Question is in the title. Is it plot-related? In numbers of followers/likes? Monetary-based?
What's your take? What stories/authors you consider a success/full?
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Aug '21last reply
Aug '21- 34
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Successful authors, in my eyes, were always the ones that people knew: The household names that were plastered on posters for adaptations, titles for videos of interviews, and talked about among regular people. And I know that for myself, I always wanted to be known as a storyteller whose work impacted lives.
So I guess fame? But fame for the right reasons, not for its own sake.
I think success is based on how many people finished reading your story and thought “That was really nice”. And I don’t mean number of subscribers, I mean who got a happy feeling after reading it.
When its finished; not even edited, the entire thing needs to be done for it to really be an achievement for me personally. Authors who consistently work on their story with no shame and don't feel pressured to work to achieve followers, likes, and fame are real gems.
Good metric, however I would call that a great success rather than just success, because then it implies those who are, say, popular in a closed or regional communities are unsuccessful. Besides, success of the level you've described, is achieved only by a few out of millions who try, and to think one can call themselves successful only when they are on such level is kind of depressing, I guess.
When I've learnt something from it 
A more lofty goal for me would be finishing a story though haha. I guess my standards are much lower than everyone else's!
i feel like a lotta folks would say completion and i agree in part but also memorability stands out for me
like there's a number of folks whom i've followed or been around and i can easily recognize that creator based on artstyle or works they've completed. Even folks with really versatile styles or varied content can be pretty easily recognized i think if you've followed them long enough
If a single person reads my story and feels happier for having done so, that's all the success I could ever ask for.
I create stories to make people's lives better, even a little bit, and any number of readers greater than zero who are excited to read the next update means I have succeeded int hat goal.
When a reader cares about it. You know what I mean. When they always comment. When there's fan art, or even fan fiction of it. When they ask questions. When you post a sad or scary scene and they react to it.
I've said more than once that if I had a table at an artists' alley at a con or something, and I saw a con-goer cosplaying my character? I think I could die happy. I'm not even sure that's an exaggeration: making something that other people care about is a goal of mine. Doesn't have to be a lot of people. But if someone loved something enough to pour the time, effort, and sometimes money into fan art, fan fiction, cosplay... basically their desperate attempts to make MORE of the thing they love?
Yeah. That'd be success for me.
- Having a message that people can connect with.
- Knowing how to tell said message through solid technical skills.
- Knowing how to sell your story to others.
- Audience engagement.
When I make a story, I try to make it for one person in mind, because I just can't satisfy everyone--that's impossible. Means my reach is small to start with, but I have noticed that with each comic and story I write, I gain a little more traction than the last. And, writing for one keeps me going. If I see that one guy liking each update (and I know who they are) then it's like "good...I don't have to drop this one."
Now if I were writing for a client, then it would matter a lot more if it was making money or followers, but since it's for me and my own learning and practice, that's not as much of an immediate problem (but, if in a few years it didn't gain traction I'd probably have to give it a soft ending and move on to something that would be more engaging and rewarding)
I personally consider my comic a success regardless of numbers and subscribers and what have you, since It has been fantastic art practice and a ton of work, and I am a better artist, writer, and more adapted to hard work for future projects because I created it. If people read and enjoy it, that's great! but it's not the dividing factor between success and failure for me
What do I consider a success for one of my stories?
When people who read it leave comments.
Doesn't happen often.
I think it can be pretty unhealthy to have a single metric for success. It's probably better to think of your successes, plural.
- Did you complete a whole story, or at least a significant number of pages or chapters?
- Did you level up your skills by learning from tricky problems or mistakes when plotting/writing/drawing?
- Did you sell a printed version to customers at an event?
- Did you earn enough in ink donations/ad revenue to withdraw and treat yourself?
- Did you hit milestones you set for yourself?
- Did you get a response from a reader who just totally "got" what you were going for?
- Did you make friends? (hey, you may laugh but making small press comics is how I got together with my fiance! I've been to the wedding of somebody I met through small press comics and a lot of my close friends both online and irl come from making comics).
- Did you place in a competition or get a feature?
- Did somebody pay you to draw a comic and you delivered to the brief and on-time?
All of these are successes. Just completing a page or chapter can be a success. Like yes, getting paid enough from your comics alone to pay rent is a very big success (though earning enough to live comfortably rather than just scrape by is a big step above that, which a lot of people don't realise). It's best to set realistic goals you can achieve. You can't guarantee you'll hit a hundred subs, but you can guarantee that if you keep working hard you can complete a hundred pages, and then it's entirely within your power to print them and book a table at a con to sell those books.
9 days later
active readers and commenters
having people who are truly interested in your characters, doesnt matter how many
I call a success for my story is that i keep writing it lol
I don't know if having people read it is matter to success you can have all the people in the world reading it but if you don't want to write it anymore and you drop it like some manga i love reading called The Breaker that vanished long ago they said they get back in 3 years but never did... so yes i wouldn't call that success for even if a lot of people read it because they stop writing it
I can't call a success for a story if the write drops it even if its popular so i guess my what i call a success story is one that keeps writing until the end. or keep going even if no one reads it
I guess, to me, success is like. Living the dream. Being able to write and it support you, or at least support you enough that you only have to work a "real job" part time to make up the difference to live comfortably. So, monetary based. I say that because if you look artistically, it's just way too subjective. I couldn't really cast judgment on that. I would say "if the creator is satisfied", but that's not necessarily true. I'm never satisfied with my own stuff, and I prefer it that way. Being satisfied just means getting cocky to me.
I don't care about my number of subscribers, but my number of readers, comments, interaction, and actual engagements with my stories matter. Knowing that someone actually read my book and felt something is the most fantastic feeling in the world. I think I have a good growing base right now, but I wish I had more comments and engagements. I think people are reading my stories, but it's so rare that I actually know what they think. Likes are cool but they have nothing on comments lol.
So in short, I think what makes a story successful is the level of engagement it gets. Subscribing is hollow without the other stuff.