Tapas vs Webtoon(And the sub gap between them)

[reddinggray]

Lol the last event? (April 2-5) Chosen stories has a question posted on the last page of their first episode and readers will answer it. Mine was posted on the second day.

[Wocalich]

I don't follow events haha Sounds like it was fun and helpful

[reddinggray]

Yeah it is. It was kinda overwhelming tho since I don't know if I should reply to all the answers there.

[Wocalich]

Sounds like something to ask about when/if there is a new event.

[Llyrel]

I've got 62 subscribers on Tapas (first episode posted in August) and 92 on Webtoon (first episode posted in November). I definitely found it easier to get a following on Webtoon compared to Tapas: I mentioned this many times already, but I do literally nothing to promote my comic on Webtoon and yet I still get new followers with each episode. That said, however, it's also true that I get, like... zero interaction on my Webtoon posts. That one like on my last few episodes? ...I was the one who clicked on it, because seeing "0 likes" irked me to no end XD seriously, I don't know if people on there simply forget to tap "like" or if they simply stopped reading at some point, but... it really does feel like I'm shouting into a void when I post my stuff on there. On Tapas I may have less subscribers, but at least there IS a sense of community in which people actually interact with you! D:

[Wocalich]

We have the opposite situation with our webcomic/webtoon. No comments on Tapas and plenty of them on Webtoon. Then again, we published first on Webtoon so maybe it just needs time.

[LXndra]

Yea, there is a gap. I have 250subs on WT and only 33 on Tapas.

[Llyrel]

Yep, I often hear that people get more comments on Webtoon compared to Tapas, but somehow for me it ended up being the opposite, lol! I did get a few lovely comments on my first few episodes, then, starting from episode 11 and on... nothing at all (I eventually ended up merging a few of my episodes, so now it looks like there's only 13 of them on my page, but before that there were at least three more... all with zero likes and zero comments). I recently made a teeny-tiny bonus illustration to add at the end of each episode to remind people to like episodes. We'll see how that goes...

[jcmraz]

I have 94 here and 46 on webtoon. I can advertise here better and I like the reader metrics better than webtoons so I push readers here more. I never really get noticed on webtoons much. People seem to get more subs on webtoons but I have no clue how.

[Teira]

I WISH I could post my comic on Webtoons...but it has some some blood and gore and I don't think Webtoons goes for that...

[Indigo-Child]

I will talk about my own experience,
for the same comics I have a difference of 6k subs
31K for tapas
37K for Webtoons
I started to publish this comic book on both sites while already having an audience on tapas, it progressed quickly at the beginning, while webtoons the beginnings were slower then overnight suddenly it exploded I took 20k sub, without knowing how ^^

I find that Tapas allows us to be closer to the readers as well as greater freedom for the creators. On the other hand, the like \ comments ratio is greater on webtoon.
Given that I find the ad revenue ratio is not comparable, that of tapas is very far behind that of webtoon, the majority of my Tapas revenue comes from the generosity of my readers :smile

In short, the two are in my opinion are very different. Honestly I much prefer tapas for the proximity to my readers ^^

[PerfectSerenad3]

Really interesting seeing the differences in subs on Tapas vs. Webtoon for everyone. The gap between the two, for me, is pretty large. However, my biggest and most active audience is here on Tapas with 2570 subscribers vs my 596 on Webtoon. I've been doing my story for almost 2 years and never been promoted. That's the safe that I'd like to crack.

[Rhonder]

From what I've heard from other creators, that's typical. My work for whatever reason has been the opposite though, where it performs better on Tapas.

My first comic (now completed) has 110 on Tapas and 66 on Webtoons.

My current comic is still pretty new, but it's got 17 on Tapas and 7 on Webtoons (1 of which is me currently to make it faster to access/check on mobile)

The first one I suspect was due to it being a page format comic which isn't as accepted on Webtoons.

The current one is vertical scroll but has poor on-app visibility on both sites due to once a month uploads, so my larger preexisting readership on Tapas helped skew the numbers this time.

[Tanako]

yea mine sucks a$$
My comic Since I met you has 2.1k in tapas and has 568 in WT.
I have no idea why the gab is worlds apart LOL

[Fafnir]

this thread encouraged me to go post on webtoon. I won't be surprised if it gets banned soon, since it's got some mature content. but we'll see.

so far I've got 3 subscribers on tapas, It's been up for 2 weeks. posted a new update every day, and shared on this forum.
Webtoon, I just threw up the first 6 pages all at once, no forum posting, and I have 5 subscribers already.

those are low numbers I know. But the webtoons numbers are much better so far. I'll be sad when they ban my comic lol.

[migxmeg]

We do better on Webtoon with little to no advertising (248 vs. 65) and though I have no proof, my theory is that being posted under a small genre (historical) has helped.

Anyone struggling for the organic subs over there - does your series fit into any of the smaller genres?

^ Fantasy top 20 by popularity - you can see how many subs all these series have to get an idea that this genre is really crowded - so you can't get seen by "popular" as a new series and even when you sort by date, your series will get buried pretty fast.

Compare with post-apocalyptic below where many series on the front page don't have 1,000 subs yet (can't see the green & white circle in the top left of the thumbnail). Yeah fewer readers are checking out this genre but your visibility as a newer series can be much much higher and you'll stick around longer after each post.

Obviously it's not going to help you to falsely advertise your genre but if your story fits could be worth a shot.

[writercynknapp]

What genre(s) do you think would work best for

The Larks

[migxmeg]

I'm not familiar with the situation for all the genres - that would be something you'd need to explore and see what's a good fit! No one knows your series better than you .

I'm also not 100 percent sure about this being effective - it's just a guess.

[R.n.P]

On webtoons i had 4 subs compared to the 65 subs I had on tapas(now 70), it was frustrating to watch my comic not grow at all on webtoons so I decided to leave there and focus on tapas

[carloswebcomic]

You're not going the get the same visibility and traction on two different platforms.
It's all about visibility.
Right now, as of this moment (well, since the last Tapas redesign), you're more likely to get visibility on Webtoon if only because they show what comics have been updated vs Tapas that doesn't.

About a year ago or so, things could've turned out different as Tapas offered more visibility to smaller comics.