TWCL

[Marscaleb]

I got a letter from a new reader last week, who mentioned looking for advice on how to get his comic recognized. Apart from the general advice I gave him, which can be found on other threads and forums, I gave him a break-down of every source that has given me more referrals that I can count on one hand.

I thought I might as well copy and share this info here. It is interesting to see the actual break-down of what has worked to bring in readers.
I would also be interested in seeing what are successful sources from the other comicers here.

As a point of reference, my comic started in August of last year. I'd guess that I have somewhere from 15-30 regular readers as of two weeks ago. These numbers are for ALL the visits to my site since it first launched. (Thank you Google Analytics.) The combined totals reach just under a thousand total visits, including 267 direct referrals.

Just this last week someone put my comic on a comic reading site called belfrycomics.net, which I had never heard of before, but I got 135 visitors from it. Astounding. It left all my other referrals in the dust.

I've had 80 visitors from the non-comic forum I visit almost daily. It's a site dedicated to 3D modeling and the like, but I'm somewhat recognized there.
68 from thewebcomiclist.com and it is uncertain how many are from the list itself and how many are from the forum, but I suspect that most are from the list.
45 from Sluggy's forum, which I have posted very very little on. I ought to become more active there.
35 from Ears for Elves, a comic that I've been active on the comments, and recognized there even before I posted anything to the forum.
33 from Google "organic" searches.
31 from deviant art
31 from Ink Outbreak, a comic reading site
22 from So You're a Cartoonist's forum, where I only posted that I was starting my own comic, but those referrals stopped once the comic stopped updating.
18 from the ComicPress forums, which is surprising considering I've only ever asked for help there.
18 from Google. Don't know why there are two google sources.
17 from npc comic, which I don't read and never visited, and don't think I've advertised on. I think they all came from the ink outbreak link share box. Lucky.
14 from a gaming forum I visit from time to time. It goes to show, post a link to your comic in your signature on every forum you visit.
14 from the comic Manly Guys Doing Manly Things, all from one comment I posted where I mentioned in passing that I write a comic, which was buried beneath a hundred other comments.
13 from Atomic laundromat. Guess it pays to post comments.
12 from google. Again with the google.
8 from comic rocket, a (very nice) comic reading site.
7 from the comic on devilberry.net
And from here I get into sites that I was advertising on through Project wonderful, which has reached a combined total of 114 clicks. I also could go down the list and find more comics that I've posted comments on and received a few visits. Or maybe they came from ink outbreak link shares. Don't really know. From here on out no single source brought more than four readers, and most just one.

Except there is ONE MORE source to mention.
Last week, Gaia posted some guest art I made for them. It brought in a sudden rush of 486 referrals, and my direct traffic went from 8 in an average week to 197. I said earlier that I had just under a thousand visits. That's not including this last week, which takes it to 1,845 total visits.

It's too soon to know how many regular readers I've gained, but it pays to make guest pages.
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My webcomic: Mischief in Maytia
http://maytiacomic.com/

[Valgrim]

Hey, thanks for all the leads! This really brings home the importance of always be promoting. You never know where your next refferral could come from. I find myself clicking on people's sigs all of the time. Humans are a curious lot.

-Tom

[mikelacey]

Not sure if this will be of use for you, but Stef who publishes Sarah zero has a yearly event called the Valentines Day Sex Drive, in which every artist who participates displays a pinup style image of one or more of their characters, along with links to the other participating sites. My comic, Lacey Investigations, took part last year and boosted our visitor count by thousands over a few days, approximately 8-10% of which we retained as readers. Be warned though, many of the entrants (myself included) post nudity for the VDSD, so if that offends your ethical sensibilities, then it probably isn't for you. Either way, all the best to you, I hope you get the readership you're looking for.

[Clint Wolf]

In my experience the InkOutbreak box will always show InkOutbreak as its source, regardless of what individual comic it's displayed on. But hey, traffic is traffic, even if the sources seem inexplicable sometimes.
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[nosda62]

This is very very useful. I'm just starting out and all this publicity stuff is freaking me out a little... Thank you!!

[Marscaleb]

You know, I was also opening up for others to post some of their results if they have them. I'd like to compare notes.
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My webcomic: Mischief in Maytia
http://maytiacomic.com/

[argylefox]

A long while back, I did a comic referencing 'futanari', which is an odd subculture of anime involving women with men's genitalia.

The thing was, I mis-spelled 'futanari' as 'futinari'. We are still getting hits from people looking up stuff on search engines but typing it in wrong.

Now THAT is the sort of referencing we are after!

Max of Indifferently Evil

[Marscaleb]

argylefox wrote:

A long while back, I did a comic referencing 'futanari', which is an odd subculture of anime involving women with men's genitalia.

Remind me to never read your comic.
_________________
My webcomic: Mischief in Maytia
http://maytiacomic.com/

[argylefox]

If it helps, there actually is no futanari in our comic! One of the characters just referenced it, once.

Indifferently Evil