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It's funny. Laugh. The Internet

Promoting Webcomics? 69

Posted by Cliff from the spread-teh-funneh dept.
krf asks: "Have any other Slashdot readers ever tried to get a webcomic off the ground? What promotional tricks have you used? I've been doing my strip for a couple of months now. Traffic is good, but not great. I think that most of my visitors are friends or people who heard of the site via word-of-mouth. I'm looking for ways to bring the strip to a larger audience. I've submitted links to most of the big webcomics pages, but a lot of the 'top 100'ish lists seem pretty tacky - kind of like linking pyramid schemes. I've paid for some very targeted advertising, but not many people click on ads any more. I've even tried getting in to local print outlets, with very limited success. I enjoy writing and drawing the strip, but it's always nice to know that other people are reading it. I'd appreciate any advice Slashdot readers might have to offer."
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Promoting Webcomics? More

Promoting Webcomics?

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  • Nothing to worry about (Score:5, Insightful)

    by A beautiful mind ( 821714 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:55PM (#12256764)
    You got already the slashvertisement. If your strip is any good, you'll have some increased traffic. :)

  • 3 steps. (Score:3, Funny)

    by aixou ( 756713 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @03:59PM (#12256788)
    Step 1: Get it posted on Slashdot.

    Step 2: ????

    Step 3: Profit!!

    • Re:3 steps. (Score:5, Funny)

      by aixou ( 756713 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:05PM (#12256821)
      I've thought about it, and I think it would have been better if you'd gone for a main page story. There's still time. Next time you see a news story about Torvalds or the like, check to see if its on slashdot and if it's not, submit a summary within which is a reference to your webcomic. It could be like this: "It seems that Torvalds and McVoy are at again. With a heated exchange between the two documented on the LKML[link], many kernel hackers are wondering what the future holds concerning linux source code management. This flamewar has permeated all facets of the Open Source world, and I've even documented it in my webcomic[link]."

      Cha-ching. You might want to be a little more subtle about it (and lengthen the summary with some quotes), and you'll obviously have to create a comic related to the news story you post, but you should get an order of magnitude higher click-thrus than you'll get with something on the ask.slashdot page alone.

  • Be patient. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xanderwilson ( 662093 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:00PM (#12256793) Homepage
    Building an audience takes time, and for the sites I've done, word of mouth rewarded me a hundred times better than any paid advertising or shameless plugging I've attempted. Consistently put out a good product and slowly the people who like it will tell others about it.

    Put your URL in your sig when you post here or anywhere--don't expect visitors to do all the work by clicking on your profile to find your home page. And when you visit online boards you intend to shamelessly plug, don't. Just participate in the discussions that interest you, leave your URL in the sig, and make some friends. Assist the people you can, and learn from the people who can help you. If they don't like your work, at least you've made some friends.

    Believe it or not, getting a bunch of exposure too early can backfire because you might not have enough content or skill to hook people. I got an interview with the New York Times about my audiobook project when I'd only been around a month or so with about twenty recordings, which just wasn't enough to keep the audience interested. That led to a Slashdotting and a lot of buzz at the time, but if that would have happened now, a year and fifty offerings later, I might have been able to appeal to a larger percentage of the audience, to keep them coming back. But instead I've had to work to steadily attract new people.

    I also did a webcomic [alexwilson.com] for just over a year as a learning project. By the time I discontinued the comic I had about twice as many readers as I thought I had, and many of them emailed me to tell me they were sorry to see it end. I was growing my audience and didn't even realize it.

    Be patient and do good work. Create an opt-in mailing list and don't abuse it. Send out press releases. Onlinecomics.net is a good thing to be a part of, as is the Webcomics day event. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Good luck.

    Alex.

    • To reiterate: make a good comic (Score:4, Insightful)

      by aztektum ( 170569 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:39PM (#12257006)
      That's the best way (if not the fastest) to get your comic more visibility. If it's worth reading, your fans will be sure to tell their friends "You should check this out."

      That's how I heard about P-A and DieselSweeties when they were the NKOTB

    • Building an audience takes time

      Pretty much hit the nail on the head. You don't get overnight stardom, Slashdot and Fark were had move of a cult following being they were really popular (I am talking back in the 90's). Even if you have a really good site or funny strip it is going to take time for people to start hitting regularlly. Regular updates and being entertaining are probably best. So of my faovarite webcomics update everyday of the week.

  • Make it free for a while (Score:3, Informative)

    by TFGeditor ( 737839 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:02PM (#12256800) Homepage
    If the strip or individual drawings are any good, make it available free to some relevant publications and buid a portfolio of published pieces, thus building a track record you can work off of when approaching paying markets.

  • ... oh, wait a minute.

  • Comic (Score:4, Interesting)

    by secolactico ( 519805 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:08PM (#12256848) Journal
    Maybe I'm just being obtuse, but quite frankly I don't get most of your comics.

    For example: http://simulatedcomicproduct.com/index.php?cid=12 [simulatedc...roduct.com]

    I don't get it.
    • It's a jellyfish. Stinging a foot. There's not much to get... its just not that funny.

    • Obtuse? Not you... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )
      Which zeroes in on the very first step for creating a successful web comic: draw some really funny strips. You'd think it was obvious, but almost all comic artist wanabees, skip this step! Especially here, where "Simulated Comic Product" is all too apt a title.

      Before anybody accuses me of being a snob, I wish to point out that my absolute favorite online comic is the offensive, gross, disgusting, tasteless -- and extremely funny -- Sexy Losers [sexylosers.com].

    • Re:Comic (Score:4, Funny)

      by jonabbey ( 2498 ) * <jonabbey@ganymeta.org> on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:33PM (#12256984) Homepage

      I like it. The jellyfish just wants to be loved and swim with other living things, but when his dream comes true, the juxtaposition between the jellyfish's naive understanding of the world and the painful experience of the human who stepped on him illuminates an absurdity that we can appreciate, but which does not penetrate the jellyfish's joyful nature and appreciation of life.

      What's not to get?

      • Actually most of his strips are funny and/or insightful. For instance, how disastrous would it be for someone on the moon to have to take a leak when the facilities were out of order?

        IMO, of course. Not sure why you were modded "funny".

  • Same old same old (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nakly ( 772203 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:18PM (#12256908) Homepage
    It's a lot harder to make a successful webcomic than it used to be. A few years ago, webcomics were a relatively new idea, and people were having fun exploring the new medium. They found strips they like, and have worked them into their weekly schedule.

    Now, though, there's not a real audience for new webcomics. People already have webcomics they like, and the excitement's gone in looking for new ones. Most people take an "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach.

    The way to make anything successful is to offer everyone wants, but they can't get anywhere else. Your webcomic's material is a dime a dozen; you didn't start soon enough. I really don't see your strip getting off the ground.

    Then again, you did get yourself a link off slashdot. That's not gonna hurt.

  • advertising (Score:1, Redundant)

    by karn096 ( 807073 )
    Its obvious to me this is a blatant attempt to advertise your comic strip. I doubt asking how to increase traffic was really the intent, more like getting your website on the front page.

    I went ahead and clicked anyway..

    And i'm sure i'll get modded troll.

  • Shameless Plug... it's not mine :'( (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Dudley's Dungeon [nicolaas.net], a NetHack [nethack.org] webcomic, now bound to get millions of visitors!!!
  • I'd appreciate any advice Slashdot readers might have to offer.

    Get a sense of humour implant?

    Seriously, your comics aren't funny.

  • Henny Youngman: "Take my wifi. Please!"

    Rodney Dangerfield: "I get no respect. I turned on my computer, and the virus checker said STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD!"

  • You've just done the smartest thing :-)

    Nandz.

  • It's really quite simple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Julian Morrison ( 5575 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:28PM (#12256959)
    1) be good
    2) be novel
    3) get on the various webcomic lists
    4) you will get readers

    The most common fault of webcomics is an utter lack of #1 or #2. Most webcomics are sloppily drawn, plotless, lacking any characterization beyond stereotypes, and using hur-hur sarcasm, nonsense, and gross-out as a substitute for humor. And they all have the same damn "wacky flatmates" formula.

    Amongst this dross, even moderate quality stands out and gets noticed.
    • 3.5) be persistent

      Word of mouth is geometric, not linear. If 5 people bookmark you this week, 6 will next week, and 7 the week after. And unless you, say, get posted to the front page of Slashdot, you'll need to wait a while to get those numbers up.

      A lot of good sites are abandoned before they can reach their full potential.

    • I'd have to agree w/ #1 on the above list. When I came across userfriendly, pennyarcade, and joy of tech, I was able to search many previous installments and find some that I found humorous.

      The site listed didn't have that many previous attempts for me to view. when I look through the back strips, something has to make me laugh my ass off before bookmarking the site and trying to remember to visit again.

      My list of comic requirements:
      1) Must make me laugh.

      If your strip does that, then someone somewhere wi

  • You have barely started the process of beginning (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:29PM (#12256964) Journal
    If I'm reading your site right, you have all of twenty-one comics online.

    Compare the twenty-first Sluggy Freelance [sluggy.com] with the most recent one [sluggy.com] (note the current Saturday is another artist), or the the twenty-first Penny Arcade [penny-arcade.com] with the latest one [penny-arcade.com].

    You've barely begun. You've barely begun to refine your style, you've barely begun to find your voice... and you're in direct competition with the comics I just listed, along with a lot of others.

    If you're honestly offended that the world isn't beating a path to your door after 21 comics, either get out, or stop caring about your audience numbers, right now. It doesn't work that way. Comics are an opportunity to fame and some modest fortune, but it is hardly a guarantee.

    Everybody starts out slow. Frankly and honestly, having seen your site, I'm in no hurry to go back. Your comics aren't that good yet, and your drawing style needs some refinement; right now you're giving me that "ouch, that looks like it hurts" feeling on a lot of your humans as their arms bend in wierd ways and their proportions are off; everything is off model. But... like I said, everybody starts out slow. Sluggy freelance is horribly off-model by the modern standards and the Penny Arcade comic almost seems to be two completely different people than the modern main characters, with only their clothing to indicate continuity. This should be both an encouragement and a challenge.

    If the fact that you're going to need to put years into this before seeing any kind of payoff bothers you, you need to quit now and try something else. If this doesn't bother you, ideally because it is something you want to do anyhow, then keep going. If you simply reject this criticism, or it really ruins your day, comic drawing probably isn't for you, either.

    One last thing: This needn't be your last comic ever; this can be a "practice" series and nobody need ever know. If you get a better idea, drop this one and start a new one. In particular, I'm not sure you've got the humor chops to pull off single-shot jokes; those are probably the hardest comics to create, and even the masters like Larson did an awful lot of repeating themselves and got in a rut pretty quickly. Consider a more, although perhaps not entirely, character-based comic, with one-shot jokes as you come up with them.

    Give yourself 5 years, which seems to be how long it really takes to get going with comics, with continued improvement up to around the 10 year mark where you level off. (This closely parallels the development of any skill; programming works almost identically to this.) Re-assess your progress honestly. I for one would most likely be forced to rationally concede at about year two that I'm not going to make it; only you can decide where you stand.

    (Note to people offended about the percieved negativity in this message: Committing to a comic is a serious undertaking... despite what they may have told you in school, which strives to be a Happy Fun Place, not everybody can do everything, and encouraging somebody to do something they shouldn't, which results in a major waste of time (the only non-replenishable resource we have) is evil, not nice. I don't give a flying fuck about "nice", I care about good, and being good here requires some feedback to the poster that isn't all ooshy-gooshy and nice. If he can power through this, then maybe he has what it takes, and he can gain strength from this. If this is enough to de-rail him, that is a strong net good. Don't mindlessly encourage, you think you're being nice but you're really being evil.)
  • Does anyone find these comic strips funny? Or making ANY sense at all? No wonder people aren't coming to your website.

    Nandz.
    • I do actually...the computers great, its fantastic, it can translate any language to any language!

      except

      when the french guy says "fuck you, your mothers a cunt, and she sucks on my horse cock for 20$ because she's so ashammed to have you as as son, mr bush."

      it says that exactly.

      where was the old translators, the people, used to say, "he doesn't agree with you."

      computers aren't always better, star trek 101.
  • Dear Slashdot,

    I'm having a hard time bring traffic to my website. I know that getting a link posted on another high-traffic website would be a boon, but haven't figured out how to get it to happen. Any thoughts?

    Thanks!

  • just make it funny.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:40PM (#12257009) Homepage Journal
    ..and keep doing it.

    don't base the decision if you're going to keep doing it on if the pageviews are on rise or not.

    get returning viewers. make so rude and good jokes that they'll get posted all around irc and bbs's.. that way new people find your page.

    btw.. some funny stuff in there :) good going.
  • In your case? Erm, maybe hire a writer?
    • I'm going to rephrase the parent a little less insultingly.

      Yours is definitely not a bad comic...like those stupid sprite comics with no plotline. But yours isn't a great comic. And at this early stage, of course you shouldn't expect it to be a great comic, but you haven't set a path yet for making it great. Let me give a few examples.

      Penny Arcade [pennyarcade.com] has a very creative sense of humor and excellent skill in satire of the computer industry.

      User Friendly [userfriendly.org] has a very in-depth plot line and pokes fun at the co

    • Re:Good God Almighty (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In your case? Erm, maybe hire a writer?

      And an artist.

  • I don't much care for your comic. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by An Onerous Coward ( 222037 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @04:51PM (#12257069) Homepage
    As the old saying goes, "A good product sells itself".

    I am not--in any way--a humor professional. So my not liking your comic may not carry any weight. But the comics mostly seem flat, with the occasional tasteless pterodactyl-snatching baby gag thrown in out of desperation. Visually, I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish.

    My first instinct is to tell you to give up. But since you'll most likely ignore that advice, my second piece of advice is to ditch the 'variety show' format and go with a more character-driven approach. As you develop the characters, they give you new ideas and new directions, and they carry past humorous triumphs with them. When you have to spend hours and hours fumbling for the next idea, it's a great relief to know that you can just fall back to, say, drawing Dogbert in a silly hat.

    Gary Larson succeeded with the variety show approach. But he had so many brilliant ideas to work with, every comic could stand on its own. Also, his art was distinctive, so the people in each comic felt pleasantly familiar, even when you'd never seen them.

    You need to be putting out new product daily, if you want to become part of a person's daily routine. this "when I get around to it" scheduling. Weekly is only good if you have a lot of content to put out every week (ala The Onion).

    Again looking at Gary Larson, you'll notice that his art, while seemingly clumsy in an earnest ninth-grader sort of way, greatly added to the comic. Your visual style is all over the map. It doesn't have to be good, but it does have to be catchy and consistent.

    So introduce some actual characters, discipline your artwork and your production schedule, and if the end result is good enough, shameless self-promotional Slashdot submissions won't be needed. Get people laughing, and they'll want everyone else to laugh along.

    • Actually, I really do quite like his stuff. A lot of it does remind me of The Far Side, except with a bit more of a vicious kick in the teeth attitude.

      Thumbs up on the daily schedule thing. I hope he can commit to that.

      If he's really lucky, he might manage to turn his masterful Slashdot self-promotional idea into a good readership.

  • zerg (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lord Omlette ( 124579 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @06:09PM (#12257574) Homepage
    Are you doing this comic by yourself? People who can draw aren't necessarily funny/entertaining/interesting, and people who are can't necessarily draw. You need to find someone to team [penny-arcade.com] up w/. (Note that Scott Kurtz has a wife, and w/out her, he'd just be another worthless fat man...)

    Great webcomickers who are solo acts are the exception, not the rule.

  • WebComics.com (Score:3, Informative)

    by slashkitty ( 21637 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @06:31PM (#12257682) Homepage
    You might wanna try to get more exposure on webcomics.com [webcomics.com]. We have a lot of traffic and are just looking for more good comics to feature, which pumps up traffic like 10 times on the featured day. We also have a banner exchange program just for comics, you can help promote other comics, while they help you.
    • Or http://www.thewebcomiclist.com/, which links to over 2500 comics. I think once you get listed (you're probably best off paying the 5 bucks and submitting a thumbnail), you'll appear on the page of new comics, for a week I think. People that are constantly scrolling the site, looking for new comics. If they like what they see, you might move up by being well rated. If you can get in the top 200, you'll probably see a sustained stream of new visitors.

  • 2 steps (Score:2, Funny)

    by n9hmg ( 548792 )
    1. Purchase a list of email addresses
    2. email them all explaining how wonderful your product is

    3. Works every time.
  • Traffic is good, but not great.
    Your description of traffic levels could equally easily be a description of the quality of the comic.

    Which could be why your traffic is 'good, not great'.

  • but your comic sort of sucks. I actually read through them all and only about 2 or 3 were actually fairly humorous.

    I think your problem might be that people just aren't interested. Unless you are one hell of a salesman, you are going to have a tough time selling a product no one is interested in.

    Them's the breaks, kid. Don't quit your day job.

  • I say this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by focitrixilous P ( 690813 ) on Saturday April 16, 2005 @11:51PM (#12259332) Journal
    Put a link in your sig at the most, and focus your energy on making a quality strip. Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door. Don't worrying about being an overnight star, just keep going. I can already see the improvement over 20 strips, the last 5 are better overall then the first 5. A lot of the best humor sites (maddox, achewood, penny-arcade) don't do any advertising at all, and lots of people have heard of them. Be funny, don't give up, and see what happens. If you aren't funny, admit it to yourself, and change things until you are, or find someone online to help you. Lots of funny things get posted to slashdot, it's possible someone would help you if your narrow the focus a little bit.

    I've tried some creative ventures, but I had never had the drive to keep anything going. If you want to learn from my mistakes, check out My attempt at a series of short stories, updated once every 4 months or so. [wackiness.org]

  • Pokey the Penguin never needed any publicity!
    http://www.yellow5.com/pokey/ [yellow5.com]

    Chinese Dentist Ono Holiday was almost as good!
    http://www.fat-rat.com/ONO/ [fat-rat.com]

    HOORAY!

  • RSS Feed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wka ( 23275 ) on Sunday April 17, 2005 @01:17AM (#12259711)
    Publish an RSS or Atom feed of your comic. It should show your actual comic images, not just links to each comic. This way, you let readers subscribe to the comic -- it will come to them, showing up in the feed reader of their choice. They will not have to go to your site all the time to check for updates.
  • I've posted a response to the thread on the site. I've cut an pasted it below:

    It's amazing how much traffic a post to the backpage of slashdot can generate. I feel sorry for the people who get their small university-hosted site posted to the front page without warning :)

    Anyways, thanks to everyone who gave advice. I think that I will commit to a more frequent update schedule. I'll start at two a week, and see how hard that is. I do the strip in my spare time, and I'm trying to write up my Master's the
  • What this world really needs is a way to promote the idea of NOT doing any more lame webcomics.

  • Xcomic... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Keamos ( 857162 )
    I saw this story and was going to look around at your site and suggest Xcomic--but I see you're already using it! I'm glad some people are actually using it (I'm a co-developer along with Helgi and Mike H), and in a production enviroment at that. If anyone's wondering WTF I'm talking about, http://xcomic.sf.net/ [sf.net]. You could always try purchasing ads on Megatokyo or such, that should get you a fair amount of hits as those people click the advertisements like crazy and you're a webcomic, and they're reading we
    • Whoops, I also forgot to mention that you might be interested in upgrading to the CVS version of Xcomic, as you have an RSS feed of the news posts--RSS generation is built into the next version, syndicating comics only at the moment, but soon to be news entries too. Michael C.
  • Don't listen to the haters. You can probably improve the drawing a bit, but in general the comics are funny and a little bit sick. I liked the following best: baby [simulatedc...roduct.com], origin of species [simulatedc...roduct.com] and http://simulatedcomicproduct.com/index.php?cid=20 [simulatedc...roduct.com]

    Humor will always be hit-or-miss. The funniest comedians out there have some material that doesn't work too well but is still part of their repetoire...
  • How about trying to get it on the front page of a Big news agregator?
    Should get you a few hits, but your server could take a 'bigNewsAgregatoring'

  • Best example I could give would be cyantian.net the comic kind of sucks, the plotline is lame, but man can she sleaze money out of people who visit the site. Add banners, sleazing guest art off people who can draw and having them hype the comic on their site. The sad thing was the early stips were not so bad, but she got lazy. I think the guy coloring the strip is probably helping improve the RAW product.

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