Today we’re going to have a bit of a follow up on our episodes, Numbers, and talk about the impact they have on our fellow creators mindsets when creating. We touched a bit on the subject in that episode, but today we’re going to tackle the subject in a broader sense, how to handle, learn when to walk away, and to ultimately understand your worth as a creator.

We know what numbers CAN do for us, but each of us have different goals when it comes to creating. How do we know when we’re experiencing things like FOMO, and how to keep ourselves focused on our own needs rather than what our surrounding peers do?

The number one thing: your worth as a creator is NOT beholden to the stats trackers and numbers that dictate social media.

Be clear about what YOUR goals are for your comic. What will YOU consider success for yourself. These goals should not be dependent on external forces; rather, they should be able to achieve by yourself.

There is no one size fits all plan for webcomics.

What is an Honest Metric?

Some good questions to ask yourself to keep a good perspective:

• What metrics provide an accurate reflection of your work?
• Am I getting a specific type of comment from multiple readers? If so, perhaps get an expert opinion.
• Will responding to this metric/comment/etc help me reach the goals I set for my comic?
• Is this response subjective to the reader? Or is it a genuine issue I need to attend to?
• Am I using this metric to compare my success to someone else?

Who am I creating for?

The answer to this question is different and varies from creator to creator. But knowing your own personal answer will help you ensure your webcomic creation experience is worth it to you.

Extra thoughts:

“I had to talk to a friend about not quitting their webcomic bc all they got for comments on WT was “im confused” “this is weird” and the comments on twitter LOVED their work" -Krisp

“It’s all about that vibe and place for your work!”

“I do recontextualize like "wow this is a whole room of ppl” when I see teeny numbers rather than like…influencer types.” -Rae

“I like viewing it as “constantly trying to one-up myself” rather than racing to catch up with other people. And I like having stats to show me what readers respond to, or what new readers are drawn to. The numbers tell me a lot about how things are growing - or not.

But I always take them with a grain of salt, or try and view them in context. Did you have a low viewership day out of nowhere? Might be because it’s a holiday. Might be because the image you used for promo wasn’t eye-catching enough. Might just be Twitter Algorithm Goblins. You can look at the numbers all day but without context they mean nothing.

So yeah - it’s an insular view of growth. Why compare myself to others when I can compare myself to… myself?” -Clam

“Yeah, I think waiting long enough to see trends is more important than people realize. You’re not looking for a single day’s worth - you’re looking for behavior.” -Clam

“Referencing webcomic time episode, webcomics operate on a scale of years, not weeks, or even months” - Renie

“I wanna share my book of good words from people over the year. I write down comments i got that really made my heart sing and i look at it when i am feeling down” - Krisp

“Knowing what I want out of it helps me ignore the numbers a bit more. ” - Miranda

“Webcomics are so transformative as well as our own intentions too”

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Episode Release Date: September 28, 2022

Episode Credits:

Kristen Lee (@feathernotes) - she/they, ghostjunksickness.com lunarblight.com

Renie Jesanis (@renieplayerone) - she/they, kateblast.com

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The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.