Why do comics always get re-released on tapas all the time?

[Volern]

I just want to understand why comics are re-released from the beginning on tapas when they already have 50+ chapters out online, and continue to get updated defeating the point of tapas?

My most recent example I've noticed of this is latna saga: survival of a sword King, among many others like release that witch, a tender heart, villain's are destined to die, 50 Tea recipes from the duchess just to name a few.

All these series have slightly different names, already have a lot of chapters, some double or more than what tapas releases, and still get updated outside of tapas so tapas never catches up.

Is this the authors releasing them again on tapas? I wouldn't have thought so if they still release outside of tapas. Or perhaps is it just these series have scan groups releasing the original raws and now tapas is doing the same thing but from scratch again. I can understand them being retranslated for tapas, but it's just since the series is already well in to it and already translated elsewhere I can't really understand the approach of advertising them as brand new series that have just come out when they have been out for a while already. Is it just the weird marketing decision from tapas that is confusing me?

I'm also not sure how the monetisation works, but I assume the authors make money from releasing on tapas right? Since you either have to pay with money to get the tapas points or get them from the game things which is a sponsorship type deal with theses games and tapas which ends up making money to distribute?

I don't want to think that tapas is just re-releasing these comics to make money but that is where my head is at at the moment, this is most likely just from me misunderstanding the situation though.

Not trying to cause drama or anything I just wanted to get my head around how this whole system works between tapas, authors and released comics.

Thanks for any replies clearing my questions up.

[joannekwan]

As far as I'm aware, these series are getting their official English translations and North American releases through a licensing deal with Tapas. And the license deal usually splits profits between Tapas and the original creator/Eastern publisher that represents the creator (to what percentage depends on individual contracts). Other places that have these titles online are most likely scanslated/fan-translated.

[Pandastrophic]

I've seen comics that get posted on Tapas also get an official release on Webcomics (which as far as I'm aware also does official eng traslation?). Weirdly enough the comics I've seen that are posted on both get different english titles even though it's the exact same comic, so maybe both websites/apps do their own translation or something.

I'm assuming some comics have exclusive contracts and others don't so they post on different platforms to gain a bigger audience. Generally releasing episodes weekly is better for the algorithm that posting 50 episodes in one go so I'm thinking that's why they approach it in this way.

[Hodge]

Yeah these are the official translations, so it makes money for the creators.

Honestly, its a bit overdue since as you've noticed fan translations already made a lot of progress on some of these, and there's quite a bit of hype for these titles on social media. But publishing can be slow~

[joannekwan]

Interesting! I know Webcomics app is based out of Hong Kong, so maybe it's the English license for the East? Then again, we may never know unless one of the creators speaks about it, but they (and these publishers) might be bound by contracts not to say anything. ¯l_(ツ)_/¯

[rainbowolfe]

I'll be honest, I didn't know there were free, translated versions of any of those comics outside of Tapas, and I never thought to check. I mean, it makes sense that a pirated version exists somewhere, but I never thought to seek it out. I'm sure most people are the same in that they never would've heard of those comics if they hadn't shown up on Tapas.

And I mean, it's not really a "re-release", for the translation at least .3. I wouldn't really call scanlations a release, since the author doesn't even know about them most of the time.

[Izenhawk]

Ok, this is confusing for me too. I read comics on two other apps, I remembered Tapas by chance when I was looking for something else to read. I've noticed quite a few comics I read on one of the other apps is on here too, they aren't free either. They are ones that you have to pay for on the other app as well as Tapas, but Tapas isn't as far along as the other app. So how does that work? (To add onto what the OP was asking.)

For example (ugh, found the edit button after doing another reply, sorry about that):
"A Royal Princess with Black Hair" - same name, on the app I've already been reading it on, it's been on Hiatus since Oct 2020 but it's now brand new on Tapas.

"Daughter of the Emperor", "Empress of Another World", "The Antagonist's Pet", and "A Tender Heart: The Story of How I Became a Duke's Maid" are a few that I've seen on both. I haven't actively looked for ones that are on both, it's just the ones that I've seen on Tapas that I know are on the other one.

They're under the same names, hence my confusion.

[thedude3445]

Which comics are posted on both? A lot of Tapas translations are blocked in my region since I live in Japan, but I wonder if I can access the Webcomicsapp versions because they're designed for English-language Asia?