Your thoughts on the 40k views per month on webtoon? (A ramble)

[ewi]

So I've been thinking about the requirements for joining the creator ad revenue program on webtoon and I couldn't help but feel curious about other people's thoughts on it too

At first it was kinda surprising to me because the sub count requirement was fairly low (in my opinion) but the view count was rather a large number which I expect many people struggling to reach at all let alone every month. I feel like its impossible to garner 40k views a month from only 1000 subscribers. If you think about it, even if 1000 people read your work every time you updated it, you wouldn't reach 40k even if you posted everyday.

Of course, not saying all this to complain, just felt like rambling a bit since I never sat down and properly thought about it before.

I feel like if one's very serious about getting paid by webtoon, rather than 1000 subs, 10k subs sound like a safe number to assure you that you have a chance to join the ad revenue program, given that you upload weekly of course. Which makes me wonder why the requirement isn't 10k instead since it does sound more logical in that sense

But then again 10k is a pretty intimidating number and achieving something like that is definitely easier said than done. So it makes more sense as to why it isn't a thing

Anywho! I'm curious about your thoughts on the subject! Have you ever attempted reaching this milestone before or if you have, what was it like? It must be an extremely hard feat considering the endless amount of webtoons in canvas but only a handful of creators listed under the ad revenue program.

[BlairFujin]

I was about to complain about them counting only us-based views in that number but I just checked and they've changed it to global (and now I wonder if those were always global, just misleadingly named...)
And yeah, 40k views with 1000 subscribers seems ridiculous to me

[Kelheor]

Believe me, you don't want a 10K sub requirement while it's hard to get 40K views, it's possible to get them if you have 3-5 thousands subs. When you are promoted and you have a couple dozens of updates, people will come and it's not impossible to get a couple of thousands of subs to read those updates for 40K views. But to get 10k subs - that's a whole other thing.
Of course, no one guarantees you that you will get 40K views every month, but if you are lucky enough, you will get 100$ once every few months and your ad rev will work too to bring you a bit of cash.

[MiniSheepPencil]

You have to remember that there is something called "bounce effect" when it comes to marketing and drawing out stats from numbers.

The bounce effect is a term used with a % marking to see how well your project is doing in terms of hooking people and in this case it starts already from the presentation (aka your cover/blurb on the front before reading).

If we look at the requirements set by webtoon you can't fully argue against it until you know how they run their business model. You can say that it sucks like hell, but that's about it.

The core fact is that your viewer count can be extremely high depending on trends, your personal marketing strats and presentation within your respected genre, some things work better than others. So, if your sub count is solid it confirms that your story has the ability to retain an audience which is incredibly good, but as the views stays stagnant around the same count as your subs you might have to do some research on how to market your project better or maybe even change up your cover and blurb to make it more attention grabbing (this is not easy and takes a lot of devoted time to research before you get an understanding of your projects best selling points).

I don't know if any of this is of help to you or if I have just completely missed the point of your post (if you already know this and just wanted to rant then please just overlook my silly interference). I do wish you all the best on your journey~

[darthmongoose]

40,000 hits clearly isn't realistic at just 1000 subs, so I would assume that the subs requirement is simply to create a "double lock" to prevent people from buying clicks from a click farm or something. The views are likely what generates the revenue from Webtoon's perspective, so the actual sub requirement number isn't important so long as it's too high for somebody to easily game the system and to give a vague idea of "you're not going to hit this number of views at 25 subs, here's a rough target to work towards".
Given how Tapas has recently had to change the unlocking of ink withdrawal from automatic to something you ask for at 250 subs, probably in response to a number of reported incidents of foul play that probably involved click farms or botting, you can see how a double lock system can help reduce risk and administrative load.

[rajillustration]

From what I've heard, you only have to hit 40K once to hit the requirement, then you can ask for ad revenue, and if they open it for you, it's ok if you dip under 40K, it'll just take longer to get paid.

As for me, when I was promoted I only had like 4 episodes, so I got a bunch of subs, up to 4K, but my views were about 30K, so o well, no ad revenue for me I guess until the offchance I might get promoted again. Like really I think it's the promo boosts/having enough episodes that will get that views number, not just a random normal month.

[Llyrel]

No, no, you weren't mistaken, they changed it to global only recently!

Anyway yeah, I agree, getting 40k views with just 1000 readers doesn't sound very realistic. The only way I could see it working was if you had some staff pick of sorts and/or if you updated during one of those Canvas Marathon thingies, since both can give you a pretty huge boost in views/subscribers. The good thing is that, as @rajillustration pointed out, you apparently don't need to hit 40k views every single month after you activate ad revenue, so there's that, at least

Either way, I'm still VERY far from reaching that goal, and even if I were to reach it, I still have no idea whether my comic is too "scary" for Webtoon standards and if they'd let me activate ad revenue in the first place XD

[ewi]

Honestly, massive respect for those who reached that milestone with 3-5 subs alone
Cant begin to explain how impressive I find that

[ewi]

I don't know if any of this is of help to you or if I have just completely missed the point of your post

Oh no it was very insightful! For real The post was mainly a ramble but your POV is still appreciated!

I never knew about the bounce effect until now actually, thats a completely new term for me.

The core fact is that your viewer count can be extremely high depending on trends

Now that I look back, I'm reminded of the boom of reincarnation manwhas that surged out of the blue. It was WAY more popular in 2020, I practically read like 30 manwhas of a female lead being isekai-ed by truck kun into a glorious fantasy world with a fairly basic magic system and the love interest always being a prince/emperor.

As popular as they were back in the day I can't help but wonder if most of these manwha's were made just for the sake of garnering views thanks to how popular this genre and setting was. It does sound pretty exhausting to make an entire fully coloured manwha of a story theme that is extremely popular. Even worse if you don't like such stories as much yourself

[MiniSheepPencil]

Now that I look back, I'm reminded of the boom of reincarnation manwhas that surged out of the blue. It was WAY more popular in 2020, I practically read like 30 manwhas of a female lead being isekai-ed by truck kun into a glorious fantasy world with a fairly basic magic system and the love interest always being a prince/emperor.

100% true. I've also witnessed ppl making loads of comics but holding on to them while waiting for a more preferable time in the trend flares. Not to mention those who live on the wave of trends by writing something similar the moment a trend manifests just to make sure to meet a certain quota.

Like just look at Tapas, they went through BL before the Isekai / Reverse Villan(ness) trend took over. It's hard to grasp and not a very healthy choice to chase the trends, but it is still possible to gain visibility by using the same tricks as other peers within the same genre.

[sorible]

So I haven't been keeping up with updates but I'm pretty sure the creator ad revenue program is ending at the end of 2021. I've been on the program for a while but in the beginning it was extremely difficult to maintain 40k views per month even when posting once a week. Plus you can't take the money out until it's reached the threshold of $100, and I think I sat at less than half of that for a month. They did change it to global views later on though.

The payout is way better than tapas or other webcomic platforms I've signed with but I don't know if I can say it's worth it. I've earned 5x more doing commissions alone, and if you have other responsibilities like school or jobs, having a consistent upload schedule is impossible. If you have any questions about it you can ask me!

[l3onch4me]

It must be an extremely hard feat considering the endless amount of webtoons in canvas but only a handful of creators listed under the ad revenue program.

Last time I checked on their app, there's over 100k webtoons on the canvas section, so yeah, it's super hard

[l3onch4me]

It does sound pretty exhausting to make an entire fully coloured manwha of a story theme that is extremely popular. Even worse if you don't like such stories as much yourself

What's popular now? Yaoi, BL is always popular, but what's trending?
Otome Isekai was really popular from 2018 to 2020...

[l3onch4me]

not a very healthy choice to chase the trends

Self-published writers on Amazon do it all the time, and they do it because they write for a living, it isn't a hobby.

[l3onch4me]

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[l3onch4me]

The payout is way better than tapas or other webcomic platforms I've signed with but I don't know if I can say it's worth it. I've earned 5x more doing commissions alone

What type of commissions? furry? xD I'm pretty sure that creator revenue program ends every year, and restart with a new name, or stay the same name, so yeah it ends in 2021, and a new one begins in 2022.

[mbindhammer]

My comic has 20k views with "only" 39 subscribers. I heavily promote my comic outside of Tapas, mostly on Reddit. Anyone can read my comic without subscribing or even registering. Actually, Tapas should honor it more when someone leads unregistered users to Tapas. Instead, they hold on to subscribers.

[darthmongoose]

My comic has 20k views with "only" 39 subscribers. I heavily promote my comic outside of Tapas, mostly on Reddit. Anyone can read my comic without subscribing or even registering. Actually, Tapas should honor it more when someone leads unregistered users to Tapas. Instead, they hold on to subscribers.

Tapas has to prioritise subscribers from a business perspective because:

1. It's easy to fake popularity by paying for clicks. I'm not accusing you of doing that, but it's something somebody could do if there was no secondary metric.
2. Subscribers represent users who will probably read multiple series and potentially donate ink or use ink to unlock premium or early access comic episodes, which generates way more money for them than ads, so they're worth more than somebody who gives them one hit a week reading one person's comic via a reddit or twitter link.

So while there's nothing at all wrong with feeling proud of your view numbers and appreciating that some of your readers may use your social media updates to read and don't want to make an account (I definitely have some of these on Twitter), it's good to be aware that these readers are less valuable to Tapas the business compared to users who make an account, view multiple comics on the platform and buy and spend ink. It's also harder for Tapas to verify that views alone are from "real users" not a click farm. It might suck if most of your readership is off-platform, but for business reasons, Tapas is likely to prioritise promotion and partnerships with comics and novels that bring in subs, likes, comments and donations from verified Tapas users. If a lot of your readership is off-platform, it may be worth explaining to them how it'd help you out if they'd make an account and give likes to help your comic's visibility.

[mbindhammer]

There are two business models. One offers always new products to existing customers. The second model is to acquire new customers. As far as I know, Tapas pursues the second model only succinctly or not at all. That's what I was trying to say. It would not be too difficult to implement an appropriate algorithm. If an unregistered user comes to the Tapas site via a certain comic or novel and then becomes a customer, that should be rewarded, I think.

[darthmongoose]

There are two business models. One offers always new products to existing customers. The second model is to acquire new customers. As far as I know, Tapas pursues the second model only succinctly or not at all. That's what I was trying to say. It would not be too difficult to implement an appropriate algorithm. If an unregistered user comes to the Tapas site via a certain comic or novel and then becomes a customer, that should be rewarded, I think.

But if they're not making an account, how can you measure that these people have "become customers"? Tapas would surely use people creating an account in order to subscribe to the series that brought them here as the metric to measure that conversion?