Comic Genesis Forums

Ever feel like a ghostwriter in the sense that your entire readership are phantoms?

My stats tell me I have a daily core readership of seventy-odd. I put up nice polls for them. The Seventy can't be bothered even to click to vote. Then I put up a really easy one -- who's your favourite character? - and actually got two votes. I thought, ah, play to lowest common intelligence. That's the trick! No. Just two votes.

I made a nice contest for them, with a way cool prize. Not a single entry.

I know these people are there, and they keep coming back. Obviously there is an interest level. Now, I am well aware what I am producing is of very high quality. It's not that I need ego boo. But I would like to know if the effect achieved is what I want it to be. Continuous input as a storyline develops would be a powerful tool. Also, I admit I'm miffed they can't click my poll after all the trouble I go to to put out the comic.

What kind of feedback do the rest of you get? What have you found effective in encouraging readership interaction?

I wish I could really answer you all that, but you do bring up a good point none the less..

yes, they can seem like silent phantoms! but at least you know you've got 70 core readers... hopefully they'll do what's even more important than giving you feedback... and that's telling their friends to read it!
there are heaps of comics (online and in print) that i read and think 'i really like that' - then think about writing to and then the words kinda escape me, i decide to do it later and... well it never happens then!
of the few times i've written i usually get ignored or the email bounces back! (mindy of lone dork... fix your email dammit!! )

So this is more or less epidemic, then?

How about a brainstorming session? Let's see if we can jigger this nut. Let's start by compiling a list of what has been tried and hasn't really worked. It'll prevent going over ground twice. I'll start.

Polls.
Contest.
Guestbook.

Anyone else?

I find that you'll only get a return from about 1% of your readership. This holds fairly true for all comics. It's just the size of the readership that changes.

Yup, that's more or less how it is, sadly. Having a forum for your comic can help, but still most people won't visit it. I remember when I first got a forum, I held an art contest on it to get people more active, with a figurine of Puck as a prize. I've since moved the forum, but I still think it was a good idea.

Yup, hes right, all the people I know usally contact me through my AIM if they're intrested in talking to me about the comic and sometimes I have a couple of my regulars use the tagboard. >,> Oh and it usaly helps to make voting polls on the top of the page if you desperatly want poeple to notice it.

often the only way to get your core readership (the silent majority!) to contact you is to miss a few updates... then it's all "you're late", "when's the next update?", "i don't care you spend hours slaving over this for nothing... i want my 30 seconds of reading pleasure now", etc
mind you i don't recommend this as a method of soliciting feedback, regular updates are hugely important as they build readership. i still reckon the fact they're coming back at all is the best sign they like what you're doing, anything else they might add is icing on the cake.

The problem is, webcomics are for quick viewing.... pretty much only fellow comic artists will reply to yours. It's like the government trying to stop downloaded music on the internet, it's just not going to happen unless you do something really drastic, like miss an update.

Ever heard that if nothing happens, everything is going fine? People only give feedback if something is going wrong.

So, again I say, there's not much we can do about it, unfortunately.

Mine are pretty good, never had any complain about missing updates (ok, so I miss about one update every 2 months). I get the ocassional fan mail out of the blue which is nice, and usually one or two when I ask for comments and stuff.

I have the standard Keenspace webalizer log that I look through occasionally. Then I have CQCounter the lists more or less the same information but it's only on my front page so I can see how many people actually visit.
I also have a tagboard (http://www.tagboard.com I actually made my own but this was the original) that is the most popular user comment thingy on my site and I have a forum on Talk About Comics that rarely gets used.

The tagboard is nice because it doesn't require any registration or password. It's just something that users can use to leave a note. It's also on the front page where everyone can see it and I designed the site so it's always visible if you're looking at the comic (at least on an 800x600 or larger screen).

Unfortunately sticking a tagboard in so it's visible would require me to redesign my site, which I don't really feel like doing . So I've never bothered with one.

the 1% rule maybe ain't always true, i see that there are some comics that really get an active readership.
Inner Res, for example, a non-keenspacer, too new to have really tons of reader but already a dozen of users in the forum (few of them are friends of the authors, but more than half ain't: they came for the comic).
But i think that even if i ask them they won't be able to answer us: they probably just were lucky to get a very high % of active readers...

As for me, i have a bunch of people posting in my forum, but i already knew the all before starting the comic, so... they don't count for thes. But at least they keep my forum alive.

:o I get "feedback" now and then.
:D someone sent my fanart just a week ago.. yay

http://looks.keenspace.com/fanart.html

a couple people sent me e-mail
(I try to put my e-mail on most of my good comic things)
which I can't find words to reply to.. ;u; joy?!

TuT. I thought about getting a forum for my website.. uh.. but I don't think I really will get a forum, because then people would actually have to pay attention.. :o l'm not trying to over-stimulate my readers. XD they are smart enough to e-mail.

PS - Don't concentrate so much on that webalize stuff. It only makes life feel longer... -_-

I used to have a tagboard, but I started to get feedback like this:

"ur damn tagboard makes site load so slow, make it faster so i only have to spend 30 seconds looking at ur comic plz!!!1111one"

...so I took it off. And now, I have a forum, in which all the topics rapidly descend into complete and utter randomness - like any other forum, I suppose. I do have a few devoted readers - dare I say, fanboys - who stop by my forum, but it'd be nice to get some input from the other 30+ people who come to my site every day.

In short, I have no advice - I think we're all in the same boat.

Keffria wrote:I used to have a tagboard, but I started to get feedback like this:

"ur damn tagboard makes site load so slow, make it faster so i only have to spend 30 seconds looking at ur comic plz!!!1111one"

...so I took it off. And now, I have a forum, in which all the topics rapidly descend into complete and utter randomness - like any other forum, I suppose. I do have a few devoted readers - dare I say, fanboys - who stop by my forum, but it'd be nice to get some input from the other 30+ people who come to my site every day.

In short, I have no advice - I think we're all in the same boat.

I'll say I'm a combination of the both... a devoted fanboy.

I get an average of about twenty hits a day, but apparentally, they all go to the Tech page, because they are looking for Berreta guns, and the see this ad: FireBird: An online web manga set in the near future, but in a different dimesion...
And for some reason, they click on it.

It took me about one and a half years to have more than 4 people in my forum at one time. Patience is the key to this. As mentioned before around 1% of your readership will actually bother contacting you or participate in things like comps.
In fact the only time I ever got any replies to anything that I asked for feed back was when I tyred a new colouring technique and I asked the readers if I should keep it. Since this was something that directly effected their viewing pleasure they got off their asses and got vocal. I got a decent amount of responses.

But yeah. These days reader feed back is fairly good, from the forum to that one time Nick got emailed by that guy who said that Nick was god and that he should kick my ass and make the comic about just about himself.

Actually, in my opinion, what me and Keffria have is the best way to obtain readership feedback.

Mecharm's idea of inviting people and giving them forums is pretty smart. That way you don't have to sign up for each forum you want to visit. And those who visit her comic get to know mine, and vice-versa...

Keffria wrote:I used to have a tagboard, but I started to get feedback like this:

"ur damn tagboard makes site load so slow, make it faster so i only have to spend 30 seconds looking at ur comic plz!!!1111one"

...so I took it off. And now, I have a forum, in which all the topics rapidly descend into complete and utter randomness - like any other forum, I suppose. I do have a few devoted readers - dare I say, fanboys - who stop by my forum, but it'd be nice to get some input from the other 30+ people who come to my site every day.

In short, I have no advice - I think we're all in the same boat.

That reminds me, I havent been to active in that forum. ^^