The payments to English-language comics producers have now been made public by Webtoon, the well-known mobile online comics site owned by Korean internet giant Naver. The results are shocking in a field known for its generosity to authors and artists. Although Manhua and Webtoon are the two powerhouses of the Asian comic industry, the webtoon has a wider international audience. Payments to English-language authors have reportedly exceeded $27 million since 2020, or more than $1 million per month on average, according to Webtoon. This marks an increase of almost 75% since the company’s Creator monetization scheme was introduced in the US in 2019.
According to Webtoon’s recently revealed data, which shows that the company’s app now has more than 82 million monthly active users worldwide (15 million in the US), these figures are consistent with the company’s rapid development over the past several years. Manhua has more than 300 million monthy users in China.
Users who subscribe to a creator’s serial stories pay them money. For a nominal monthly price, subscribers get exclusive first access to new episodes. Website highlights like Vidya Olympus Billions of subscribers and countless billions of views for Rachel Smith. The top-grossing creator generated more than $9 million in Webtoon’s home country of South Korea, where the market for this kind of material and business model is more developed.
CEO of Webtoon America, Ken Kim, said that some of the most gifted, imaginative, and compelling cartoonists in the history of comics had created webtoons. And he added that their technology platform for storytelling helped all kinds of creators, enabling them to reach a worldwide audience and profit from their work. They were fortunate to have a developing creator economy and ecosystem at a time when comics were more popular than ever. They were quite proud of what they had produced to honor and encourage Webtoon creators.
With a vast tail of material that generates substantially less, there is a power curve where some of the top features receive the most income, views, and subscribers. However, according to Webtoon Global CEO Jungku Kim, even on average, some South Korean manufacturers were earning six figures ($USD) employing the same strategy that the business does in the US.
In addition, the firm offers additional methods for creators to monetize their work through partnerships with publishers and licensors, TV, book, and film collaborations through Wattpad Webtoon Studios.
Another way the new mobile digital comics space allows creators to make a living and perform their work outside of traditional publishing gatekeepers is through the company’s announcement of a new tipping system for creators in its Canvas (user-generated content) ecosystem.
David Lee, VP of Content at Webtoon, said that they had created something truly unique: a platform where every comic book writer could conjure up a fantastical world and profit from their creations at Webtoon.
It should be observed that the denominator is significantly larger than the large creator payment number. According to Webtoon, the company’s global expansion into new markets and media will bring its total gross sales volume to $900 million by 2021.
Webtoon obviously believes that giving creators a share of the growth’s bounty will offer the company a competitive edge when vying for the talent and material that a young generation wants. There is a large demand for sequential art in all media and across all genres, as seen by the US comics market’s growth of more than 60% to more than $2.1 billion last year. Best Webtoons has already overcome the expenses and challenges of conventional distribution with its excellent mobile app and data-driven business practices, and its all-encompassing approach to genre content has introduced new audiences to comics.
