Just a hosting site. I needed a place.
I was hoping for Tapas to be my main "home" for my current comic project, and I still wish it could be, but unless they change direction a bit, it'll be impossible.
Changes to the algorithm and a huge marketing focus on licensed comics have made it way harder for a mid-sized comic or novel to grow. I used to see top bar promos of my friends' work and think "oh cool, we've been friends and peers for years on the UK comics and illustration scene, placed in the same competitions, that kinda thing, so if they're up there, I could be up there!" and now it's completely dominated by imported Isekai comics so I feel like I missed my chance by getting in on the platform too late.
Ultimately, platforms and publishers come and go, rise and fall. As a creator, I've outlived Hyper-Comix/Awesomenauts, Smackjeeves and Drunk Duck (I mean, "The Duck" is still there, it's just.... not really relevant any more), hell I even placed in the finals of Tokyopop's UK Rising Stars of Manga the year before they went down in flames. It's best not to get too attached or to think any one publisher is definitely your path to stardom. I've done work for Penguin-Randomhouse and it didn't result in me being permanently taken on as a superstar illustrator. It was one thing I've done in my career. Maybe I'll work with them again, maybe I won't.
Tapas is a publisher that I like and I want them to succeed. I think their contract has some of the best terms I've ever heard of, and I don't say that lightly; it really does blow most of the other publishers I've worked with out the water. I like that they do host and celebrate LGBTQIA+ content and try to boost PoC creators. I would love to build a nest here, I really would, and if these "Tapastry" changes pan out, maybe there's still a chance. If they keep down this road of importing shedloads of content and burying us under it though, with an algorithm based on recent likes that means the only way to be visible is to be promoted on the main page because that'll also put you at the top of all the other pages anyway so the translated content they're promoted is literally on top of all home-grown "community" creators... well, the platform stops doing what I need it to. I need hosting, yes, but the main advantage Tapas has over just building my own website is being on an app that gives notifications and being discoverable as part of a database of comics. Currently I have the hosting and I'm on an app, but the app uses the notifications to aggressively market other comics that make my work hard to discover, so... currently it has no particular advantage for me over Webtoons or similar.
Hopefully that'll change and they'll realise that flooding the site with content like this that's available elsewhere and makes the site both homogenous and less valuable to the very original creators they're looking to interest so they can get exciting new content to adapt for TV is only going to hurt them in the long term... Otherwise... well, it'll be just another "platform that I used to know," and I'll move on to whatever comes next.
I'm also on Wattpad (I think we've run into each other on their old forums?) but Tapas was sort of becoming my priority until some recent changes. The fact that they've buried the one spotlight list for novels on the app kind of... Makes me less interested in the site overall. And the trending lists have been buried as well.
If promotion isn't actually doing anything like it did before they sunk the list (or hell, before they restricted novels to one list) then I don't see much reason to spend as much time here. I like it and have liked it in all the years I've been here. I'm not going anywhere. But Tapas isn't my main priority right now.
I don't know. Seems like they're deprioritising novels a tonne and I don't really know where that leaves me as a novellist ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I think your stuff is good! It's sad to see that it's not growing as fast as it should; your work is exactly the sorts of community stories I wish would be promoted a lot more on the frontpage and app, because it fits in well with the Tapas "demographic" while also being more in sci-fi/fantasy genres.
Do you mean the Writer's Camp? It's not currently going on so I'm afraid there's not much I can say on that.
But people are free to pitch Premium whenever they want/are ready to!
Tapas is the starting point for my webcomic, and it's been my primary source of growth along with Twitter. Right now, I consider it my main home for my series. I think my next step is to start cross posting on Webtoon and my own personal website. To be honest, I've never really thought of the possibilities beyond this, success wise. I recently started a Patreon where I have a couple of supporters, but I've never expected to make a living off of this or anything.
My biggest external writing achievement was winning a Watty award (which admitted me into Stars on Wattpad).
My next achievement level would be to have a book that is accepted in a commercial on-line program, so I am trying on both Tapas and Wattpad to prove myself as a commercially viable writer. So far, it didn’t happen, but I keep writing in hopes of meeting the requirements the editors have for successful commercial fiction.
What makes me hope less for a success personally for me on Tapas is that while mature comics are acceptable for commercial program, the novels are not. I think PG13 products absolutely need representation, but more adult oriented stories have future as well.
Overall, I cannot say that there is an online site that is excellent. They all have drawbacks and upsides. I feel that Tapas is not quite set up for novels and writers, because of narrow genre preference, lower promotion for novels, editing interface and PG13 lean of the premium program
I've moved to Tapas and started building up my base again from scratch from another site where a couple of my stories got fairly popular.
I will always say that publishing online like this is great practice and especially in this community. If your dream is to be a professional writer/comic maker publishing online is a good way to develop your style on what your readers like and don't like. Even if you do it for fun as a hobbyist.
Publishing on Tapas I would say usually the very start of any journey, finishing the story you're trying to tell is a whole other ordeal. You will give up on some stories, you will make grammar mistakes, everyone does. You'll learn your own way of doing quality checks, how to write a storyboard, character sheets, and tools that you can always use for the next story.
Tapas is defnintley the start for me as far as doing graphic novel/ comic work. Ive never had a platform to be able to easily publish my stuff before so it makes it a good place to start to build a fanbase along with learning some things a long the way
I self-published my first dark fantasy novel in december of 2020, so I think that's going to be my eventual goal for my comic as well once I get more of it out there.
You've had a rough time, seems like.
Glad your health is looking better at least.
When it all comes down, that's more important than any creations.
Tapas is just practice really. I'm not sure what I want to do with my comic in the long run. I know that it needs more work for sure to survive out there in the wild world of professional comics.
Got a few things I have to work out in the coming years, but I won't rush it and take it all in stride. When the right time to move on presents itself then I'll take it.
As far as the final endgame goes...
Hard to say. We're both up there in age, in fact we're probably among the oldest webcomic creators out here right now and wish we'd started this all about 20 years earlier. 
Personally, creators should even HAVE an endgame. Stick with what you love and if it continues to make you happy through life, do it until you can't do it anymore. And when you can't do it anymore, show off your work to the other nursing home goers and smile and nod and say, "Yeah, I did that and I'm proud of it."
How LUCKY you are and will be to go through life knowing you found your calling, that it made you happy your whole life. You're better off than about 95% of the Earth's population. Be blessed.
For those of you who have seen me in the forum you know I've already had a writing career (minor) with audio drama and a couple magazine gigs and a book (non-fiction).
But as I'd always written spoken word (plays and audio drama) and a little film I had never tried writing a novel.
For me Tapas is a chance to see if I can actually write novels or not. So far it's working out okay. One of my shorter ones has been optioned for a screenplay (who knows if it will get sold) but that happened prior to putting it on Tapas (like the day I announced on social media that it would be posted here). And, I certainly did not expect to start a multi-volume fantasy story.
So... we'll see.
It's a detour tbh I just sorta wound up here lol
As some people might be able to tell, I'm more of music guy than anything else but it just so happens that I wanna try out writing a comic so like.. idk! My heart's really into music, but I'm also loving the process of making a comic (even if it's going painfully slow atm for me), so like who knows what happens afterwards? Maybe I take writing more seriously, maybe I go into the world of producing music, maybe I do both full time or follow another career path entirely.. We'll see how it goes
It's hard to say really. I started my story wanting to make a manga. I want it to be like the Pixiv mangas where you can read it online but be able to make a print run of it. When you look at my story, there are a lot of evidence of this such as consideration for page gutters, imitating release schedules, interactions of panels, and creating anticipation to turn the page. I design my story as manga first and a webtoon second. This will be and always will be my end goal.
I never planned to post on Webtoons or Tapas because I prefer making my story in a book format. I ended up being convinced by my friend to do so, mostly since I was starting from complete zero; I had no following and didn't post my art prior to posting my story. Posting on sites with an audience would be better than striving out on my own. It was a bit rocky start since I struggled to figure out how to convert a manga to a webtoon smoothly and, most importantly, quickly. While I did figure out a semi quick way to do so, I realize my story lost a lot of what made it manga. Vertical comics have a different feel to them and it was hard to do the same without having to heavily edit my story to fit the form. I eventually came to a compromise where I can display it more like a manga, do so in a timely fashion, and fit the vertical format.
In a way, I came to enjoy posting my story on both Webtoons and Tapas. While I continue to make my story like a manga, I am getting the hang of shifting it into a vertical format. It definitely gets more attention on these sites than it does if I made my own site or just post on Pixiv. I would prefer if there was the ability to read it via page viewers but I won't complain about it. It's hard to say where the future takes me. If my story really picks up in terms of popularity, Tapas and/or Webtoons might be main platform with making a print book and site become a second priority. Until then, it is a stepping plateau that I will be around on for quite some time.
I see it as just a starting point. I can use it to learn how to draw, format comics and learn how to write prose with nice feed back from the community.
I have to say this community have gave me soo much useful feed back on how to write and draw and I don't think I would have improve without it, since I have 0 formal training in any form. If I manage to get my novel to go premium (as low chance as it is) I would consider that a big step in my creation adventures. But if not then at least I had the practice and skills to get into traditional publication. And I'm thankful for it
I think Tapas is more of a stepping stone to me. I really love the community here, but there ain't no way the stuff I write will ever be big on here, I think. XD I view Tapas as a platform to make connections and build up a readership, but my endgame is to self-publish/traditionally publish my stories. In the case of self-publishing, I think it really helps to have that built-in fanbase for your work before you go spending tons of money on editors, marketing, and in some cases, coverart.
Hey, I worked in a literary agency for a while, and honestly submitting your manuscript to an agent is as easy as sending an email. You can find out about what the individual agents are looking for on the agency website, and then it’s just a matter of putting together a list of people who are looking for work similar to yours (and represent people whose work is like yours, usually, though sometimes they rep a range of things. You can also see who the authors you admire are repped by and try to find contact emails for them!) and dropping them an email with the sample that they ask for (you can find that on their website too). You can submit to as many agents as you like, though it’s often best to do it in batches of as many as you can handle at once, say 10 if there are 10 or more you’re interested in. ‘Cause that way you can make changes based on any feedback you get before you submit to your second batch. Then once you have an agent it’s up to them to handle all the business side of publishing, and you just have to focus on writing. Or I guess if you want to be involved you could probably find an agent who would be willing to discuss the business side with you in a lot of depth too. It’s a very mutually respectful relationship!