Why are some comics banned from the fresh tab on mobile specifically, without notice?

[liamhernandezlucas]

Hi there!

I'm a new fairly new creator and I'm liking Tapas so far, but I do have one frustrating problem.
A large part of the Tapas audience uses mobile to read their comics, and my comic doesn't appear in the fresh tab on mobile.

The comic is not mature,and I have received no notices of violations, so I contacted Tech support about this.
They gave me an explanation. Well, almost.

First, I was told this problem is being experienced by multiple comics. Indeed, if you compare the Fresh Tab on pc with mobile, mobile features a lot less comics. They said they were looking into it.

Quote:

"I want to first assure you that your series has not been flagged in any way or removed from the app. This gives us good reason to believe this is a glitch, as both your stories should appear within the app as you update. While investigating, we noticed a few other series within the Fresh section on the web are also not appearing in-app where they should be. The dev team has been notified of this issue so, hopefully soon, it will be amended!"

However, the I got this followup:

"I'd like to apologize as there was a miscommunication regarding this matter. After some inquiry with the dev team, we were informed that there was no glitch within the Fresh section of the app, but rather, this is the normal operating function. Although we cannot disclose the exact function of the app we can say that the Fresh section on the app abides by a different logic than the Fresh section on the web to adhere to app store guidelines. Due to the sheer volume of new episodes being uploaded on a daily bases, we have automated this process."

In other words, my comic and many others are under a handicap, making it a lot more difficult to find an audience.
But the support team isn't allowed to tell us WHY exactly.

Does anybody have some insights into this? Some strange app store rule that blocks us from using certain words or names? Who else is having these troubles? If you have these troubles, be sure to link your comic.

Here's my comic: https://tapas.io/series/Oddys-Office
The only reason I could think of, for Google not wanting my comic to appear, is that typing in the same title leads you to Indian office products of the brand Oddy, so it's automatically flagged as competing. But that seems a bit far fetched.

[vothnthorvaldson]

Made even worse by the fact the last update of the app for me (Android) let you see only 25ish new comics. So your comic, as well as most others, are simply non-existing on the app, unless your readers already know the title.
Or, if there is a way to find them, it's not evident at all, as I could not find after much time spent looking.
Imo, the app is not anymore a way to check tapas' comic/novel library. It's only a sort of algorithmically curated smallish subsection of tapas, usefull only to read comics already in the library.

[Tanako]

yes if you aren't already known by the audience its hard to get noticed. the best time to join tapas was like 2014 to 2016 when they were still kinda getting noticed. i was able to acquire a decent readership because my work was featured more. now there are so many comics to choose from and Tapas don't pay too much attention to the new people joining or the creators side. it's a survival of the fittest at this point. if you aren't focused in any of the main generes that attract people you will hunt for subs the whole time being here and honestly its disappointing.

The advice i can give is don't give up regardless. just make sure you are seeking other outlets to promote your comics. my comics can be found in Tapas, Webtoon, Mangatoon. and i stay constantly looking for outlets to promote.

anyway, good luck and keep up the good work.

[joannekwan]

I believe there is a minimum sub requirement to appear in the fresh section on mobile, to deter spam comics from appearing on there. It's a low number as currently the lowest sub count on a comic I see on there is 19.

Just gotta keep pushing your comic on the web to reach that number!

[Azifri]

I have 78 subscribers, and have also noticed that my comic doesn't show up in the app sometimes. This happens for the fresh section and also when looking in the regular scifi section.

[joannekwan]

Welp. Beats me then.

[rmdooley]

How do you know if your comic is not showing up in the Fresh tab? Do you have to manually check when you update or do receive a notification something is amiss?

[Tanako]

Yes you pretty much have to check. Mine does not show up because it’s mature and that has to do with apple’s guidelines and tapas wants to adhere to that. Which is fine with me whatever.

Since I have a decent number of views I use that opportunity to encourage my readers to subscribe and share so yea...
does not help much but it’s better than nothing.

[liamhernandezlucas]

It is still strange though how they also avoid showing comics that are very clearly not mature. The tech support person also very explicitly stated that according to Tapas' own rules, my comic was fine. So one does have to wonder what the actual problem is.

[joannekwan]

It might be because so many comics are published/updated every day they have to be more selective in their algorithm to show them on the app. Like if say a series updates once a day, instead of showing it the fresh section every day on the app, it's reduced to showing up only once or twice a week on the app?
But I'm just guessing.

It's pretty normal for companies to not explain all the inner-workings of their algorithms since they're usually proprietary and they don't want other entities jacking it. Legal reasons and so forth. There can be so much liability when forming a business.

I don't really use the app to find series anyway. The ease of searching is just way better on desktop. Same goes for when I'm just researching general things. So it's best to promote anywhere you can.

[liamhernandezlucas]

It's a good theory, but I don't think that's it. The tech support person referenced a deal with the play store which they aren't allowed to explain, so it's probably more biased towards comic content than frequency. My comic appeared the first two chapters or so, and has consistently not appeared since, even though it's only a weekly update. Contrastingly, there are comics which show up daily on the app.

It's fair for a company not to explain their inner workings, but this issue specifically is a big problem, as it means the creators, people they know rely on figuring out how to get exposure, have no way of knowing how to get that exposure they much need.

For instance, it is often advised for online content creators to post in the evening and/or morning. However, morning posts are directed mostly at phone users, whereas evening posts can more easily reach a pc audience, and people who are stuck on public transportation using mobile. It's a huge part of the evening audience lost, as well as almost the entire morning audience.

Tapas is a platform designed to help you grow your webcomic, but as it stands, something like this really impairs large amounts of creators without giving them a chance to work it out.
That being said, I still like what the platform provides. it's a great platform. But it could still be better.