The problem with popular visibility. ( A discussion of new way to be discovered )

Everyone starting off should definitely keep this in mind. Webcomics are a 4+ year game. Everyone had to start at day 1 as a nobody. There's no cuts in the line. Everyone has to do their time and earn their place.

The thing is creators are seeing the same series promoted over and over (series that have earned being the top spots and rightfully so) to the point of exhaustion. Seriously how many tiles for GamerCat does the app need? There was at one time where we calculuated 30% of all space on the app promoted GamerCat. Thank goodness that changed because readers are going to think the site only has a handful of comics.

The issue is that all of these things have to be hard coded in and that takes time. Time seems really limited these days for staff, so they just leave everything the same day after day. Staff needs to find some way how they can make things automatically dynamic so that each time you visit the app it's somehow different. That is more engaging to the brain. For example, the tripping section, when was the last time it changed? We don't even explore the app any more, there's nothing new. We just go straight to the coin earning video ads.

Can't they code the tipping section to present 9 comics in rotation from a pool of 100, for example? Mix things up somehow?

If everyone had a "chance" of somehow being seen if they worked hard enough, that would go a long way to alleviating this. However as it stands right now, unless you get noticed by one staff member, you won't get any sort of attention on the site other than via Trending. Only having one way of "breaking out" seems to be far too limiting.

Which forces most comics that are not of certain genres to have to advertise. Some of us are spending $100s a month in advertising all of that traffic which not only benefits our series but Tapas as whole. If we're going to be making that kind of investment in Taps, one would think they could invest in making some changes to the app to make it more dynamic.

We've run the numbers twice and the possibility of being featured once in a year is 5%.

Also the 30,000 series number is out of date. 35,000 to 40,000 is actually a more accurate range. Tapas is adding approximately 40 new series a day and that number was quoted a while back when the desktop site did not have the current level traffic it's experiencing. The site is rapidly expanding. Traffic has doubled in the past year. Now with open publishing for books its likely going to double again. Look at Wattpad's numbers. That is where Tapas is heading.

Hey small-fry day-1 creator here to come give my 2 cents.

when I was uploading my minicomic I never felt like I was getting buried, sure I dont have 1000's of subscribers or anything but every time I updated I got new views and comments and subscribers, it's not like I was going un-noticed. Prior to posting my silly little minicmoic here I had basically 0 online attention except for from people who I knew IRL. The fact that I got any readers at all is a good sign for me.

This was totally not the case for me - while I was updating my minicomic it got into trending several times, and none of my episodes have broken 500 views, the most views I've gotten on any page is 249. My minicomic is a weird trippy thing that barely falls into any of the genre tags, and it's definitely not BL. This was in February of this year. So unless they changed the algorythms with the new site update, I dont think it's as difficult to break into treding as you say it is.

I'm no success story like @JohnVincent is, but like, I certainly wasn't "getting burried".

The "creator recomendations" program that came out of the Super Science Club sort-of achieves this, basically creators are encouraged to use their banner as an advertiesement for another comic. I dunno if that's quite what you have in mind, but it does the trick if you run a series.

IN GENERAL: the super science club thread covers a lot of the same ground that this thread does, and there are a lot of good ideas there about how to build an audience with the tools that we alread have available to us. (and a lot of long rants that I wrote that I dont entirely agree with anymore just a heads up)

Agreed -there's always room for improvement, I think a lot of that improvement is currently on Staff's to-do-list as well.

I just wanted to chime in because it seemed like a lot of people are making things sound worse than they are, I dont think I found any particular niche for my comic or that the system is working better/worse for me than it is anyone else, but from the tone of the conversation it sounded like people were saying that the system was broken, and that's totally not the case.

I guess my point is that you dont have to make a BL/Gag a day/whatever genre is popular or have a pre-existing audience or something like that to get on to trending which is what a lot of people seem to like implying >_>

EDIT: For reference here's my minicomic3 since I keep bringing it up in case anyone is interested?

Honestly I think the best course of action would be to make the fresh section visible as thumbnails on the front page. It's a great thing but people forget that it's there.

I know I suggested they pick either fresh or new and noteworthy back when the site made the name change and all, but that was because the "fresh" section they did have on the site served the same purpose as new and noteworthy rather than the actual fresh section.

A very small recommendation feed that shows up when you are done reading a series could work too. Replace the "read next" thing that shows other comics you are subbes to with recommendations. But no big recommendations thing on the site, no weird profile changes, we don't want the site to be too cluttered. If it's unorganized, small creators don't benefit because noone benefits.

Aside from this, I don't think much could be done. Tapas isn't at a place where they can hire someone to make a special recommendations feed of smaller comics yet. The Daily Snack probably already takes up enough time.

I'd personally love to see some sort of activity-based algorithm here, much like with Youtube (though hopefully not as shitty, but is that asking too much lol? I mean come on Youtube, I watched ONE snake bite video, that doesn't mean that's the only thing I want to watch for the rest of my life lol)

I feel like that sort of algorithm would also help a lot for those who still believe that the front page is oversaturated with the same genre(s) (as that's been an ongoing issue for quite some time now. I don't think I need to mention it, you guys know what I'm talking about lol). It could also help solve that reader decay issue that a lot of longform story comics face, and was highlighted in the Science Club (an issue that I'm just starting to gradually push through myself, and I know a lot of longform creators are STILL trying to overcome). Enjoy this comic? You might enjoy [comic], [comic], [comic].

I mean, having the reading list suggestions at the bottom makes sense but... it still doesn't really make sense when you can still access it from your profile AND your dropdown dashboard.

Great discussion! I'd be totally down for seeing a new way of getting lesser known comics discovered more easily on the site. I've also noticed that there is a wall of visibility where comics can really only be noticed if they've just been updated. I feel like the only way for small time comics on Tapastic to get noticed right now is through frequent updates and social media. The fresh section is great, but I think it would be great if it were more visible on the front page. And as someone else mentioned above, maybe a section for each genre's latest comic pages.

oh boy,

first of i wish to debunk the hard=sucess myth. because thats toxic. its more hard work + luck = maybe? telling someone who's worked hard for years/decades that there lack of success is because they didnt want it enough is cruel.

Hard work is an asset to success but not the key, hard work, skills, intelligence and LUCK, with all of those combined your of a higher chance to succeed but still not guaranteed. I know people don't like hearing that but unfortunately, from life experiences, it's very true. A great example is simply looking at the politics in the western world right now. But for an artistic example look at Van Gogh.

Sorry for the rant but I hate to see people justifying inequality anywhere and this hits close to home since it's regarding the design world.

Anyway, back on topic. Yes I do think more can be done for fairer exposure and personal LOVE the idea of a section that has TOP INSERT GENRE HERE on the first page similar to line Webtoons

What hits hard for me is when people sum all your hard work up to "they're just lucky" or "it's because they sold themselves and made insert popular genre here".

That's an unfortunate hang up, but the landscape isn't that black and white. You can't have only hard work or only luck to suceed, or only skill. You need a combination of them to succeed and to continue your success.
Reducing someone sucess to ONE thing (luck/hard work) is toxic in general and completely untrue.

People too often assume success = luck or hard work, no success = no hard work. Never assume, it's makes an ass out of u and me.

Filter bubble in our life's make it far too easy to overlook the full picture when all it shows is the highlight reel

What would be great is if Tapas could code something where it automatically makes suggested series based on a reader's preferences. Say for example you like robot based series. If you have 4 or 5 robot series in your library, Tapas then suggests robot series that you haven't read. A push could go out once a week similar to a Daily Snack but instead it lists the last five updates for series based on your preferences that you haven't yet read.

Bloop-bleep-bloop! Hey reader, here are five robot series that updated this week that we know you would just LOVE to read. -Staff

The nice thing about this is because its completely automated staff doesn't have to put in any resources into it other than the initial coding. It also helps solve the situation of discover ability because now readers who will naturally enjoy your series will eventually find it because of their preferences.

Another way to do preferences, rather than library based, is to have some some sort of section where readers can go in and click boxes for what they prefer. I like this this this and this. Then Tapas automatically starts making recommendations based on those preferences. Once a reader reads that series, it won't be recommended again for a while, that way even small series at the "bottom of the pile" will eventually rise to the top because everyone else in front of them has been recommended.

I think that could work by using tags OR the genres they're classified in.

Probably genres. Every series selects their main genre (which is how it is now) and then sub-genres up to say 5.

Readers select sub-genres up to 5.

The hamsters in the servers then do the matchmaking, turn the wheel, and push out a weekly notification.

I thought they removed the sub-genre feature?

Algorithms based on more detailed sub-genres is a great idea. I'm sure I'm missing out on a ton of great stories because I neglect the main genre the creator felt was the closest fit.

How about a "random series" button? It's a simple idea that would be fairly easy to implement (probably). I think Crunchyroll has this, along with many other sites. Could be limited to sites that updated within 24 hours. Would be very nice for those long boring lunch breaks!

Or you know, allow paid promotion...? Tapas would make a lot of money from allowing people to buy those single comic-specific panels on the homepage. Or perhaps I'm just crazy.