Sometimes you’ve been making webcomics so long you forget about how little you knew when you started.  Yeah, so what if you can make comics? So what if you can make the site? How do you go about putting both those aspects together to create a successful webcomic model?

A huge, huge part of gathering an audience to your work is having an update schedule. How would you like it if your favorite television series just went on air “whenever?” No schedule for a new episode, no day for you to check back, just whenever the heck the network had the time to air it? You’d be pissed off and forget to check back! Then you’d be pissed off more when you realized you missed a new episode or 3!

Yes, yes, I know. You want to tell me, “But Kez, when a webcomic updates, the page stays up, so people can come and check back whenever they want! TV shows air, but then you can’t watch them again until the network feels like replaying them! These are 2 really different things!” Well I’m going to tell you that updating randomly is the lazy-man’s way to do it, and though you may keep SOME of your readers, you will NEVER have the audience that a webcomic that updates to a schedule has.

As usual, I’m going to look at the success stories here. Let’s  try Gunnerkrigg Court. GC is currently #14 on TWC, so we can all agree the comic is quite popular! It updates 3x a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And look! It SAYS so, right at the top of the comic there.  Let us view the Project Wonderful stats on GC.  No way! HUGE increases on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays! I WONDER IF THERE IS A CORRELATION (please note, that was not phrased as a question).

Let us consider a scenario where you come across hypothetical Comic X. You really like Comic X, so you bookmark it. Uh oh, problem! Not only does Comic X NOT have an RSS feed (the only semi-substitute for not having a schedule, which I’ll get to at the end of this article), but it does not have an update schedule listed either! So, you bookmark Comic X, and tell yourself that you’ll check back.  For the first couple days, you DO check back. No update! Then, one day a week or so later, you check back and there’s a new page! You are so happy, but wait a second! There are new characters and new places and you have no idea what’s going on! You click the “previous page” button, and discover that Comic X was updated with multiple pages totally out of the blue. I suppose this scenario wouldn’t be so bad if the creator of Comic X at least kept an updated news area to let people know what happened, but odds are that if someone hasn’t posted a schedule, they don’t know enough to have news posts either! Anyways, you catch up on Comic X, but never knowing when the blasted thing updates, you check back quite randomly, maybe 2 or 3 times a month.  You don’t tell many people about Comic X, because let’s face it: though it’s really good, you only ever remember to check it 2-3 times a month, so how are you going to remember to tell anyone about it? Because you don’t visit the site much, you don’t even vote on TWC much. You don’t join a forum or leave a comment or send a fan-mail.  Now multiply you a hundred or so times, and you have the audience of this comic!

Scenario TWO! You come across hypothetical Comic Q.  You really like Comic Q, so you bookmark it.  Uh oh, Comic Q does NOT have an RSS feed, but don’t worry! Comic Q has an update schedule! It updates on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a page per update. You are irked that it does not update more, but you know when to check back for another new page. So you do, three times a week. Each time you visit for that update, you vote for that comic on TWC. Comic Q keeps getting bigger!  Visiting 3x a week, you’re keeping up with the story quite well. You leave the creator of Comic Q a comment, telling him/her how much you like it.  You remember to tell friends about this comic, and you’re sure to let them know when it updates, so they can enjoy the same thing! You find yourself looking forward to each new update, MUCH THE SAME AS IF IT WERE A TELEVISION SERIES.  Is that a small amount of gratitude you feel? That the creator of Comic Q is updating his/her comic loyally to schedule?

Okay, now consider that Comic X and Comic Q are the same comic. Comic X decided to update in batches of 3 on random days, once a week. Comic Q decided to update 3 scheduled days a week with one page per udpate.  They both have the same thing going for them, but Comic Q decided to take the audience into consideration.  Always, always, ALWAYS make it as easy as possible for your readers to keep up with your comic. A schedule is for THEM as much as you, if not MORE for them.  Yes, yes, there are DEFINITE middle paths between Comic X and Comic Q. Phoenix Requiem updates on Mondays and Thursdays with batches of pages. FreakAngels updates on Fridays with 6 pages, and when they can’t, they bother to let people know they’re taking a week off (’cause hey, that’s polite!). There was once a comic I read that updated on Fridays, every OTHER week. This leads into a discussion on how often one should update, which I’m not going into, because the point of this article is merely that to maximize your audience, you NEED to have a schedule (and stick to it!). People will continue to check back on those days you’ve told them you will update.  The reader who comes back to your comic monthly to read batches of pages regardless of whether you have a posted update schedule is few and far in-between.  The great majority of people will come back when you tell them you’ll have something new.

Let us consider a 3rd scenario. You have a webcomic, but you have no idea when you’ll have time to work on it one day to the next. You try for an update schedule, and fail miserably. People start leaving nasty comments about how they’re not going to check back because “you’re a liar,” yadda yadda. Webcomic readers can be a spiteful bunch I tell you!  You really want to keep updating your comic, but there’s no way in hell you can definitely update on a specific day.  Finally, you list your schedule as “whenever I can do it, you sniveling mongrel sons of dogs” (only slightly less inflamatory), and point people to your RSS feed.  Once subscribed to it, people will be notified when you update!

Ah ha! The miracle cure, you say! No, not really. The minority of an audience uses an RSS feed. A sizeable minority to be sure, but most people bookmark your site and physically check back.  As for the intricacies of an RSS feed, what to display on it, I’ll leave that to another article as well. The bottom line is that if you want to continue to grow your audience, they need to know they can depend on you for updates. It’s a loyalty issue. People stop coming back if you don’t update like you said you would. They stop coming back if you update randomly and don’t keep them informed. They stop coming back because they lose interest because they don’t check back, and then forget about you.  Relying solely on RSS feeds is NOT recommended! Not even update listing sites like Piperka, TWCL or OnlineComics make up for not having a schedule, because all of these places require people to make accounts! Again, the minority of your readers will use these sites.

So, if you don’t have a schedule, you need to make one! Period.

Next up! “What is a CMS and WHY do I need it?”