Whats the fastest way to lose subscribers?

This whole thread is fascinating!

For me, I unsubscribe under 3 circumstances:

1. I impulse subscribed because it looked interesting, then realized as I read it that it wasn't my thing.
2. Story does something very offensive all of a sudden (it has to be a pretty big blunder) or, conversely, gets wayyy too preachy.
3. the artist themselves becomes offensive/rude or, conversely, gets preachy

My guess is that most of your mystery unsubscribers are #1 on my list. It just happens, a lot of us browse to find new series and if we find something that looks cool, we'll subscribe without reading it, so that we can read it later. I wouldn't sweat a few unfollows here or there, I try to not look at my follower count more than 2x a week because of this. That way I never notice it doing anything but going up! If I check daily I can see it drop one, gain one, drop one, on and on.

Fastest way to lose subs : Decided that something didn't fit your feelings as creator, didn't even wait a day to tell your subscriber that you are leaving a website and just removed all the contents. Not even saying any good bye. So basically, being a douche bag.

You might makes a 'free content' and heck I know it's hard making a comic and it's your content you can do as you please. But treating your reader like they mean nothing at all and just removing all the content without even making a proper announcement... I mean is it that hard to just post a white square box with black text 'Sorry, stuff happens and I have to leave Tapas so please continue supporting me here [link]' and just wait like at least 24 hours?.

Heck man, I might continue supporting you by bookmark the link and visit once in a while just to binge reading and commenting if only you do something like that. If only.

Now all I see is a bunch of so called 'I make comic for free! I can f***ing leaving this f***ing website anytime I want and you have to follow me on my new website if you want to continue reading my so called great free content!'

Yeah, long live premium content. No wonder they are premium, they are professional and worth the money. No way the author are gonna act like a douche bag and removing their content just because they feels like it.

I am sorry for using this thread to rant. I just want to point that even if you make a 'free content' with all your resources, doesn't mean that you can act like a kid. You make something and people enjoy it : they subscribing to it, commenting on it, tipping you when they have a coins and you can't just follow your heart when something didn't fit your heart and just... POOF!

What are you, ninja? Lol.

From what I've seen on comics and Bad Webcomics, there's a few basic things:

Update your comic regularly, and be transparent with your readers if there's going to be a delay/hiatus.

The other is simple, don't act like a dick to your readers in the comment section. XD

From a reader perspective, the fastest way to lose me is to pretty much never update and when you do update, it's either A. tipping or B. filler content (I've seen so many Q/A's that I automatically skip them these days).

I usually unsub when I get bored with a terribly slow moving story. You can update once or twice a week, but if the plot is at a glacial pace, I'm out.

I'm the kind of reader that doesn't unsubscribe even if the comic never updates. UNLESS the storyline sucks and if it's a slice of life, it needs to be entertaining.

When the line story suddenly goes with characters that give nothing at all to the major plot and they got all sexy and wtf I did not subscribe to this XD
Im really thinking about unsubcribing to a series because of this, I do like the art, the story but this is so weird and awkward .-.

I think things that are new or unexpected cause me to lose subs the most. My comic4 just introduced totally new sci-fi based characters that we've never seen or concentrated on before, and a good deal of the next scene has to do with them - I think readers can be taken surprise by this sort of thing and I think, in my case, it worked against me - but this is an important part of the plot, so it's good that these readers leave now if they don't want to see more of this kind of thing.

Do you mean that it suddenly introduced new sci-fi characters, or do you mean that it suddenly introduced a new sci-fi element that didn't previously exist? Because if you take a story that has an established plot with no evidence of sci-fi and then bring SF in at random it's going to reasonably throw people off. It's like Deus ex Machina TO THE EXTREME!

Haha, well it had some evidence of sci-fi but didn't get heavy on it until this chapter. The plot was certainly established, and I planned on having these characters from the beginning, but it may certainly have been "random" in some peoples' eyes. The end of the prologue introduced the first sci-fi elements, and then the mid-end of chapter 1 pushed it into a territory that we actually concentrate on.

The comic was originally classified as sci-fi, but since the heavier sci-fi elements didn't appear until later pages, I reclassified it - so, again, people may not have expected it.

In a classic sense, there may have been a better way to do it--unfortunately, I wanted an air of normalcy to exist before introducing the stranger and/or darker parts of the story. And, being that the story is (somewhat??) slow-paced, it took longer to get to these parts.

a lot of the time people like to say its not updating but being mean to your subscribers or fans at cons or online is on the top of my list for sure

Oooh! Let's list some ways!

-Turn a character into a ranting mouthpiece for your opinions. Make sure that character is always unquestionably right.
-Make an obvious self-insert and suddenly have everything revolve around them.
-Start random flame wars on social media for no reason.
-Respond poorly to criticism.
-Hold pages for ransom.
-Drop important arcs and plotlines for filler.
-Go into hiatus and never come out.
-Kill off a fan favorite character in a pathetic and pointless way.
-Insult your fans.
-Make promises on Patreon, never keep them, but still take money from your fans.

That's about everything I can think of.

I tend to unsubscribe/stop following comics when there's big, nasty drama involving the author or if the comic starts going in a very different direction that I'm not a fan of. I do also occasionally subscribe on impulse and then later realise it wasn't my thing.

Agreeing with what others have said about daily snack, if the comic has a sudden spike in subscribers following being featured, it's almost certain that it will decrease a little bit afterwards as people figure out if they're interested. A slow-moving plot will also probably lead to a couple people unsubscribing. I'm guilty of this in my comic3 as I'm only able to upload one page a week right now, and I haven't moved it along as quickly as I'd like.

haha oops! yeah - that response was to a different topic and blindly responded to it here

I will admit I am guilty of a few of these, however my hiatus was a year and due to losing my housing many times within that year. I would do my best to come back, but something would happen and it didn't work out.

Well damn, I'm guilty of the deleting everything, but after a year, I highly doubt people remember anything about my comic. I mean I had 300ish subs, but I doubt people remembered anything about it. u_u This way we can all re-read it together and get to know it again I guess? I see it as a better way than before when I uploaded all 30some pages in a single day forever ago.

I am far more stable now though and have the time to give to Tapas. I left mainly due to moving so much/being unstable but STAYED away due to the drama I was hearing about. I am hoping it can all be better this time around I guess. I feel pretty bad doing some of the things I did, however I am doing what I feel is best for the readers and me, not to piss people off on purpose? I mean what other options do I have after being gone for so long?

As far as me unsubbing, usually not updating for a long time (like a year or more) though usually I will wait forever if I like it enough, jut hoping for more. Drama involving the author in other stuff offline or online. Or artists who I think morally are in the wrong for one reason or another.

Has someone said kill somebody? I feel like that would be a top one for losing a fan base.

@UzukiCheverie
I can't seem to quote you for some reason >:o, but about the shifting tone of the story makes people lose interest is true but I think you can also gain a new kind of audience too.
I guess a personal example would be that halfway through the first chapter of Halfsoul I was pretty worried if the story would end up as too depressing. While the beginning had some dark hints, compared to where it would go eventually, the beginning was a lot less dark and more action & mystery-ish. So I asked if readers wanted a disastrous ending or a less disastrous ending.
While I may have lost a lot of people who weren't interested in dark and psychological stories, I gained a lot of people who loved that stuff. Disastrous had won an overwhelming victory.

I've noticed this too :o Personally I love tragedies (take my heart and stomp it to pieces pls XD) but tragedies don't seem to be very popular. I agree, sometimes tragedies are needed for the betterment of the story, but I think for some people, they read stories to escape and sad stories don't always help with that XD

I've acceptable that fact for Halfsoul, especially since it starts dark and gets darker. It does shift tone towards recovery later, but if it's too depressing for some people, I'm not going be offended.

I think the biggest thing that gets me to unsub is when I notice the creator not caring anymore.

Probably state some over the top controversial overly extreme political statement that just makes u such a shitty person that people can no longer separate the art from the artist lol.