Self promo disguised as feedback...Stop it

[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.

[Starfestival]

This guy commented on my work a couple days ago, I was excited at first(cuz I don't get feedback), then I was.... oh.

[JustMarshma]

subbed its really good mate , btw if you like short comics i would really appreciate it if you would check out mine and subb if you want to see more

[JustMarshma]

jk, plz don't hate me (btw they couldn't even bother making sure their message had tolerable grammar what a jerk)

[Mikayi]

Haha I had that happen too. I was so excited then I figured he wasn't really reading it and I see this and... Well yah.

[Isky]

Oh yeah. That's hella lame. Kinda makes my blood boil.

[Mineu]

@Starfestival Same happened to me. I was so happy I was finally getting a comment!! xD Now that I know he says it just to promote I can't help but feel kind of sad... I really thought someone liked my comics...

[mappypaint]

The Creator's Guide to Tapastic says something about self promotion. Just around the middle of that episode where Joe Schmoe left a "Hey! Please check out my series" and tapastic mascot says "When commenting on someone else's work make sure you're commenting because you want to, not because you're trying to get something out of it."

[J.Z.Castillo]

I never understood people complaining about not gaining subs? Like, okay? Entitled much? Sometimes things just don't happen as fast as you would like, or maybe the story is not as great as you think it is, or maybe the competition in your genre is way too tough? I don't know, but it just makes me kind of upset that people just go on with their mouths complaining that they don't get subs? Why are you doing this? Make a great story and put it out there! I feel like people who complain about their sub count not getting fatter are not in it for the art of the comic or the feel of the story, they just want to be big and famous and make that quick cash. NEWSFLASH! No cash is made quick, at least not in this industry! There's a whole lot of humbling that needs to be made by many of the people in this forum complaining about their subs and views and whatever the fuck. Sorry I had to be the sobering truth dealer, but it is what it is.

[Herofeeder]

like i said i really am sorry for it i wasnt aware it would make such a negative impact @Mineu @Mikayi i was trying to see what works the best when it comes to promotion the idea of promoting it that way was bad and it wont happen again Mikayi the reason i didnt read your content was bcs it had too many chapters i read a lot of what i subbed too but only the shorter comics , yours was on hold @mrjonzap its not about the money i dont want the money i already have a job that i love this was purely a recreational comic i did and truth be told what im drawing right isnt money worthy i only do these comics to see how many people find it funny i was just really bummed out bcs of the slow view count .

i removed about 70% of the comments i left

@Greg_Dickson im gonna make sure i read all the work i subbed to ,i already browsed through 40% of it (the big ones with 30 chapters and over i decided to read later ) ,thank you for .
reason i did all of this was bcs someone said "dont be afraid to ask someone to check out your work and subb if you like it ..seems i took it way too seriously .

[AnnaLandin]

As people have mentioned, @Herofeeder - this kind of self-promo isn't going to get you readers, subs, comments or even positive attention. At best, people will look at this and go "Huh, okay", and then ignore you. At worst, you come off as an annoying spammer, and we'll let everyone know you are an annoying spammer, and that will gain you negative attention. And you don't want that.

Self-promotion is tricky, but there are better ways to do it. Just commenting with a "please check out my comic" is a bit like knocking on someone's door, going "hey pay attention to me!" and then running away. Chances are, people are going to think you're rude.

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

I've been here since March 2015. My comic has never been on the Daily Snack, it's never been a Staff Pick, and while I did get a front page feature once, that was only a month ago, when I'd already been here for over a year. Before that, every sub I gained was entirely through my own efforts, all attention I got was because I directed people towards my comic - and I went from zero subscribers to nearly 4000 in about 12 months.

And I did not once comment on someone else's comic or post on their wall solely to direct them towards my comic - because that would have been rude.

I gained my subscribers by posting pages as often and as regularly as I could, with as high quality as I can manage, by participating in the forums, by being part of community events (there are usually events around the holidays that you can join in!), and by promoting myself via dedicated hashtags on Twitter.

Is it hard? Yes. Does it involve a lot of hard work and patience? Yes. But all that effort means something, and by self-promoting in a way that isn't spamming, you are more likely to gain readers who genuinely care about your comic. It's a slow slog a lot of the time, but it's that way for everyone.

Invest in some patience.

this was purely a recreational comic i did and truth be told what im drawing right isnt money worthy i only do these comics to see how many people find it funny i was just really bummed out bcs of the slow view count .

If it's purely recreational and for fun, why worry so much about the viewcount? I worry about mine because I'm a freelance artist, and the ad-revenue on Tapastic does mean a small trickle of income - but if you don't have to care about the money, why care about the viewcount? Just keep doing what you do for fun. If you get readers and comments and views, that's nice! If you don't, well, you're still having fun.

[carloswebcomic]

Well, considering the number of forum posts which are thinly veiled self promotions, I can't say I'm surprised. It's the next logical step.