What makes you click on a story in a promo thread?

[lilithfairenwrites]

There's plenty of threads for folks to share links to their stories, but when it comes to readers perusing these threads for a read, what makes you choose one over another? What draws your eye, piques your interest in a story?

[TheGentleArtist]

The banner/cover and the synopsis.

[jcmraz]

I usually try to click one when I post. Usually it's the first one I see lol If I'm quoted, given feedback or someone is just generally nice to me I usually look for theirs to give it a look even if I'm just clicking on their profile and hunting it down manually lol

[joannekwan]

Synopsis mostly

[HGohwell]

Besides whether it seems interesting and the cover/banner/summary, how much I trust the creator is a big deal. Those threads get over run so quickly, but if it's a person I already know and trust, I'm more likely to take the plunge, sometimes even if it doesn't seem like my cup of tea. How someone presents themselves on the forum is pretty important to me. If someone has turned up and just spammed the promo threads within 5 minutes and doesn't interact in any other way, I'm unlikely to click. If you're someone who's around giving advice, interacting, presenting yourself well, I'm more likely to trust you. And some stories I've subbed to even if they didn't seem like my thing, because I'd seen the creator on the forums and they seemed to know what they were talking about and we had similar tastes, so I trusted they could put together a decent story even if it wasn't what I'd think I'd like and I surprised myself (that was a mess of a sentence, I hope that made sense).

[GloamingCat]

ngl, art. Geesh I am picky with art. If the art catches my eye then I click and look for genres/tags I like, and only then I check the summary.

[KoreanTacos]

Usually if I havent seen them in the forums before the art is aesthetically pleasing to my personal preference enough for me to click on, and if they arent making a complete ass hat of themselves in the forums already.

Also if i just feel like seeing if someones work has improved since the last time I looked at it, thats always fun to look at

[DasIstWunderblyat]

• The description (blurb, genre, characters)
• The thumbnail and promo art if available.
• The attitude. I less likely to check out with pure intention (as in, not cynical and mockingly) if the poster is treating it like the best/worst thing that have happened in the word. People say praise your work in your promo yet that does not work for me, my mind will go "Huh? What makes you so confident if it is that good? If it's not it's false advertising you know? You are deceiving people!" But people who shit on their work too much in a certain manner makes me think they just want praises.

_{Note: I shit on my work a lot, but that is a joke and I feel uncomfortable if people console me because of that. It's like people calling themselves "dumb bitch" or something, they aren't being serious and it must be weird if someone say "No, you are not dumb" in a serious manner to that joke.}

[DokiDokiTsuna]

To be honest, what makes me click on a story is more of a list of things that aren't there, rather than things that are:

1) No 'commercial spokesperson' talk, like "Are you looking for action? Adventure? Laughs galore?? Well, come on over to [insert comic/novel] and" blah blah blah.
It irks me...partly because it's corny to the point of transparency, and partly because...well, most of the writers I've run into who do things like that have a * certain * sense of humor that does nothing for me.

2) No self-deprecating talk. I've had bad experiences with people who are always insulting themselves, and frankly I don't trust them.

3) No 'cute' talk, like "please read my story ^w^!!! If you would click on this link it would make me super happy<3anyway have a nice day!!!1!"
...This is just a matter of personal taste.

4) No comparisons to existing media. I understand the value in doing this, and I used to do it myself, but honestly when I see it I just think "Oh, so this is gonna be like [thing], but slightly less interesting" and I don't feel motivated to look into it.

5) No carbon-copies of stereotypical manga synopses. Like, if you're going to write BL love story #320403, at least don't do the thing where you go "A is in love with B...but A doesn't know that B is a prince in disguise! When B's secret comes out, watch the chaos unfold!"
...Again, personal taste. But additionally it just reeks of unoriginality. I look at it and get the feeling that the entire story will just be a big collection of tropey manga lines and situations that I've already seen before, with no additional depth.

In my experience, the above strategies are so common, that anyone who doesn't use them automatically piques my interest.

[nostalgicroxas]

Comics: Art style, specifically a style I do not/cannot do :: painterly or detailed. I don't mean professional, I just mean a specific art style that is not the cliche "western" or "Sonic the Hedgehog" or "manga" or "so not western but totally is anime" styles. If you aren't one of those, you're more likely to get a click from me in the promo threads.
That said, synopsis. If I feel like I've read it before, I immediately start drawing conclusions on what this work will be, and that just makes me feel like it'll be a let down to read the work.
Amount: 'WEE I JUST STARTED PLEASE LOOK'. No. I have no patience or time to wait two years for your first chapter to finish, in a story I have no promises that you won't drop because this is largely a hobby site. Yes. This is unfair of me. I'd just rather binge read a giant chunk than five posts and go "well... that was half an hour of my time".

Novels: Writing style trumps genre for me. If it sounds interesting or compelling (ie more than harem/reverse harem or love-triangle or generic political story) then you've got me at least taking a look. And honestly, writing uh... education? I'm less likely to click to read someone's writing who has not learned the fundamentals, or is still very early in learning them. No one's perfect, no one here likely can hire an editor, but I'm 100% over reading the "I'm still in highschool but my writing is super good!" cliche trap line. It's similar to art styles - they're all so different and varied.

OTL Honestly I feel like any answer I give is so hard to not sound like a jerk.
I guess overall I want commitment from you the creator. If I see that you have a half-dozen dead in the water stories on your profile that have been put on perma-hiatus, it makes me question the validity of starting whatever work you're promoting now.

[domisotto]

Summary. Well written summary about a cool character in an interesting situation would make me click and see what’s up.

[Phantomlight]

First, I notice the banner or cover. Art isn't everything to me, I'll give something a shot sometimes even if the art is a work in progress ^^ Usually if the genre is stated I might gravitate to certain comics more than others. But after I read the synopsis, that's when I usually make my call to go through with checking it out and giving it a chance. Also, it's not a big factor but sometimes, I might see a particular creator here on the forums quite a bit and they have interacted with others and perhaps with myself in a respectful and polite way and they might have promoted their work somewhere or someone else has spoke highly about their work, then I will take a gander

[SagaHolmgaard]

As people have said, some eyecatching cover/banner art is the first thing I look for. It should give me an idea of the genre and the tone of the story, so that I can see if it's suitable to my personal tastes.

Secondly, Which vibes the creatos gives off. Not that there's a one way you SHOULD act to get people to read your comic. I just think I'm more likely to read something if the creator seems like a decent, professional person who believes in their own story. You know, not praising their own work to the skies, but no self-depreciating even as a joke either, I just find that really draining lol

I almost never read the full synopsis I'll read like, one sentence, but it's just more intuitive for me to simply read the first few pages and see if I like it rather than read that little text. Maybe because comics are so much about the visuals, the description doesn't do a fair job of telling me the experience I'll have when reading it?

[DualDragons]

Good question. Usually when I get to know a user better I may get interested in checking out their work (unless they acted like a douche, then I won't check it). That's how most of my library is formed haha

Also people who do the same genre as me are more likely to get a sub from me, because I like to read what I make. I'm not so huge on romance as a standalone genre due to... personal experiences. So chances are slimmer that I click on those type of stories.
(If you by any chance make one of those, just know that I'm not trying to say I dislike your story by any means! It's just that the genre makes me remember things I want to forget)

[Kiweevil]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[gmaximin]

Call me shallow but I judge on cover... ... Most of the time, I don’t even read blurbs or anything, and just go through the first pages...

(and I really dissociate artist and her/his work. I follow people I’d most probably dislike in real life (from what I picture them from forum), and there’s people I feel really close to on forum, but whose art never attracted me...)

[krissyhalo]

As of right now, the art style and how many episodes the person has out already.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good story and especially if it’s been out for a good while. But these days, I don’t have the time to go over a story that has tons of episodes out already because I’m still in school and I’m getting my comic strips ready for upcoming weeks. I like small stories that are just coming out and have a good art direction.

HOWEVER, if I like the story synopsis, I will do my best to read through it!

That’s just my opinion though.

[Puck]

The art style, I like funny looking characters and I prefer european style comics

[shfra13]

For comics: art, genre, tags (there are tags that I avoid so much). The art will catch my attention, then the genre will decide if I'd give it a shot or not, and the tags will determine if I'll actually check it out. As simple as that.

For novel, on the other hand, as I'm currently not really reading a lot of novels (I'm a slow reader nowadays), so, I mostly read the ones by authors that I know from the forum (those who seems friendly, though, because it kinda affects how I perceive their writing. I can't really separate artists from their works). If their writing style is good, I'm definitely in for more. If I'm searching novels by myself, though, I'll first go for the genre. Summary and the first chapter will determine if I'll read more of it (later). Also, honestly, if the cover is nice, I'd most likely check it out. But cover doesn't really determine, since at the end of the day, novel is all about the writing.

[darthmongoose]

I like a good looking cover that looks like the person put some thought into it.

• If the cover has any of the following fonts: comic sans, papyrus, jokerman, curlz mt, times new roman, arial or impact, or has amateurish hand-drawn calligraphy, it's an immediate clue that the content won't be very professional. I might be willing to look at stuff like that and give it a chance, but I won't expect the content to be polished.
• If the cover is roughly drawn, has poor value balance and/or is hard to make out at a distance, or has a weird, unbalanced composition, that's also a clue that I'll be giving this one a bit of leeway; it's a work by an amateur.

I like a strong description that sets up what the story is actually ABOUT. Like I hate when the description is like "Dave wakes up in a place he doesn't know. What is he doing there? Who is he? Find out in this exciting story of love and fear." Like.... WTF is this about though!? Or worse, they start the description like "Read this on webtoons! [link] A new webcomic by Me, Studio69, updating every tuesday!" Like... no, I don't want to read it on webtoons, I want to read it here, I can see it's a webcomic and I don't care who you are until I see your actual content.

I don't like when a post is really self-deprecating or clickbaity. "This is my trash webcomic I throw together at 4am while drunk, then cry myself to sleep. My mom thinks it's funny. Please read it, I don't get why it has no readers?" or "Don't click this link! HA! Made you look! Is my comic the funniest on the internet!? Comment below! ...haha... why is nobody commenting?". I also can't stand self pitying, whiny posts, especially when they're being arsey at other creators, like "Nobody's reading my comic and sometimes I wonder why I even bother. All anyone wants on Tapas is pandering PC content about gay boys. Could anyone please just read it? I'm a plucky underdog who really cares about making actual original quality content unlike those popular comic creators. Anyway, here's my comic about hero man in the realm of the naughty half-naked cat-girls" Yeah, nah I'm not reading that.