Whats the fastest way to lose subscribers?

[jonufele]

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[UzukiCheverie]

Show flat women? XDDDDD

Man, I've got the same problem with Two Faced. The worst thing about it is, wasting time figuring out why people un-subscribe. There is lots of reasons, I understand people discover it's not for them because it's a long form comic. I try so hard to make the pages look great. (for example the last update) and I lost more subscribers than gained them. To deal with it I've started to ask my fans questions each update to engage them a bit more, but that still doesn't help. ._.

I'm pretty sure I'm losing a lot of my subs right now because back during Christmas, I was a part of the Tapastic Xmas Collab. Most people who subbed to Time Gate was undoubtedly so they could be notified of my episode going up after it being announced by the previous creator who did the episode before mine. So now those people are getting notifications about Time Gate when they didn't have any intention of reading it in the first place and are unsubbing so they can stop getting the notifications for a series they won't read.

Which is depressing, because I'd like to make readers of them yet and I hate seeing my numbers go down, but it's definitely a lot better to have subs that meant to subscribe for the story and not just for some one-time event. I'm hoping we'll start to see a rise with the start of Volume 3, and the fact that we recently compiled all our earlier one-page-an-episode episodes into bigger batch episodes, resembling more of what we post nowadays (seeing one page per episode with the episode count being in the 200's+ was undoubtedly intimidating to new readers, especially those who aren't binge readers).

[Michelle]

I feel like this has played a part in my losing subs lately? Because Time Gate is such a long story, and because of the update schedule and the fact that we're only on Chapter 18, which is not far for a story that's built like a manga, we're starting to get into the actual darker themes of the story, whereas when it started it was just shitfighting between Mitsuhiro and Uzuki (which the shippers love reading lol) - now we're finding out that there are darker forces at play that go a lot deeper than their relationship, and Uzuki isn't necessarily the "hero" of the story by any definition of the word. I'm worried that when Books 2/3 come around, people are gonna be like "nope lol" u o u I don't know if the growing of the story will be a positive one or not for the readers. For me, I'm excited as hell, but it's tough to gauge what the readers will enjoy.

Urgh, I have the same problem. Right now I can only manage a page per week for my comic, and I feel like some people might get impatient with parts of the story. I make sure there's a new development in each update, but every page can't always be "OMG CRAZY REVEAL! SURPRISE!" because pacing n stuff. :u So it's mostly during those build-up pages I'm afraid of people dropping off.

[UzukiCheverie]

I was kinda more touching on the fact that the story shifts so much as the series progresses. Without spoiling, book 1 (Reaper) serves as a "prequel" story of sorts, establishing some of the main characters and the world they live in, the main conflict, etc. It also covers a lot of Uzuki and Mitsuhiro's relationship while they're trying to find out how to stop themselves from dying (as their lifespans are marked on Mitsuhiro's body). The big conflict that encompasses a large part of the story isn't even resolved until Book 3. But by book 2, we introduce time travel, space and matter manipulation, demon possession, government corruption, dark demon overlords, etc. and in comparison to the first book, I feel like I'll be whiplashing my readers a lot xD"""

The main conflict changes again after book 3 as well, with the antagonist changing and the world being at the hands of an even worse baddie than in books 1-3. It's all still relevant though, I'm not just throwing enemies in to keep the plot going lol It's trying to keep my readers actually reading through it without going "welp this story has done a 180" and it not being what they originally loved about the first book to begin with - that's the challenge.

I get where you're coming from too though. I've thankfully been able to do almost 1 chapter a week, now that I'm done of school, but back when I was in school and working at Starbucks at the same time, I was only able to do one page update a day, save for weekends, and it was just so aggravating that it took us 4+ months to get to chapter 4 >:I whereas now I did 4 chapters in like, the past month and a half lol But baby steps I guess :U

[Michelle]

I've thankfully been able to do almost 1 chapter a week, now that I'm done of school, but back when I was in school and working at Starbucks at the same time, I was only able to do one page update a day, save for weekends, and it was just so aggravating that it took us 4+ months to get to chapter 4 >:I whereas now I did 4 chapters in like, the past month and a half lol But baby steps I guess :U

;u; a chapter a week... oh... * takes 9 months to finish a chapter *

[UzukiCheverie]

;u; a chapter a week... oh... * takes 9 months to finish a chapter *

some day my love

some day

(also i can do a chapter a week/every two weeks because it's only black and white with screentones so it doesn't take as much time or effort as a color one, i'm too lazy and there's way too much of time gate to do color, i don't even know if i'll be alive long enough to finish time gate in black and white for god's sakes lol)

[Michelle]

Seriously, your comic is totally #schedulegoals.

I went with greyscale for the same reason. It'd be nice to hire a colourist down the line, but if I were to do a colour comic it'd probably take like 1.5 years to do a chapter! >___>;

[ryoko]

I've accidentally subscribed to series when I've scrolled through the comic feed on my phone because of where I'm swiping, so I can see sub numbers going up and down because of that ^_^'...

[ahkwardkat]

The only issue I have is I have three jobs. I cannot always promise it'll be on the exact same day every time. e___e not everyone has the same times available each week. Is it that unreasonable to ask your readers to be a bit flexible?

[69Michi]

It's always better to have a fixed schedule if you want a stable fanbase, but overall you can give an estimate time for your readers and they should be quite lenient with your posting time since you also have irls to take care of! Just try to be as frequent with update as possible like at least 1 update per 2 weeks or something like that so your readers won't forget about your comic ; q ;

[ahkwardkat]

Yeah I usually update on Fridays, but since I work unloading trucks Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, it's hard if I miss an update. It'll be a few days before I can finish it. Plus I have commissions to pay bills, then my Naor Comic. x-x Between the three of them, I easily spend 90-ish hours a week working. It doesn't help my weekend job is the 2nd shift, so I work from 2pm-11pm, so I if didn't ave it done by Friday morning, the next chance to post it would be early morning on another day, and nobody is on at that time. By the time people wake up, my update it buried in people's notifications. u_u

[maxzaguishi]

I do not know if I am impressed but the question or the pile of creative responses hahaha

[Ayumi]

With the next page of my comic I attached a soundcloud link where I represent the song what my characters gonna sing on that page. I think this is the best way to lose subscribers XDD But who knows...

[avalonmao]

I unsubscribe super fast when there's racist shit in the comic and random suicides without any warning. Like at least put a mature content on there. I come to tapastic to relax not to see swastikas. I CAN'T!!

[quakeulf]

Pull a bait-and-switch.

[carloswebcomic]

Throw a tantrum over low Patreon support.

[UzukiCheverie]

Pull a bait-and-switch.

I think you can pull off a proper bait and switch so long as it works for the plot of the story. Mind elaborating on this one a bit more lol?

[mappypaint]

Notify subscribers about 5 times a day with stuff that has nothing to do with your webcomic. Although some subscribers will love you treating your wall like twitter, i'm sure a number of other subs will hate it and unsubscribe from your comic.

[joannekwan]

Yesss, lately one of the creators I'm subbed to has been doing like a notification a day and their comic hasn't updated in like 3+ months. I'm still subbed because the comic barely got started and I want to give it a chance so I ignore the notifications I get from their wall. > >

[zelkats]

.... Ending a series with a tragic ending, apparently. Happened to me recently, lol.