okay,
after I started dumping my comic strips in one place; webtoons, under the title “Clippings”, the engagement and interest from the new audience was truly inspiring, and started to poke at an idea I had in mind since the story started.
I personally like to share my thoughts when I’m unsure of what to do coz at this point, many of you have been here with me and have as much love and care for the series as I do, and it means the world to me. So, here goes;
The best reading experience for mobile users
Around 2012-2013, with the rise in use of smartphones, and when I was sure that I’m committed to this story for a very long time, I looked into offering “Grey is…” in a format that fits the new devices. I saw Naver Webtoon model back then. There was/is a dedicated app for the webtoon “Noblesse”, I saw that and was very intrigued.
With no knowledge of how to create an app, and no financial stability to hire someone, I dropped the idea.
There was “Tankobon” app for a time (in 2014) which presented the story in a nice way as it’s formatted in page to page layout, so that was awesome, but that app was down eventually.
I quite literally dumped the manga at tapastic and webtoon because they have the app, and it’s a way to reach out new readers.
But,
my page to page format isn’t good for their vertical reading one. In fact, it left some people frustrated.
When I revamped my official website almost 2 years ago, I made a poll on twitter asking where people read the latest updates; desktop, mobile/tablet, somewhere else?
And of course, mobile/tablet was the highest at almost 80%.
It worried me a bit because I know that my official website, though responsive, is still not offering the best reading experience.
A recent comment on Clippings made me revisit an idea that I thought of when I saw how some other creators post their stories on webtoons, and it reads;
Instead of putting time on commissions to raise the funds for an app developer, or time to learn the needed skills and probably offer a not that good end result, I can put time to reformat the pages to fit the model webtoons offer. It’ll take time year, but I always find ways to cut extra large tasks to small daily enjoyable bits.
So I decided to “rearrange the panels to fit the medium”.
I’m at a crossroads though
It’s like that crossroads I was at 5 years ago?
When I decided to change my website host and change the whole CMS (from Comicpress to Comic Easel), I had to stomp on my feelings and reupload all chapters on a new website, with no comments what so ever.
I took screenshots of all comments that touched me before deleting my old website, but still, that felt sad for some reason.
I have Grey is… up till chapter 45 on webtoons.
If I leave the “already out” chapters on webtoons, and just reupload the rearranged pages, it’s a good thing to keep the comments, the likes and it means all the subscribers are there and no need to move them to a new page for the series on webtoons.
But you have a size limit/chapter, and rearranging the pages makes the number os files per chapter bigger, so I’m worried I’ll need to have certain chapters divided in two, which isn’t something I’ll be able to edit/fix after having the chapters out. I hope I’m making sense.
Reuploading the whole series might attract new readers to a better presented story for the app. Grey is… (as is) has been on Webtoons since 2015, and it has 4k readers. Clippings has been up since Jun 25th, and it has 11k readers now. It’s been featured twice, and you can attribute that to the colored lighthearted comics, but in my research checking other webtoons, I think the small sized updates which flow nicely and read clearly play a bigger role than rendering or subject matter.
So I’m kinda unsure what to do here.
These fast changing times is crazy and I keep finding myself editing everything to reach new people. Which when it succeeds doesn’t really feel all that bad.
I don’t offer ads on my website, but with a certain number of monthly pageviews on webtoons, I might be able to monetise the series? though that’s not the main objective really.
Soon, “Grey is…” on webtoons will catch up to the public updates on both tapastic and the official website, so I might start updating simultaneously there, in a scene to scene format just like I upload on website.
In closing…
This was a long one.
You’ve kindly stuck with me from deviantArt to Smackjeeves, to official website, MangaMagazine, Inkblazers, Tapastic, webtoons and not to mention the self-published books.
So I trust your advice or any opinion you might have about this. Please do share them here, through a message, reblog or reply. Anon is open if you’re more comfortable.
I take things pretty seriously, I know. I sometimes just flip it and go on a whim with a decision. But I decided to check if anyone has a more convincing opinion.
Quite frankly, I am just a writer who is trying to reach more readers, and offer more exposure to my humble story.
I gave up on coming up with time to write a new series for exposure. My heart is just not into anything but Grey is…