Should I just abandon Tapas and publish elsewhere?

[franzvanderlinde]

I have been publishing since 2016, I followed all guidelines, have been doing the scheduled update even. I did everything I could, yet I get a mere 62 subs over all these years. It is very frustrating to put a lot of energy and don't see results. It looks like my comics are invisible, maybe I am not promoting enough?

[Hambonous]

This shit boggles my mind, take my subscription, your comic has a really nice artstyle.

[Kelheor]

There's literally zero reason to publish your comic for years on just one platform if it doesn't give you readers. Try to publish on others too.
Though I should say the in some places font is really small and it would be nice to make it better. Depending on how many panels you have, if you go to Webtoons, it would be better to cut your comic into scroll format and make longer updates, no less than 8 panels. It's not a must, but that's what people prefer there.

[oshirockingham]

Have you ever heard the word "Friendship is Magic"? Yep, it's from MLP.
And in Tapas, it's true!
For "small" and non-premium creators, the best way to gain readership is thru the magical way of friendship.
Be friendly to other creators, get engaged in their stories, and if you're able to do this frequently, you can wait and see the magic at work for yourself.

[skicoak]

For "small" and non-premium creators, the best way to gain readership is thru the magical way of friendship.

@oshirockingham is correct. You don't even have to be very good at making friends to see gains.

I'm a cranky douche most of the time and EVEN I have some supportive acquaintances here.

[jmhenry]

Maybe popping into the forum more would help? Promoting definitely helps too! Put your best foot forward when you do though, adding your best drawn cover/page along with a brief summary of your story will go way farther in promoting than a single link drop.

You've got some great looking work, Franz, I hope you find your audience out here!

[thedude3445]

You definitely should post on other sites and see gow they work, but Tapas still has a chance for you. I'm rooting for you!

[Kaydreamer]

Well, your comic looks gorgeous, so it's definitely not a quality issue.

Tapas is not great for organic growth through the site itself. Nobody actually looks at the 'fresh' section. You have to promote, and promote heavily, offsite. You can start here on the forums. Reddit is also a very useful place to promote your comic, with various subreddits suitable for that. Running Instagram and Twitter accounts for your comic, where you post panels, sketches, and so-on are also very helpful for getting eyes on your work.

Also, regardless of what you think of the app itself and the people who own it, TikTok is one of the better platforms to get new eyes on your work.

Also, there's absolutely no reason you should only post on Tapas. WEBTOON has a way bigger audience. You'll need to slice your pages and re-arrange them vertically to see success over there, but you have nice big white gutters, so that should be an easy task.

[mcarrowolga]

Beautiful comic!
Try ComicFury, seriously, it's a great community. You can get a free site there, customize the design as you like, add ComicAd banners (ad network for indie creators) and earn money from what you do, even with very few views.
You don't deserve Tapas's indifference. Keep your comic here as a mirror, with a link to your main site (ComicFury or some other site you make).

Also, check out this list of resources I gathered. They worked for me very well: thanks to them I have readers and steady income from ComicAd and Patreon. Link: Webcomic promotion (list of resources)

[franzvanderlinde]

Thank you, very kind of you!

[franzvanderlinde]

Thanks for the advice on formatting for Webtoons. I am planning on launching there as soon as I finish redesigning the first chapter. I also publish on my own site (bilingual) and use mostly Instagram to promote. I tried other platforms to promote but Twitter is hard to get a following. I will try more Reddit.

[franzvanderlinde]

Be friendly to other creators, get engaged in their stories, and if you're able to do this frequently, you can wait and see the magic at work for yourself.

@skicoak @jmhenry

Definitely important, I was very active in the Forum for a while, it got me a few nice subscribers. I did share it in different ways, but it is also a very competitive place. It however takes a lot of time, and between a day job, parenting and actually creating the comics, it is hard to squeeze that network-building.

@Kaydreamer I do publish on my own site (https://abismos.com) and promote mostly on IG (franzvanderlinde). I created a TikTok account but found it harder to create videos all the time. Do you have a list of known subreddits that have good activity?

@mcarrowolga Thanks for the tips, I am always reading these guides to get ideas, I will check it and see how I can improve my promotion.

I guess to summarize, active promotion everywhere seems the only way to go... I guess I am just a bit exhausted of putting effort into that and I always wonder if I am getting what is normal or should change my methods to be more efficient. It sounds like I am doing a lot of math, but I really can only spend 2-3 hours per week on promoting otherwise I fail to actually get progress on the comics.

[Kaydreamer]

Some subreddits I use for promo are:

r/comics
r/webcomics
r/webtoon
r/webtooncanvas
r/LINEWebtoon

You can post the same piece of promo to all of them. That's what I do, it saves a lot of time. I make a new 'ad' every two weeks, when I update.

[jkb4753]

I don't know if you need to hear this but it's really hard to promote online. Kind of a nightmare, even. I know what it's like to get your head wrapped up in the amount of subscribers you have, and start second-guessing yourself. I am (possibly incorrectly) assuming there's some of that going on here. I don't think art should be judges by how many subs it has.

[franzvanderlinde]

It's always good to hear the problem is not our artistic effort as I think every artist will go there at least once in a while, but right now I second guess my promotion efforts since I have tried different methods over years. I always try to think that once I decide to really promote the comics, say for a crowdfunding campaign, I can use some paid Ads etc... That's why I was considering not updating Tapas anymore, because it's another task I have to do weekly (reformat pages, schedule posts, etc...), but seems like it is still worth doing.

[jkb4753]

Promotion is hard. If you figure it out, let me know. lol
I write novels not comics, so maybe our audiences are different. I remain skeptical that I can convert an audience that's used to reading things for free into an audience that pays for things. Other users on this site have reassured me I'm wrong. TBH I don't have enough subscribers yet to find out for myself, so who knows.

[lomcia]

I dunno. I publish my comic on Tapas, Webtoon (censored T_T), comicfury, now voice.me and Tapas have more readers and active ones than on other platforms... I'm also confuse because I'm trying to be friendly as someone is giving advice. But I think some ppl like it or not. Just try to publish on few different platforms.