Self promo disguised as feedback...Stop it

[zerogravityfiction]

Good call, done it

[J.Z.Castillo]

UUUGHH I HATE THIS!!!!! This happens all the time in Instagram. THIRSTY PEOPLE! Usually they are not even that great. I fucking hate that.

[Greg_Dickson]

Yep, I've absolutely noticed this comment left on the first page of my comic, and then on a friend's comic as well. The sad thing is, this user subscribes to you too, and only leaves a like and that stock comment on your first page, and then MAYBE a like on your most recent page, almost as a re-reminder that he's there. I know for a fact that this individual hasn't read my work at all, because I looked on this person's profile page and saw their comment list, seeing him rapid-fire the same copy-and-pasted comment across a ton of comics, while mass-subscribing to a bunch of them at once. I didn't subscribe back, of course, and it will be only a matter of time until this creator unsubscribes for me because I didn't check out their stuff. If this person is reading this, you know who you are, and I won't feel any pain from getting an unsubscribe from him. In fact, it'll probably help me get on trending some more not to have that inactive subscriber who never has any interest in checking out my work.

Really copy-pasters, if you want someone to have a chance at reading your comic, show creators genuine interest in what they do. Forming real connections with others will probably make them curious to see what you're up to as well. I mean, if they don't, you're still reading a comic you enjoy. But if they do, then congrats, you know someone you can mutually share your work with, and generate some positivity and motivation between each other.

EDIT: He must have just read this thread, because I saw that he just changed his name.

[StevenDacasin]

This is the first time i've seen this. Can't believe that a seemingly pleasant community has people that focus so much on numbers that they resort to copy and paste.

[purrlpankras]

That should be made into a tutorial on how NOT to advertise your comic.

It's annoying, not thoughtful at all and it's pitiful.

[zerogravityfiction]

I think people hear the advice to "network" by interacting with other creators and turn it into these spam campaigns. It's not networking its just CTRL-V

[spadesart]

It's not a bot but it might as well be :/ like they could at least keep their shameless self promos to the forums like i do (it got me to trending for like an hour when I first started throwing the link around :0 ) this is just plain rude.....

[Herofeeder]

I apologize for doing this i just wanted to spread my work faster ,i know its a lazy way of showing your work to other people but i saw no other way i really dont consider it to be that bad i do read a lot of things i currently read 87 comics out of 260 something i subbed to ,(the ones that are longer then 20 comics i put on hold to read the smaller ones faster)
i personally see nothing wrong with promoting my self though i understand why you would consider it a "qucik and cheap way of doing it "
Taptastic has a great community but the pace of subs is so slow its not even funny .
i get it the big shows that bring in the money are getting promoted here which is totally fine they deserve it and with that way Taptastic earns a lot of money and can promote themselves.
but absolutely nothing is being done to help promote the beginners for example if you go on to the main page of Taptastic you can see :
Popular
Trending
Staff picks
and Discover more(3 sections in that one)-Comic feed Collections and Fresh.
now lets say out of 5k subs from someone famous on taptastic 10% of those subs decide to check something in the "fresh section"
you have 10 different genres :
Action
Comedy
Drama
Fantasy
Gaming
Horror
Mystery
Romance
Slice of life
Sci fi
CONSIDERING that those 10% are checking immediately after you Posted bcs if you didnt post it when they are checking it out your comic is going to be lost in that fresh genre(in comedy lets say) on the 2nd or 3rd page in about an hour or two .

all im saying all that fine work someone does gets lost in an overpopulated scene (especcially genres like Comedy Drama Romance Slice of life .
im guessing the system used to work pretty well before the overflow of new content on a daily basis
take for example this guy

https://tapastic.com/episode/78540

This guy has been here since 2014 his work is funny and the drawing is good i absolutely love his work and i find it interesting and hilarious ,yet he stands barely at 30 subs .
every person that draws comics has its own fan base(a lot of people like different things i get that) but this guy cant even be discovered bcs the system isnt playing in his favor ,im not saying bigger comics should suffer in order to make the small one develop
but for the love of god cant someone make something similar to this "http://imgur.com/a/h7bZw"
and put "subs under 50 monday promotion" and then the next day "subs under 100" and then "subs under 200" the next day after that .
im not saying that that kind of section should be on the top of the page but atleast on the bottom when people scroll down they can see. that there is other work being posted
For example when i was searching for Webtoon fresh work it took me to about 5 min to find it(i was persistant)
Now imagine a bypasser searching that long to find a new comic...that he could find interesting ..... and then support it

Once again i do apologize for the cheap way of trying to attract the audience im removing the comments right now that i posted and il try to communicate more on the forums and the comment section of the comics it wont happen again i have learned my lesson sorry.

[heterodont]

The thing is, you can't force readers to like things just because the creator is a ''beginner'' - and as cruel as it sounds, sometimes there are pretty obvious reasons as to why certain comics don't have as big of an audience as the creator thinks it should. The big comics have huge audiences either because they had a huge audience prior to coming to tapastic (like GaMERCaT), the creator is already an extremely popular artist, or there's something that hauls readers in and keeps them (be it art or writing)

There is nothing wrong with promoting yourself! In fact everyone should do it! but there's a certain point where it can get obnoxious and turn off potential readers - and it isn't helped by the copy pasted comments either.

The sameness of the front page has already been addressed by a different topic, but at the same time you can't expect people to READ your comic just because you think you deserve it or because you're a newbie. Doing so just comes off as conceited - comics aren't something that you can get extremely popular in within the first two years, you have to keep at it for years before youre able to build a sizeable audience.

[Caelestie]

That is pretty shitty! sometimes comments are pretty rare better not do that to people! it is like that person has no time to waste on your comic other than self promo! tsh-tsh very lazy and they are wasting their time and the authors time!

[TomSawyer]

@Herofeeder

You seem like an okay dude, besides the spam
How about you join my group?

Maybe you can receive the help you need

[Herofeeder]

i completly udnerstand. The smaller number of the audience doesnt really bother me,what bothers me is the low amount of critcs i get on my work .bcs when you see you have like 5 subs and nobody is saying a word about your work out of them 5(no opinons good or bad)
and the new subs arent coming ,you have no info to work with was it good or bad ,who knows? and you cant really tell if its bad bcs nobody subs(chances are your work is probably on the 3rd page and nobody has gotten a chance at seeing it yet .

[Herofeeder]

il gladly joing your group(wasnt aware you can join groups)
im real sorry man i wasnt trying to pick up a fight or anything it just feels so slow when your putting almost all of your free time ,for me its 9-10 hours of work and then come home do your chores and then sit and start drawing .i guess the sub count really only helps me to motivate me to work more even though i just wanna sleep : p

[TomSawyer]

@Herofeeder

Here is a link to the thread
http://forums.tapastic.com/t/lets-make-a-group/11664/154

And here is a link to our site
http://pensandpencils.forumotion.com/

[heterodont]

that makes sense! you can always ask for reviews, seeing as all the reviewers on the forums have waitlists and stuff, it never hurts to make a topic asking for help on how to improve your work. Or if you're not comfortable doing that, you can always ask friends or anyone you know on how you can improve as well!

though it seems you're already in the process of joining a group that can help with that!

[Herofeeder]

thank you very much il check it out after work tommorow i have to go to sleep now
@heterodont il be sure to post on these links

[zerogravityfiction]

Honestly I think growth on this site is a lot fairer and better than other platforms. When my comic was active, I had a steady growth of subs, likes, views and comments per update. I only got a couple comments but the ones I did get were great because it was genuine feedback. The quality of my comic also grew with updates (I was the writer and I worked with an artist). A harsh truth is that if your comic isn't improving, or is repetitive etc - it's going to get stale and thats why views drop. I really don't think its some kind of conspiracy about small artists Vs The Big Guys. Places like webtoons might have that dynamic because of the sponsoring etc, but Tapastic is pretty fair imo.
My advice to you would be to become active in the community and maybe seek out some feedback for your work, and take on said feedback. (Personally I think you should use proper speech bubbles for cleaner dialogue). Promoting on twitter is also pretty handy.

[spadesart]

Just create a new topic asking for people to check out your comics, lots of people do it! I've seen a lot of people get subs fast by doing that. The comment section of comics are more for feedback only so it's something you have to be careful about. Lots of people use the forums and theres plenty of topics to promote yourself on here.

[Herofeeder]

im not saying that taptastic has some kind of beef with smaller content creators ,what i ment by that is i think right now this system doesnt work for everyone bcs the number of people on this site got bigger and not everyone gets their 5 min of attention ,

[Greg_Dickson]

@Herofeeder - I think what needs to be realized is that such a means of promotion is why you aren't ending up with the comments that you would like to receive. Chances are, a lot of those people you subbed to just to get them to check out your comic, have only reciprocated because they wanted to keep you as a sub too. However, what many of them don't know is if you're actually checking out their work or not, because the one comment you copy and paste gives nothing to go off of. And it goes vice versa too. For many of them, you would have no idea if they read yours or not. In turn, you could be gaining a bunch of inactive subs, and when people aren't reading, it reduces your chances of getting onto Trending, which could in turn, net you more readers. Watching that sub number increase bit by bit is useless if those people aren't actually interested.

I know that getting noticed early is insanely hard to do. I started in May, and my first month felt like hell to me. You're already at 45 subs, and at around the same time, I was at 30. What I had to realize, was the more content I created in time was going to eventually net me more views. Having such a small sample of material isn't going to draw a ton of people in from the get go, unless you're a person with godly art skills that makes it onto the Staff Picks right away. You need to have patience, and focus on creating the best content you have, and fans that will show actual interest will come in time. Slowly, you'll see people trickle in that leave genuine comments.

My best advice for you is to go into those comics you subscribed to, and actually read the ones you're interested in. Unsubscribe to all of those ones you're not reading. From there, read at your own pace, and chime in with a genuine comment every now and then for pages that actually interest you. I think that once people see how genuine you really are, and they can get a feel for your personality, they will be interested in checking out your work as well. To promote, use twitter or Facebook as much as you can, participate in the forums, network like I mentioned with commenting and just stay consistent with your updates, and strive to improve. Building a large readership can take years for people. You really need to develop patience in this field, because webcomics are a niche market to begin with, and you're one in thousands of people vying for a very small piece of the readership pie. Forming genuine relationships with your readers and other artists is what's going to get you through these tough times, and not just having a bigger number next to your sub count just for the sake of having one.

Sorry for the wall of text, but first impressions are everything. I recommend trying for a fresh start (not in terms of redo-ing your comic, just establishing relationships with people) and seeing how it goes.