Same here I get overstimulated by social media too.
It really sucks trying to promote with zero social media presence. 
I'm the kind of person who hides in the background, but that doesn't really work if you want subs. I think my biggest concern is that even though Tapas is currently running a writing tournament, they're not actually doing anything to promote it, other than the small clickable rectangle in the event section. And even then, it still takes about five clicks to find a list of all those series in one place. I feel like there should be a category for it on the homepage...
Don't forget to like and subscribe! 
@axelruler interesting topic 
hope the Tapas creators see and are inspired by these suggestions 
@ThunderChicken yep totally agree lol @ “I seduced the female lead’s baby” 
yep so tired of clearing those terrible notifications and titles and you're right they could have suggestions be made on our personal taste, like how youtube does it with a video similar to what you just seen. Or simply have the user select from a checkbox of genres (including the option for none).
@BreeBaxter your ideas sound cool, i'm still a small guy here but always felt that author collabs is a great way. Always have fun coming up with promoting fellow Tapas creators in my own series, as a thanks for them supporting me but also imagined the same with the 'win win' scenario as you said
Don't have anything new to add but it's super relatable:
For me the forums and discord (back when they had art events) was how I connected with the readers i currently have so thankful for that. Meanwhile on other webcomic sites I've mirrored on, got some views but its an audience of crickets, 0 comments, because of no forums there.
But yep would be great if they gave some visibility on main page (only recently I learnt they removed the community series) or come up with systems to as many already said on this thread. Would change the dynamics of the Forums for sure, and small authors would feel less like they have to 'spam on promotions' as some would say in order to be seen. And everyone's right, as Forums is more a creator space than somewhere an average reader would go. True, the forums would have to include other functions for 'average reader' to even care to visit here. My experience with Discord everything gets buried quickly, as new posts emerge so it always felt topics on Forums were longer lasting.
My interactions on Forums and Discord were always with fellow creators. Never encountered 'just readers' before. Would surely require some incentive for readers to come to the discord, most of the events which I enjoyed participating in were creator based.
And to me, most of the featured series seem bland and same-ish: "The Villianess is the female lead's uncle's ear-waxer' XD They may even attract wider demographic of readers with the greater range of genres and art styles seen in forums (like an actual Webcomics/webnovel version of YouTube).
Had to mute the promotion genre. There are a few authors (especially in the contest) who spam the heck out of the forums. It bothers people to constantly be pinged to sub4sub, sometimes my friends here get pinged 2-3 times by the same person to "help."
@stiatent They do have an option to select the genres that interest you, but I have never once seen them actually use my selections.
Just tried it again: Apparently the favorite genres option is just another way to search. They should absolutely apply those filters to their homepage. Maybe then I won't get spammed with things I have never once expressed interest in. 
Don't forget to like and subscribe. (This is me being part of the problem and not the solution). 
@Tubacabra Everyone here is having an honest conversation about things that can be improved, as well as fellow creators' concerns about the Forum and Tapas. And you're here dropping your link and tagging people to subscribe to your story, which is out of place in this thread since it is not a promotion. Please learn how to read the atmosphere and respect your fellow Tapas creators. This will not take you anywhere; you will just be looked at as a sore thump.
I’m trying to find that balance between promoting my novel but not spamming my novel in every promotional thread that I see.
Sub 4 sub seems like the easy choice but I want something better.
@itsforevermonday Believe me, I have plenty of experience being looked at as a "sore thump". That was basically my social position in highschool. Thanks for bringing back some bad memories! 
As for the "disrespect" that I'm showing to my fellow creators, it was purely meant to be a joke. I apologize if I offended you, but I also don't see anything wrong with me including a link to my story as a footnote. I never told the link to be that big...
Nevertheless, I thank you for your input, I need as much info as I can get. 
@NickRowler and @abigaillmartin
Wishing everyone here the best of luck! 
️
I understand that. Thus I was surprised when a smaller novel showed up 
So some evidence they are looking, even as mentioned before it's a herculean task to sift through all of the series on the site with new ones going up every day.
Maybe smaller and unknown authors will be featured more. I’ve seen some amazing works in this community.
@Tubacabra oh didn't know that, yea sucks if they don't stick with our selections, hopefully they update it.
The Tapas admins have always been friendly and helpful whenever I reached out on helpdesk, hope they stumble here and become inspired by everyone's suggestions
Yhep those filters should definitely apply to homepage too, like YouTube. It's what makes YouTube addictive for most bec the suggestions feed you similar topics, songs and movies. A higher chance for Tapas to keep others outside the Romance fanbase glued to their website and not feel overwhelmed by the default Romance catalogue.
putting the premium comic alert with the messages was the worst thing they ever did, I even emailed them about it
I don't think there are many readers at all anymore i see like one or two accounts that are dedicated to reading but everyone else is a creator. I generally think the forums themselves need to be advertised more on the tapas apps and webpage. You can find it if you press more but there's not anything in place to actually encourage readers to find new stories on it.
I think the main problem though is that forums are going out of style completely. As much as I don't want to admit it as a person that stays clear from most forms of social media but outlets like tik tok, twitter, Instagram and even reddit have grow vastly more popular than forums like this. Because of this its more beneficial to promote on those platforms but some people don't like to go near them or don't have to time to make the promotional material that some of these platforms need.
There's an interesting discussion going on right now on similar topics on the Tapas Discord, in the #general channel. Discussion starts yesterday afternoon and goes through this morning.
I thought this was really interesting because it has some insights from long-time creators who used to be contracted with Tapas about how the site has been failing its community creators over the past few years and why. And probably I am just slow on the uptake, but I learned a lot about how Tapas is actually run from this discussion.