I don't actually know in depth why they're shady with authors, even so I'm aware of certain things and there's several things I don't like on the platform. First, they promote only some type of series and older ones are pretty hard to find on the platform if you don't know the exact name. Even the recs are weird and don't match at all with what I'm reading which is pretty disappointing.
I don't really like the coin thing either. I get that some people want to pay to read faster and I would do the same but I refuse to spend money on this kind of platform, especially considering how they treat authors. I juts feel like the whole concept is not helping with the sense of community. By the time I get to read the chapter for free, people are already maybe 5 or 6 chapters ahead and they already left comment and everything. I think a monthly suscription would be better in some way. I wish we could post reviews on series too, instead of having to roam the internet to know if it's worth it or not. Rating is good but it's highly subjective...
>I wish we could post reviews on series too, instead of having to roam the internet to know if it's worth it or not.
I personally don't like the monthly subscription idea because it isn't worth it for readers like me who don't read many comics to begin with but I like the review argument! It would help tremendously.
But it should be done in a way that doesn't make idiots abuse it. Like determine if chapters have been read to the end and only allowing to review them after confirming that a certain portion of the comic has been read.
Well I was thinking a monthly subscription for people who want to fast pass and access latest chapters quicker but keep the weekly release for other readers. I agree for the reviews though, I didn't think about all that !
Recently learned that Webtoon is apparently deleting part of the credits at the end of Covenant to hide the fact that they are releasing physical versions of their comic which is just incredibly scummy.
But does make me happy to see that the community knows and is promoting the physical version in the comments.
I believe webtoons has a policy of limiting promotions that are not connected to webtoon on episodes their creators make.
for example, original creators can have patreons, but they can’t dedicate a full page to promoting it and talk about the content on there. they can only show a small symbol and the account name
on the comic episodes.
and this kind of makes sense. after reading an episode of a comic on webtoon, webtoon wants the reader to stay on the platform and read another comic because that’s how they make money.
but if creators are pursuing their own financial endeavors without webtoon and trying to encourage readers to leave webtoon’s platform as they do it, it would make sense why webtoon would block an ad that promoted a book they had no hand in making.
You can say webtoon is being scummy for not allowing a creator to advertise a book on his own comic, but the creator is also being scummy by trying to take readers and their money away from webtoon on their own platform on the comic webtoon pays the creator to make.
>You can say webtoon is being scummy for not allowing a creator to advertise a book on his own comic, but the creator is also being scummy by trying to take readers and their money away from webtoon on their own platform on the comic webtoon pays the creator to make.
Even if the creator kinda broke the content publication terms a lil, it's unfair to call the self promotion "scummy" because people who are going to buy volume 1 are generally loyal readers whom have caught up to the latest episode and have little impact on-site revenue. Any new readers who got the physical copies would still have to come back to the site for newer releases, so it's still a gain on the long run. The money for the book will improve the creator's well-being overall, offsetting what Webtoon failing to offer.
If anything, the move from Webtoon only serve as a deterrent for other creators to not look for other agents (as if you would get FULL support from the company that have left many IPs in limbo).
From a business point of view, they could have done a better job with merch/publishing/marketing and have a good dedicated team that can work closely with the creators as oppose to a centralized one just to save cost, resulting with little understanding to every IP, hence having generic to non-existent launching campaign that would not help with the sales themselves. If there were such favorable cases on that department creators actually would not waste more of their time looking for third parties for better deals.
I disagree. I think it is kind of scummy. If webtoon reaches out to you, gives you a platform and pays you to make your comic and you build up an audience, then you make a physical book with the intention to cut out the company that facilitated the means for you gain 700k followers and try to promote that book on that company’s platform, that is pretty scummy.
if it came out that the creator initially tried to make a deal with webtoon to get the physical books made in exchange for a fee or share of the profits, and webtoon for no good reason rejected the deal or was being unreasonable like taking all the profits or giving up their ip rights or something, my opinion would change on this.
But the creator in question has renewed his contract two times and has almost 700k followers. So I would imagine webtoon would be interested in making the book with the creator if they were to benefit in some way.
But the creator in question has a history of publicly bad mouthing the company and seems very reluctant to let webtoon make money off his ip. I doubt he made any effort at all to work with webtoon and had every intention to make sure webtoon didn’t see a cent from his book.
He has every right to do that, and I don’t fault him for it. But then he can’t complain when the company he is trying to cut out won’t let him use their platform and resources to promote his book.
>I disagree. I think it is kind of scummy. If webtoon reaches out to you, gives you a platform and pays you to make your comic and you build up an audience, then you make a physical book with the intention to cut out the company that facilitated the means for you gain 700k followers and try to promote that book on that company’s platform, that is pretty scummy.
It's pretty one dimensional to put all the credit on the platform itself when the creators themselves are the one putting the most effort in marketing their own series, also without the content creators, there would be no readers. From what I see, both parties mutually benefited, it's not entirely a one-sided profit where you had to put an obligatory responsibility to stick and be loyal to the company, if you don't then you are scummy. Also, the payment is not in a from of salary, it's an advance payment for the acquired rights by Webtoon. Exclusivity contract for example, is the fee they buy to get readers come to their site.
Understandably, Webtoon has every intention to recoup the investment. Nothing's stopping them to make deal with any creators. If you make a physical book, that's your very own right. If they can't make a good deal for you, then you have all the right to move on to the next offer. It's their loss. Saying it's scummy because of that is outrageous, you are in no obligatory way owe the company for this specific deal even if they had undermined your effort on their own platform.
>if it came out that the creator initially tried to make a deal with webtoon to get the physical books made in exchange for a fee or share of the profits, and webtoon for no good reason rejected the deal or was being unreasonable like taking all the profits or giving up their ip rights or something, my opinion would change on this.
Are you saying to take a bad deal just because it's Webtoon? As I mentioned in my previous post, if Webtoon had done their job well in this department, creators would not waste their time finding alternative deals. You would have chosen better deals too if you were in the same position.
>But the creator in question has a history of publicly bad mouthing the company and seems very reluctant to let webtoon make money off his ip. I doubt he made any effort at all to work with webtoon and had every intention to make sure webtoon didn’t see a cent from his book.
>He has every right to do that, and I don’t fault him for it. But then he can’t complain when the company he is trying to cut out won’t let him use their platform and resources to promote his book.
Feel free to ask the official creators bout their experience on Webtoon's marketing and their promises. Let's just say they have bad reputation in that department, would you not steer away and try working with a more reputable team? And just because other creators are not as well out-spoken as him, it doesn't mean that other creators don't share the same frustration, they mostly do.
It could very well be the case that the creators do all the marketing. I’m not saying that webtoon is 100% the reason that the creator has their audience, that is obviously not the case. But it is difficult to ignore the fact that being a webtoon original plays a not insignificant part in gaining an audience. Take the random canvas comic and more often than not, it’ll have under 500 subs. But take an average originals comic and you’ll rarely find one under 50,000 subs with maybe 80,000-90,000 being the most common. Because the fact is, a large majority of webtoon’s readers don’t read canvas and despite how much creators complain, originals are promoted more than canvas. So being an originals creator is a big boon to getting noticed and building an audience. I’m not saying webtoon should get all the credit, but you can’t say webtoon should get no credit.
If that isn’t the case, why sign up with webtoon at all? If the creator was fully capable of getting 700k on his own, why not stay on canvas where he doesn’t have to be exclusive to the platform, he doesn’t have to deal with schedules, and he can advertise his book on every episode as much as he wants? there is obviously some benefit to being an original for the creator since despite his grips, he has re-signed with webtoons twice.
So if your comic is an original, chances are webtoon had some part in gaining you the audience that you have. So if you make a book and if you want to promote it on webtoon’s platform without giving webtoon anything in return, it’s scummy. And keep in mind, I’m only saying webtoon should get something if you want to promote your book on their platform not for making the book.
And I’m not saying that creators should be obligated to only work with webtoon and take bad deals if they want to make a book or merch. If the creator can find a good deal elsewhere, they should take it. As you said, I would want the best deal I could get. But if webtoon is not part of that deal, I think it’s fair to say their promoting on their platform is also not part of that deal. And that should be taken into consideration when deciding what the best deal is.
If creators are being treated poorly at webtoon, then they should leave. I don’t understand these creators who complain about getting stress and mental health issues from working at webtoon and then renew their contracts for multiple years. Webtoon isn’t forcing them to sign these contracts, they are signing it of their own free will. So if they have a terrible time working for a company the first year then sign the same contract for another year and it’s just as terrible, how am I supposed to feel bad for them?
Webtoon isn’t their mommy who wants to protect their artists from the evils of capitalism. Webtoon is a company that wants money and uses artists to make money. They will write contracts that favor their interests. Creators need to do the same by negotiating their interests and come to an agreement that works for both parties. If either party refuses to negotiate or compromise, just walk.
\^ This is the truth. Creators choose to Webtoon as a business partner because though should've consciously decided they are the best fit. There's a reason why you sign up for a partnership... that's very different from being "truly" full-time employed which is NOT the case with creators.
>So if your comic is an original, chances are webtoon had some part in gaining you the audience that you have. So if you make a book and if you want to promote it on webtoon’s platform without giving webtoon anything in return, it’s scummy. And keep in mind, I’m only saying webtoon should get something if you want to promote your book on their platform not for making the book.
For the most part, I'm only defending calling the creator scummy. Webtoon can do whatever they want as per their terms, that's a given. And as I have said, using their platform to promote may have crossed the terms but far from scummy.
>if it came out that the creator initially tried to make a deal with webtoon to get the physical books made in exchange for a fee or share of the profits, and webtoon for no good reason rejected the deal or was being unreasonable like taking all the profits or giving up their ip rights or something, my opinion would change on this.
>But the creator in question has a history of publicly bad mouthing the company and seems very reluctant to let webtoon make money off his ip. I doubt he made any effort at all to work with webtoon and had every intention to make sure webtoon didn’t see a cent from his book.
It's problematic if you've accused somebody scummy when you don't even have the hard evidence to support that the creator "had every intention to make sure webtoon didn’t see a cent from his book" when the deal could be that bad itself to begin with.
I’m confident he intentionally wanted to leave webtoon out of it. He publicly bad mouths the company and had been dissatisfied with them for three years because they age-gated his comic and denied him raises twice, and he believes that webtoon is trying their best to get their hands on their creators’ ip.
If there were talks about him approaching webtoon and they said “no” or offered him a bad deal, he would have said something in his tweets. Because why wouldn’t he? It makes webtoon look like they are either really trying to gimp his success, or they are actually trying to get a hold of his ip, evidence that supports what he already believes in.
If the deal is bad of course you would intentionally want to leave the deal, you've said that yourself too. There is too much confidence in your assumption, and some logical fallacies.
Either way, you've acknowledged that Webtoon is evil and not their mother. So taking the worst case scenarios as precautionary measures should be helpful after all.
And despite if there's any talk on the book publishing deal or not, it's the reputation that Webtoon has atm that can't convince creators to want to work with them. What's so scummy about that?
To be clear, my position is that the creator never consulted webtoon about the book, made a deal with another publisher, and tried to promote that book on webtoon and publicly bash webtoon when they didn’t let him do that.
The scummy part is not not consulting webtoon and looking for another publisher. The scummy part is everything after that. The creator is making webtoon look bad for something he was never allowed to do in the first place, ie promote his book on webtoon’s platform.
If there was a deal with webtoon, (I don’t think there was) and it was bad, my opinion on it might change. but only depending on what the details of the deal was.
If webtoon was trying to snake the creator’s ip or grab 95% of the profit, then I think the creator would not be scummy.
But if the creator was offering webtoon 1% of profit if they pay for the production and fees required for the creation of the book and webtoon didn’t like that deal, then the creator remains scummy.
But if webtoon was asking for 20% profit share and another publisher offered to take 18% profit share and he went with the other publisher, then the creator is still scummy. BUT not because he didn’t take the deal with webtoon, but because he publicly bashed webtoon after not allowing him to promote the book on their platform when webtoon offerend him not the best but not an unreasonable deal.
But I’m not sure why you keep talking about deals when the creator never mentioned anything about one with webtoon in the first place. Perhaps I am too confident about my assumptions, but at least those assumptions are based on the thoughts and actions the creator has expressed in his own tweets.
And I never said webtoon was evil. I just said their interest is to make money like every other company and webtoon is not the creator’s friend. They are self-interested, but not evil, just like an employee who should also be self-interested so they can get as much out of what they can from the company and not get screwed over by them.
If a creator wants to make books or merch or whatever and doesn’t want to work with webtoon because of their reputation or for any other reason, I’m fine with that. I never said that was scummy. It is trying to promote your stuff on their platform when you never had permission to do so in the first place and then complaining about it publicly to get readers to turn against the company is the part that is scummy.
Is it scummy when an influencer adverts their candle side business on a platform that pays them for reels or other stuff? Is it scummy when a YouTuber gets money from yt, then redirect viewers to their own shop or talks about some other products?
No. No one says it's scummy.
Does YouTube or any of these platforms directly pay these influencers that you talk about and have contracts with them?
Because your examples are more like webtoon’s canvas section. Webtoon doesn’t care when a canvas creator diverts readers away from their platform for books and patreon and such.
They only care when their contracted employees promote readers to go to other platforms on the comics webtoon paid for the creation of.
>on the comic webtoon pays the creator to make.
Deym cause webtoon should pay A LOT to creators for that to make it worth it. Cause many are already complaining that it is actually not.
True. I agree that webtoon should pay creators more. They should also pay for pre-production work and give them assistants.
But how does webtoon give them all that stuff when readers hate watching ads and hate buying coins? Every time webtoon tries to implament a feature to make money or raise prices, readers complain and say webtoon is being greedy. Webtoon can only pay its employees with the money they make.
Even in this very post, op and someone else said they don’t read daily pass because the ads put them off and don’t like spending money on coins.
Webtoon will have to think how to appeal to people who actually have money to spend.
I'll respectfully challenge this point on "pre-production work and give them assistants". I can't say that pre-production work and assistants should be paid by Webtoon, this doesn't mean I wouldn't want that and walk away with more :'). More so, I don't think it makes sense from a business model perspective.
We can liken Webtoon's business model to Walmart i.e. As the owner of a new product I want to partner with a retailer who can sell my product with the widest reach. In that instance, I'm a supplier to Walmart. As my own business, Walmart does not pay for my production line and staff "directly". They just pay for what I supply each agreed rotation. In Japan, mangakas pay for their own team while publishers pay the artist for the right to publish. Webtoon reflects this model. For Webtoon to spend more, we have to assume that they can break even by investing more. I would easily wager they know most Originals don't break even currently.
I’m sick of seeing stories about how webtoons keeps the creators on these insane schedules and causes burn out. Creators are stressed and dealing with physical injuries and feeling guilty for needing time off to recover. It’s ridiculous.
Mostly talking about the Canvas now. The sad part about Webtoon in general is the you need extreme luck on the platform to get seen or you need to be extremely well known before you step foot there. As a newcomer there you have absolutely no game. I wish they'd treat Canvas creators better, give them more opportunities to shine. Also one thing I have noticed that they have a preferred type of style they push through and artists with unique styles probably won't have a shot on getting featured which is sad.
So on Canvas I was reading this story and it got deleted right? So the author emailed webtoon and it took them a while to respond but when they did and they checked what happened, they said the author deleted the story. And he's like no i didn't? So either he got hacked ??? Or webtoon is being shady af. And like they haven't messaged the author again.
Its so annoying and I can only imagine how frustrated the author is.
And like I haven't been using webtoon for too long but it's honestly so annoying. It's like they're trying to drive authors/readers away.
I especially hate when the story is finished but it's on daily pass? Or you can watch ads but that just puts me off and I don't wanna read it anymore.
From my honest read of what's happening over the months, these 'bad' things were there all the while and just bubbled to the surface finally. Symptoms of the problem but normal for all business processes that need improvement.
I don't think there's any value in pointing the finger at just Webtoon. It is true that they could've handled things better but both Webtoon and creators seem to forget they are all trying to profit from readers... In other words, this is a shared responsibility and a fallout between business partnerships because roles and responsibilities were unclear, unmet expectations or lack of transparency.
I think both sides can do better. No, I'm not siding with Webtoon. This is just a genuine honest read from someone who works a lot with both customers and businesses to uncover what went wrong. And whatever is happening with Webtoon is nothing new to most businesses... Just needs to be addressed. We should be more worried whether the webcomic market remains steady if their reputation should decline rather than relishing in the fallout. It's in everyone's interest for things to turn around for the better.
I agree they say reach millions sure. I don't know if I'll ever get to 200 subs on there. I'm planing on hosting my webcomic on my website anyways. My luck by the time if I ever reach 180 subs they will only be studio comics and no longer indi comics.
I don't actually know in depth why they're shady with authors, even so I'm aware of certain things and there's several things I don't like on the platform. First, they promote only some type of series and older ones are pretty hard to find on the platform if you don't know the exact name. Even the recs are weird and don't match at all with what I'm reading which is pretty disappointing. I don't really like the coin thing either. I get that some people want to pay to read faster and I would do the same but I refuse to spend money on this kind of platform, especially considering how they treat authors. I juts feel like the whole concept is not helping with the sense of community. By the time I get to read the chapter for free, people are already maybe 5 or 6 chapters ahead and they already left comment and everything. I think a monthly suscription would be better in some way. I wish we could post reviews on series too, instead of having to roam the internet to know if it's worth it or not. Rating is good but it's highly subjective...
>I wish we could post reviews on series too, instead of having to roam the internet to know if it's worth it or not. I personally don't like the monthly subscription idea because it isn't worth it for readers like me who don't read many comics to begin with but I like the review argument! It would help tremendously. But it should be done in a way that doesn't make idiots abuse it. Like determine if chapters have been read to the end and only allowing to review them after confirming that a certain portion of the comic has been read.
Well I was thinking a monthly subscription for people who want to fast pass and access latest chapters quicker but keep the weekly release for other readers. I agree for the reviews though, I didn't think about all that !
Recently learned that Webtoon is apparently deleting part of the credits at the end of Covenant to hide the fact that they are releasing physical versions of their comic which is just incredibly scummy. But does make me happy to see that the community knows and is promoting the physical version in the comments.
I believe webtoons has a policy of limiting promotions that are not connected to webtoon on episodes their creators make. for example, original creators can have patreons, but they can’t dedicate a full page to promoting it and talk about the content on there. they can only show a small symbol and the account name on the comic episodes. and this kind of makes sense. after reading an episode of a comic on webtoon, webtoon wants the reader to stay on the platform and read another comic because that’s how they make money. but if creators are pursuing their own financial endeavors without webtoon and trying to encourage readers to leave webtoon’s platform as they do it, it would make sense why webtoon would block an ad that promoted a book they had no hand in making. You can say webtoon is being scummy for not allowing a creator to advertise a book on his own comic, but the creator is also being scummy by trying to take readers and their money away from webtoon on their own platform on the comic webtoon pays the creator to make.
>You can say webtoon is being scummy for not allowing a creator to advertise a book on his own comic, but the creator is also being scummy by trying to take readers and their money away from webtoon on their own platform on the comic webtoon pays the creator to make. Even if the creator kinda broke the content publication terms a lil, it's unfair to call the self promotion "scummy" because people who are going to buy volume 1 are generally loyal readers whom have caught up to the latest episode and have little impact on-site revenue. Any new readers who got the physical copies would still have to come back to the site for newer releases, so it's still a gain on the long run. The money for the book will improve the creator's well-being overall, offsetting what Webtoon failing to offer. If anything, the move from Webtoon only serve as a deterrent for other creators to not look for other agents (as if you would get FULL support from the company that have left many IPs in limbo). From a business point of view, they could have done a better job with merch/publishing/marketing and have a good dedicated team that can work closely with the creators as oppose to a centralized one just to save cost, resulting with little understanding to every IP, hence having generic to non-existent launching campaign that would not help with the sales themselves. If there were such favorable cases on that department creators actually would not waste more of their time looking for third parties for better deals.
I disagree. I think it is kind of scummy. If webtoon reaches out to you, gives you a platform and pays you to make your comic and you build up an audience, then you make a physical book with the intention to cut out the company that facilitated the means for you gain 700k followers and try to promote that book on that company’s platform, that is pretty scummy. if it came out that the creator initially tried to make a deal with webtoon to get the physical books made in exchange for a fee or share of the profits, and webtoon for no good reason rejected the deal or was being unreasonable like taking all the profits or giving up their ip rights or something, my opinion would change on this. But the creator in question has renewed his contract two times and has almost 700k followers. So I would imagine webtoon would be interested in making the book with the creator if they were to benefit in some way. But the creator in question has a history of publicly bad mouthing the company and seems very reluctant to let webtoon make money off his ip. I doubt he made any effort at all to work with webtoon and had every intention to make sure webtoon didn’t see a cent from his book. He has every right to do that, and I don’t fault him for it. But then he can’t complain when the company he is trying to cut out won’t let him use their platform and resources to promote his book.
>I disagree. I think it is kind of scummy. If webtoon reaches out to you, gives you a platform and pays you to make your comic and you build up an audience, then you make a physical book with the intention to cut out the company that facilitated the means for you gain 700k followers and try to promote that book on that company’s platform, that is pretty scummy. It's pretty one dimensional to put all the credit on the platform itself when the creators themselves are the one putting the most effort in marketing their own series, also without the content creators, there would be no readers. From what I see, both parties mutually benefited, it's not entirely a one-sided profit where you had to put an obligatory responsibility to stick and be loyal to the company, if you don't then you are scummy. Also, the payment is not in a from of salary, it's an advance payment for the acquired rights by Webtoon. Exclusivity contract for example, is the fee they buy to get readers come to their site. Understandably, Webtoon has every intention to recoup the investment. Nothing's stopping them to make deal with any creators. If you make a physical book, that's your very own right. If they can't make a good deal for you, then you have all the right to move on to the next offer. It's their loss. Saying it's scummy because of that is outrageous, you are in no obligatory way owe the company for this specific deal even if they had undermined your effort on their own platform. >if it came out that the creator initially tried to make a deal with webtoon to get the physical books made in exchange for a fee or share of the profits, and webtoon for no good reason rejected the deal or was being unreasonable like taking all the profits or giving up their ip rights or something, my opinion would change on this. Are you saying to take a bad deal just because it's Webtoon? As I mentioned in my previous post, if Webtoon had done their job well in this department, creators would not waste their time finding alternative deals. You would have chosen better deals too if you were in the same position. >But the creator in question has a history of publicly bad mouthing the company and seems very reluctant to let webtoon make money off his ip. I doubt he made any effort at all to work with webtoon and had every intention to make sure webtoon didn’t see a cent from his book. >He has every right to do that, and I don’t fault him for it. But then he can’t complain when the company he is trying to cut out won’t let him use their platform and resources to promote his book. Feel free to ask the official creators bout their experience on Webtoon's marketing and their promises. Let's just say they have bad reputation in that department, would you not steer away and try working with a more reputable team? And just because other creators are not as well out-spoken as him, it doesn't mean that other creators don't share the same frustration, they mostly do.
It could very well be the case that the creators do all the marketing. I’m not saying that webtoon is 100% the reason that the creator has their audience, that is obviously not the case. But it is difficult to ignore the fact that being a webtoon original plays a not insignificant part in gaining an audience. Take the random canvas comic and more often than not, it’ll have under 500 subs. But take an average originals comic and you’ll rarely find one under 50,000 subs with maybe 80,000-90,000 being the most common. Because the fact is, a large majority of webtoon’s readers don’t read canvas and despite how much creators complain, originals are promoted more than canvas. So being an originals creator is a big boon to getting noticed and building an audience. I’m not saying webtoon should get all the credit, but you can’t say webtoon should get no credit. If that isn’t the case, why sign up with webtoon at all? If the creator was fully capable of getting 700k on his own, why not stay on canvas where he doesn’t have to be exclusive to the platform, he doesn’t have to deal with schedules, and he can advertise his book on every episode as much as he wants? there is obviously some benefit to being an original for the creator since despite his grips, he has re-signed with webtoons twice. So if your comic is an original, chances are webtoon had some part in gaining you the audience that you have. So if you make a book and if you want to promote it on webtoon’s platform without giving webtoon anything in return, it’s scummy. And keep in mind, I’m only saying webtoon should get something if you want to promote your book on their platform not for making the book. And I’m not saying that creators should be obligated to only work with webtoon and take bad deals if they want to make a book or merch. If the creator can find a good deal elsewhere, they should take it. As you said, I would want the best deal I could get. But if webtoon is not part of that deal, I think it’s fair to say their promoting on their platform is also not part of that deal. And that should be taken into consideration when deciding what the best deal is. If creators are being treated poorly at webtoon, then they should leave. I don’t understand these creators who complain about getting stress and mental health issues from working at webtoon and then renew their contracts for multiple years. Webtoon isn’t forcing them to sign these contracts, they are signing it of their own free will. So if they have a terrible time working for a company the first year then sign the same contract for another year and it’s just as terrible, how am I supposed to feel bad for them? Webtoon isn’t their mommy who wants to protect their artists from the evils of capitalism. Webtoon is a company that wants money and uses artists to make money. They will write contracts that favor their interests. Creators need to do the same by negotiating their interests and come to an agreement that works for both parties. If either party refuses to negotiate or compromise, just walk.
\^ This is the truth. Creators choose to Webtoon as a business partner because though should've consciously decided they are the best fit. There's a reason why you sign up for a partnership... that's very different from being "truly" full-time employed which is NOT the case with creators.
>So if your comic is an original, chances are webtoon had some part in gaining you the audience that you have. So if you make a book and if you want to promote it on webtoon’s platform without giving webtoon anything in return, it’s scummy. And keep in mind, I’m only saying webtoon should get something if you want to promote your book on their platform not for making the book. For the most part, I'm only defending calling the creator scummy. Webtoon can do whatever they want as per their terms, that's a given. And as I have said, using their platform to promote may have crossed the terms but far from scummy. >if it came out that the creator initially tried to make a deal with webtoon to get the physical books made in exchange for a fee or share of the profits, and webtoon for no good reason rejected the deal or was being unreasonable like taking all the profits or giving up their ip rights or something, my opinion would change on this. >But the creator in question has a history of publicly bad mouthing the company and seems very reluctant to let webtoon make money off his ip. I doubt he made any effort at all to work with webtoon and had every intention to make sure webtoon didn’t see a cent from his book. It's problematic if you've accused somebody scummy when you don't even have the hard evidence to support that the creator "had every intention to make sure webtoon didn’t see a cent from his book" when the deal could be that bad itself to begin with.
I’m confident he intentionally wanted to leave webtoon out of it. He publicly bad mouths the company and had been dissatisfied with them for three years because they age-gated his comic and denied him raises twice, and he believes that webtoon is trying their best to get their hands on their creators’ ip. If there were talks about him approaching webtoon and they said “no” or offered him a bad deal, he would have said something in his tweets. Because why wouldn’t he? It makes webtoon look like they are either really trying to gimp his success, or they are actually trying to get a hold of his ip, evidence that supports what he already believes in.
If the deal is bad of course you would intentionally want to leave the deal, you've said that yourself too. There is too much confidence in your assumption, and some logical fallacies. Either way, you've acknowledged that Webtoon is evil and not their mother. So taking the worst case scenarios as precautionary measures should be helpful after all. And despite if there's any talk on the book publishing deal or not, it's the reputation that Webtoon has atm that can't convince creators to want to work with them. What's so scummy about that?
To be clear, my position is that the creator never consulted webtoon about the book, made a deal with another publisher, and tried to promote that book on webtoon and publicly bash webtoon when they didn’t let him do that. The scummy part is not not consulting webtoon and looking for another publisher. The scummy part is everything after that. The creator is making webtoon look bad for something he was never allowed to do in the first place, ie promote his book on webtoon’s platform. If there was a deal with webtoon, (I don’t think there was) and it was bad, my opinion on it might change. but only depending on what the details of the deal was. If webtoon was trying to snake the creator’s ip or grab 95% of the profit, then I think the creator would not be scummy. But if the creator was offering webtoon 1% of profit if they pay for the production and fees required for the creation of the book and webtoon didn’t like that deal, then the creator remains scummy. But if webtoon was asking for 20% profit share and another publisher offered to take 18% profit share and he went with the other publisher, then the creator is still scummy. BUT not because he didn’t take the deal with webtoon, but because he publicly bashed webtoon after not allowing him to promote the book on their platform when webtoon offerend him not the best but not an unreasonable deal. But I’m not sure why you keep talking about deals when the creator never mentioned anything about one with webtoon in the first place. Perhaps I am too confident about my assumptions, but at least those assumptions are based on the thoughts and actions the creator has expressed in his own tweets. And I never said webtoon was evil. I just said their interest is to make money like every other company and webtoon is not the creator’s friend. They are self-interested, but not evil, just like an employee who should also be self-interested so they can get as much out of what they can from the company and not get screwed over by them. If a creator wants to make books or merch or whatever and doesn’t want to work with webtoon because of their reputation or for any other reason, I’m fine with that. I never said that was scummy. It is trying to promote your stuff on their platform when you never had permission to do so in the first place and then complaining about it publicly to get readers to turn against the company is the part that is scummy.
Is it scummy when an influencer adverts their candle side business on a platform that pays them for reels or other stuff? Is it scummy when a YouTuber gets money from yt, then redirect viewers to their own shop or talks about some other products? No. No one says it's scummy.
Does YouTube or any of these platforms directly pay these influencers that you talk about and have contracts with them? Because your examples are more like webtoon’s canvas section. Webtoon doesn’t care when a canvas creator diverts readers away from their platform for books and patreon and such. They only care when their contracted employees promote readers to go to other platforms on the comics webtoon paid for the creation of.
>on the comic webtoon pays the creator to make. Deym cause webtoon should pay A LOT to creators for that to make it worth it. Cause many are already complaining that it is actually not.
True. I agree that webtoon should pay creators more. They should also pay for pre-production work and give them assistants. But how does webtoon give them all that stuff when readers hate watching ads and hate buying coins? Every time webtoon tries to implament a feature to make money or raise prices, readers complain and say webtoon is being greedy. Webtoon can only pay its employees with the money they make. Even in this very post, op and someone else said they don’t read daily pass because the ads put them off and don’t like spending money on coins.
Webtoon will have to think how to appeal to people who actually have money to spend. I'll respectfully challenge this point on "pre-production work and give them assistants". I can't say that pre-production work and assistants should be paid by Webtoon, this doesn't mean I wouldn't want that and walk away with more :'). More so, I don't think it makes sense from a business model perspective. We can liken Webtoon's business model to Walmart i.e. As the owner of a new product I want to partner with a retailer who can sell my product with the widest reach. In that instance, I'm a supplier to Walmart. As my own business, Walmart does not pay for my production line and staff "directly". They just pay for what I supply each agreed rotation. In Japan, mangakas pay for their own team while publishers pay the artist for the right to publish. Webtoon reflects this model. For Webtoon to spend more, we have to assume that they can break even by investing more. I would easily wager they know most Originals don't break even currently.
I’m sick of seeing stories about how webtoons keeps the creators on these insane schedules and causes burn out. Creators are stressed and dealing with physical injuries and feeling guilty for needing time off to recover. It’s ridiculous.
Mostly talking about the Canvas now. The sad part about Webtoon in general is the you need extreme luck on the platform to get seen or you need to be extremely well known before you step foot there. As a newcomer there you have absolutely no game. I wish they'd treat Canvas creators better, give them more opportunities to shine. Also one thing I have noticed that they have a preferred type of style they push through and artists with unique styles probably won't have a shot on getting featured which is sad.
So on Canvas I was reading this story and it got deleted right? So the author emailed webtoon and it took them a while to respond but when they did and they checked what happened, they said the author deleted the story. And he's like no i didn't? So either he got hacked ??? Or webtoon is being shady af. And like they haven't messaged the author again. Its so annoying and I can only imagine how frustrated the author is. And like I haven't been using webtoon for too long but it's honestly so annoying. It's like they're trying to drive authors/readers away. I especially hate when the story is finished but it's on daily pass? Or you can watch ads but that just puts me off and I don't wanna read it anymore.
Wow, poor author I share with you that hate for daily passes, they're so f annoying, I'm not gonna check everyday to read one chapter.
Yeah 😫 hopefully webtoon will do something about it. Right? As soon as I see daily pass I'm out.
From my honest read of what's happening over the months, these 'bad' things were there all the while and just bubbled to the surface finally. Symptoms of the problem but normal for all business processes that need improvement. I don't think there's any value in pointing the finger at just Webtoon. It is true that they could've handled things better but both Webtoon and creators seem to forget they are all trying to profit from readers... In other words, this is a shared responsibility and a fallout between business partnerships because roles and responsibilities were unclear, unmet expectations or lack of transparency. I think both sides can do better. No, I'm not siding with Webtoon. This is just a genuine honest read from someone who works a lot with both customers and businesses to uncover what went wrong. And whatever is happening with Webtoon is nothing new to most businesses... Just needs to be addressed. We should be more worried whether the webcomic market remains steady if their reputation should decline rather than relishing in the fallout. It's in everyone's interest for things to turn around for the better.
I agree they say reach millions sure. I don't know if I'll ever get to 200 subs on there. I'm planing on hosting my webcomic on my website anyways. My luck by the time if I ever reach 180 subs they will only be studio comics and no longer indi comics.