Hi everyone,
First off I would like to say that I haven't been at this for too long, but I think I have enough data offer some answers, or at least start a conversation. I will be comparing the reception of our comic, Novaborn: tale of Inpherna, across multiple websites that we post on with the hopes of finding solutions.
First let's talk about the size of audiences and amount of content creators.
On Smackjeeves:
views: 429
Readers: 27
Views to Subscribers: 15.8
On webtoons:
views: 4,134
Subscribers: 260
View to subscribers: 15.9
On tapas:
views: 8,600
Subscribers: 974
Views to subscribers: 8.8
Note: We were featured in the daily snack so the numbers on Tapas do not properly represent the websites natural growth
On tapas (Before daily snack):
views: 46
Subscribers: 5
Views to subscribers: 9.2
The sample size is far too small at this point to properly judge the numbers
I do not have the numbers for our personal website.
Generally we can see that Tapas is the place for us with a higher that normal view to subscriber rate. But there is a problem when we look at the new subscribers. Since the feature on the daily snack we have gained an average of 13 new subscribers a week in the last 2 weeks. Using our previous ratio this means we have 119.6 new views each week In theory.
However we have lost 56 subscribers since our feature, and have only gained 40. This is usual for anything that gets this kind of exposure, the problem is getting new subscribers faster than we lose them. Because we may have have 974 subscribers, but on our last update we had only 463 people looked at it. Which means that most subscribers gained through viral means do not stay. Meanwhile on Webtoons we have 260 subscribers and 348 views per update. We also have about the same amount of comments on both sites.
What this means is that our fanbase is growing on both websites but far more far quickly on Webtoons through natural means. So how to we bring real fans to our comics?
Here are some ideas.
For us creators, we simply need to keep creating on a schedule, interact with the fans and the usual stuff.
For Tapas they need to bring in more people to enjoy our content. Tapas has given great support to it's creators now it needs to run tons and tons of ads to bring in the readers. Particularly on mobile games and apps where most people will be reading the comic. The fact that I hadn't even heard of Tapas or webtoons before making our comic says a lot. I think this will be better than curation, or features.
But those are just my thoughts, let me know what you think.
P.s.
Thanks to Tapas for being a wonderful supportive platform for us. Most of the data here is straight from the website and has been a big help in making or comic.