Too idealistic?

Jenny-Toons 2018-11-24 21:58:22 UTC #31

I argue that's it's not really "most people" saying these thing -- it's "this loud minority" who say "do it for the love" because they're also the ones to say "who needs money? your art will keep you warm"

The general faces I've seen in the forums, including myself, who say to reevaluate your reasons for doing this also have a stable enough income coming in. They also follow with questions you have to personally ask yourself:

"Are you actually aware of what you want from this?"

"Yes? Ok -- are you willing to keep doing this effort and work despite knowing you might not make it?"

"Is there a way for you to fall back on other things?"

"Are you taking breaks? Is this something you actually enjoy doing?"

"Have you considered doing this at a smaller level (AKA smaller comics)?"

From there, they might give suggestions on what they've personally done -- but everything is meant to be within your choice. If you feel like this isn't working, are you prepared to keep going or would you rather just leave it and move to other things? Both are valid decisions, but you have to be aware that when you think things over, you have both choices.

Dunno, it kinda irks me that "most people" is getting tossed around when it's really not the case. It's just this very vocal minority who are idealistic about it. Wouldn't even call them "idealistic". They're "gate-keepers" because this is the "true vision of the artist". In reality, the average creator will tell you it's hard, will tell you to think if this is something you truly want, and will maybe give some advice that personally worked for them.

But because we don't know people, don't know how they think or react, that's ALL we can do.

And honestly, there are plenty of threads here that give the exact advice some people are looking for if they don't want the "reevaluation" talk. They just need to be willing to look for it more. Actually look at the old threads and not ask the same questions that have been asked 1001 times.

skicoak 2018-11-24 21:59:12 UTC #32

I understand that everything you're saying is true...

but we should be able to establish some basic statistical truths that would help creators in evaluating where their creation falls on the curve. Access to even something as simple as the site average of how many unique views turn into subscribers would be useful.

Let the individual creators work out the assorted variables, but if a creator could compare even this simple rate...it would be more valuable than the most well meaning positivity.

keii4ii 2018-11-24 23:03:39 UTC #34

If you mean a writer as in a novelist, then no... I make a comic

That's sounding a lot like a marriage counselor's work, to use your metaphor. And that's more work than I would ask for from a bunch of strangers/ acquaintances.

It's the same thing with asking for critiques... I could ask for it here, yeah, but there are situations where I should just pay up and hire an editor. Same thing with promotion advice. Sometimes you're looking for a super in-depth, personalized promotion counseling, and that's not something you can expect to get from strangers.

Isn't that what happens in most of those threads? I dunno, maybe it's how different people read the same words. If you're reading "do it for the love" as "shut up, stop complaining, and get back to work," then I can see it. I don't read those words that way, not automatically. I read it as "it's tough, but we get it, because we're all going through the same thing for love."

OH OH, I think I know exactly what you're talking about, and no, I don't actually see this often in this forum. And that's not idealism, that's elitism. The "I am purer than you; I am a REAL artist, and you're just a poser who's in it for money/fame."

I usually see this from non-creators.... you know, people who are trying to guilt trip you into making them free art. The few times I've seen it from fellow creators, it was gross and infuriating. Again, I don't see it much around here at all, thankfully!

shazzbaa 2018-11-24 23:08:13 UTC #35

I mean, if you just wanna go through a bunch of comics and calculate the ratio of views to subs, that's all public information! It's possible for anyone to grab a huge sample and do. It'd definitely be interesting if you wanna! I'm just not sure it's.... practical? without some kinda multi-year study to contextualise that information. I mean, we all know how misleading stats can be.

I've made this analogy before, but if you flip a quarter 4 times, and it's heads every time, it's impossible to tell if there's something wrong with your quarter. You just haven't flipped it enough times, and it's impossible to have meaningful statistics before you flip it more -- it's just going to be random whether those stats apply or not. And for comics that have been going for a year or less, they simply haven't flipped the quarter enough times for me to tell. Are you doing well? Are you doing poorly? Genuinely, we don't know, and the way I think of it is, "well, you should be at 50% heads vs tails" would be deceptive advice -- it should be something more like, "keep flipping and you should find that you even out to 50%"

The time frame that most successful creators I've seen give is 10 years (though I have had one creator advise me that if you don't find your comic fulfilling in some way after 2 years, that's a good time to decide it isn't for you). After 10 years, if you do your best and don't give up and fortune is on your side, you'll have that first step of "an escape from obscurity," as Spike Trotman put it in This Is Everything I Know.
Incidentally, I've linked to that comic a billion times, but if you're looking for practical-minded advice and haven't read it yet, check it out! I agree with Spike a lot that it's hard to create a simple step-by-step because everyone's journey is legit so different that there's really not a set path.

And anyone can do their own research, if you want something tangible -- get off the popular page, look for a reading list that has some good variety and pick a bunch of comics and crunch the numbers. Look for comics that have been at it for as long as you have. Look at comics that are a similar genre to you. Look at comics that you think are about as funny or pretty or compelling as yours and try to figure out what they're doing. Look at comics who update about as often as you do. There's SO MANY factors that ultimately, you might not find anyone in your exact situation, but I don't think this sort of gauging of where you stand is bad to do. I do this a lot -- try to figure out who my peers are and how well I'm doing by comparison. I also try to figure out ratios for stuff like engagement to get a better idea of where I am -- we had one thread where someone was worried that they'd been swarmed by bots because SO MANY people had visited their comic without subscribing... until we did the math on a bunch of other comics, and saw that no, that was a pretty normal ratio, actually!!

This sort of math actually comes up in threads a lot! The only thing we don't typically give is a "you should on average have this many subscribers by this point in your comic's life" because I genuinely don't believe there is a universally meaningful figure for that, no matter how badly people want there to be.

I dunno man!! I don't see myself as trying to be positive. The things I say have been called too negative by some folks, in telling creators that this stuff doesn't always work out, and that getting promoted by Tapas on the front page won't create the fame that you think it will, and when someone asks "why even do all this, then" I don't really have an answer for you other than why I do it, which can tend to lean a bit poetic -- but ultimately I don't think webcomics are really worth it in a purely practical sense. I don't think that's negative, either -- comics are hard, but I love them. I love making them. I hope that we all find success, I'm all for more ways to make this financially viable for more people (and I'm glad we can get advice on that sorta thing here), and I think comics are super rewarding, but it's important to know how long and capricious this road is.

gh0stcr33p 2018-11-24 23:26:55 UTC #36

what you pointed out is basically the same exact situations I've gotten into while talking about popularity or issues with my comic. I have gotten some help, but most of the time it was just the things you already stated, so I get what you're saying

skicoak 2018-11-24 23:54:42 UTC #37

I'm not trying to makes this about the "pure" reliability of statistics ( because I agree about there potential misleading nature) but even something as simple what numbers I have access to is corrupted because we don't have access to unique view counts. My mom... your mom... anybody's mom can look at the same page every day and it scores as repeated views.

I tried to start a thread to get a rough comparison in what being featured added to subscription counts versus normal growth but after basic criteria, the sample size is soooo small it'd be irresponsible to extrapolate conclusions from the data.

All I'm really saying is there's a range of average numbers that would be useful in evaluation that I never see addressed here.

If Creator A, after a year of weekly updates, has 10 subscribers but episode 1 has 1000 views then the other 51 episodes average 20 views...

and Creator B, after a year of weekly updates, has 10 subscribers but no episode has more than 10 views...

shouldn't this require different types of advice than a bland "You need to give it another year" ?

NanettesClouds 2018-11-25 00:08:35 UTC #38

So, you're right that stats can definitely indicate that something is wrong, but those hypothetical sittuations you brought up aren't things that you see in the real world.

On top of that, not every comic is a quarter. Some are d20s, some are a deck of cards. Each has its own unique statistical reality. Also I think the more you deviate from the mainstream you move towards riskier odds, with a higher risk of "failure" but a greater opportunity for "success". But what's "mainstream", what's "success", what's "failure"? These are all subjective terms. I consider my work to be pretty successful considering what it is, bust ask my grandparents what they think and they'll probably want to disown me. (Actually my grandparents are chil but its a decent way to explain stuff)

And then ON TOP OF THAT, just as theres potential for random chances that can lead to success theres also the potential for random chance that completely dooms your career. You can do things to avoid those risks, just like you can do things to invoke opportunity, but the risks and opportunities that are in the cards for you are different from what are in the cards for me.

And y'know? That's fine. Comics are such a unique and diverse and passion driven medium, because these numbers don't affect them significantly. I can make my weird comics because they're basically only cost my time and energy to produce. If I was a filmmaker these numbers would matter a lot more - I would have to change my work to improve my odds and stats just to be able to have the funding to try and make something. And that sucks. I wouldnt be making comics if the numbers mattered.

skicoak 2018-11-25 00:52:57 UTC #39

You just posted a reply that mirrored the OP's original question.

There's nothing inherently wrong with anything you said. It was undeniably positive and self affirming but if it's advice your giving to another creator ... then it's what the OP and others in the thread are talking about.

Some creators looking for advice would be better served by less cliched/philosophical advice and more applicable feedback.

I've seen your advice before about being a "niche" creator... and telling cats to learn to live with it is not nearly as helpful as you telling them they'll have to find alternative means to bring their potential audience here to Tapas would be.

keii4ii 2018-11-25 00:57:58 UTC #40

Tangent question (that may very well go beyond the scope of this thread): how do you know when something's as [adjective] as yours

shazzbaa 2018-11-25 01:18:28 UTC #41

I mean, I usually see much more advice than just that!

There's a general round of practical advice that's always given, every time these questions are asked. Inevitably a few people will point out that stats aren't a reliable measure if you've been going for a year or less and you can't really draw conclusions from them -- because a lot of creators genuinely don't realise that -- but the one time I saw a thread where someone HAD been at it for a full year with little growth, several people in the thread took it very seriously and looked at his update patterns and engagement to find out if there was anything he could do differently.

In my experience, it's been the norm for folks in these threads to look and see if there's any obvious things that can be done to help. They'll take a look at how often you've updated, if there are glaring easy fixes like font readability or updates that are a weird size or too many pages in one episode. They'll ask if you have social media, or any other internet presence, and if you're participating on Tapas and in any communities outside Tapas. We've had a few times where someone with good work was frustrated with a lack of engagement and we discovered that they were editing new pages into an existing episode rather than starting a new episode. There's a decent amount of investigative work that happens in these threads!

But I agree with keii4ii's first post, that if you want critique on your comic, you have to actually ask for critique on your comic -- both because unsolicited critique is sort of presumptuous for someone to give, and because a thoughtful crit is a lot of work that you can't expect of creators who don't even know if it's wanted.
When folks ask "what could I be doing better, is my comic turning away readers?" they often get specific answers. And we often suggest making that sort of thread or asking those sorts of questions when someone expresses that they want to improve their comic.

When someone actually gets nothing but "it's normal for stats to be low when you're starting, just keep going," that usually means that there's nothing else glaring that we can see that's hampering them, the number of subs they have doesn't seem distressingly small, and it's literally just a matter of hanging in there until they find more of their audience.

I don't quite agree with this. I think the truth of the matter is that both kinds of advice are needed -- some creators won't benefit from a List Of Things To Try, they need to hear that they're not behind, that they're not doing anything wrong, that it's normal for this to take time; while other creators don't benefit from this sort of approach and need to be pointed in a direction. We need both!

I also don't think "if you're doing a niche story, your audience is going to be smaller" is cliched or philosophical -- it's practical and honest. A creator might WANT to hear something else -- they might want to hear that there's something they can do, some trick they can learn, some alternative advertising method that they just haven't found yet -- but sometimes, there isn't. It's just "try everything and find out what works for you, specifically," which is the advice for any content creator, really, with an additional "but you're basically playing on hard mode so don't get discouraged."

ble 2018-11-25 01:41:10 UTC #42

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

NanettesClouds 2018-11-25 01:48:34 UTC #43

I mean it's not that I'm saying "you're niche. Lie down and rot with the rest of us" but the reality is - if you're niche you're gonna have a hard time finding an audience ANYWHERE. And It's going to take a lot more work to find out what works for you, and the things that work are probably going to be fairly unconventional.

Do you wanna know what some of the things I do to grow my audience are? 1) I participate pretty deeply here in the tapas community (in the forums, in discord groups, and as other people's reader and occasional collaborator). This can be seen as basic advice, but if youve seen my posts it's pretty clear that I interact differently than the other creators on this platform. But also, this is what feels genuine to me.

2) I make a lot of short minicomics that are easy to share. (And also hypothetically they can game the algorithm a bit but it hasn't worked out yet)

3) I print out zines of those minicomics and I distribute them in meatspace, and occasional I bring people to the site with them, and hopefully that leads them to my main comic that I can't print yet. (And I probably won't print it anyways)

But like - here's the thing skidude, what I'm doing WILL NOT WORK FOR YOU. (It barely works for me) Our work is different and appeals to different people. It's not overly optimistic to say "you just have to wait and find out what works" because that's the truth. There is no "one weird trick that doctors hate" that will make your comics successful overnight, or in a week, or in a decade.

And besides that - What do you want from me? Like, do you want me to look you dead in the eyes and tell you that I think your comics are bad? There's a difference between being a realist and being a dick, and to some extent it sounds like you're asking me to be a dick, because every time anyone takes a step towards being "realistic" you move the goalpost.

There's a reason why the "standard advice" is what it is - and it's because it's the truth, and it's been the truth for much longer than tapas or even webcomics in general have been around.

skicoak 2018-11-25 02:05:21 UTC #44

Maybe I'm just missing it or it doesn't occur as much as it use to but I don't see that kind of depth normally.

You see the normal practical checklist of... post regularly, push on social media, active in forums, mirror on other sites, ect. But usually if they check off all those boxes then vague philosophical stuff starts. I think it's great some folks are digging deeper but I just haven't seen it.

And I agree unsolicited critiques are bad business but that doesn't remove the ability to discuss the other relevant factors such as potential marketability and such.

And if that's the case, that's all that can be done...but like the OP, myself and others are saying that's when the topic header creeps in. I've repeatedly said I'm not mad at it happening but it does happen a lot.

Sorry about the "niche" tangent, I didn't explain clearly enough that it was a callback to a previous conversation to niah146 that referred to a very specific back and forth.

crayon_witch 2018-11-25 02:10:47 UTC #45

I like that everyone is kind here. And to be honest, the handful of times that someone did need a reality check or tough love, the community responded appropriately. I don’t see it as sugarcoating; webcomics are so so so hard already. A lot of the time the people that make the kind of threads about art block, sub count, etc just needed some encouragement to keep going, or advice from more experienced creators because they’re new and don’t know how the industry works yet.

Criticism and realistic discussion is healthy, of course! But it should always be done in a supportive environment to BE healthy. The forum here is good at keeping that balance, I think.

skicoak 2018-11-25 02:28:27 UTC #46

Maybe you don't recall but we've already tread this ground...
and I remember clearly where it leads.

This is an inflammatory statement exaggerated and crafted to start the kind of argument that can lead to me getting flagged. Last time you and others did this, you falsely painted me as homophobic and trying to take over the site like I was a scout from Comicsgate.

You don't like me and my opinions...coolio. But please stop trying to draw me into situations where you think you can lead me into getting banned.

NanettesClouds 2018-11-25 02:30:09 UTC #47

I mean even if @shazzbaa doesn't know the full context of exactly what we're talking about here that doesn't make their points invalid? If anything Shazz is one of the most credible people on this site, and anything they have to say is worth listening very closely to (even if they're not fully in the loop). And honestly, I don't think people need to see the other post to get what we're talking about anyways? like it's pretty general comic making knowledge...

Also like - this is a public forum, we're getting kinda off topic here with all this "niche" stuff but if you don't wan't people other than me to give their 2 cents on the conversation you should just DM me instead of pushing other people out to a point where it's just the two of us monopolizing the discussion.

EDIT: For sake of transparency here's the post (and thread) that we're talking about. It's locked and unlisted for a reason.
https://forums.tapas.io/t/sudden-surge-of-premium-bl-comics-on-tapas/28660/47?u=niah146&source_topic_id=28998

skicoak 2018-11-25 02:54:42 UTC #48

There you go again, trying to put words in my mouth to try and make it seem like I said something to @shazzbaa that I never did. I even apologized for unintentionally starting a tangent to them.

And yes... it's a public forum...put your two cents in. But stop trying to drag me into one of these...

GesuGesu 2018-11-25 03:02:55 UTC #49

I have done comics for about 2 years now (well, more like 1 year since I was on hiatus for a whole year).

There were SO MANY times that I saw people on the forums asking for advice on how to get more views, subs, or just visibility and all I could think of were not very nice things (Your art is too shitty to attract anyone's eyes at first glance; your series summary is so long I couldn't even read past that let alone starting the actual series)

If people wanted harsh reality or a "I'm just brutally honest, so suck it.", we wouldn't go around treading lightly so not to hurt people's feelings.

shazzbaa 2018-11-25 03:38:57 UTC #50

HONESTLY...... Im not sure you can know. But it's one of the factors that's in there if you're looking to find out where you stand, I think?

I guess my example is, when I first considered joining Tapas, I looked around to see if there was anything like my comic here, and I ended up finding Sanity Circus. It was in a similar-ish style, a similar slightly-fantasy genre, with some creepy moments and some funny moments and characters who were both weird and thoughtful, and I felt like our work had a similar level of expressiveness and humour and cool moments. Obviously it'd be impossible for me to say for sure, but it was close enough that I was like "okay, I have the potential to do well here." Sanity Circus updated more frequently than I did and had been running longer, so it was always gonna have a bigger audience, but I saw it as a goal to shoot for that was potentially achievable for me.

Trying to figure out who's better or worse than you IN COMICS IN GENERAL is a fool's errand I think and can get pretty silly if you step outside genres ("why is this slice of life doing so much better than my historical fiction when their drawings are less technically skilled!!!"), but I think it can be helpful to find the people who are like, executing the sort of thing that you want to execute at what feels like an achievable level!!

(unrelated p.s., niah holy crap, that is a heck of a compliment, thank you so much gosh!! ;o; )

But honestly, as far as original topic goes, I think it's also important to remember that like.... there are TONS of these threads. There are a lot of thoughtful posts, especially when there's a tangible and identifiable issue... but thoughtful people do not have time to develop customised strategies for every single creator that posts "aaaaa how to get more subs!!!" We give out the Standard Starter Advice a lot because, well, there's a lot of people who need the Standard Starter Advice.

If you want something more than that, then I think that it's kinda similar to asking for critique. If you just say "hey read my comic what do you think" you'll get a way less satisfying response than if you think hard about your comic and what your struggles are and post "hey, I'm unsure if my plot makes sense and I've gotten some confused readers, is it actually unclear? what can I do to make it clearer?"
In the same way, if you're looking for in-depth thought, I think you have to take the initiative to ask thoughtful questions. "I'm doing historical fiction horror comics, which I know is a little outside the mainstream, and after finishing my first chapter I want to start expanding my audience -- I'm active on social media and participate here on the forums, but are there any other steps I can take in general? And does anyone have experience with these genres or spaces that might be looking for the kind of stuff I make?" is going to get more specific thought than "I finished chapter one and I still only have 20 subs, is this normal?? what do I do????

Gilded_Cataphract 2018-11-25 04:13:57 UTC #51

There's a quote about how the point of constructive criticism is to not try to make something better according to you, but to see what the person asking for criticism is trying to do and give them guidance for how to reach there. Simply shooting someone down and telling them that they can't do it and should try to do something else to give them "tough love" is unhelpful and often outright harmful if it doesn't simply get ignored as people tend to react to perceived hostility with blocking it out or avoiding it. This eventually leads to them either completely ignoring anyone's advice and doubling down on what they wanted to do or latching onto any positivity they can get and thus amplify the bad parts of their work; or they avoid it by giving up entirely and at that point you've done literally the opposite of constructive criticism.

While this is the best way to get hot take posters to shut up, making someone who spends their time bullying teenaged girls on the internet stop that behaviour or get off the internet is very different from making someone with creative aspirations give up on the creative arts entirely.

Even if someone's aspirations are seemingly overly ambitious for their means, it's much better and far more useful to advise them on how to work towards those aspirations with what they have than to just tell them to give up or worse yet prescribe them something else to aspire to and in essence back handedly asking that they do what you want. So I'd rather have a lot of rather fluffy positive encouragement posts with the occasional analytic insightful critique than a forum full of people tripping over each other trying to "drag them back down to earth."