Been posting for nearly half a decade with my webcomic. Theres an audience there but I just can't seem to break through. Could use some advice
I've been posting my webcomic, "Kukuru," for the past 3 years. By September 20th, I'll have been posting on TikTok, the platform where I started, for the last 4 years. In that time, I have yet to make it over 8,5k followers on that platform, and for others (Instagram, Webtoon), I've yet to reach 300 and 600 followers there either. I've been struggling for a while now to get traction for my comic, yet I know that the content of the webcomic itself is relevant to the audience I'm marketing to.
When I first started, I felt a rush with how much my work was speaking to others. I would get several comments daily regarding the impact my work was having on their daily lives, so much so that I had begun to post updates almost daily. This period also marked rapid growth for the account, and some of my first posts would reach viewership into the tens of thousands. Eventually, viewership cooled down, but I figured that was just the initial cool-down. I was still experiencing steady growth, so I sought to expand to other platforms, especially since TikTok was still primarily a video-sharing app. After those did well, I went back to focusing on TikTok, as that was the primary source of new viewers to my comic.
Then a few months later, in late 2022, one of my posts did exceptionally well, so well that TikTok suspended the post for violating its community guidelines. For context, while "Kukuru" is a work known for its crude language, by that point, most of the swear words were censored, and any violence depicted was cartoony in nature, but those swear words and situations were likely the reason that particular strip was flagged in the system. Regardless, after a bit of back and forth, my video was re-released to the public, but my viewership was never the same afterwards. Following the video's removal, my viewership and likes never reached past the number of followers I had, and my subscribers (at that point having reached 5-7k) stagnated. Meaning that my main source of gaining viewers was butchered.
I also have myself to blame. I would take several short and long breaks, and often posted erratically on all platforms. I can attribute this to my studies, which I needed to improve, and I was forced to change my uploads from daily to weekly, and pause for major exams. My lack of progress has also burned me out from uploading frequently, and alongside my Webtoon series being taken down from the platform with no warning, and the struggle of coming up with something extremely funny over the last few years, forced me to take a 6-month sabbatical, with infrequent updates here and there.
However, I have since returned to uploading on TikTok and have made a fascinating discovery. I still have retained a small but loyal fan base, who continue to engage with my work. My most recent upload has an 11% views-to-likes ratio, which is a great ratio to obtain.
I'm just scared of ending up in the same scenario again. Where I try desperately to make this comic work, burn out from failure, then go back into hiatus. What can I do differently to avoid this trap?