Pimp my comic.

October 12, 2005 7:52 PM

I know that a few Mefites are also closet cartoonists. C'mon, you know who you are. I'm doing a webbcomic. What's the best way to generate interest/traffic?

I'm aware of TopWebComics.com and TheWebComicList.com. Are there any more effective ways to lure surfers to my site other than paying out the nose for it?

posted by ToasT to Media & Arts (13 answers total)

Is it really spelled "webbcomic"?
posted by interrobang at 8:07 PM on October 12, 2005

Best answer: Go to every site you go to in order to find out about things you like and follow their guidlines to email them, add to their del.icio.us feed, or whatever. Link to other comics, and maybe they'll go through their server stats, see your referral link and link you back.

Ive never pimped a comic, but I've pimped other art things and if the people you share your work with like it enough it'll reward in spades.
posted by atom128 at 8:21 PM on October 12, 2005

How can I generate interest in THIS LINK?

Yeah, no ulterior motive here. CountZiggurat is right. I'm flagging, and noting it since you don't seem to get it.
posted by scarabic at 8:29 PM on October 12, 2005

Metatalk.

No sarcasm here, ToasT. Whether intentionally or not I think you're breaking the rules. There is no need to include the self-link to ask this question.
posted by nanojath at 8:35 PM on October 12, 2005

Response by poster: Well, I honestly wanted advice. But apparently I violated . . . something. Never mind, I guess. Thanks, atom128. I'll follow your suggestions. And perhaps you could explain how I pissed off the regulars.
posted by ToasT at 8:45 PM on October 12, 2005

The way I see it (and I'm not an admin, but I've been on mefi for quite a long time, mostly just reading though) Self linking is generally frowned up, you could have asked your question without linking to your site. The polite way would have been to add in the more info section a "hey if youre curious, follow the link in my profile to check the comic out," I guess it's just rude to wave a link in peoples faces. Even sticking it in the more info section itself might have worked. Modesty, what have you. Doesn't bother me so much in askmefi as it does in mefi, but some people are sticklers it seems, don't want to set precidents.

Good luck, your comic has potential.

sidenote: hey scarabic, we signed up for mefi one day apart. Big up to the err.. 11800's! heh.
posted by atom128 at 9:06 PM on October 12, 2005

Response by poster: After some extensive crawling, I've determined the reason for the uproar. My apologies. It was not my intention to attempt to generate traffic by posting on AskMeFi. I thought, in retrospect foolishly, that the link would be helpful to those considering/offering advice.

I suppose now is the time for the pitch and feathers. Does Matt deactivate accounts? I know how long your memories can be.

Anyway, I'm done. Please continue the acerbic diatribe.
posted by ToasT at 9:10 PM on October 12, 2005

I removed the self-link & a few snarky comments. Let's give this question a chance now.
posted by jessamyn at 9:18 PM on October 12, 2005

I really didn't mean to pile on you, ToasT. But perhaps there is a lesson in it. I have come upon a lot of the web content I like by seeing links in people's sigs or profiles. Make sure your comic link is in your sigs and profiles, email sigs as well. Then every time you email/post, it's a little free promotion. But try to make sure you're not stepping on the sites' values. Most communities frown on (even the appearance of) self-promotion.

Okay, and now I can't visit your comic because jessamyn zapped the link. Would you email it to me? If I dig it I'll even pass it around to some web-comic lovin' friends. Little word of mouth never hurt. If you're interested I'll also email you a bunch of links about self-promotion. I'm not up for coding a bunch of URLs at the moment (the autolink feature does not - sigh - work in Safari). Email in my profile.

I don't think anyone will hold a grudge, it seems an honest misunderstanding. Right, everyone? Everyone?
posted by nanojath at 9:49 PM on October 12, 2005

Most web comics are written by people who for a variety of reasons are not so upity and self-satisfied that they won't respond to your letters. The main reason I've found is that they're generally nice people who use comics as a way of reaching out. Develop a casual network of comic artists and share link-space with them. That is, link to their sites in exchange for them linking to yours.
posted by squirrel at 11:34 PM on October 12, 2005

Simple Things You Can Do To Get The Word Out
About Your Independent Project

... via here, which has much more on exactly what you're looking for.
posted by soiled cowboy at 8:04 AM on October 13, 2005

Hey there, I make webcomics too. :) I'd love to see what you're working on.

Our studio has several webcomics that we also self publish into zines, which we sell at conventions, all of which have the url posted inside. We also have biz cards with a colorful illustration and our url on them, and we give them out to everyone.

I'm not sure if you plan having print versions of your comics. We really love seeing our pages in a form we can hand to family and friends, and we usually just sell them to offset printing costs.
Here is a great site that talks about comic promotion, mostly nonwebcomic, but many promotion ideas cross over back and forth.

Promotion is hard work, but the payoff is always sweet, it's nice to see people who come back to check out new things or say hello at a convention.

I agree with posting your comic in your sigs, I also find that it helps to join several art sites(if you are the artist) so you can become more familar to different people, and leave updates about the progress on the comic.

Lately, I've submitted several of our comics to Onlinecomics.net, which is nicely designed and easy to use. We've been getting a decent amount of views and hits from them. However, links are pretty passive promotions, and you really can't count on links alone to get you readers. If you have enough pages, it doesn't hurt to send it off to a few people for some online reviews, Sequential Tart reviewed one of ours a long time ago, and not only did it bring in some readers, but their critiques helped us think about some other facets of the comic that could need improving.

The biggest thing you can do, aside from promotions, is keep updating. An update will bring people back, and if you update often enough, people will come back and pass the word around. Comics are hard work, keep it up.
(also, recently heard about a comics blog, via Drawn, that might have some interesting info as well )
posted by dreamling at 11:13 AM on October 21, 2005

oops, posted the link with no text between the anchors.

Here you go.

Helpul selfpublishing link.
posted by dreamling at 12:29 PM on October 21, 2005