I wonder if they're even aiming at other webcomics here. Even for a comic with a successful Patreon or other form of income, $1000 is a huge amount of money for an indie creator who isn't charging for their content. Maybe they've found other, more lucrative sources of ad money and don't need to rely on webcomic creators.
I applied last time there submissions were open, I didn't get in lol. But! It was a very good experience and my first time applying for anything art wise so it was kinda fun. Honestly I like Hiveworks, the people that run it are super nice and some of the comics they got on there are my favorite, others not so much. I do like the variety of different art styles and stories they having going on, just wish they would tell us why they don't remove or notify us when ones stop updating, like BBR. But I guess they leave it up to the artist. Always apply when they open there submissions, even if you don't get in, just keep on trying and improving!
I agree! It never hurts to apply. I applied too and didn't get in either, but creating my pitch was a good experience and forced me to write a concise summary of my story, which I would advise any comic artist to do.
Hello! I'm the one who mentioned buying ad space there earlier.
They have an option for those who have a budget lower than $250. There is a video tutorial on how to do so on their site. That being said, the entire point of advertising is to get a positive return on investment so if you don't think you could do better than breaking even then I wouldn't bother. Hiveworks is an excellent place to reach a whole lot of people within the niche of webcomic readers who are more likely to check out your comic than hundreds of thousands of people on a non-comic-related site that might charge less. That was the point of my recommendation.
If they see fit to charge more for their adspace I am certainly in no place to complain as I benefit directly from it. Like I said, they only take their cut after I start making $1000 a month. The more they charge for ads the more their creators are being paid.
Be advised, do not spend money on ads unless you have a fair amount of content ready and waiting.
@Alli Thanks for all your insider information, Alli! I'm kind of curious, Hiveworks holds rights over the webcomic itself, but what if you choose to do other things with your intellectual property? For example if you want to post breakdowns or animations on Youtube, do you have to get permission from Hiveworks if it involves the comic in any way?
Also, if you need extra prints or merchandise for a con do you have to go through Hiveworks to make said merchandise?
Sorry just wondering how far the contract actually extends. I would be rather said if I had to get permission for every little thing I did involving the comic.
They rejected Unfamiliar127 right before I started posting it here. ;w; Tapastic has my undying loyalty now haha. Not many sites give you total freedom -and- a cut of the ad rev. Plus, I feel like the interface here is so much more appealing for a casual reader? Like, having an account, being able to favorite things and talk to the creators on their comic and on their wall is such a good system, especially when a series is ongoing. Hive is only really good for binge reading comics imo, it doesn't encourage you to come back again and again each day in the same way Tap does.
Again, I already explained why their pricing is utterly abusive and absurd previously in financial terms....The method by which they want you to advertise via google is horrid and impractical, including arbitrarily guessing where to "cap" your impressions (which is why so few if any other places use the same method for lower budget marketing campaigns). It's incredibly unprofessional, archaic, and impractical. I was doing content marketing and advertising and all sorts of related things for years as a side business. But if you want/need to advertise on comics of the like which they have gobbled up and put behind an obscene pay wall, well you just gotta suck it up right? Ridiculous. I have watched their video many many times.
What Hiveworks charges is highway robbery and they know it. It was already very expensive, but when there was a minimum buy of 250 which had vastly more impressions, it was at least still feasible. Now they quadruple the STARTING minimum price, and give you far less impressions despite that huge minimum buy in, reducing the impressions by at least half, for your trouble? You think that's a positive? Well the people looking to buy adspace on a regular basis sure don't. And I must say, when I look at most of the ads being shown most often, it is google adsense ads, not the premium stuff they are now asking an utterly insane 1 grand for, so clearly people must not be buying as often, especially given that unrealistic bump in cost, big shocker.
They lure in lots of popular longform comics, because they have some false sense of quality about them, and then charge out the nose for advertising, well who is buying then? Certainly not all those who could and would benefit most, that's for sure. There are only so many places to advertise a comic, especially one of a similar nature to those on hiveworks, so it kinda forces those of us who need to build our readership to pay blackmail prices, which is pretty uncool. It's not a simple matter of "oh well, gee whiz golly, guess I will go elsewhere".
I used adwords last year to advertise on many Hiveworks sites. You just need to know your way around Adwords (admittedly a big learning curve) and know how to run a tight campaign. I used keywords instead of direct placements like they show in their video (I think, haven't watched the video in a year). As is always the case with Adwords, you have to bid high to get your campaign going, but once you maintain a good click-through rate (CTR) your cost per click will go lower. I was getting around .10 a click once I got the campaign going.
You retain rights to your comic. You simply promise Hiveworks that you will only post the actual pages on the site they provide you (with exceptions made for personal social media accounts). If you want to sell merchandise it's entirely up to you. You can add merch to your contract if you want to sell it through the Hivemill but if you say you want to sell it on your own they won't stop you. They don't make the merch, they just offer a storefront that you can utilize. If you want to sell a print book or a poster, you have to fund the printing process. The deal is that if you sell something through the Hivemill it must be exclusively through the Hivemill online. You can still sell whatever you want at cons and such. There shouldn't be any problem with posting youtube videos of your process.
Except... nobody is forcing you to advertise through them. You act like they are holding hostage something that belongs to you. It IS a matter of looking elsewhere. If you can't find what you're looking for at a price you think is fair, you live without. They are a business, not a non-profit. They don't owe unaffiliated artists anything. They don't decide their prices based on what would make them seem "cool."
Also, that jab about longform comics having a false sense of quality was uncalled for. They pick out what has worked best for them so far.
They are holding hostage most people's ability to advertise on most, though not all, of the popular long form comics currently online. If there is a limited supply of said sites especially with audiences big enough to justify advertising to, and there is, and this site, with it's fairly awful business practices then swallows them up, yes it is preventing me and many others from improving our business. Now nowhere did I suggest they "owe" me something, but I certainly have every right to call them out and complain about it, please don't conflate the two things. I am complaining about their BUSINESS PRACTICES, not whether they are non profit or not, or whether they "owe" me or not. Their previous ad policy was already pretty heinous, but doable. Asking 4x the money for HALF the impressions given, is an insult. Maybe that sits fine and dandy with you.
No I wasn't jabbing about longform comics as a whole or as a medium, i love them, as the comic that I do fits in nicely with the type they promote, (though I have no interest in being a part of it). I was taking a jab at this "collective" or the business, having this very false sense of quality and premium elitism that is unhealthy and is unearned. They simply grouped together a few popular comics, and then said hey guys, if you wanna be associated with US, do XYZ. And now they can play on the concerns of so many artists justified needs to get any attention for their comic, and say hey, either "hope" to join us, or pay unrealistic fees to advertise with us, because we lured in all these comics based on this perception we will really get them paid.
Again, my primary gripe? is what I have said two times now. Quadrupling the cost for a minimum buy in, but not only that, HALVING the impressions given DESPITE that immense increase in cost. It's a completely legitimate grievance, especially when they have swallowed up most of the comics in that medium, IE: long form comics, with any appreciable fan base to sell too. It's like a tiny comic monopoly, and the price increase and impression reduction reeks of extortion to those of us who need to advertise but are forced to use said service due to the fact that so many have joined up with them.
@Alli Thanks so much for explaining it! I really appreciate it! I couldn't find any answers on their site so I thought I might ask. XD
Hiveworks is operating in a free market and they can charge whatever they want to. $2 per CPM is actually under the current internet average for display ads. Take a look around. That said, paying $2 CPM to market a free webcomic is unsustainable. Consequently Hiveworks is going to advertise stuff other than free webcomics on their collective.
We agree that the pricing is excessive (for a free webcomic), so that is why we choose not to advertise with them, and instead will have to find other ways to promote our work. Some creators may feel that $2 CPM is worth it to them and so they do an ad buy with Hiveworks. To each their own. You shouldn't expect Hiveworks to subsidize webcomics outside of their collective by offering them lower rates than what they are charging other non-webcomic advertisers. All this would mean is that those creators within their collective would earn less.
The free market dictates what display ads are worth and as Michael pointed out in the recent LiveStream, it is a race to the bottom. Creators here on Tapastic can see by looking at their dashboards that ad revenue income is steadily dropping. We used to earn $1 per 3,500 views, now that number is approaching 5,000 views ($.20 CPM). As display ads become less and less effective then their value will drop more and more. If Hiveworks can't sell at $2 CPM then they will have to lower their prices to whatever the market dictates.
Ultimately we feel that the Hiveworks model is not sustainable in the long term. They don't have a mobile app and that's becoming an increasingly larger and larger issue for them as more and more readers go mobile. Developing a mobile app, even a simple one, can cost of upwards of $1M USD, so its unlikely Hiveworks will go beyond desktop/laptop readership. This will limit a creator's reach.
We just looked at Hivework's traffic and it's declined by 20% over the last 5 months, which is the worst decline among all of the major webcomic publishers. (https://www.similarweb.com/website/thehiveworks.com#overview) Creators who publish with Hiveworks have to make a difficult decision. How much is it worth to give up their digital rights in return for more ad revenue and a quick boost of readership? And is this quick boost of readership from the Hiveworks community enough to balance out the loss of readership from the Tapastic/Webtoons/Medibang communities?
Another new wrinkle to all of this is that Tapastic will be adding the coin tipping feature at some point in time. No one has any idea how well that is going to go over. If readers end up being generous and supportive, watching video ads and giving the coins away to creators, webcomics who choose to be on Tapastic will have access to a revenue source that those on Hiveworks will not. It may turn out that this revenue source may outweigh the ad revenue that a creator can earn on Hiveworks. If this ends up being the case, Hiveworks may end up losing members of their collective back to Tapastic.
I honestly don't know about this.
The coin tiping feature would be nice, but I don't think it will compete with the superpower that Hiveworks is currently. Especially since newer non-featured webcomics have an issue breaking 50 followers, let alone convincing Hiveworks affiliates to switch.
Same. There's really no telling how readers will embrace this pay-what-you-want model. Some readers are superfans and will cross an ocean of video ads for the comics they enjoy, others are total misers who won't do a thing. No one knows what will happen until the program finally goes live. For Tapastic's staff that has invested over 6 months of time and money into developing this, its a complete leap of faith in the community.
Our understanding of the previous support program on Tapastic is that readers had to open their wallets. Now with video ads, there's no need to open a wallet or even have a wallet to support a series. A lot of young readers here don't have access to funds to give to comics, but they do have mobile phones and free time to watch ads. Consequently, the bar to support a series has now been lowered to rock bottom.
In the case of @Alli who is with Hiveworks, the spread right now is $100/month between being on Tapastic and being on HW. HW gives them $130 in ad revenue and Tapastic $30. However if the donate-to-series feature starts paying them more than $101/month on a regular basis, then which is the better site to be at, HW ($130/mo) or Tapastic ($30+$101/mo)?
One complaint is that video ads here on Tapastic aren't paying a whole lot. We're getting about 30x on the 1st tier ads and 14x on the 2nd tier ads (with an overall range of 2x to 60x). Fortunately, as Michael pointed out in the recent LiveStream, video ad payments are going to improve over time as ad consumption goes up.
How does that make any sense? Here's one way of explaining it. TV show A has 500K viewers who see 8 minutes of ads in 22 minutes of programming. Because their reach is 500K they are worth a $X amount to advertisers. TV show B has 8M viewers who see 8 minutes of ads in 22 minutes of programing. Because B's reach is 16x greater, they are worth $Y to advertisers. 1Y does not equal 16X because advertising doesn't work that way. The bigger a single audience is the more valuable it is.
Case in point The Super Bowl:
"Super Bowl XLIX, played on February 1, 2015 and broadcast by NBC in the U.S., was watched by more than 114.4 million viewers in the United States. The cost for a 30-second advertisement spot during the Super Bowl broadcast reached a record 4.5 million U.S. dollars in 2015." (https://www.statista.com/statistics/216526/super-bowl-us-tv-viewership/)
$4.5M can buy a lot of ads in many regional markets and reach well beyond 114.4M impressions. But because The Super Bowl has this one single massive audience, they can command a huge premium far beyond the sum of many smaller audiences. What Michael is pointing out is that as the Tapastic community grows larger and larger and consumes more and more video ads, it can demand a higher and higher premium. So the good news is that videos ads will progressively pay out more and more over time.
If video ad rewards are going to progressively improve then tip amounts should as well. Meanwhile display ad revenue is going to remain in decline. This is what makes the Hiveworks model one that may not go the distance. They have hitched themselves to a revenue stream that is far more likely to go down than up. Tapastic on the other hand is going after a revenue stream that is far more likely to go up than down.
Hi there! I thought I might update my earnings to help give a better idea of my progress. Ever since Tapastic switched over to their new app, my earnings here have dropped by half. I can only earn enough to actually get a payout once every two months. My ad revenue from Hiveworks has been consistently around $185 for the past three months. I attract a fair amount of attention here on Tapastic but I have way more traffic through Hiveworks. As of right now I have 8,714 total (wonderful) subscribers on Tapastic while according to Google Analytics I have 17,609 (awesome) individual users and 278,266 pageviews from the previous 30 days on Far to the North through Hiveworks. Before my Hiveworks site went up I only had several hundred subscribers on Tapastic, so I have reason to believe that people found my Tapastic account through my Hiveworks presence.
All in all, Tapastic has been lovely but it's not really doing anything for me anymore. I don't see anyone giving up their own fully-furnished, hosted-for-free website for Tapastic.. The ones who want to earn more simply beef up their Patreon accounts.
So I'm going to be That Guy and ask, what exactly does Hiveworks look for in their comics? Judging from their lineup, there seems to be some themes that show up a bit.
Do they only want stories that share similar styles of popular cartoons? (Ie Steven universe) Do they want stories with certain types of stories? They claim that they want simply talented artist, but I have seen a lot of good artists with amazing comics get rejected,
so it leads me to believe there's something specific they're looking for.
I know they like variety. They might reject something that seems too similar to another one of their comics. The example I remember is magical girls. They already have a few, so if someone else wants to do that kind of story they will have to have a really special twist on it. They also aren't just looking at the comics provided. They research the artist as well, looking to see how they interact with others online. They will reject a very talented person who is unfriendly in forums.
They had about 850 people submit pitches in the last round of submissions when they only had about 25 slots to fill. I remember them talking on Twitter about the meetings where they were deciding which comics to take on. It's not so much about them looking for anything specific. It's more like picking out what sounds the most interesting. Of course a lot of very talented people are going to be rejected when there is so much competition. I got lucky, I was in the previous round which I don't think got as much attention.
I'm with @Sleepyowl on this one, they does seem to be a trend in the line-up.
I know there was an overwhelming response last year but there are strong similarity in the archive line-up. There's a strong 'branding' and thematic style of narratives and art choice.
I'm unsure and more likely to not submit in following recruitment drives due to from what i can see as my works not marrying the brand in style of narractive and art but this is all a guess. A more detail brief on requirements would be helpful, much like Sparklers when they recruited. I could tell immediately if it was worth my time and there's.
This would reduce admin for HW too, instead of combing 800+ comics people would be more selective on submitting.
basically, i deal every day with clients wanting wow! and 10 drafts later were no closer. give a brief so we can point and shoot!
Actually the more I think about this the more I think the guys and gals at HW could really save themselves a lot of admin, heartache and stress at submission time. I know it means a little bit admin before opening, market research and the like but I know they're got a good bunch of folks who know there stuff. Play there cards right and it could mean they open for subs twice a year, both with a refined brief of what they're looking for. (Of course the same amount of slots in total to last year, just slit across the genres) it's a bit cut and dry but it could make the job easier
