Those who mirror with Tapastic

Pik 2016-04-06 10:06:12 UTC #1

... particularly those who have a main website where you update ahead of Tapastic: how much do you nudge your Tap readers toward your website to read the faster updates (and how much is it allowed?)
I'm considering possibly adding our comic to Tapastic to tap into the site's readers and hopefully gain more readers. However, we've been updating for quite a few years and have a 500+ page archive, which would take some time to upload. Also, I'm still not sure if we want to put the whole comic on another site (so far we've been exclusive to our own website - we're kind of overprotective of the comic like that).
So I wonder how much it is allowed to, say, upload a few chapters while saying "...and meanwhile the rest of the chapters can be read here hint hint", or to leave some chapters exclusively on our website.
Also, for those who link to their main websites, how many readers do you think convert from Tap to your website (or Patreon, or Tumblr?) Do readers tend to stick on Tapastic or do you find you gain more Tumblr/Twitter/Patreon followers as your comic gets popular?

(This may sound like I want to steal away all the readers from Tap, which wouldn't be my intention, lol. If we did decide to put the comic here we would probably continue to keep it updating. But as increasing our Patreon subscribers is a big priority, I'm curious if Tapastic would help.)

AnnaLandin 2016-04-06 10:18:40 UTC #2

Sure, you can do this if you want! It's your comic. : ) If you update faster on your main website, then that can be a big draw for readers who are impatient, and don't want to wait for the next Tapastic-update.

Tapastic is kind of... sticky. In that Tap-readers tend to stay on Tapastic, because it's convenient. Getting them to transfer elsewhere takes some doing! I do my best with reminding people I've got a Patreon, but it's slow going.

However, while the ad-server isn't functioning at the moment, when it does come back up, you can sign up for the Ad Revenue program, which will generate money in your pockets just by people reading your comic here on Tapastic - assuming they don't have ad-block on, of course. It's not a lot of money, but it adds up! SO there are advantages to posting on Tapastic even if you don't see much reader-transfer elsewhere.

DeadAccount 2016-04-06 11:04:33 UTC #3

I'm pretty sure it's not illegal in any way - after all, it's not like Tapastic's hiring you.
Having said that, I haven't really been pushing Tapastic readers onto our website as both launched at the same time. My ad revenue from PW is meagre and there's no real difference to me whether the comic's being read on Tapastic or website in that respect. Sometimes I will push people to visit our website if we've got bonus goodies like character profiles, or if Tapastic's being slow, but so far there's little to no overlap and the two communities are quite different.

I do get follows on twitter and tumblr from Tapastic, though usually it's just me connecting with fellow artists rather than casual readers! Tapastic readership's definitely more casual, especially when you're one of the hundreds of comics people can be reading at the same time. Our website or tumblr followers would probably be more inclined to, say, donate to patreon if I started one, but that's just a guess and I might be wrong :-0

evegwood 2016-04-06 12:21:26 UTC #4

You could upload the archive in chunks, and when you catch up to where the comic is at on the main site you could withhold updating the mirror until you have another chunk of pages. That way people who want to know what's happening right now have the option of reading the current pages at the site, while archive readers still get their occasional updates.

At first I updated Tapastic in chunks until I reached the current page, and now I updated weekly but I still keep Tapastic one page behind so that people have reason to visit the main site. But like @AnnaLandin said, it's pretty hard to peel readers off Tapastic.

Mharz 2016-04-06 12:52:45 UTC #5

Most of my readers are here on Tapastic and I think they prefer reading it here. I'm actually favoring Tapastic because of their ad revenue (which still isn't fixed since they went on maintenance a few weeks back) and update pages later or seldom on other mirrors (I'm bad at maintaining too many accounts).

Don't worry no one will hate you if you want to direct more traffic on your site. It's your comic after all.

I also suggest you update constantly here even if it just 1-3 page per week.

shazzbaa 2016-04-06 16:17:08 UTC #6

You're definitely allowed to update while constantly pointing out that updates are faster elsewhere -- lots of people do exactly that! The only thing Tap doesn't like is if you don't post actual episodes -- as in, you shouldn't post an episode that's just an ad for your website.

When I joined Tapastic, I had a 130 page archive, so I set the whole thing to update a few pages daily on Tapastic until it started to catch up, and then I had it update a few times a week for a while, until it caught up with the website and went down to weekly updates. During the months that I was catching up, I mentioned that the Tapas updates were still behind the website, but most people stayed on Tapastic and just waited for updates here; I only had three people mention that they'd gone to the website to read the full archive. One person even mentioned that they'd read on the website before, but intended to subscribe on Tapas as soon as the archives caught up.

My experience is similar to @cryoclaire -- I have met fellow creators on Tapastic who now follow and support me on social media, which is cool! But yeah, I definitely agree that most of the audience here is very sticky.

Pik 2016-04-06 21:46:35 UTC #7

Cool, thanks for all the replies. Basically, I had noticed some specific rules about third-party links in the content guidelines and just wondered how strict the site was regarding linking. One would figure linking to your website would be a "complimentary comic reading experience", but, well... wouldn't want to get in trouble. : ) But if its a common thing people do, sounds good.

I'd heard people say before that Tapastic was pretty 'sticky'. I guess the consensus is that it really is, ha!

Well, we may decide to upload here or not, we'll see!

demthorshie 2016-04-07 05:54:30 UTC #8

I mirror Cosmos Song here at tap as well as in one another place, in addition to updating it on the main site. I'm currently not really in the business of directing readers to my main site, I mostly point to the character bios page from time to time if there's been an update there. But for the most part, i'm perfectly happy whether readers find my website or not.

There is no real difference in the update times here on Tap versus on the main website, though that might change in the future, no idea. :]