I completely disagree! Its more than possible that you can gain 20,000 readers in one link or ad.

The question is: how many of them will stay in the next week, month or year? Even if you have an ad up for a very long time, what goes up more come down.

I used to look forward to seeing a lot of hits on my website, but I don't anymore because I realize that's not the realistic part of the graph. The realistic part is how many people have bookmarked my site and found it truly interesting, and of the "gross" net gains, that can be a piddling small amount.

Paitence is indeed a virtue in webcomics as, in the grand scheme of things, its like you're making really slow baby steps toward developing a readership. But its kind of like paying back a loan - with every payment you start to build credt. Well, with every update you build credit of a different kind, and people learn to trust you and include you as part of their routine.

A lot of times, promotion can be seen as the "quick hits" of building a readership, while running the website is really the crux of the business.

Check out "Hector!" at www.risecomics.net!

Check out "Hector!" at www.risecomics.net!

[quote=Shishio]Is it just me, or do all these articles on promotion say the same thing?[/quote]

Nope - it's not just you! They do all say the same thing because, sadly, there are very few ways to (successfully) promote a new comic and every few months someone new begins to find out the painful truths for themselves. Then, like the good webcomickers they are, they share the fruits of their experience with the rest of the community. Two months later, their threads are forgotten and someone else picks up the baton ...Â

[quote=Scarybug]The advice I've most often read from people who've successfully promoted their webcomics is "Start your webcomic in 1997".[/quote]

Oooh, bitter but also painfully true! The reality is that today's successful comics were launched at a time when they were new products exploiting a gap in the market. Today, webcomics are no longer a new product and the gap in the market is pretty much filled. The techniques used by the comics which are established today, therefore, are of little or no use to a new comic.

In marketing terms a new webcomic is now a new entrant trying to take market share from an established oligopoly. A new gag strip, for example, even if it's the funniest strip in the world, is just not going to become successful by following the same route as, say, PvP. It now requires a totally different strategy and a new set of tools. Top lists, banner exchanges and all the other techniques which served the community so well in the past can and should be used but, truthfully, they just aren't going to generate significant traffic for a new comic these days.

I don't know what those new techniques, tools and strategies are or even if they yet exist (I suspect they don't!) The saddest comment on all of this is in a previous thread here at Comixpedia. If I remember rightly, only two guys could claim to have successfully increased their readership by a significant amount in the last year and both cases were attributable to luck rather than design.

So ... unless and until you happen to strike it lucky, I'd say make your comic because you love it, not because you're desperate for it to be a success. And, yes, pimp your review at every opportunity - the luck's got to come from somewhere, right?Â

Broken Voice Comics
Because comics are not just for kids

drat all these fancy-pants advertising schemes that require people actually liking your webcomic to work! *pouts*

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