(http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w37/Quikthnkr/GUNBABY/Webcomics%20Community/webcomicstwopointologo.jpg)
Almost all of us do it. I literally just did it. (http://remedy.remedialcomics.com/) For whatever reason our comic doesn't update on time. We go to our blog, our Twitter, our forum or comments section and we make excuses.
Some people will take issue with this. Some folks are more comfortable saying that they are explaining the "reasons" for the delay or hiatus or whatever to their readers. But that's just mincing words. To me, a reason is a detailed explanation for the occurrence or absence of an event devoid of any emotional context. A reason is an explanation of why something is. Nothing more, nothing less.
The moment you interject a request for understanding or empathy, commiseration or forgiveness your reason has become an excuse.
And there can be no doubt that when we fail to update on time, we break that promise to our readers, we want them to understand. We want them to feel sorry for us because our computer broke or our dog died. We want them to forgive us for breaking our promise and understand that it isn't really our fault; the server in Maryland crashed and our hosting service isn't answering the phone or e-mails. We want their empathy because we are sick and feeling too bad to draw, write or otherwise update the site.
But the vast majority of readers don't care.
Stop and think about it for a moment. You go to one of your favorite webcomic sites. Because while all of us are creators I assume most of us are also readers. And the site is down. Or it hasn't been updated for a week. Or the images are broken. So maybe you scroll down to the blog or comments and there you see it.
The excuse.
My car broke down and I need money so I'm concentrating on commissions. My sister's, boyfriends, uncle died and left him a big inheritance but we all had to spend the night in a haunted mansion and now I'm cursed. And so on.
Did you care?
I know there are some readers who commiserate. And those are great readers. "You take care of your business dude. We'll be here when the insurance company rebuilds your burned down house, you are no longer in rehab, have been raised from the dead, whatever." Chances are they are your biggest supporters. But have you ever seen more than handful of those comments? Even on the biggest of comics; I haven't.
My comic was lucky enough to be promoted by doing a guest comic on a much larger site. The traffic was a server melting 90k unique users in three days. We managed to retain enough of those readers that for the next month or so we were averaging between 5-8 thousand uniques a day. Then things started falling apart.
My artist had "issues." Our buffer was quickly depleted and updates became haphazard and soon I had to put the whole site on hiatus.
And yes, I did get a few of those comments. Those wonderful, supportive, almost make you feel worse because it reminds you you are letting down people who care, comments. They told me they would be here when things got going again.
And in the space of three weeks into my hiatus the traffic was down to less than 50 people a day.
Now, I was continuing to blog. And I occasionally added reviews and news items to the site. I even started another comic made entirely by me (http://bwbd.remedialcomics.com/) (an affront to humanity if there ever was one). But I never approached anything resembling respectable numbers again. The damage was done. The covenant broken and until I was ready to update regularly with that compelling content, and prove to anyone coming to the site that we can earn that trust back, it was pretty obvious to me that I wasn't going to get anywhere.
Readers are some of the most unforgiving bosses there are. If you abuse their trust and constantly make excuses they will simply not patronize your site.
But it is a catch 22. You can't simply not update and pretend that nothing happened. You have to say something. But I honestly don't believe that what you say matters very much. It is what it is; simply one of the worst things that can happen to a webcomic. And the only thing I think you can do is try and mitigate it by not spreading blame, not whining, explaining the issue concisely (or perhaps humorously) and assuring the readers that it is a temporary condition that will be resolved quickly.
Unless it isn't.
I know of several webcomics who have done just this. Explained the hiatus with hints of exciting projects to come and promises of long stretches of uninterrupted updates only to come back with more and more excuses.
One of my favorite blogs was where a creator, after months of haphazard updates defiantly announced he (or she, not looking to out anyone) wasn't going to make any more excuses and was just going to say that the comic will be done when it's done. And then proceeded to tease about exciting upcoming projects that would blow my mind.
My personal feeling is that one of the worst things you can do is jerk your readers around. I'm guilty of it myself but I feel like I've gained some perspective on the issue. If I ever find myself in a situation where I'm going to break a promise to a reader by not updating or worse, not updating for a long period of time, sure I'm going to tell them why. But if you're life has gotten complicated and it's looking like you will have sporadic updates for the future it's best to just explain the situation and pull the plug until you get your proverbial shit together.
Readers can develop an active dislike for creators who treat them this way. I recently had to have a little talk with myself regarding a creator I'm going to see soon at a convention. I've been going to his/her site for years and the update schedule has always been sketchy but lately it's been total crap. Not only have I seriously considered removing the comic from my bookmarks but as each visit to the site results in no new content (except for new excuses), week after week, month after month, I've found myself to be actually angry with this creator over my wasted time. Hope turns to bitter ash I suppose. And I needed to remind myself that being snarky with that creator when I see him/her isn't going to get me an update. Might make me an enemy. So I need to squash it. But the sentiment remains.
I should say that this is my perspective as a reader. As a creator I understand life gets in the way. And so I'm here to tell you that as creators I think we should all endeavor to handle these situations better. Most of us will never be as prolific and stable as Howard Taylor. (http://www.fleen.com/archives/2010/06/03/obligatory-observation-about-thursdays/) Things do happen. But I think we need to take ownership of them. Do a little less whining and be straight with our readers. If what we tell them when the bad things happen is what actually comes to pass, maybe we'll be able to preserve a little bit of that trust lost when we break our promise to update. That's me theory anyway.