Worried about Falling into a Rut?

[TCoopComics]

Hey guys!

I’ve been posting Bramble since November and I’ve slowly, but surely been gaining views, subs and comments. I’ve also got a great group of regular subscribes who leave feedback, comment and like the crap out of my stuff (ya’ll know who you are and I appreciate tf out of you ️). But I’ve been noticing new traffic, subscribers, likes etc, outside of my group here, has started to die off over the last month or so. Anyone else feeling like this? Any tips on how to get out of the rut, or is it something you just need to power through?

I’ve been doing my best to participate here and update regularly and I definitely will continue to do so. I know building a fan base takes times and I really appreciate all of the wonderful people and artists I’ve met so far.

Any thoughts?

[Rhonder]

I wouldn't be worried This is totally anecdotal evidence, but I started uploading around the same time as you (October) and I've noticed that February has been a slow month for me as well. These are my view bars, but the other stats are similar vs. the past few months:

So I think just power through! a slow month isn't indicative of the comic as a whole drooping, imo~

[kip]

I’ve heard of specific months being ‘problem months’ too.

Generally though, anyone new who comes to your comic is probably doing it via the “fresh” page- if you find your current numbers aren’t working for you, maybe that’s worth examining?
Things that can have an affect (in no relation to your comic in particular):
1. Your icon- the first thing people see, is it eye catching enough? does it represent well enough the contents of your comic?
2. Your description- Same here, can it catch the attention of new readers?
3. Your posting dates- What day/s of the week do you post on? Some are more active than others, have you tested out different days?
4. Your posting times - similar to dates, some times are more active than others

[DruidPeter]

Wow! I'm surprised to see you making a post like this, @TCoopComics! I figured you were already successful with Bramble, and didn't personally worry about this stuff, lol. While I don't think powering through is a bad idea, I'm sure we can always do more to attract new readers to our comics. So maybe try different things and also try not to panic? I've also heard February is a slow month. It's probably because most people are recovering from the holiday and winter blahs, as well as the first month after school starts, lol.

As for myself, I haven't yet had the chance to run into this problem, though that's mostly because Kolodruidtale is super new. I think I actually started only in January, believe it or not. So I can totally blame any lack of views on that, and completely ignore the possibility that I might be doing something, you know, wrong, hehe! xD

@kip, reading your post, I just realized that I forgot to update the description on my web-comic to reflect narrative changes. Yikes! Glad I read your post!

[ble]

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

[QueenofBabyLoon]

Dumb question … Really, really dumb question.
So, young people like to read comics and books more than older people. Not because older people don't enjoy them, just because they have everyday jobs and then many responsibilities at home afterwards.
Could it be that the slow months correlate with exam time or the beginning of a semester?
Please don't throw tomatoes if this makes you want to wack me across the head with a newspaper.

[amortelito]

Let me see, when I started I thought I would never reach more than 20 subs because the only people subscribing were the ones I met at the forum (nobody new). When I started gaining more subs I noticed that my comic got more attention from strangers. I have never been featured but I definitely noticed better numbers as soon as I surpassed 250 subs.
Maybe the algorithm gives you more visibility as you grow an audience.

By the other hand, December-January definitely feel like months that have less interaction. @QueenofBabyLoon I think you are right! some of my readers have mentioned that they were taking a break to study for exams. Also, vacations make people readjust their routine.

[nostalgicroxas]

Could be. Feb is middle month for most Winter semesters at college, and by the end of the month going into March it is nearing 10 weeks - 12 weeks - 15 week finals, depending on your school system. For high school and younger, they likely have tests in March as well.
Also keep in mind, in the US, Jan til Feb is basically devoid of school/bank holidays from New Years' til President's Day.

I imagine stuff generally picks up as we work into spring and summer, if only because that's the start of most convention seasons around the nation. My area actually is really dead for art, cons, purchases, and low money from just before Halloween til Easter, with only a slight uptick for Christmas (but is never enough to adjust stats for). Even my community theater is dead until after V-day and they start doing rehearsals for the spring show.

[frgmnt]

I wish I knew what's the problem here. It seems weird to me there are "slow" months, but stats on my comic would indicate that too.

I had the biggest boost of subscribers (from before I started posting in the forums) in November, though it was certainly mysterious, because it was 7-8 subs within a few days, and none of them were the days I was posting? o__o
But even so, back then I could hope to gain maybe 1 sub per update, and the views weren't that bad. Now I have less than 20 views on the update day and don't get any subs after I update. On webtoon, the growth is also much slower than it was when I started posting there, in November.

Is it the day I am posting? Are Mondays a bad choice? Is it the time? I just don't want to post at the time that's, in my European time zone, the middle of the night, even if technically I could schedule the update on that hour - and the few times I did post the episode on a later hour, it didn't get me more views. What is the optimal time to post, then?

[DruidPeter]

Huh. That's actually a pretty solid theory. Makes sense. Which also means that we all have a summer surge to look forward to, haha! Nice.