and account in order to promote and occasionally spam our works there and get more visibility, thinking that this is indeed the appropriate places and niche to do that; After promoting myself for almost a year by now i can say that all the spam i did was kinda worth it (because i did gain some good amount of followers in the process, and even if they weren't a lot, it was just because i'm still a learning amateur and i can't expect supporters to rain down)
but at the same time i know that i didn't really hit my target audience. Why? Because i kept sharing links of my stuff in those pages full of creators with my same goal: being noticed and supported. So, of couse, they never really paid attention to other artists works (competition lol).

So when it's all said and done, we believe that promoting our webcomics on social medias is the best way to gain views, but i'm not sure about that now...

As @TomDellaringa said in his answer to my old post, we need to find a place with mainly READERS rather than other creators (and i keep nodding at this) and this is why Tapas itself is a proper place to do that (there are creators but also assured readers) also other websites like Webtoons and stuff are good, because they are are or less the same of Tapas, The only problem is that you can only post your comic there....no way to promote it within the site (Guess the forum was created for this purpose as well lol) and after i don't know how much blabbering i did, here comes the question:

Which are those internet places where you can actually find readers interested in your work? Where would you promote your webcomic if not in the typical medias and where there isn't competition over spamming our works?

I know, i don't think there is such of a utopic answer to my double question (otherwise it would be obvious lol) but i'm really curious to know your opinions and experiences about this "promoting matter"!

[TomDellaringa]

Glad you started the discussion! It's something myself and other creator friends have been talking about now for 10 years - no kidding.

I can say this. With my success of The Flower here, I have gotten more READERS and real fans of my work than ALL of the social media stuff I have done in the last 5 years - easy. A big part of that is because there are a lot of people who are really seeking out comics here - they want to find new content.

Some people have a lot of success on social, but it seems to me they have a couple things in common.

1) They are VERY talented. Their work is appealing and polished.
2) They have a LOT of followers. Enough so that aside from other "interested creators" you've got some actual FANS following you. That makes a big difference.

I have no idea what the answers are. I recently just started an art instagram, and I just hit 100 followers. And yes, a lot of them are other creators - or even spam bots. I really have no idea how many of them are real fans - unless they have followed me from here.

I have a small dedicated following on Patreon of folks that have been with me for years. But really Patreon is for AFTER you have a following, you can't build on there.

So I'm looking to hear from others as well. One hard truth is for self-owned comics is this - sometimes the only way to really reach out is to actually be published. The old ways still work, and that's hard to accept sometimes.

[GesuGesu]

Make sure to find communities outside of the art communities to make connections and socialize.

I usually get people asking me "oh, you draw?" or "oh, you have a webtoon? I wanna read it!" in discord servers based on anime fandoms where most people are simply fans of a certain niche. I rarely get the same curiosity from creator-centered servers such as art servers or webcomic servers. You also have to be careful since quite a few servers I'm in have rules against self-promotion. >_>

I also attend art gatherings IRL where people who like art/art casuals meet up and socialize while doing art things together. A lot of the time, people are interested in what you do and will check out your work if you tell them where/how to find it.

I do feel that many of my readers came because of a need / thirst for certain genres. I write comedy/parodies of classic manga tropes, which many people are familiar with but also interested in subversions of it. I also write BL, which attracts a crowd on its own just as a genre. Genre + audience size matters. Try attracting from a larger mainstream audience before working on that "brain baby" project. There's nothing wrong to catering to the crowd, because you will learn what people like and what people don't like before you get into your main project.

[Klaustasya]

The problem is that (at least in Italy, were i live) getting your comic under a real publisher is damn hard.
Competition is high as hell! And i'm not even a pro (i still lack in basic drawing skills, colors and storytelling) and even though my art style is kind of an hybrid, this is not really appreciated here. So for now i have to forget about being published by someone IRL. I actually don't know if there is a chance to to sent a portfolio to an American publisher, because i'd love that.

[Klaustasya]

Too bad there are no art gatherings in my zone...
About the discord servers thing, i'm in a BUNCH of comic creators servers actually, but as it's been told by now, comic creators are not always interested readers as well...
I'd like to connect outside of social medias as well, but the only things i can start thinking of are forums, discord servers (as you said) and bruuh....i have no idea to be honest,
I wonder what could pop out if i start typing "readers community" on google lol, probably not much.

[SleepingPoppy]

Which are those internet places where you can actually find readers interested in your work? Where would you promote your webcomic if not in the typical medias and where there isn't competition over spamming our works?

I will say that when it comes to being a more novice creator, it’s not unusual to have a handful of fellow creators following your work. They tend to understand and appreciate that you’re still growing and will get better. Also- when a talented creator follows you, there’s a chance their readers will notice you a jump over. It’s not really competitive, because readers are looking for more content. They want to read multiple comics!

That said, that only gets you a small ways forward, and you still want to reach out beyond that bubble.

For LGBT creators there’s some really great tumblrs that focus on promoting LGBT comics and novels. I read their recommendations for years before sharing my own work, so I know there are readers there. It stands to reason that there are probably non-lgbt focused recommendation sites too!

[Klaustasya]

I remeber trying to post a little episode of a webcomic that i thought i would've kept going (but i didn't) on Tumblr ones....and got absolutely nothing. LGBT comics are a thing now, i understand people being interested in reading those (i'm planning one as well) and therefore creating some promoting tumblrs, but when i tried looking for those tumblrs (for non-LGBT comics) there was nothing...

idk, i get the feeling that is hard to build a readership there if you already don't have your own following.

[SleepingPoppy]

I remeber trying to post a little episode of a webcomic that i thought i would've kept going (but i didn't) on Tumblr ones....and got absolutely nothing.

Yeah, I’m not talking about posting to tumblr in general. That feels like shouting into the void mostly. XD

LGBT comics are a thing now

They’ve been a thing for a long time, it’s just becoming more visible!

when i tried looking for those tumblrs (for non-LGBT comics) there was nothing...

I’m fairly certain stuff like this exists. It’s just hard to find it when you’re actively looking, verses having an interest and stumbling upon it naturally. There ARE webcomic lists and such, too. But I imagine there are som rec sites that cater to novels and free original stories online, but might be willing to promote a relevant comic. I don’t know, though. Internet is a big place.

[feuersichel]

On deviantart, an interesting way of getting people to your page is this: (only works if you have enough Lamas) find a person who is giving llamas to others. (Mostly people in hub-groups or giving advice in forums) go to their comment section and look for the "thank's for x" posts. Give them all a llama.
You could also give them randomly but this way, the reciever is actually willing to visit your page to thank you.

[GesuGesu]

yeaaah creator servers are not where you will find readers easily. Do you have any other hobbies or interests where you can find a group to meet? I have servers for anime clubs and such, so it's a large generalized community, and people generally have an interest since webcomics are related to their core interests of japanese stuff.

[shazzbaa]

Sure, for social media to work, you need a following, you need reach. The thing is, how do you START building that reach? Nobody springs fully formed from the forehead of Zeus with 14,000 twitter followers.

For a lot of folks, that's going to be..... other creators.

A small circle of people promoting each other to each other in the hopes of getting promoted themselves isn't a great formula, but that relationship can also be more genuine. As a creator, there are a few comics I read that I yell about and share with people regularly -- my readers are likely to find out about the comics that I personally think are really good. When I see I've been followed or noticed by creators who have a similar sense of humour to me, I admit to sort of hoping they'll read my comic and possibly introduce it to their readers because we might have overlapping readerships!

TL;DR, being followed by creators isn't a dead end. It's just not the end goal!

-- THAT SAID, --

The places I've found the most new readers are honestly.... the places that I didn't go to promote. Back in the day, some of my readers came from a D&D forum that I used to hang out on and help out with lycanthrope builds and share silly sketches from my D&D group's adventures. Some people liked my sketches, and checked out my other work.

Recently, I joined Tattered Weave, a newish sort of story-based petsite/avatar site -- I liked it a lot, and joined the discord, and started sharing fanart of the characters! A whole bunch of people who had never heard of me before started to get to know me from my enthusiastic TW fanart, and I half-jokingly made a running gag of shamelessly promoting my webcomic every time my art got any attention. IT WORKED. A lot of my loudest supporters (and friends) right now are folks I met there!!

I think the thing is that there isn't really a gathering place specifically for Webcomic Readers (and if there were, it'd be so full of promotions from desperate creators that you'd be quickly drowned out and many readers would be driven away). Instead, you find readers hanging out in places set aside for lovers of other kinds of fiction. Participate in the communities of things that you love, have a good time, and give back. Sometimes, all you get out of it is the joy of joining in with a fandom, and sometimes you get a chance to share your work with others.
I find this can feel frustrating when you're just doing it because you want the advertising, but if you're genuinely able to join in, it can be extremely rewarding to participate artistically in other communities!!

[Klaustasya]

I remember trying to join some anime or manga server on discord but most of them were all inactive,,,i don't know if you have some discord server to suggest or simply a place where i can find those servers (i usally look for them by searching on google)

[Klaustasya]

This is such a great answer!
Indeed only focusing on doing art and shamelessly promoting it on social medias and group it's....stressing and tiring in the end.
I have a few fandoms i'd like to be more active in, but barely have the time to make fanart for them...also...idk...i don't feel motivated in this period about sketching something that is not my Oc's haha i think i have a problem by now XD I DO love anime, manga, cartoons, and kpop for example, but i rarely do fanarts for this things now...i feel like i've been sucked into my own comic world, and now, yeah, i still watch/read and listen to this things but i'm not driven into them anymore...at least not to the point where i make art for them.

[hjfsdh2222]

Only thing I know about promo is that linking to my stuff on social media gets me more pageviews. And I get about 2 subs per 100 page views. But I can get more subs if I advertise on the forums. I don’t really know much besides that. I just try to have fun with it really:) engaging with people is fun

Hey wanna do a cross promo?
I only got 25 subs but hey why not try something new:3
I also have 482 followers on twitter and 315 followers on instagram

[shazzbaa]

i don't feel motivated in this period about sketching something that is not my Oc's haha

I think that's okay, tbh! I've definitely been there myself!!
(Though it's maybe worth noting that I still personally can't summon up the energy to do finished fanart 95% of the time -- most of the fan things I post on tumblr are ridiculous scribbles that I finish in one sitting.)

But not every period of your comic's life needs to be about promoting yourself. When you're feeling super into your own OCs, man, roll with it! Sketch them and loudly love them on your social media (I super recommend following folks like eve greenwood and duchess of beefcake who love their own ocs so much and aren't ashamed of it -- their enthusiasm can be infectious!!) and focus on improving your comic and making all your original work the best it can be, and just let your internet presence build more slowly while you focus on your own stuff.

Then someday in the future when there's something you kinda almost wanna.... do fanart for?? maybe just a sketch?? Or maybe the fandom is doing a big art trade or zine or something and you think that would be fun? Then you know you can go for it without feeling guilty or thinking its a waste of time, because it's not only a chance to recharge yourself artistically, but it can help you reach out to other communities. It's okay -- in fact, it can be good!! -- to kinda switch between; taking time to focus on your own work, and then taking time to focus on communities outside of it.

[Kotopopi]

Hi there, another italian here

I wrote a lot about comic promotion but I can resume what I've found out this way: there is no PERFECT FORMULA that applies to all creators (of all styles/genre/background) to all social media.
This is simply a silly idea to start with
Each creator is different and each social media is different, so you need to look for the formula that works FOR YOU. And, even when you find it, a lot of the magic is still worked out by the chance and is not in your power to make it happen.

Here's some questions you might wanna ask yourself about your comic:
1) are you more of a comic artist or an illustrator?
2) what is your goal? And how many years do you plan to invest to reach it?
3) do you have a long form comic or a stripcomic?
4) is your genre (comedy/romance/etc.) popular or niche?

And about social media:
1) what am I looking for in a social media, just followers or customers?
2) what social media is more likely to work for my goal?
3) does this social media requires advertising in order to gain traction?
4) is this social media still relevant?

Finally, if you are a creator starting from scratch in 2018 there are only 2 paths in front of you:

1) you get super lucky cause someone famous (a website or an influencer) notice you and put you in front of a big audience
2) you're gonna grow slowly and painfully over the years (but you will grow)

I don't know your comic, but generally:

• romance is easier to 'sell' than any other genre as a longform comic and also as a slice of life comic (couple comics)
• stripcomics and slice of life comics are easier to 'sell' on aggregators (such as 9gags, Reddit, Imgur, Bored Panda) and also on social media (Instagram being the best option)
• longform comics aren't the perfect fit for any social media apart from comic platform so in order to grow a readership online, if you're starting from scratch, it's better to do popular stuff instead (for exemple tutorials, illustrations and fanarts) and to promote your own stuff only after you've built a solid fanbase
• collabs of any sorts with other creators (with same amout of followers as you or more) is always good and beneficial, so those followers and connections you made with other creators... let them work!
• Facebook, Tumblr and Deviantart are irrelevant if you're starting today (unless you wanna throw your money and your time out of the window). Twitter is good for building connections with other artists and that's all I'm afraid, Instagram is where you wanna be
• when you see an artist with monster figures (1million followers) there's no secret: they've been doing it for a long time/someone famous showcased their work, so this is something you can't replicate cause you have no power on it.

Good luck!

[Klaustasya]

cross-promo? lol i'm kinda new to this stuff so i need you to explain me what's this all about XD
Also i deleted my webcomic -___- BUT i do have social medias where i post my works! so sure, i'm in! just tell me what do i need to do ^^

[ericsalinas149]

It is where you put another cartoonist's banner underneath your comic and a link to their page advertising for their comic. They do the same for you. Since Tapas doesn't promote small creators, some small creators have taken it upon themselves to advertise for each other. It is a way of tapping into readers who might not otherwise come across your comic.
I have two promos underneath my comic if you want to see an example.

[Klaustasya]

Thank you for the infos! I'll surely take note of these!
Luckily my comics always rotate around the Romance genre, a question i still couldn't answer myself is where to find the appropriate niche for this...

[Klaustasya]

Ohh i see! but the problem is that currently i don't have a webcomic published on Tapas...i do have art pages with WIPS of my comic and illustrations but that's it for now.