I've noticed this happens a lot with some comics. They'll have mirror comics... on DrunkDuck, on ComicGenesis, on SmackJeeves, Webcomic Nation, Comicspace, on their own domains, on Comicpress, on blogs, on MySpace, on Livejournal... etc.

Besides the fact that you're holding your comic's name on another site... what's the advantage of this? Is there an advertising advantage to having your comic on more than one site? I'm on ComicGen and already tempted to move to my own domain simply for total control... yet I probably have readers there who wouldn't follow me over to a new domain name. And yet, the idea is interesting. Would mirroring my comic on DrunkDuck add to my readership? The sole advantage, I've found over my few months of comicking now, to free sites is this.

1) It's free.
2) They come complete with a community of comickers and readers.

The disadvantage, of course, including subdomain/no control over advertising.

By posting on the forums, there's one tiny advertising advantage, but couldn't the same be achieved by dropping a signature banner and posting on the other community? Many of us probably already do that, posting on TheWebcomicList, etc. Is there an advertising advantage to mirroring your comic on more than one host? Posting your strip in your LiveJournal/MySpace/Facebook/blog? Wouldn't it work better to post a teaser image and try draw people over to your main site?

Why do people do this? What's the deal? Is it just to try the other host out or is there some advantage here in advertising that "you can read it on DrunkDuck too over here!" on your main site and "main site over here!" and "I'm on Facebook here!"

Is spreading out your readers like that a good thing?

I'm just curious, is this an advertising thing (I certainly see that DrunkDuck has one of the more active communities around and it could serve as an advantage to have a mirror on there for some of the 'self-hosted' comics) or just a 'because I could' thing? What do you guys think? So I guess my ultimate question is: would you mirror your comic somewhere else? Why would you do it? Why wouldn't you?

Just curious, really. Since I joined here, I could easily mirror my comic. I just don't know if there'd be any advantage to doing so. :)

Sorry if this should be in another board... I was looking at it from an advertising stand rather than tips and tricks. :)

Well, I think you know I'm doing a sort of mirror thing here. The reason is simple - there are a lot of people here who pay attention to DrunkDuck community comics first and other comics second. Sure, I'm spreading out readers in a way. The people who read my comic here aren't adding to my numbers on the main 2nd Shift page and, thus, not helping make my ad space more interesting to buyers BUT I'm also getting readers I might not have gotten otherwise, which might be very nice down the road. The same logic applied to MySpace and FaceBook I think (I'm considering branching out there, too).

thoththegrey
Well, I think you know I'm doing a sort of mirror thing here. The reason is simple - there are a lot of people here who pay attention to DrunkDuck community comics first and other comics second. Sure, I'm spreading out readers in a way. The people who read my comic here aren't adding to my numbers on the main 2nd Shift page and, thus, not helping make my ad space more interesting to buyers BUT I'm also getting readers I might not have gotten otherwise, which might be very nice down the road. The same logic applied to MySpace and FaceBook I think (I'm considering branching out there, too).

thoththegrey pretty much summed it up.

Plus, I don't know if everyone else does this, but one thing I do is keep my mirrored sites a little bit behind my main site. So if I'm on page 6 here, my mirrored sites are only at like page 2. It gives people on the mirror site a reason to come here and read more of the story.

Exactly my thought, SplashPage. I'm running 2nd Shift here on Drunk Duck from page 1, though I am running it five days a week. So, while I'll catch up eventually, right now Drunk Duck's mucho behind.

My interest in being here is partly this: I'm planning on doing a 'redux' of chapter one. I'd like to be able to work on this at my own pace, but I'd also like to get critique on it since I'm trying to get it right and there's no real deadline... I'll fix my main archive, SOMEHOW...

However, I've been considering using DrunkDuck to basically mirror what I'll be 'redoing', as a lot of comickers have joined up here, and I'll post the WIPs as pencils and encourage my readers to critique them, so that I can shape them out right. I'm thinking taking it to another site with a better community could help... DrunkDuck is set up to be friendly for commenting, quick and easy...

I'm assuming it's the community that brings people here. To be honest, I read very FEW DrunkDuck comics, I never liked the site layout... but the community is much more active. Would this benefit me, or just serve as a convenient way for me to tell my readers that 'hey, the WIP's over here, please critique it to death, let's make it perfect this time!' (Because my most frequent critique is basically that the beginning sucked.)

Anyway, I do see the advantage of that... if the mirror site is behind, you could hook readers from the 'beginning' all over again--except! There'd be an archive with a few more pages somewhere else. >.>

I use DeviantArt as a sort of mirror advertising thing... I post my best looking pages, or the ones I was happiest with, or the panels I liked best on their own, and put a shameless link in the artist comments. The planet page I did got me some hits. Anyone else doing this?

I've been wondering about these things as well. The answers may help me - I'm gonna wait for more.

In the Smackjeeves and DD mirrors for both my comics, there are many links back to the main sites (which have all the interesting bonus content, and are very worth having as I love total control), but they're not clicked very often. A spread out readership's what I'll most likely have (when I start updating consistently). I don't mind it though, so long as people are reading somewhere... although there is so much more to be had on my main sites. I did it basically because I could, and it's a tad more exposure.

I don't know much about the community here but apparently it's big to get into. :D People are nice, yay~ I'm glad such a place that's quick and easy to get into exists at least, though migrating people between sites does seem to be a bit inconvenient.

I think I'm gonna try the few-pages-behind thing here. I never even thought of that.

PS does it help to have Myspace/Facebook stuff too? :D I was considering it but I'm slightly lazy, but it would be kind of neat. You know, just to secure yet another plot of internet.