That aside, I am relieved that Staff's Pick is back and is put up there! I am not too hopeful to get my own series on it (and it would be detrimental for Tapas for featuring such unprofessional unpolished shit ), but at least the section is back to help the tiny chance community creators have! I wish this section can be more developed in the future!

Also how long is the time consideration for a series to be put in "New from the community?" I kinda wish there is a clear guidelines for every community-geared features, with a description of what that is and its purpose. So creators can now what to do to up their chance to be featured and if they eligible, and readers can know what it is behind those selection. It can straighten misunderstanding or unfairness, as I myself have been staff's picked where I shouldn't and it felt unfair.

I kinda feel up for now that the mechanism or criteria for Staff's Pick and Seasonal Features (like the previous Women's History Month) is enigmatic. I have seen people voicing their displeasure about it, which while it confused and disappointed me too (I did not pitch, so this isn't about me), I can accept an explanation. I also feel disappointed that the last feature is not cycled, as IIRC it was written as such in announcement (CMIIW). Those features can be the only hope for community creators who aren't new, and it is no shit that being on the front page will boost your readership. Some transparency and extra space for it would be better.

Lastly, I kinda think premium series should not be in staff's pick. I have seen multiple times when the series featured in those huge front page banner is also in staff's pick and thought "Wow that's putting a hat on a hat." I am fully aware that premium series≠popularity and success (I have seen premium series with worse stats that mine), but the spot used to feature a popular premium series in the Staff's Pick (which often have been featured somewhere else) is better being used for community or smaller premiums.

Your rant is very good and powerful, I would give you an award if I could.

Whenever these threads pop up, the comics that complain about this stuff usually haven't had the required amount of effort put into it to actually complain. They come in and complain about the system keeping them down when really they've been working on a comic for a year tops and with art that shows they haven't gotten to a more developed stage in their growth as an artist; and no one says anything or will say anything because to do so would be considered "keeping them down" when really we're just acknowledging that the current landscape demands more and we should either do as much as it demands or accept that we won't hit that big spike we want to hit.

I agree with you. I think there should be two main threads for artists and novelists. One for 1k + reads (or subs) and one for less than that. Obviously, all these postings are, I guess, just pointless. I wish the mods could think of a better way to do so.

It is exceedingly rare for anything of value to not be gaining success on its own merits, it's common for garbage to get more than it deserves but it's rare for content of value to go unnoticed and not talked about. Not saying it doesn't take a long time sometimes but imo that's just the cost of doing business.

If the content is good, it will be noticed more often than not. As someone who consumes excessive amounts of content, most unpopular things are unpopular because they're not good enough to be considered interesting in any way.

(feel free to substitute 'hard work' for 'artistic skill' or 'making content worthy of merit')

...Someone did reply in this thread saying that they'd worked on comics for five years before eventually giving up, though they deleted their reply 20 minutes after posting it.

...

Is it true that the current landscape need be incompatible with this:

?

Surely we have all accepted by now that no one actually knows what the current landscape demands, and so we cannot know whether it is reasonable or not. But, we do know that at least this much is true:

While I can sympathise completely with your lack of patience with those replying to this thread and others like it purely out of self-interest, surely you can agree that there is far more to this discussion than some folks complaining about audience-building/getting good at art being hard work? At the very least, surely you can acknowledge that your claims rely on evidence that is purely anecdotal, and that you can't actually know how much you don't know, because no means exists by which you could search for evidence that would challenge your assertions.

Reading the title I was like: NOT ENOUGH?????
just came here to say that

I am sure this is how some creators feel right now

Not you for sure, "Those people" in my previous rant or everyone who think so which is not an individual.

I am sorry if you feel offended. Did I accidentally reply to you (oops.)? Because I accidentally did so and changed it, so hopefully it is resolved.

It is actually more like "Well Carlos said that, but anyway. . . ." Which I think it is unfair to make it a reply for you.

I made this, maybe it could help at some point. At least it is a little different than the many spams, this has some rules to help the hard work.

Purge, we should purge them nothing new under the Moon...

Step 1: Click here:

Step 2: Select "muted"

Personally I don't really know what to think because I don't usually look at the first page of Tapas, but after looking at the first page for a long time (like a year and a half?)
I actually find it more difficult to find small or new authors (those with less than 1000 subs).

But from my little experience, I am very grateful to Tapas, it is thanks to them that I was able to share my comics, and it is also thanks to them that I wanted it to be my job.
Tapas allowed me at the time (at the end of 2018) to express myself when why I was nobody and my drawings were really really horrible ( don't you dare judge i just started drawing 🤣)

I also wanted to say that even if there are people who are there for premium comics, a good number are there for free to read and discover hidden talents. (If some people are interested in my bookstore I have a lot of little authors that I find incredible) I think there will always be people for these little budding authors .

If I might speak up on behalf of "Those People" being called out...

I want to be very clear here. I don't think I'm intrinsically better or more worthy than any other person here. I know we're all working hard. I have no intention of insulting anyone by pointing out a simple thing which is that most of "those people" (ie. people who believe that if Tapas is to promote community works more, there would need to be means to make sure the content getting seen was fairly professional looking) are in our thirties with professional experience and/or training. It's not a difference of being a better person or more determined to succeed or more talented (talent is a myth), it's just having been at it longer and so having knowledge, resources and time, which any of you can and will acquire if you just keep at it, I just happen to have been alive since the mid 80's and making webcomics for going on twenty years so my career is further along. Assuming that this ire is primarily aimed at Joanne and I, I should flag the fact that both of us are clearly keen to use our experience and the knowledge we have gained to help others. It's practically a forum meme that if somebody needs advice or critique I'll turn up, and I'm always seeing Joanne giving out great advice on threads. I genuinely do want every single one of you to succeed in your endeavours, and I don't think anyone should feel bitter or ashamed about not being there just yet, or for being a hobbyist who makes comics for fun without compromising their artistic vision to make it marketable.

The reason I'm saying that the changes should be ones that help high performing works with a high level of polish get organic visibility isn't because I'm like "ONLY I MAY SUCCEED" like I'm the villainess queen or something; it's because Tapas is a business and anything we pitch needs to be shown to be a worthwhile financial investment for them to consider it.

Tapas tried community picks... and I heard through some contacts that the reason we lost community picks was because a number of very unpolished works got put on the front page (because the community staff did take the very well-meaning, fair and open-hearted approach of putting pretty much everything the community suggested with little to no vetting), which resulted in app users losing faith in the quality of the recommendations in that section (which also corroborates with reports I have from friends that the later a week of Community picks you were in, regardless of how nice a cover you had, the lower the overall sub gain was) and stopped clicking works in that section. So obviously after that, Tapas are a bit scared to give that valuable front page real estate to anything that isn't thoroughly vetted for quality or directly picked by the staff who can curate the selection based on it fitting in with the front page.

If we are to sell the idea to Tapas that it's worth making more room for community comics or tweaking algorithms or the UI so that community comics get seen more, we have to sell community comics as an investment worth betting their money (in this case, the loss of revenue from giving up space that could be given to more immediately profitable premium comics) on for a return. If people can see more free comics, it means they're seeing fewer paid comics, so it is vital to try to explain it to Tapas in terms that these free comics can become paid comics if you give them opportunities to build an audience, can earn significant ad revenue or donation money, or could be the next Tapas Media TV adaptation. In other words, we can't sell it as "you should show people my comic because I'm a nice person and I worked really hard on it!" even if that is a lovely sentiment, we have to sell it as "give these comics a chance for the best performers to rise to the top, one of them might be the next Moonshine or Heartstopper." To us artists, our comics are works of art dear to our hearts and labours of love, but to Tapas, they are products on a shop shelf, and you might be the kind of admirable person who doesn't judge a book by its cover, but most app users aren't, no matter how much we wish that'd change, and they're the ones who are bringing the money.

I use my own comic as an example not because I think I'm better than anyone, but because it's an easy example I have stats for that back up the theory that it's under-performing and could grow more under a system where comics can gain more organic visibility, and that based on its earnings, it's worth investing in for potential financial returns.
I know Errant inside and out. I know all the stats for it. I know how much it has earned, I know how it performs, I know my social media strategy, like how I've taken part in every Tapastry event and had the misfortune to never have them share my work (I would really like to know if this is just bad luck or being in the wrong timezone or if somebody at Tapastry doesn't like me for some reason. If somebody on the staff doesn't like me, can we please just talk about our feelings in DMs and straighten things out? Sometimes I upset people without meaning to because I'm autistic and can be overly honest and blunt or misjudging what's appropriate tone for a situation, so I have concerns...) and since it has been featured before on the front page a few times I can safely hold it up to Tapas and say "look, you've featured this before, right? You feel like this is polished enough to be on the front page, So it wouldn't be so awful if stuff like this turned up on the front page or in a trending list on a good update day, or if it was easier to find content like this." I don't even think my comic would benefit the most from the changes I'm suggesting because it's an odd comic in a less popular genre, the biggest gains would likely be for comics like The Princess Beast, Hollow and the like; comics that have over a thousand followers and which fit the Tapas aesthetic and audience pretty well, but seem to not be climbing up into those 10s of Ks like comics of comparable quality and audience appeal used to a couple of years ago.

Honestly this spiteful attitude some people have of "WELL. If MY community comic can't get seen and make money with or without changes to the site, I don't see the point! Especially if it benefits that uppity cow Darth Mongoose who thinks she's better than me!" is pretty unhelpful. If we convince Tapas to improve organic visibility by selling the benefits of investing in community comics, it will benefit the majority of community creators. Some of you it may not benefit immediately if you still need to build up your polish or marketing game, or your product doesn't suit the platform, but some day, maybe not so far off, your work will reach a professional level of polish or you'll hit on a great premise or capture the zeitgeist and you'll get a few hundred subs and then find yourself stuck in the donut hole like I currently am, popular enough that people tell you on the forums you're a "big creator" and not allowed to complain about popularity or visibility, but nowhere near popular enough to make viable money from the work you're making and unable to grow the audience fast enough for that to look probable any time soon.
What I'm trying to convince Tapas to do is to give us a ladder to climb so that higher performing community comics can viably turn into premium or "wait for free" comics. Some of you may not be tall enough to reach that ladder just yet, but when you are (when, not if, and I'm always happy to give advice to help you get there), you'll need it. Overall it would ultimately benefit all of you though, because if a polished community comic jumps into premium, it both proves that they can be a worthwhile investment overall, encouraging Tapas to foster community comics growth with resources, promotion and tutorials and means that person is no longer competing with smaller comics for eyeballs in smaller promotion events, which means more attention for everyone.

Likewise. This is why I have been proposing an 'Undiscovered' tab, that need not be on the front page.

Its existence alone would draw people to it on account of it showing a very different selection of pseudo-curated comics that wouldn't appear under any other heading. On account of people being drawn to it it would trigger a distribution of attention that would immediately appear 'predictive' - things that do well under 'Undiscovered' would very likely go on to do well in other, more conventional places soon after.
This combined with the ability for whoever controls the Undiscovered algorithm to forecast what is due to appear on it in advance would make it an invaluable tool.

It makes sense to want a following, but engagement is not a guarantee, because said engagement is done by people who follow content as a choice and not as an obligation. If they like a story is up to them.

Is fair to ask for visibility, but that in itself will not guarantee results.

As an authors of Bl genre i 'm saying that , please don't change your story to Bl or romance if that's not what you like to draw it's surely reflect on your art and story!

hooo i'm so sorry !!! English is not my first language i tends to misunderstood !
But If she is an professional why isn't she able to live from it ?
( i don't wanna be rude or aything)

i just thought it would be a good idea if he wanted more views and, if the views are with the premium comics then become a premium comic ?

She's a professional in a different, but related field.

Thank you!

I came up with the idea while reading this thread, and have mentioned it in response to a few people now, in the hope of giving folks with different views something to agree on, but also in the hope that people would challenge the idea and point out its flaws.
If people are interested, I'll definitely put together a feature suggestion thread together with a more in-depth analysis of both the business and technical implications. But, it would be good to know if folks are actually interested in seeing that - would they contribute to the thread to voice their support, for example?
Or, if anyone has any suggestions for that thread/analysis?

I realise suggestions for the suggestion may seem extreme, but I want to present it well, taking into account as many views as possible, first off so that I can judge whether it would be worth my time making the suggestion at all, but also hopefully if I do go ahead and make the suggestion, I want to give it the best possible chance of being seen and respected.

As a business owner and a developer myself I take the Tapas' team's time very seriously, and wouldn't want to waste their time with what you'll have noticed is quite a wordy writing style. But also I wouldn't want to ruin the chances of anyone who could do a better job suggesting it.
Say if in three years time someone makes the same suggestion after mine is a complete disaster, the first reaction that person's going to get it "oh you mean like that idiot from three years ago suggested that we completely dismissed?" when actually they might have a point.

So, while I appreciate that you "won't stop" me, I think more needs to happen before I make a suggestion.
First off for example, this thread is laden with tension and misunderstanding, and if my suggestion is worth anything at all it should at least be able to alleviate that and bring people together in agreement.

Yeah its weird I don't blame just those who are making the threads, people want to get their comic and work out there so it's all understandable; I feel like others have said, it goes with Tapas needing to highlight more work that isn't like those that are presented within the featured or originals section.

I think following what lesser known web comic sites have done could be a viable solution, (ex. ComicFury) where they have pages upon pages of highlighting works from lesser known creators. If Tapas did this however it could possibly lead to more growth for alot of series due to having more viewership than some of those lesser known sites.

Well. My idea was that Tapastry and Tapas became two brands. Then everyone will know what they get