[seanalltogether]

The answer to no more ads is you can't be independent. You have to have service aggregation.

The fundamental problem is that you can't grow an audience all your content is behind a paywall. So you have to offer some content for free, but if you're an independent comic artist like smbc, no one is going to visit your site if only 1 comic per week is free.

But if a lot of creators are behind a single paywall, and that paywall was able to feature 10 random free webcomics every day, then you pull in lots of visitors and have more opportunity to convert them into paying customers.

Now the harder question, how do you convince a bunch of independent content creators to band together behind a single paywall.

[hakfoo]

I think in a way, we already sort of have precedent for this, in the comics sector.

The Japanese-style "phone book sized" manga weeklies/monthlies are the manifestation of this idea. Technically it's not a "free" teaser, but if you buy the issue for one or two "known" series you want to try, the rest is shoveled into your hand for free.

It also provides a good stickiness factor-- if you originally bought the magazine for one or two series, hopefully you've glommed onto others by the time those end or you lose interest in them.

[throwanem]

Nebula did it.

[TRiG_Ireland]

Nebula is mostly video, but also hosts a bunch of podcasts. I wonder whether they could be persuaded to expand their range of offerings to other media.