TWCL

Darth Strife · Joined: 29 Aug 2010 Posts: 112

Over the last couple of months, my team and I at Imagine Industries have been trying to come up with ways to increase our reader base. Obviously we'd been mostly focused on improving our comic and writing funny scripts but any other suggestions or things that you yourself have done would be helpful. So far Facebook has been our best source of readers.

Feel free to go into a much detail as you'd like, thanks for any advice you can give us.

Jordan

CryptoKnight · Joined: 08 Mar 2011 Posts: 34

Simple. I'm a horrible, unadulterated cheater.

I take some of my better comics and post them to my Facebook page. Not all of them, just some of them.

Then, I go into that comic image, and I TAG various of my friends. They all see that they were tagged in one of my photos, and they come check it out. Some of them, I continue to tag so they will keep reading, and some of them I tag until they post a link to my comic page on their wall (if they hate that I tag them, that is).

Lately, I've gotten to the point to where I am tagging people with random objects (since my strips have, like, three people max in them) Congrats, mom, you are the sofa. That dude from high-school whose name I never knew but he kinda creeped me out? he's the urine stain on the chair in that other comic.

Then, after that seemed to work, I ran into a 4 day dry spell where I didn't have any new ideas. That's not gonna stop me. i posted OTHER people's strips (good ones, of course) and tagged people in them, but posted a link to my own. Shameless, I know, but until the Devil shows up and makes an offer for my soul, I guess I just need to be a rat-bastard.

I tell you, it's a winner idea.

Three People Get It Comic Strip

RustMonster · Joined: 19 Mar 2010 Posts: 587

Step 1 is to create a product that gets people coming back for more, where they rush to share your site with their friends and word-of-mouth brings in new readers every day.

Steps 2 and beyond don't matter if you don't have Step 1.

You don't have that product yet. Your comic is kind of unpleasant, with thinly-veiled Mary-Sues and long-winded setups for weak punchlines. Can you imagine anyone seeing your latest strip and eagerly rushing to share it with their friends? I can't.

But hey, DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT. After all, I'm just one person. I recommend finding a forum that's known for being brutally honest. (NOT DeviantArt, NOT your friends, NOT your coworkers.)

I recommend The Critique Center at Conceptart.org and the Comic Shop Talk thread on the Something Awful forums. There you will find literally dozens of talented people who will not hesitate in telling you what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong.

KEZ · Joined: 28 Jan 2006 Posts: 778 Location: Not anymore!

The best thing that has worked for me is link exchanges with comics of the same genre with different readership. A lot of people are really shy about emailing other creators to ask for a link exchange, but what's the worst that will happen? "no thanks?" Smile

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Casual Notice · Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 7:05 pm Post subject:

Shouldn't this thread be in Gubbins?
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
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wendyw · Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 9:49 pm Post subject:

Casual Notice wrote:

Shouldn't this thread be in Gubbins?

Probably, yes.
...which is why that's where it is now.
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Blog

achaziel · Joined: 08 Apr 2011 Posts: 29

There are various good ways to promote your webcomic.

Facebook and other social networks provide a great and free ad space, for instance. With a simple post, you can reach many people, provided your friends list isn't too small. If you happen to have many close friends there too, they'll be happy to spread the word and your website link as well. Apart from that, the "Like"-button of facebook also spreads your messages really far. Even if just a few people check out your webcomic, you'll have a few more readers in the bank. Which leads us to...

... Regular updates. As soon as you have a few readers, you'll need to earn a certain reputation. Meaning that your readers will want to see regular updates, which shouldn't be too hard to do. In my case (just an example) a comic takes about 3 to 4 hours to finish. Taking into account that I (still an example) only update once a week, that's an easy to keep update schedule. The most important thing about update schedules: You need to be able to keep these updates coming timely, no matter what. That will earn yourself good reputation; and the better your reputation is, the more readers you'll get. Just stick to realistic goals and provide the best quality strips possible for you.

Speaking of reputation: Sign up to popular webcomic forums. Be yourself, help users and be friendly. DON'T GO "durrhurr my webcomic is so awesome, check it out hurpderp". People won't be interested in your webcomic (or at least they won't check back ever again) if you just open tons of threads telling other users to take a look at it; That's just aggressive marketing. It works for EA games, but they've also got way more money at hand, so... You get the idea. Helping people in forums, providing advice (wait, something feels odd here... lol) and constructive criticism and chatting with them only adds to your reputation, which can't be a bad thing. Provided you're not an asshole about everything.

One more thing to consider: Inform your readers about updates. The most simple way to do so is either post in social networks, list it on webcomic lists (if you're reading this you probably did something right) or -- that's what I did -- add a RSS feed to your site. Sounds more complicated than it is, actually. Most browers out there already have a built-in RSS reader, so providing a dynamic bookmark using RSS (or Atom) is a great way to make your readers aware of updates.

At least that's my strategy. Doesn't seem too bad to me. ^^

Darth Strife · Joined: 29 Aug 2010 Posts: 112

Interesting idea with the facebook scam. I don't know if I feel completely comfortable with it but it's something to consider.

I have one link exchange with a local webcomic (local to me anyway). I've gotten 230 unique hits from his site (sockpuppetarmy.com) so I am definitely on the look out for more comic that are a kin to mine. If anyone has a comic that you think people who like my comic would enjoy, send me an email at contactimagineindustries@gmail.com and we could link each other.

So far the strategy you suggested Achaziel is exactly what i have been following at this point. We've got 20 episodes up so far, all on time, and we are just building up and trying to be positive members of the communities we post on.

Casual Notice · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:07 am Post subject:

Quote:

I've gotten 230 unique hits from his site (sockpuppetarmy.com)

I haven't seen such a serendipitously funny conflation of reality and cultural slang since a neighbor bought a machine that grinds and squeezes fruit and spent a month telling everyone she knows how into "juicing" she is.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

Darth Strife · Joined: 29 Aug 2010 Posts: 112

Casual Notice wrote:

Quote:

I've gotten 230 unique hits from his site (sockpuppetarmy.com)

I haven't seen such a serendipitously funny conflation of reality and cultural slang since a neighbor bought a machine that grinds and squeezes fruit and spent a month telling everyone she knows how into "juicing" she is.

Be honest, you've just been dying to use conflation in a sentence?

Casual Notice · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:54 am Post subject:

I use conflation in a sentence all the time. My wife hasn't gone through menopause yet.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

smbhax.com · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 1:15 am Post subject:

I have long-form comics that don't seem as suitable to spreading by viral social networking infections, so for the most part I settle for trying to make quality regular updates, and advertising by Project Wonderful.
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Casual Notice · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 4:14 am Post subject:

You might do well to join a webring collective of similarly-themed comics, smb. I gather they do pretty well with cross-advertising.
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What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

smbhax.com · Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 10:39 am Post subject:

Do you have one in mind? I guess I haven't thought seriously about getting into a webring because a) they always strike me as kind of insular in a way that might not be great, long term, and b) I don't know of a sci-fi one with comics in it that I'd be into. Then again I don't like very many sci-fi comics anyhow.

Oh and c) if I'm gonna be planting anyone's banner on my site, I'd better be getting money or something I can buy money with directly out of it, pretty much.

Eh those are all the same thing, more or less: I don't want to get my comic into a situation where I might feel obligated to use it to support comics (or sites or products or anything, really) that I'm not into personally, and/or that I'm not 100% confident in, and I think that would inevitably be the case at some point or other in even the best of webrings. I feel much more comfortable going with paid advertising, which for the most part doesn't carry implications of association beyond the obvious monetary exchange of goods and services. If there's a comic I actually follow and endorse, I just add it to the public reading list on my site.
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zedhatch · Joined: 03 Nov 2008 Posts: 229 Location: Kentucky

I have tried the webring thing before, went through the join process and all that and put the nessessary HTML code on my front page, then a week later I was told I was being suspended because of refusal to put the code on the front page, went to my front page, there it was. E-mailed the admin of the webring who said he would fix it, a month later I was re-listed and then another week went by and I get a message "suspended" exact same reason. I just e-mailed the admin and said if he ever straightened out the crap with the webring I might consider rejoining, still get occasional messages from him to rejoin but at this point I still feel it was more hassle than the benifits. I might have gotten 2 readers off of the two weeks worth of time I was on the ring, which isn't bad since I paide nothing, well besides frustration which at some points gets to be too expensive.
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