25 subs in less than 5 days - Share your experience!

[Panpan]

For novels with first time writers, that's good! Don't be discouraged when seeing a new novel get a thousand subs in a few days (unless heavily marketed by Tapas on release day, those are by already-popular authors). When I started my BL story back in late July, I was super happy to get 100 in 30 days (it's more now). Since my novel is new, I'm updating when I can which is a couple times a week to keep it fresh and trending. Overtime, I'll probably reduce that to once a week. Right now, I engage with my commenters and check often where my novel falls in the rank.

Tapas has a help page somewhere, but it said when they feature novels, they look for: uploading consistancy, writing quality, and content (i.e. is mature stuff labeled as mature; is there a plot).

BL is a very popular genre on this platform. As long as you're serious about the quality, don't worry too much about getting lost in the countless works.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Just FYI, 25 subscriber for less than a week is an exception not a norm. For most, it can take a month or more. Do not take it for granted, many people has not reached that number yet so consider you are lucky​️

Also a dive or plateau will inevitably happen especially with longer and inconsistent updating time, some months are also less active than others because of school/workload your audience have.

The "How long" questions is a bit tricky to answer. Variability is high and there are many factors. To exemplify for most of us we need more than 5 days to get into 25 subs, but you don't. Plus, no timestamp is a guarantee for you to reach a certain goal.
Some would simply say you might get to 100 in one month or less judging by update, genre appeal, and initial number; but things happen (maybe something interferes in real life, etc.). What if you don't and you got yourself bummed because it is not what promised? Do not set up an expectation in that way.

Also you update up to 35 chapters a day. If you already have a buffer I could say you can maintain consistent update for the rest of the story, and preferably not that much. Once or twice at max a day, but everyday is more ideal

[MoseyP]

I can vouch for that. I'm at 25 subscribers for my novel now and it took me roughly a month. So yeah, you're definitely lucky!

You may need to pace your chapter release rate out, or else you may experience a dive in numbers once you run out of new material.

[foxnflames]

I wasn’t on the forums in the first few weeks I uploaded and my update schedule was sporadic. When I for in the forums I got to 25 relatively quickly then it took maybe 2 weeks for me to get to 50 after that. 4 days later I got to 100 then I think 3 days later I got to 150. My subs how slowed down now and I’m still soooooo close to 175. Frequent updates helps increase your visibility and I interest as much as possible here and under people’s stories.

Congrats on your first milestone!

[KJBatson]

ten Subs in three days. 9 of which are family.

[JoshRaid]

I still don't have 25. How did you do it?

[Wocalich]

I interacted with the forums a lot, promoted my work whenever I could.

[JoshRaid]

I was doing that too but it didn't work nearly as effectively. I did start to gain subscribers though.

[LucyPanDora]

Thanks, everyone, for sharing your own experiences!

Yeah, the subs did drop with the decrease in the number of episodes released. Like someone already mentioned, there is no use going above one or two episodes/chapters per day.

I wish I knew that before I dumped my whole 60+ chapters here within three days Could have spaced out releases more effectively ＞︿＜

Does anyone know how long the new works need to wait to be considered for Tapas weekly promotion?

[darthmongoose]

I think the minimum for a feature is about 10 episodes or so. There aren't hard and fast rules though. There's no time gate. I've seen really new stuff get featured before.
It's really just a matter of whether your work catches the Staff's eye and they think it's good and polished enough for the front page.