Tix-Comix

In the never ending quest for self promotion, I occasionally read blogging articles. Like anyone, I’m a sucker for lists, so I fell into this article: 10 signs your content sucks It is so radically different from the Eleven signs your blog sucks article I wrote three years ago. My article was broader, and mentioned a lot of sidebar type things people do to cause blog suckage, whereas bad blogger focuses strictly on the content itself, which is supposedly what it’s all about, right?

I guess points #2 and #9 in the bad blogger article were a bit troublesome for me — the ones having to do with your friends not sharing your content in a big way. There are ways of rationalizing it:

1. My demographic isn’t really into that, they barely get facebook.
2. Comics are kinda like porn — educated adults are embarrassed to admit to their friends that they read ’em.
3. They can’t find the share buttons on my site.
4. They are too busy.
5. Maybe they are sharing my links and I just don’t know it.

None of those rationalizations stand up to scrutiny. Of course there are always naysayers that hate anything that doesn’t conform to their narrow expectations, and I’ve had my share of them — we all have — and we just have to pity them their negative hate-filled little lives. But on the other hand there are an awful lot of web comics that are actually pretty bad. I don’t crap all over them, I just don’t return to them.

Here is why I don’t think Tix-Comix completely sucks and keep doing this:

1. Most of the comments people leave on Tix-Comix are engaged and engaging. I’ve made it easy to comment by remembering your data and not requiring a captcha and using comment LUV. Of course I get spam but my signal to noise ratio on comments is actually pretty good.
2. Readership, subscriptions, and real (as opposed to incentivized) visits all going up, slowly to be sure, but up.
3. We have a high ratio of repeat traffic.

On the other hand intrepid regular commenters know that if they leave a clever comment, my visitors are more likely to check out their link. So like the post said, if they just comment for the link and won’t share it to their friends, it might be that something is wrong. And some friends just post comments to be “nice” but it doesn’t occur to them to spread it.

So friends, you tell ME.

• Does Tix-Comix resonate with you at least some of the time?
• Would you be embarrassed for your friends to catch you reading it? If so why?
• Do you ever publically admit you like a Tix-Comix strip by facebook share or a stumble?
• Have you friended me on stumbleupon? Probably not. But that is my fault and I’m fixing it now. Here is my stumbleupon. OK no excuses.
• If you have suggestions to make Tix-Comix better you can comment them, under a fake email if you want. It’ll get spammed, but I’ll review spam and despam it if it’s useful.
• If you do decide to share something, comment and let me know what and where

I don’t sell anything at this moment, I accept PW ads from other webcomics and related just to mix things up a little, and I’m not seriously looking for money (though I wouldn’t turn it down) — what I most want is to build a community of thoughtful individuals who share my somewhat off-the-wall views on life. If you truly enjoy any of the comics please don’t just keep it between us! Now go to the archives and find your fave. The handy dandy small share strip at the bottom of each strip is not there for decoration.