Visibility on Tapas

There's a saying that goes: "God helps those who help themselves", which I don't always agree with because it tends to get thrown around by libertarians and people who disagree with free healthcare, but I think in this case, it's relevant.

Tapas has no responsibility to promote your comic. Even if you're a really nice person, even if you regularly post on the forum, even if you pay for premium content. Platforms are not your friends. From their perspective, promoting a comic that isn't premium is really only worth it if it has at least already managed to hit that 100 sub target and enabled ads. More views = more ad revenue = mutual benefit.

They're giving me free hosting with a reasonably short URL. They're giving me the chance to be seen in a list of comics. To me, that's an okay deal, even without the chance to be featured. And they let me keep all the IP to my comic. Is it weighted in their favour? OF COURSE IT IS, they're the ones paying for everything! If I don't like it, I'll have to peddle my comics elsewhere, like pay for hosting and build a wordpress site like I had back in the day and take visibility into my own hands. In my case, I've looked at my options and decided "this one works for me", but Tapas is no more my friend than my bank is. It's a business, they're offering me a deal and I'm okay with the terms compared to the other options.

Whether or not Tapas features you, the biggest factor in your comic's popularity is YOU. It's painful to hear, but it's true. If you aren't making your best effort to make your comic popular, why should Tapas try to force people to be interested in it? You have to be honest with yourself about whether your comic is a personal piece of art for your own enjoyment or a product you're selling, because saying and acting like it's the former, but expecting a queue of customers anyway isn't realistic. It's a nice daydream to indulge in where I just draw and write whatever I like in whatever format I like without a single artistic compromise to my vision and it gets 10k subs and a feature and then Netflix comes up and is like "Hey Kate, Rebecca Sugar was so impressed by your comic, she wants to head making it into an animated series with animation by Studio Trigger"... That is not going to happen. (Even though I deserve it for being such a flawless human being, obviously.)

Any choices you have made to make your comic less accessible and less relevant to the audience here are your responsibility. You have to own them and be at peace with the fact that yes, if you have made a choice for artistic integrity or indulging your own personal favourite styles or themes rather than catering to what the audience here are into, it's very likely that the audience will not want to look at what you're making.
You made a product that they're not interested in? You didn't market it strongly with an eyecatching thumbnail or a clear description? And you want Tapas to invest space in their shop window as what... a favour? Because you're nice? I've pitched to publishers before and been rejected. I don't then tell those publishers that they ought to publish me because I've always supported their products and been an active part of their fandom. Tapas doesn't owe me a feature any more than Marvel owes me a gig as penciller on Runaways (Marvel did send me a script and have me do pencil samplers for Runaways once. It didn't work out. It sucks... but like... yeah Kris Anka is awesome, I'd be lying if I said I thought I'd have done a better job).

I chose to make a comic in one of the smallest genres on Tapas, to work for print first, to not pace it in the style of a Tapas comic (which is setting up the premise within the first 3 updates) to not make the main character a hot bishounen, and to draw with a style and colour palette that don't fit in... right, I made a bunch of decisions that will negatively impact the popularity of my comic, and I know that, and I take responsibility for that. My plan to get my comic noticed has never factored any expectation of any sort of feature from Tapas, because I know I made these choices, so the responsibility to prove I can engage people despite that and to bring in an audience is on my shoulders.
But even with these barriers, I sailed past 100 subs within 30 pages without doing any "sub for sub" stuff, without needing a feature. I did that by doing my best to market the crap out of what I have with the resources at my disposal. I made sure I had an eyecatching thumbnail, a strong description, very readable pages, a story that keeps supplying action, tension and drama. I give back to the community by giving in-depth critiques that I put a lot of effort into. I have actively made changes to how I describe my comic and the pacing and length of updates based on feedback to make it more appealing to Tapas readers.

I've been a woman in comics long enough to know that life is unfair and I can't rely on companies or publishers to do anything for me. I've always had to build my own audience and make my own doors. A long-shot advantage like asking a company to feature my work for nothing more than charity is low on my list of "viable advantages" and I'm much more likely to use advantages I have actual control over like making changes to my comic, marketing on other sites etc.

This is basically what Stephen King just out his foot in with the whole Woody Allen autobiography. Publishers have a right to say no. That’s what freedom of speech and free markets are meant to be about. (And as a socialist myself, I never thought I’d be saying that).

I think there's some misunderstanding going on in this thread. I don't think anyone is expecting Tapas to put their series on the front page consistently, but I think some people do wish they would help us out and promote us a LITTLE bit.

Like I have seen people say "I suddenly gained so many subs!" and it's because they showed up in trending or whatever for a day. I don't think one day of "Hey, here's a little push" would hurt anyone.

I do get that there will be a spike and then a decrease and possibly some negativity involved with it, but the point still stands that if I gain 50 subs from a promotion and then lose 45 of those subs, I am still at 5 people more than where I was. For the smaller creators, 5 subs is pretty huge. It's the difference between 95 and 100 which means being able to turn on ad revenue. At the smaller levels, the difference of value in each subscriber is much bigger. Losing 1 subs when you're at 30 vs losing 1 sub at 30k (though for the record, of course neither is good. It will always hurt to lose sub, but the value of the sub is different).

I also get that having a good story helps immensely. We all want to write a good story, but there is a glass ceiling of sorts between good story and number of subs. I also think it's important that someone can write a GOOD story but that doesn't mean it's what people WANT to read. We all know BL comics generally do better or have an "easier" time and we know it's because a large amount of people want to read and actively search for BL. Meanwhile, people are not actively searching out scifi comics in the same way.

That's something I discovered with my current story. I put a lot of thought, writing and rewriting in my story to make it good and I was feeling pretty confident about it. I also wrote a story that I myself wanted to read. Naturally I thought others would want to read it too. Now I realize, that isn't really the case. So that is something I will keep in mind for when I write my next comic. Before I write my comic, I will take a look at trends and see how I can fit in while being different and that's definitely something a lot of us could benefit from to help make a successful comic.

I'd like to add that one of the issue small creators can have (and I mean any type - even people like me who have zero ambition to make money and not a extremely huge ambition as an artist in general), is that we may be small, but we are numerous AND we make, as a community, Tapas' model work.

How many times did I read things like 'Tapas, oh no, it's not free, I can't pay' or 'there is also Tapas if you have money to read' etc. I, as well as a lot of other creators (small or big, but small are more numerous and may have more time), am there in other comic-related places, non-comic related places, other languages places etc, telling people that not all Tapas is paying, that there are ways to read the paying comics without a credit card if we're patient etc.

But still, the general idea in people's mind is that they can't read free on Tapas, so they don't even come.

I may only have a very small, non professional comic, but I can (and do) bring people to Tapas by educating people about Tapas. My role is very small because I'm very introverted, but someone with a good online presence could do lots more, for part irrespective of the size or quality of their comic/novel.

Obviously, having small creators feeling not compensated for their advertising role (among other things) is not conducive to enthusiasm for advertising more... Which is bad for every single creator, big or small.

The question should be 'how and on what criteria can we help small comics be visible when there are so many of them', not 'does it really worth doing it when there are more popular comics out there that we could profit from'. Small comics are a part of a healthy Tapas system. Each only does a small part of the job, but as a whole we are very important.

I'm sure everyone know that, but I think it's easy to forget when looking at a few bigger titles, comparing, etc. We should not forget there are different roles to play to make the system work, and that every role filled should bring a minimum of incentive.

I think one thing everyone is forgetting is that all these bigger creators who are coming here to tell you one thing, were once smaller creators themselves. You can say we don’t understand, or that we don’t get it, but we do because we were exactly where you all are once.

We can do nothing but share our advice and experiences and our points of view from a different angle. You don’t have to listen at the end of the day.

But then also, this is backing up the other points made further up the thread about why Premium or “successful” creators are rarely here. Any advice or difference of perspective is seen as an attack.

I didn’t say that though. I said a feature that only brought in one subscriber would be bad business for Tapas, and that marketability plays a role in that. You’re the one projecting a value judgement into that statement.

Also, I’m a niche creator who writes queer spec lit. You think I don’t know mainstream marketability struggles? I know some of my works will never be featured or likely picked up by any platform. I make that choice every time I pour hours into a new work. It is a choice that I make as a creator, that we all make.

Discussion =/= attack.
There has to be a bit of incomfort or tension for a debate to go anywhere. Learning from each other never goes without some clashing of ideas. Who wants a talk where everything we get is 'yes, you're right'? What's the point of discussing then?

Y’all sound like your purposefully talking past each other. Listen

Getting a feature dosn’t mean you’ve made it
No shit, Any non delusional creator knows that a feature isn’t going to mean shit unless they keep advancing and keep up the wrath ethic that got them that feature in the first place- but please don’t deny that getting featured or getting into the the noteworthy comics selection, didn’t help with sub count. It dose. And yes maybe after a week of being featured you loose half of the subs that you gained from it cause that’s just how readership works around here. But you know what? You still got that other half, and those people who unsubed? Well they still read it and still gave out likes till they stopped. This still helps with numbers and stats.

Now all this is irrelevant to the most important part which is the >psychological< part which is simply people like seeing there sub count go up which is why it’s incredibly disheartening when someone used to care about getting that one new subscriber and change into “oh look I only got 100 subs this week, damn.” It kind of starts to feel like you’re becoming one of >those< creators.

Now It’s impossible not to get to that point cause the number game is always going to effect us but this is why we always try it humble ourselves with that thought possess starts happening.

tapas owes us nothing
Yes exacly that’s why it’s nice to have a community that supports each other rather then continues to make walls

luck isn’t a factor
This is completely nonsensical, if you’ve ever thought back in time of how you got to the potion that your in you can bet theirs gonna be sevral coincidence of people just “because I did this today.”

No, I don’t think you should rely on luck but if you actually read about “successful” people and talk to some other big sub count creators- some of them would tell you “yeah it was supposed to be a fun side thing and then it got big over night so I guess I’m doing this now.”

Right place right time is a thing and I’d never say the most of the people who “made it big” didn’t deserve it. I’d say they’re one of the many people who exisit who DO deserve it who got lucky enough to get picked out. Cause the thing is there’s so much saturation of creators and ALLWAYs will be that there will always me MORE people who deserve recognition then the people who don’t. And A lot of these people don’t get recognized till AFTER they die >usually< cause someone wants to cash in on their death. Cause that’s always fun to wake up to on a news article

Can we all just agree that everyone has a giant wall they have to beat there heads against till it works out? And I’ve never said anything bad about people cause of sub count- that’s a dumb fuckinh reason to dislike someone, but just like you guys feel unwelcome when people talk about “the big guys” people arnt gonna feel too good about you when you pay their heads and say “oh child your precious feature won’t matter so stop worrying about it.” Like, hello I thought you where the ones who said to work hard and always think about promoting yourselves but now your like “oh not stop worng about tapas lolz”

And no I understand that’s not what your trying to say but text isn’t exactly the best format to read people and people will read what they think your trying to imply if your not clear enough.

Er... it implies a lot of true things. Maybe things folks didn't wish were true.

I'll tell you what, being in a creative avenue is about 60% making the right connections and knowing how to utilize a platform.

People doing MFAs (Masters of fine arts) aren't doing it for the degree itself---they're doing it to network, find the connections they need when they get into the industry. (I'm speaking as someone who did a BA (Business Economics and Creative Writing) and is currently pursuing a MFA.)

Yeah, I'm going to be that person that points out that the "People like me 100% because of my talent, and my talent is enough to get me where I need to be" is... a myth.

Burning bridges does matter in this avenue, and maybe we all wish it didn't but yeah... it is what it is.

(I know there’s like a serious discussion thing happening but...could you point me the direction of that storytelling thread I’d like to read it and I’m very bad at site navigation)

I believe this is it

Yayyyy~ Thank you kindly!!

Well done. You won. Congratulations.

Really?

Gonna have to disagree with you again... You can't WIN a forum debate. They just don't work that way.

I mean to be fair your right debates arnt meant to be won unless your on a debate team XD

To expand on my point, people who went to art schools or who are trained writers aren't landing jobs because they are inherently better than people who are self-taught. No, they're landing jobs because someone vouched for them, someone pointed them in the right direction, someone helped jump-start their careers.

Creative careers in many ways intrinsically require social skills. Abrasive personalities don't do well in them... and when they do, they end up in PR trouble a lot.

( we're still talking about "visibility on Tapas", right? this topic won't suddenly get unlisted and vanish under mysterious circumstances like things usually do............. right? )

Whoops. I'm still very new to the site (I say that but my join date says 2017), so this discussion interests me because I'm on a site where discoverability is practically impossible naturally, lol.

Nah you good @saintc. Visibility comes in all shapes and forms. Using your marketing experience, how would you say to best get ahead on Tapas? You’ve covered networking already.