Thought question: Do you pay for physical or digital comics much? I know I don't. I'm part of and spoiled by the webcomic market, where you mostly get the comic for free and can support financially for extras or for love of the project.

There's no guarantee publishing somewhere where readers have to pay to access your comic (Comicosity, etc) will actually lead to anyone buying your comic, especially if they've never heard of it before.

The problem is, when there are thousands of free comics to read, how do you convince people to pay money to read yours? You might get a couple takers, but overall, that's a fast way to ensuring nobody sees your work. The amount of eyes you get by posting your comic for free online is worth way more than the 2-3 bucks you might earn from keeping it behind a paywall. Plus, a lot of times people will read a comic for free, then purchase the physical copy as a collectable or purely to support the artist. But it's really hard to get someone to buy something they can't check out first.

If you want money to live off of, you're probably not going to find it in comics. Most of us work full or part-time jobs while earning supplemental money from ad revenue, tips, merch sales, patreon, commissions, etc. That's not to say it's impossible to earn good money on comics (it just takes a LONG time and a little luck), but it shouldn't be treated as a primary income source.

I could absolutely have my whole comic compiled into digital files or physical books and tell people "hey! If you want to read my book, it costs $X!" but then it would be very hard for potential readers to find out about it.

It's difficult to get your comic to be distributed to comic book shops if you're not confident that you can sell thousands of books, so if you're a newer creator, you're mostly counting on people finding you on the internet. If, say, 50 people see your page, and it's just an advertisement for your cool comic book that they can buy, maybe only 5 of those people will buy it... and then you only have 5 people telling others about this great new comic that they read.
If, on the other hand, 50 people find your website, and read your comic, and 20 of them really like it, maybe there's still only 5 people who will want to buy the book after they read it, but now you have 20 folks out there talking about this cool new comic they read instead of just five, and more of the people who want to pledge to a patreon or buy your book or buy merchandise of the comic will be able to hear about your comic and find out that it exists.

I started my comics career in webcomics and then moved to print later on, so it's become part of my process to post pages as I create them, and tapastic makes that pretty easy. If I don't post online or to an audience, I tend to procrastinate and my books never get done! Also, considering it takes me a year to produce a new volume of my print comic series, getting any money from online ads/patreon/tipping is a really great means of getting a little bit extra while the thing is in progress, before I can get any revenue from advances and royalties.

Also my publisher and I have found that when I do keep up regular weekly updates of the comic, it actually encourages people to buy the printed book in the end and sales are better for it, because that's every week I'm back in people's feeds reminding them of my comic, as opposed to just trying to sell something sight unseen after a year of silence. So really when I'm posting a comic online whether its here or on my own website it's not with the intention of monetizing, but more to get the word out and get more people exposed to the story so they can become fans and grow a desire to buy books from me later on!

If you are looking to make more money from your comic though and don't want to put it completely behind a paywall, I found that patreon was the most lucrative for that since you can set tiers for rewards/early updates/etc . As opposed to ads which I feel are more like an extra might-be-nice kind of thing.

I use my webcomic as promotion to get other jobs that actually pay.

I mean, I also love my webcomic and telling the story I'm telling with it, so that's the main reason I started it and spend so much time working on it. But when it comes to how do I earn money with comics, it's like my webcomic is just proof that I can write and draw so that people will hire me to write and draw other things, like a really long portfolio. All of the comic gigs I've gotten so far have found me through my webcomic.

I do it for the chicks.

Free Webcomic Artist = Total Babe Magnet

I had kind of the opposite experience of a lot of webcomic artists: I started in print and then moved to digital.

We started with print mainly for proof of concept. If we brought it to conventions and people bought it, it was worth continuing. Mind you, this was an expensive proof of concept and both creators (including myself) had to invest the money upfront to get it going. but we were actually really successful at events.

But, there was only so much we could do with just selling at conventions. We tried selling it digitally, but I think in the... year it was up, we only had like 1 or 2 sales? There really wasn't a reason for people to buy it online. Like others have said, there are so many other free comics out there, or services where you pay to get access to a ton of comics. Putting it online for free was to get eyeballs on us. It's to build brand recognition. Plus, having it printed first actually gave me a very sizeable buffer to work with, so I've never missed an update despite working on the comic in bursts!

The biggest thing to remember about comics is that they are not a cash cow for indie creators. They can BECOME sustainable with enough patience, consistency, and luck, but it's a long and hard road. You need as many revenue streams, marketing opportunities, etc. you can get, and that can involve putting it out there for free.

Like anything indie, we often don't have the financial backing for distribution and marketing. Even getting published doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to live off it, because nowadays nobody pays you upfront, you just get royalties. Some won't even pay for your printing anymore and expect you to kickstart it yourself. It really just comes down to if you think it's worth it to invest so much time and money into something that may not have a payout!

When starting out a creator's greatest threat is obscurity. Do you expect anyone to find a new webcomic, let alone pay for it, if no one knows it exists? When was the last time you purchased music without listening to it first? Same principle in effect here on Tapastic. Posting to Tapastic allows creators to grow their audience and lets readers enjoy the comic for free. Once their comic is done then creators will do a Kickstarter and some readers will choose to purchase the print version as a way of supporting something they like. Our society is moving to a rewards based system were you have to provide something first and then get paid later. Musicians on YouTube for example like The Piano Guys. They have all of their music up there to listen to for free (they do get some ad revenue). After listening to all of their music for a while we then purchased their last album. Without that outlet they lose their way to reach new listeners and accompanying sales.

Ad revenue on Tapastic used to be much better but that's rapidly falling off due to a number of reasons including internet bots, adblockers, and the fact that only 1 in 1000 ad impressions are clicked. Static display ads aren't worth much to advertisers any more so they don't pay much any longer. It's really great that Tapastic is willing to share 70% of the ad revenue, however small it is. A lot of other sites just keep it all.

Meanwhile video ads are worthwhile to advertisers which is why Tapas is giving out coins for those who are willing to watch them. Those coins make up the backbone of the Tipping Program which really is a game changer for webcomics since readers who have little money otherwise can now support comics of their choosing.

Personally our reason for being here is to develop a following so we can do a print Kickstarter after an entire manga volume is complete. If the Kickstarter does well enough then print 2x as many copies and use the remaining copies for distribution to Amazon.com and comic book shops. Nowadays unless you have a big following already established online, its more or less impossible to get a publisher or a distributor to take notice of you.

Tapastic is a great way to start building that readership, and now thanks to tipping, make a little money along the way until the Kickstarter at the end.

I post my story here and elsewhere, publically, for two main reasons.

I want people to read it. I'm telling a story, and a story isn't much of a story if no one ever reads it. Posting it for free in public means lots of people read it who wouldn't be able or willing to pay for it.

It's self-promotion. I'm a freelance artist. If I apply for a job, or if someone looking for an artist stumbles on me, I have an entire archive of comic pages to point to when they ask me what I'm capable of drawing. It's the same reason I post stuff to my art-Tumblr. I've gotten multiple jobs through people stumbling on the silly goblin-pictures I post on Tumblr, for example.

Also, if I ever want to take my comic to Kickstarter or something for a bigger print-run, I'll have an established audience who will already know what they are going to be paying for.

imo, it's a cultural shift due to the digital age allowing for greater accessibility. "Try before you buy" gained a ton of traction because suddenly, people could post content for free for others. And while I think it can absolutely be harmful when taken to an extreme (where people don't see the value in buying it and everyone's pirating your show/game/music/comic), by and large, I think it's stabilized. I will wager that most adults know that it takes money to make things, and even if they do enjoy something before buying it, most will buy the content when they have the means. I know I fall under that category. Not only that, I think it acts as quality control for some people--why invest money in something you're not sure you'll enjoy?

You're right that there are a lot of industries where this mindset doesn't apply, but that's only because it isn't/can't be digitized. Yes, it's unfair that a lot of artists aren't getting paid properly for their work, and I think it IS a problem. But there are also a lot of benefits. This freedom of purchase and endless accessibility allows people to freely choose content to support with a wider spectrum than they could before. It takes power away from the huge publishers that used to have a chokehold on the industry. This gave people like us a platform to share our work with millions of people, whereas before we would've had to print crappy ashcans and try to get published at a place that would pay you but take away creative and licensing rights. Self publishing just wasn't an option.

I think the biggest thing to remember is that it functions differently from many things, but that doesn't mean it's good or bad. This is the reality, and the tough part will be finding a way to take advantage of and benefit from it. Fighting against it won't help much.

tl;dr It has it's good and bad points but honestly I'm glad I live in this time period doing comics rather than 30+ years ago.

Im new here, i dont get how the "ad impressions" works or mean...