Q. I have a webcomic that gets around 1500 pageviews a day. I’d thought of that as a small number, but I work in an online marketing company, and my boss and co-workers were telling me that I should be thinking of monetization. I’m not sure if I want to be focusing on that yet (I’ve been reading a lot of the articles here on writing and sitcom structure, and improving the actual comic is my short-term goal), but I’m wondering if this is something I should be thinking about in the medium term.

My Stats

• I update twice a week, and the comic’s been running for over a year, with 82 pages currently (there was a period of one page a week while we worked on a big animation update)
• I get 7-8k pageviews a week, with 1500+ on update days (lousy Sundays…). Per Google Analytics, I’m getting ~1400 users per week, fairly consistently over the last month. ~85% of them are repeat users.
• I’m making $45/mo off of 12 patrons on Patreon.
• I have a webcomics review tumblr blog with 760 followers, which I use to drive traffic to the comic
• My Facebook page also has 720 likes. However, unlike the Tumblr blog which built a following over several years, I advertised the Facebook page a lot.
• On the advice of my marketing coach, I’ve added Amazon Affiliate Links. I have no idea if they’ll amount to anything.

My gut feeling is that I’m way too small still to be thinking of “the moitch”, but I’m curious what your experiences are. At what point should I start looking into the logistics of selling T-shirts? 5000 pageviews? 50k? Will I just kind of “know”?

A: So, here’s the thing. Take those pageview stats and Facebook Likes and throw them out the window.

And if you paid for Facebook advertising, you need to read this.

There’s no such thing as a Magic Number that you attain in readership that spells out the perfect time to monetize.

But I do have a “Magic” Formula for you…

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