We don’t have enough promotion threads

Well, for a start, the front page could promote some more diverse projects (read: they don't look exactly the same from each other). Also, they could stand to promote non-premium comics more often. (I'm broke so I can't really afford to buy ink so I can read them.)

I do agree this is indicative of issues. I think to an extent it's reasonable to expect promo threads, but the sheer number of them does suggest that people are really struggling to get discovered organically through the site right now.

Tapas' solution to this is Tapastry... I expressed concerns and doubts about Tapastry when it was launched, and I was really hoping Tapas would change my mind on this by showing just how great it could be, but at this point, having engaged with pretty much every single Tapastry activity; the meme templates, the contests to win a feature, the colouring activity, and tagged them into most of my update posts on both twitter AND instagram, they haven't shared my work a single time. They haven't even given me a like. I feel like I'm being punished for having expressed concerns, and I really hope that's not the case and I've just been unlucky by being in the GMT timezone. All I wanted to do was to have a polite, constructive discussion and to try to improve my favourite webcomics platform and if I'm being punished for that by not being promoted.... I don't even know how I'd react if that was the case, that would be a very depressing state of affairs.

My solution would be to look to the site itself. I'm glad to see that after being moved down the site and then removed, Staff Picks has returned to the front page. That's a good start. Other things I'd like to see would be:

• A more visible toggle for Free to Read / Premium comics. It's a bit subtle and hard to find right now, and with the large number of premium comics added to the site and the marketing behind them, they now dominate the top of Romance, Fantasy and Action if you view all comics. This is fine as the default view, I have no issues with it, but my comic managing to trend in the top few rows of free to read in my genre on update days due to good audience engagement because I'm working super-hard on it feels a bit meaningless and disheartening right now when the UI setup means a lot of app users probably don't even know they can look at free to read, or won't scroll down far enough to see even the highest free to read performers in genres like Action. This would be a pretty easy change, just make that toggle some nice coloured in buttons so they stand out more.

• Make it easier to trend or tweak the algorithm for what trending means. Most days there aren't enough trending action comics to even fill the screen. To me, trending and popular should both exist and be easy to find because they fill different niches. Popular should show what consistently performs well over a longer space of time, while trending should be what's getting a lot of attention relative to its size in a short space of time. This would mean that solid performers like the best Tapas originals, or just really solid free to read comics like say Animal Heads, would consistently stay high in the popular ranking, while a new comic that was really great looking that people were all pouncing on would jump up into trending. Basically, I just want there to be more organic visibility for works on here, rather than what gets seen being based on what the staff pick out to show people. Staff picks and other categories are a good place for the staff to provide curated suggestions for app users, but I believe for a diverse library of works to flourish, they need to exist alongside good organic ways for works to prove their ability to gain readers through organic visibility driven by fair algorithms.

I understand the incentive for promoting premium content, that's where the money comes, and all business, big or small, need to profit.

Is unrealistic to expect Tapas to invest resources in something that doesn't pay off, so the suggestions need to be a win-win scenario for everyone involved.

This is a solid point and something @staff needs to consider. Overly promoting the premium content gave many potential readers the wrong impression about Tapas.

I suggest more emphasis on the fresh section.

There is a group big enough of curious people who love to check for new content and encourage independent creators, which can lead to more ink donations and in some cases, consuption of premium content and increasing the chance to be a step ahead of the competition.

The fresh section exists, but is not noticeable enough to get rid of the misconception about Tapas being paid only and to appeal to readerships that look for content different to the "trends".

If someone from staff see this, as an advertiser, i would gladly have a conversation with you and people here on the forums to search for a solution that works for this site.

This increase of promotion threads is something I've noticed during the last months and has somewhat been bugging me because (to me) it floods the forum with threads that have very little variety of content (and use).

I remember years ago that I used to get into promotion threads looking for new stuff to read and these links actually had a lof ot traffic (you know, that little number telling how many times it has been opened), well not A LOT, but way more traffic than now. To me they were useful before precisely because there were less.

Now I don't do it anymore, there are too many threads, most of the time I find the same titles that I have already seen before and I rarely discover anything new. Although I sometimes find threads fun/interesting to join (like, post X scene of your series that do Y and link!) and I just skip the posting link part when I feel bad for constantly being promoting instead of talking about more creative stuff.

Why have promotion threads increased? No idea. It might be the consequence of tapas frontpage promotion system? I coincide with you, probably. But I'm pretty sure that there are more reasons apart from that.

Something I've seen several times is that sometimes people looking to promote will dredge up a half dozen old promo threads, which brings them up to the top of the forums, and gets more people posting to them without paying attention to how old they are.

Honestly, I think we need to be smarter regarding how promoting is done, even on the main site. A potential reader could be reading and find interest if you play your cards right. Instead of constantly putting links in an endless loop of promotion threads, we could have scenes we've written or drawn in a context to explain what we did to help others.

Also that we should be more open to either feedback of our work and in that way catch the interest of more readers. It's a tough world for creators and helping each other out can help a great deal.

Personally, I prefer creative threads where we say something about ourselves or the work(s) instead of just slapping on a link in a thread where you easily get blended with a hundred plus others. Though, advertising on social media can do a huge difference when done right.

Yeah, I feel like Tapas relies on us to do 99% of our social media at this point. It might be nice if they like...did some sort of tutorial for people starting out so they won't jump over here expecting this forum of like 50 regulars to somehow make them seen. I'm not even sure what Tapas could do to serve the sheer number of new comics being started and regularly uploaded every day other than just fixing the search engine issues already.

If we could search more specifically and if those searches were more relevant, you can find more comics. But, as of right now most of my tags are useless.

I feel bad about not creating as many open discussion threads about art stuff. We really need more things to talk about to keep us engaged and interested as community.

I blame the pandemic.

I am one of those users lol

From what I can see, it appears that there is a supportive writing community on twitter. It might take some research to track down the right tags, but they exist.

With that said, we still come back to the problem of promoting to other creators, who are busy creating and don't have that much time to follow all of their creator friends' work. I think this is especially true with writing, which takes more time to consume than a comic strip (though relatively less time to produce, at least for me).

I am new to Tapas (started publishing in December). I like the threads on writing help and collabs and writing jams and such, but I don't see a ton of those among the rest (other than people looking for an artist/writer for their specific project). There seem to be good discord communities, so perhaps people have moved to places like that instead?

I will say, though, that I have apparently had a unique experience as a new novelist here... I had one of my update posts on Instagram shared through Tapastry and am currently on the staff picks list. And I'm a total nobody. So I didn't know this wasn't working and now I feel kinda awful that there are people who have been on here a while and never had Tapas help with promotion.

I hear everywhere about fixing the genre/tag system and 100% agree with that. The biggest problem is that outside of a cluttered front page, readers have to pick a single genre and scroll through a list. And even in the free to read, there are still the always popular folks with tons of subscribers, so they dominate the top of popular and trending lists anyway. Which they completely deserve. But diversity is good too, so maybe in addition to staff picks move the fresh to the front and have "new creators" (not just new comic/novels) or "close to 25 or 100 or 250" or feature some genre combo's (GL Action or LGBTQ+ Fantasy). I liked the black history month and women's history month groups.

I also love the idea of some kind of promotion and just overall tutorials. Publishing tips, faqs, common mistakes, what readers look for... an actual creator resources section. I have actually had a good experience as a novelist here with other writers... Many of my readers are other free creators, not just subbing but reading and commenting, and a lot of times the promotion threads here are creators helping creators. I've had the overall feeling that creators want to help each other but it isn't always easy. Many are students, many are working full time... Maybe find a better, easier way for us to support each other.

And about the comment vs novel - true. But in comics' defense - isn't Tapas mainly a comic site that added novels? I could be wrong. But most promotional novel threads are "I saw 20 of these comic ones, let's do a novel one" or "this started as a comic thread but I added novels later so join us!" ^^

Sorry this was so long!! Just couldn't stop once I started...