Visibility on Tapas

This is a bit off the off-topic topic, but I still despise that way of thinking and I will never not say so.
However, I've already done a ton of rants about how harmful it is to imply that people who haven't made it simply haven't tried (enough), so I won't go into it now.

INSTEAD,

I think @skicoak's point wasn't that Tapas owes us something for being here and trying our hardest to make our comics/novels...just that a little extra visibility (a) would go a long way for us little guys and (b) really wouldn't cost Tapas as much as people are implying it would. '_' I find it really odd to think that a week or two of spotlight for a non-premium work might somehow be a legitimate threat to their bottom line.

Case in point: me. ^^; I did absolutely nothing to deserve getting Staff Picked outside of writing one random little story as well as I could. NOTHING. I didn't advertise, I didn't aim for any "mass audience", even my thumbnail was just a colorful nondescript blob. It was basically the opposite of everything people say is "deserving" of spotlight.

And yet, someone on the Tapas team took the time out to read my story and grant it that little bit of exposure. And it had a noticeable effect...maybe not for me as an author, but to this day, that novel is the only one that still gets more than 1 or 2 views a week. Two YEARS after it was finished.

...So yeah, I can kinda see why people downplaying that would be offensive. This stuff is real, folks; if advertising didn't work, companies all over the world wouldn't sink billions of dollars into it every year.

And most importantly, Tapas didn't get ANYTHING from me in return for that. I mean, sure, my novel got a huge view and sub boost at the time, but nothing even remotely comparable to that enjoyed by their premium works. I didn't do anything for their bottom line that a 2$ donation couldn't have accomplished.

But they still let me have that. And there's no reason why they couldn't do it for more people, more effectively. Sure, there are plenty of reasons why they might not want to, or that they don't even have to, but it's...not really unreasonable to ask.

Never said it did. Considering I didn't post anything in it until 100+ posts had already occurred ... It's pretty faulty math to imply differently.

What Tapas SHOULD owe us, as the smaller creators on the site, is to stop removing potential avenues of visibility in favor of more retail space. That's the argument occurring in multiple threads in these forums. It's been brought up in THIS thread and folks minimizing the advantage of being featured isn't an answer for those concerns.

How many times do I have to repeat this....everyone is concerned about those as well. Nobody is looking at being featured as the ONLY thing to focus on. This is one thing... Having issues with it doesn't preclude the existence of others.

^This.

Instead there's an influx of people who think they're imbuing life lessons by underselling their advantages and saying Tapas doesn't "owe" us anything.

Two mathematical points...

One....Our group's title's subscriber list has a sizeable ratio of people we brought here to Tapas. This is likely true of EVERY creator here. Tapas then gets to pimp to them. That's a symbiotic relationship... Not a one sided affair.

Two...the ratio of people who check out our title to the subscriber amount is high. It doesn't tell me diddly to insist that opportunities to get more people to check it out the title are tied to factors other than visibility. I can understand it's not for everyone... but the less opportunities we have to reach those that it is for... is a NEGATIVE.

Thank you for making this point. It's something I have struggled to get out as clearly and concisely.

That's really what it boils down to... The value of the most viewed ad space on the entire site.

Personally, I don't see it as an attack, simply a very drastic difference of opinion.

But I think it's very interesting that that difference is so drastic. Why does it seem like ALL the underdogs are on one side, and ALL the alphas are on the other?? There's probably more overlap than there appears to be...but the fact that this is the image we're getting is probably feeding into the animosity. It's hard to feel like you really "understand" or you "used to be just like us" when we never...see that.

I can't imagine "the change" happening to me if I ever made it big, limited though my perspective may be. I know it's usually considered an insult to imply that someone who's found success "just got lucky", and deservedly so, but...I'd totally be willing to admit to that. ^^; After all these years of working and pining, somehow I'm supposed to think that I only scored a publishing deal because I SUDDENLY started to deserve it 10 years down the line?? Hell no...my number finally came up, is all. That's how I think I would see it.

And I might not be a minority in that way of thinking...which is another reason why we need more voices from both sides to give a more "resolved" image, so to speak. But I already talked about that here, so...

This is an excellent point (though a complex one. "I create for myself" has at least two big, very different meanings. Do you create what you enjoy creating, or what you enjoy consuming? Very different considerations even in cases where the answers overlap.).

People say write what you love, and there will be people who love it for the same reasons as you do. That your audience is out there, no matter how weird your work is. This is true. But the number of people who share your interests may be too small for your work to be financially viable.

I'm in that boat; my story resembles a more popular genre on a superficial level, but it's really not, so I get a bunch of people who come for that genre and end up being disappointed or underwhelmed. And you know what? It's MY choice to stick to my vision. If the lack of a big, engaged readership is the price for it, which in this case it seems to be, then so be it.

It would not benefit the platform to promote my work to an audience that doesn't want it. Hell, it wouldn't benefit ME, either. I don't want new readers if they're only gonna be disappointed with what I have to offer.

I don't really have a new point to make here, just giving my two cents on points already made. Though there is one minor disagreement I would like to voice:

I think I agree with you on what should be done. I just want to acknowledge that it is very possible for a solid, marketable work to just get buried in the pile, due to factors outside of the creator's control. But your own decisions are the only factors you can control. So might as well focus on doing what you can!

You keep focusing on the statement that ONE is better than NONE. It was statement of mathematical logic against the downplaying of being featured but...

If you wanna stick to that, what is your guess as to the probable number of subscribers increase that Tapas is looking for before it's GOOD business to feature a creator? Is it hundreds? Thousands? Should they only feature titles they think are Premium worthy?

Legit question .

W a t. God don’t use this term. There’s no such thing as an “alpha” creator.

Actually, most of the people I know didn’t change when they got success. All that happened was they stopped engaging because people started dogpiling them or being weird with them like @LordVincent described. I’m the same as I was before third writers camp. I just have more experience now.

It becomes one when someone leaps into a discussion, without checking nuance, and then misinterprets something to have the most negative meaning possible and replies like that though. And if you think this doesn’t happen, you just have to look through this thread. Things were quite civil, sharing differences of perspective, until someone told someone else what they were apparently saying. That, against a backdrop of sustained negativity, is going to make people feel attacked. Especially when it’s something where people have literally expressed they don’t feel comfortable coming out of the woodwork, but they’re going to ty this once, and then this.

I had read the thread. I'd say what you are pointing out is at most annoying.
And.. I've been on the recieving end in the past No big deal, no grudges held. I think it's important to take some distance. These things are small and of no consequences.

Datawise I’m not sure across the board so here’s my stats. Mortician has nearly 500 subs before it was featured. Down The Rabbit Hole was in the 400s. The Accidental Prince has broken 1000. My anthology I created with 11 other Tapas authors had 100. 2 of those are now Premium works.

What does Tapas consider? Well, for novels they look to be actively curating content and reading it and featuring what they feel is high quality. You can see it in their Staff Picks and recent feature lists - which have included many novels with less than 100 subs. Like if you want to see a microcosm of their business model - check the novels section. I’m not a Tapas employee though. I don’t get to say what should or shouldn’t be featured. I must say - they’re doing an amazing job discovering talented smaller creators and showcasing them for novels. But these creators are all also professional, networking and doing all the other stuff too. Their content is exceptionally high quality (I have so much respect for many of the most recent featured writers - they’re all amazing).

If that's offensive, you're gonna have to explain it to me...it's just that I wrote 'underdogs' immediately before and my mind was in the theme. I didn't mean any harm.

That just goes right back to my question though: where are all the successful people who still think like those who aren't as successful??

I guess the implication is that they've all been chased off by the negativity...but if they indeed still think like "the rest of us", why do so many of them feel uncomfortable enough to leave??

...I mean, due to statistics alone, a good portion of them probably are. We're not all whining baby highschoolers, y'know...lots of underdogs are grown adults and even entrepreneurs/working professionals who are more than prepared for what it takes.

Like you, I happen to be mature enough to know that I'm also not ready for that at this point in my life (I may never be able to be a "conventional" success, tbh). But there are plenty of people at my level who have the time and the willpower, and I don't think it's fair to discount them just because the majority might not know what they're getting into.

Oh, frick, I remember that. XD That is a great example of things going south...

Until I come onto the forums and get involved with conversations like this - I don’t think of myself as successful. I think of myself as a creator who has had successes. And that can be true of a creator of any size. I don’t to around my day-to-day life being like “oh I’m successful”. I’m constantly working on self-improvement, tweaking marketing, working on my next projects, giving back to the community, etc etc. It’s all hustle, same as it was originally when I started and had 3 subs.

So yeah... when I’m working 30-50 hours on my platform in various ways as well as having a day job? I just don’t have time to do much more. If a space feels like I’m not welcome, I’ll leave and take whatever I could have brought to that space with me. I’ve found some great and supportive discord communities where we all build each other up (from those with 0 subs to those with 1000s) and it’s just a different experience.