Reposting my comment on this comic in case you don’t go back to read the comments.

Ok, I’ve thought about this for a couple of days and hope this comes across as honest, constructive feedback and not as anything mean-spirited.

I follow quite a few web comics. Some from artsy types who make a living doing their webcomic(s) [and probably other art projects], some from people who have a “real life” and do it because it’s a passion. Your comic is better suited to the “passion” option than the first. You don’t have any “cutesy” characters that can be marketable. Your art work (though improved from the beginning of the comic) doesn’t have the commercial draw as many of the more successful comics (and I know you can draw because of the work you did earlier on the cherry and the dragons). Your story lines haven’t drawn in the audience as well as some of the other comics I follow……and they’ve been inconsistent about direction. On top of all of that, your update schedule took a huge dive back in May (almost six months ago for a comic that has been around about a year). It takes a while for people to “get into” a comic, and just at the point where you could have started drawing in more readers, your update schedule wanes. Some of it was due to work, I understand, but you can’t complain about low readership levels and lack of income (even just ad revenue) when the comic essentially goes on hiatus at a key time.

So, if you want to make money from a webcomic (even if just enough money to pay for hosting and maybe a new Cintiq or something), then you will need to change your approach. For this, I would recommend spending some time looking at the top comic (pick a voting site and look at those) and seeing what makes the top comics better than some of the lower comics. Sure, most of them are geek-topic related, but aside from that (I don’t know how geeky you are, but I’m not saying make another gaming related comic or another D&D comic unless that is something you are very interested in). Look at the characters they’ve created — are they characters that you can fall in love with or characters that you can loath with glee (i.e. Richard in “Looking for Group”)? Is there something about the comic that makes a good T-Shirt (i.e. XKCD)? Is the comic a serial or a joke-a-day type? Take aspects that the top comics exhibit and the lower ranked comics don’t and come up with something unique. Spend a month or two deciding what type of comic you are going to produce and plan out a year’s worth of content (if a serial, make an outline of major plot points; if a joke-a-day, make a list of topics the jokes will center around). During that time, develop your characters (anthropomorphic? human? art style? etc.). Then, spend another month or two building up a buffer of comics. Having a buffer means that this comic is less stressful to produce because you can afford to spend a little extra time on other things when needed. If you find your buffer getting low, you can always plan for a “weekend comic binge” to catch up.

If, however, this is a passion, then do it for the love and only for the love. I read your comic when it was posted. I’ve come here three times a week (MWF) since I found the comic (from a link at another webcomic) back in August or September of last year. Take pride in the fact that you have readers that want to hear your message. Don’t change anything about your comic (unless you want to) and continue doing it. If it isn’t about the money and you don’t have a passion for it, then obviously, don’t do it at all. If you are just “suffering through,” it will show and you won’t get any pride from what you produce and might even resent “having” to do it.