Starting a Webcomic

[Amit Dutta]

Heya Rik! 
Gonna dump some info a friend of mine (AraPersonica on the forum. I will direct her to this thread later, hopefully she doesn't mind me reposting her message ) 
She has made a couple of webcomics and is really serious about this stuff, I queried her only on Taptastic as a platform.  I will put spoilers on bits that are really long, and a tldr before it.  I can't vouch for a lot of this info from first hand experience but it all sounds common sense to me, especially especially the update buffer.

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Main points to nail for webcomics. Note the first 3!!! :) :

1) Update
2) Update regularly
3) Even if you go months without an update, keep updating
4) Page buffer for sanity.  [I wouldn’t even begin posting a comic until I had about 70-100 pages ready to go.]
5) Cross post them [On DA, on your favorite art website, on Tumblr, but most importantly, on your comic’s own website.
6) If you get a big enough following, I would start a Patreon, or a donation button to PayPal.
(my comment on 6) I totally agree on Patreon working best for people who already have audience, but if you have a good buffer and are committed, I would start a Patreon earlier. Nobody can join it, if it doesn't exist in the first place.  "You have to be in it, to win it" as they say :)

On Taptastic specifically
TL;DR
If all of my other ideas for getting a comic started failed, I might resort to this monstrosity. But only if I was desperate. The site is godawfully, overwhelmingly pro-Tapastic for revenue.

(my comment) I think anyone with a good following and amazing content can use any platform and it starts to be about convenience and the amount of time you have to create your own platform vs the amount of revenue, you're willing to give up for that convenience. But I agree with her overall. Cut out the middle man whenever you can.

Spoiler

Here’s why: Comics seem to get lost in the flood, like on DeviantArt. Anyone can post, so there are gonna be tons of never finished 10 page stories stuck on there foreeever. This isn’t too bad, if you update often and regularly. I can see people doing well on it.

But the site is godawfully, overwhelmingly pro-Tapastic for revenue. Creators are monkeys doing their bidding. It’s like Amazon’s emerging writers crap—an absolutely terrible form of self-publishing, for the creator.

The format for the comics and the viewing system sucks. There are ads all over the freaking place, interrupting the stories (making Tapastic 30% for every comic the ads appear on) and they have a paywall for their “completed” works, which I don’t like.

Also, their “premium” content (the ones behind the paywall) takes a whopping 50% of whatever you sell through their marketplace. (The comics seem to run at $3, so a whole $1.50 per download!). And you have to “apply” to be accepted, and only the cream of the crop get in.

I did freelance writing for a website like this, called Helium.com. Helium offered you payment via ad revenue. You worked hard to write a relevant article, get it upvoted, and they sell it to other websites and then close down after a year and you never see any money, lol. I don’t think Tapastic goes THAT far, but I don’t like that format.

Also, ad revenue was for pennies, and you couldn’t even claim the money until you got up to $25. Which means you need to have a lot of traffic. Tapastic seems the same deal. Also, their “support” feature is basically Patreon, but they also take 15% off the top of that. So say you got into their premium program (50% of your profit goes to Tapastic) and got support from fans (15% of that goes to Tapastic) and you had ad revenue (30% of which goes to Tapastic).

If all of my other ideas for getting a comic started failed, I might resort to this monstrosity. But only if I was desperate, haha. I have to admit though, my way of finding quality comics is a bit unconventional. But of the comics I follow, nearly all of the creators do their work full time.

As far as I have seen, having a site for the comic, hosted by yourself, is the best way to go. Especially if you can fit it into a budget for your own website.


She lists off some of her favourites below. Note I haven't heard of or checked out any of these in any detail yet, but some of the comments might indicate ones to research even if you don't like the comics yourself.

Spoiler

Here are my favorite comics for examples. Nearly all of these guys make webcomics/art for a living. I would take a look at what they’ve done and check out their work. (Some of these feature gay guys, just to warn you, lol). Allow me to gush a bit.
http://www.casualvillain.com/Unsounded/ One of my alltime favorites. Has updated with 3 pages a week for about 3-4 years. Ran two successful Kickstarters for two printed volumes.
http://tjandamal.com/index.html Finished, there’s a printed version, creator is a bit wishy-washy tho. http://www.straysonline.com/ The story for this one isn’t even that great, but it updates regularly and the art is good. Notice the ads? 100% revenue goes to her.
http://www.lackadaisycats.com/ This lady started a successful Patron and is making $6,000 a month.
http://off-white.eu/ These two are off and on other projects, but have a great story and great art, so people stick around.
http://starfightercomic.com/index.php This person successfully Kickstarted a visual novel version of the webcomic. http://littlefoolery.com/thatwhichwills.html http://sfeertheory.littlefoolery.com/ http://www.thefoxsister.com/news.php These three are done by another of my top artists, but she hits ruts where she doesn’t post art sometimes.
http://www.minnasundberg.fi/artd.php http://www.sssscomic.com/ And this girl is freaking fantastic. She updates 4 days a week. I can’t even.

The similarities between these girls are: - Great art - Generally good story - Lots of content (everyone has about 100 pages) - Regular updates - Places for discussion from fans - Easy-to-navigate websites.

Links

Here’s where I find nearly all of my comics: http://topwebcomics.com/
That site is basically my salvation. I found almost all of the comics I follow there. Fans vote for the series they like, getting little goodies in return.

There are also places where you can advertise your comic, like forums, etc. and places that will host it.
http://www.thehiveworks.com/
http://www.4de.com/
http://gmimanga.exepicstudios.com/

It’s not going to be easy. Webcomics are a labor of love. You can’t make easy money off of them. It’s something I learned long ago. These guys were slaving away at their comics for years before anyone noticed them.

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And so ends her message :)

From what I have seen Dave and Dan posted quite a few places, and it particularly exploded on Imgur and on tumblr.  Dan said once that Lichman started off as one page idea, which is an easy format for easy sharing and thus for potential virality.

They also pre-planned a lot of how the promo work would go I think. You can actually see it in phases with the release of regular promo free material (test and tease and to build new audience) before the real campaign started (Kickstarter). This is a bit different for a web only comic, for which updating and being consistent about it is the most relevant.

I would also send links to people who blog or review comics, to see if they would like to review yours once you have your stuff in advance,  or intermittently once it has been running for a bit.
 
Hope it helps