Why host on tapastic?

[ComicDevs]

Hi everyone, I'm Vlad, I run a http://www.comicdevs.com together with the artist. I mainly manage the site, programming, social spread for our comic, and the sorts.

I have a question regarding tapastic - why should I host my comics here ? I would like users to come to our site in order to view these comics, as someday it would be great to make a living out of it. So... why post all of our comics here then ? I see no particular incentive except possibly getting more likes or followers - but then the followers would not be for the actual comic, they would be following us on tapastic.

[sundanceann]

You can always keep your own website 5 episodes / chapter ahead, so if someone wants to read the new stuff, they'll visit your site. its kind of like the best of both worlds. There's no point in having a website if no one knows it's there.

[michaelson]

I would like users to come to our site in order to view these comics, as someday it would be great to make a living out of it.

You could make that same living off of Tapastic - we offer a built in Support Program and have an Ad Revenue Program (that we are diligently working on improving). We also have a Premium section for finished series. No matter what stage of your career you're currently at, we have tools to help you reach that next level.

It's sort of difficult to think about all of this from an industry perspective, mainly because the industry is not very defined despite webcomics being around for decades. We're at this tipping point where companies like Tapastic have been growing to the point where we can begin to define what our industry is like, what the wages are like, what we can expect from ad revenue, and sort of set the new standard. But all of this really takes a communal effort from all parties - creators, developers, editors, investors, and more.

Think of the independent creator video scene before youtube, and how difficult it was to discover really good and funny content. Maybe you would see a clip on tv on something like America's Funniest Home Videos (sorry if this is a dated reference), but other than that, it was just really difficult to find that kind of content anywhere, how do you go about looking for that kind of material? And then comes along youtube, and it becomes this amazing aggregate of that content and of video content in general. And now you can sort of search for anything there and it's your defacto, one stop shop.

So when we talk about why you should post on Tapastic, it's this two pronged answer where one is about you as a creator making a living, or being compensated fairly for your work, and the second part is this altruistic purpose, to define a industry that's on the brink of being discovered by pop culture.

I'm sure other people here can do a better job than me at explaining other benefits.

Please do check out our creator landing page, and feel free to ask me any questions.

[ratique]

The most obvious reason to post on Tapastic is to find a bigger audience and to keep them reading your comic. Many readers enjoy having one website that updates them on all their favorite comics. It is hard to follow someone who is only active on their own site, you might even forget about them and never return.

At least that is what happened to me quite a few times now.

[scythe]

I had the exact same thing happen to me. I was reading this zombie comic and totally getting into it. But when I wanted to go back to it a few weeks later, I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of it and it wasn't in my history anymore. I mean, if I really wanted to find it I'm sure I could spend 15 minutes hunting it out again (there are a lot of zombie comics out there), but if it was on Tapastic, it'd be in my feed.

In short, I think sites that aggregate content, with large communities, are the future of virtually every content created online medium.

[ComicDevs]

scythe - why not add it to your facebook likes ? seems like a easier way to follow.

[scythe]

I've honestly never of thought of doing that for any site I've ever been on. I tend to hangout on a bunch of select sites (here, Threadless, youtube, twitter, etc..) and just kind build a list of subscriptions there. I don't know, maybe I'm weird, or old, or just internetting wrong.

Yours is a solution, but only if I remember to do that, but in truth, I never expected to forget the name of the comic. I actually must be getting old.

[Kura]

To be in a comic community. As both a creator and a reader I like being in a community where I can access my comics as well as easily look around for other series to read / get into. I'm not a huge fan of constantly going to who knows how many different websites just to follow things like. I just like having all the series I follow on one page, it's just easier and I remember to check in on them more often. Webcomics I follow via their websites I sometimes completely forget about after a while. There's also the support system, and though the support system is a pain in my ass and hardly beneficial at all at this point, it's still nice to see some money flow from it. Also reading through the app is pretty handy, specially when I'm at one of those 'get the **** out of the house and be social' for once things and someone asks what I do, I can just pop up the app and my comic on it and say 'This.' It's WAY more effective then giving them a link.

I get nothing else beneficial from this site to be honest, and actually get more stress because the majority of my fans that I direct to this website hate this website, and feel that they must be as vocal to me about every single little problem they have with this place as they possibly can, which of course, wastes my time and stresses me out. I'll also mention that the way I make comics is not the preferred format for this site, and from what I understand from the responses I have received or read over from staff in the forms, is the lowest in priority when it comes to different formats of comics the site wants to support in technical standards, because of this I run into a lot of technical problems regarding that, but unless I start seeing more income from this place I cannot justify the time and work that would be needed to reformat the comic to fill the websites special snowflake standards when it's the ONLY site out of the many communities I host on where it's recommended I change the layout of my comics. (Though looking at your comic I don't believe you will be facing the latter issue as it seems simple enough to reformat because of it's 4 panel form)

[keii4ii]

but then the followers would not be for the actual comic, they would be following us on tapastic.

Wait a minute... But your readers on Tapastic are still reading your actual comic. The comic remains the same; it's just the site that's different.

Or did you mean "the followers would not visit the main site"? That may be true. But personally, I'm okay with that as long as they still read and enjoy my comic, AND can contact me easily through comments or whatever. Tapastic makes those things very easy for the readers, and I think that's invaluable.

That said...

Think of the independent creator video scene before youtube

The video scene is slightly different because it's a lot more expensive to host your own videos (those bandwidth-sucking monsters) than it is to host a conventional webcomic. I do agree with the platform-oriented thinking overall, though. It's about making it easy for the consumer, which increases the size of the userbase -- which in turn benefits the creators. It's SO much easier to follow my favorite comics AND to keep track of comments/replies on a platform.

Illustrations might be more comparable examples. Remember when everyone had their own art sites? Now they're all on tumblr and/or deviantart, and there's a very good reason for it. I fully believe platforms are the way to go for webcomics as well.

I keep my own site just in case one of the platforms just die one day, so people will always know where to find me, or in case a platform has a rule change/whatever that I strongly disagree with. Ideally, though, nothing like that would happen...

[zelkats]

There is some weird problem about Facebook that I always seem to have. I have liked a lot of fb pages but for some reason not all of those pages' updates appear on my feed. I have no memory of adjusting which update I prioritise more, and yet my least favourite pages show up more while the ones I care most about don't show up at all-- despite them updating frequently.

On top of that, you have tons of other posts by friends and whatnot appearing on the Facebook feed. Full of distractions from your comic. I wouldn't count on using it solely to keep your readers updated.

Tapastic, however, is a place built solely for comics. People who come here are in the mood of reading comics and you will easily gain new followers. I'm not sure if personal webcomic sites have a similar function or not, but Tapastic has a pretty sure way to keep subscribers updated by sending emails (unless the individual turns the email notifications off).

As a reader, it seems more convenient. Instead of needing to remind myself to check a website for updates every Tuesday (which admittedly I forget to do sometimes), I get informed instead. The internet is full of distractions and opened tabs that can be easily ignored or closed. It's a good idea to rely on a platform that grabs people's attention for you.

There is still a place in my heart for personal webcomic sites (and their pretty layouts, FAQ, character profiles and art galleries). It is a great place for your fanbase to discuss your comic more intimately. I'm pretty sure that subscribers on Tapastic who fall in love with your comic will be compelled to check the other sites you have because of how invested they are.

I say why not host your comic at both places? I see no harm in that. Exposure is important to gain potential faithful readers. The rest is all up to your comic because it's its quality that keeps them around and coaxes them to frequent its own website.

[Raven_C]

I keep my own site just in case one of the platforms just die one day, so people will always know where to find me, or in case a platform has a rule change/whatever that I strongly disagree with. Ideally, though, nothing like that would happen...

This is pretty much my main reason to have my own comic site, too! That, and customization.
--

To OP: I like hosting here on Tapastic, because, well, let's face it it's much easier to get readers on here. At least from personal experience, that's how it's been so far for me. As a creator, I like being involve in a community of fellow artists. I'm pretty active here on the forums for instance, and it's great.

Yeah, many readers do like having all their comics on one site, so that can be something you should take into consideration when you're a creator.

......Personally, as a reader, I follow Tapastic comics on RSS. I just add it to my Feedly account on my browser and I get a notification when there's an update. The reason I do this is because I follow many creators who have their own websites and post most of their content there, so for organization's sake, I just add everything to RSS, whether from Tapastic or not. So, I'm not really one of those readers who care so much if your content is on Tapastic. I get notified either way.

Anyway, I do love the comments that I get here. Many readers often take their time to comment so it's always great to get that feedback.

[scythe]

You need to go to the fb page you like and tick some little thing about getting notifications or something like that. Fb sucks.

[minzinger]

Haven't you heard? FB is cutting your organic reach to 1 to 2%. If you have 100,000 LIKES, only 1,000-2,000 of your fans will be notified when you post something. On Tapastic, if you have 100,000 subscribers, all 100,000 of subscribers will be notified.

http://valleywag.gawker.com/facebook-is-about-to-make-everyone-pay-1547309811

[ck_tapastic]

http://tapastic.com/publishing gives you a quick, high-level overview

[NagashiKhan]

Yeah, Facebook is not what I'd suggest to anybody either. Not only is there the cut of notifications as mentioned by above staff, but that stuff gets lost in feed. Especially with the default format of the New Feed, like what? It's practically random and to be honest I'd miss out on a lot if Facebook was my main form of following.

Tapastic is super because not only is the formatting super easy and accessible, but it's also very much like youtube wherein not only does your content get publicity but you yourself develop a fanbase, and can grow followings on any other sites you are seen, which people very much do here. If you notice, many of the top creators have tons of social media outlets and their own websites, and it works! No matter where you are, you'll likely have some route back to tapastic, especially with the share feature.

However, @kurapikasuki, how do any of your fans find things difficult here? This platform is uuuuuuber simple and easy to understand and pretty auxiliary, for the most part. Maybe they're just used to your other sites?

[Kura]

However, @kurapikasuki, how do any of your fans find things difficult here? This platform is uuuuuuber simple and easy to understand and pretty auxiliary, for the most part. Maybe they're just used to your other sites?

These are the complaints that I get, they are not my complaints and I can't say I always run into these problems (though I do run into a few of them), and I have also removed the few complaints that have been fixed (not being able to use paypal was one of them)

By no means let this list deter you from joining the site, it's a nice community and I like it, and I apologize to the staff if this makes the site look bad, I'm just honestly answering the question.

• A bunch seem to not like the scrolling reading format, (though there are a few that actually like it better)
• For the payment system they don't like that they have to give a min of 10$ and can't just do 1$
• The website is very slow and laggy for many. To the point where they hate coming here because they hate waiting for the site to load (this is a very very common one) a very common comment I get from this is that they will refure to the website as 'LAGtastic' instead of tapastic.
• The website works very slow / bad in their country. (this could just be the same complaint above and they're just assuming that it's their country, but I can't jump around from countries to find out myself. This one gets to the is to the point where they start going on long rants about how the website is clearly against/hates their country and is doing this on purpose, and as much as I try to convince them that is not the case I cannot make them think otherwise)
• The don't like when people spam them (there used to be a thing going around where a user or users would send messages to people that followed a series going 'hey I see you like ____ so that mean's you'll like my comic _____ check it out and subscribe'
• They feel the genres are all lies. And that they can never trust them anymore.
• Starting at the last page of series and getting spoilers (I am around 30 pages ahead on tapastic than I am on other sites, so when new readers to this website decide to take the plunge and come here to 'read ahead' as I advertise it, it takes them to the very last page where they get spoilers, and this makes them very angry.
• Locked episodes, paywall wah wah wah (you can pretty much just ignore that one)
• Too many notifications.
• Notifications going to the wrong place.
• Certain notifications not stacking like other types of notifications (I'm not sure which this is? Maybe the unlock notifications?)
• Getting e-mails about comics they are not interested in. ( I keep telling them that can be turned off but it doesn't seem to get through)
• They keep losing their place when they go back to read comments.
• Can't leave comments on comic pages when using their phone (but can leave comments on my wall or through PM, so they direct their page comments to me via PM)
• 'Tapastic is JUST for joke comics, why are you posting here when you don't make joke comics' this one is difficult to argue when tapastic goes above and beyond advertizing their gag a day series, so I can understand the misconception that other forms of storytelling 'do not exist on this website' to the casual reader.
• The website keeps recommending me stuff I already watch.
• Why does the website keep recommending me stuff with 1 episode or just a title page? (I'll assume this was a new a noteworthy/staff picks issue)
• Can't search for things through tags, only titles.
• Tag system in general.
• Sometimes the whole list of episodes does not load / stops loading for them, so they can't scroll through the list to get to the page they want and instead of have to go through page by page.
• The entire description for the comic does not load (I think this is for the app exclusively, as that's the only place where I see that issue myself)

There's probably more that I can't remember right now, or that I haven't been complained about ENOUGH so that it sticks to memory.

[Ayumi]

You can gain more readers on sites like Tapastic, but I think an own website can be more personal. I mean, if you have a website you have enough place to add extra stuff for your fans. Share them fanarts, your drawings and doodles about the characters, wallpapers, and maybe have your own webshop, etc. But how will people find your site from all the others if you doesn't appear at bigger communities? And... for example I'm hungarian, and here mangas and comics still aren't as popular as they deserve to be, and a lot manga/anime lover doesn't like or hate hungarian mangas/comics. For me it's about sharing it with foreigners trough Tapastic for finding more people to be opened for my works ^^;

[NagashiKhan]

This is all alien to me, save the "Tapastic is for joke comics" claim, which I do understand. Other than that, what? I've never run into any of these problems (I think the spoilers one is silly, as well as the pay wall)

[Kura]

This is all alien to me, save the "Tapastic is for joke comics" claim, which I do understand. Other than that, what? I've never run into any of these problems (I think the spoilers one is silly, as well as the pay wall)

I have not run into ALL of the problems either, but I have actually noticed a number of them myself. (the biggest one I don't run into but get the most complaints about being how laggy / slow the website is, as it for the most part works very well / quickly, yet it is very common complaint I get from numerous readers despite me not encountering it, or encountering it to the point where it bothers me)

For the spoilers thing I can completely understand where the readers are coming from to be honest. For the comic in question the last page on other websites the MC is getting attacking in his home by a cloaked unknown figure. When they jump here they jump to end of what I have available, which happens to be the middle of the next chapter with the figure uncloaked, the characters in a different location, another character that should be locked up free, and the MC and another MC character held at gun point. Which is actually A LOT of spoilers all on one page. (and it's been like this for a few updates now)

MOST (but not all) of the other complaints seem more so like technical difficulties that the staff will eventually fix up as they continue working on the website.

[kambreapratt]

We just did a panel on starting webcomics at an anime con. We recommended Tapastic as a great place to start for the following reasons:
1. Ease of use. For a beginner, or someone who wants to tell a story but is intimidated by the web, it is an easier alternative to creating a site.
2. Expense. It is cheaper than buying your own hosting.
3. Audience. Tapastic already has a huge fan/reader base. You have a better chance of being seen on here than you do with your own site. Sure, you can get buried here, but I think it is still easier to be noticed than being in the sea of comics outside of Tapastic.
4. Forums- Great place to interact with other creators and get assistance or ask questions
5. Customer Service/Assistance- If you need help you can get help and they are mostly quick to get back to you.
6. Room to grow- With the support program and Ad share (not sure what is up with that one though) It allows a comic a chance to monetize somewhat.

We recommended readers and creators check it out.