This is a long post. I've broken it into smaller chunks to make it easier to get through so it's less of a wall of text. Naturally, I don't have all of the answers, and I'm open to having my perspective on this changed, so I encourage you to add to the discussion.
MY EXPERIENCE (burnout)
Recently I've had some changes in thought regarding update schedules and their actual use to webcomicers. When I first started out I, like a lot of other people, took all of the typical advice regarding posting on a consistent schedule (ideally twice a week), having a backlog, working in batches, and only resorting to "breaks" at the end of chapters. For awhile, these tactics worked well for me, but eventually the backlog ran out, the breaks turned into hiatuses, and the stress started to eat away at my work.
Compare this page from the peak of my burnout, to my most recent page, to an old page that I made before I ever started posting. The page from peak burnout is in my opinion, the worst page in my entire comic, and the old page is almost 2 years old now. My most recent page, while not my favorite page in the entire comic, at least shows some slight improvements in general quality overall. I strongly believe that this improvement was due to me giving myself time to actually rest and recover from burnout. And the wild thing is, that most recent page took LESS time to complete than the peak burnout page.
My update schedule wasn't even that intense compared to other folks (2 pages a week, every other week), but because of that schedule, making my comic, and drawing in general, began to feel like a chore. Since I abolished my update schedule I've started to actually look forward to getting to draw again.
My Concern
Why am I bringing this up? Well its because I'm concerned that the standard advice about update schedules that the webcomic community has been giving to newcomers is harmful to their well-being as creators. This is doubly true for people who are young or are new to learning art in general. My burnout was most likely postponed by supportive readers and stats that usually improved each update, and the main reasons I have those two things is because I started out with a fairly well defined art style that came from years of practice. Both are luxuries that newbies don't have, and burnout for a newbie can lead to them completely abandoning their creative pursuits (something much less likely for someone who's already spent years of effort working on their craft).
My point is - something needs to change.
Deconstructing strict schedules.
So... lets look at the reasons people are typically encouraged to use a strict update schedule, and see if we can come up with effective alternatives that lead to less burnout.
- Sticking to a consistent update schedule helps you build trust with your audience, and each update helps you grow a bit more.
While this is true, I think there are better ways to go about achieving each effect. In my case, early on I built trust with my audience by first launching a minicomic. This quickly established that I could be trusted to finish my projects, and that I knew how to make something reasonably enjoyable. Many of the people who read my minicomic were excited to see what I had in store next. When I launched the cover page announcement for my main comic, people quickly subscribed even though there weren't any pages released yet for the new project. I had also been pretty active here in the forums before I started posting anything, which further helped establish my credibility.
As for the other aspect of growing your audience - I haven't seen any significant drop in the ammount of growth after coming back from my scheduled break, or now on my soft hiatus. That said, naturally my audience has grown less than if I had posted consistently through those breaks. I think this aspect is more of an issue of how quickly you wan't your audience to grow. Posting more frequently leads to faster growth, but posting less frequently doesn't necessarily mean a decline in readership. (that is if you still post on a regular-ish basis.)
In addition to this, I think using an update schedule BECAUSE it helps you grow your audience is maybe a bit flawed? That said, I understand how important those numbers are to people, especially when those numbers are directly related to your income. However, I think for newbies this emphasis on audience growth has the potential to distract them from their journey of self improvement and creative expression.
- Posting on a schedule helps you maintain momentum on your project, and keeps you from turning into an unproductive perfectionist.
I think that these are both very valid points. However, the same can be achieved by keeping a consistent work schedule and limiting how long you work on a page. Doing this makes it so you continue to make progress on your story, but without the deadline rushing your work and stressing you out. By keeping a consistent work schedule, you may even find yourself posting more regularly than if you had used a update schedule. And you don't run into those moments where "I have a page due tomorrow and I haven't even started it so I guess i'm not sleeping tonight".
- Update schedules help keep your audience engaged.
As someone who has a pretty slow paced comic this is probably the most important reason for me to use an update schedule. Even with faster paced comics having to read a page a week can really kill the mood. However, I believe that the strict update schedules effects on pacing incentive's creators to upload more frequently than they're able to realistically keep up, which may lead to rushed pages, which ultimately hurts the finished product. People who are caught up on your comic, in the grand scheme of things, represent a minority of your readers, so catering to their sense of pacing may ruin the experience for everyone else. That said, those caught up readers are the ones who are going to drive the growth of your audience, so they can't be completely neglected.
I don't think there's an easy solution to this problem, and whatever that solution is will vary for every creator and every series. In my case, there are two approaches that I'm going to try.
ALTERNATIVE UPDATE STRATEGIES
The first is inspired by Homestucks update schedule - which is to say, there was none. But Hussie (the creator of homestuck), would still build up buffers and release pages in big bursts of updates as was necessary for the pacing of the story. So one week might have multiple updates every day, and then the next might have one big impact moment. This fluid posting "schedule" also drove fans to constantly refreshing the website, which no doubt lead to lots of ad revenue, but also probably wasn't a great way to respect their readers time. I think this problem could be alleviated by tapas's scheduling system, which shows your readers when your next update will be posted.
The second is inspired by traditional comics and zines - which is to say you build up a lot of pages over the course of a month or a quarter, and then release them all at once (or in a burst of updates.) For example, say you update every other month, and in your off-month you make 16 pages. You could then upload those 16 pages at a rate of 3 times a week during your on-month. Compare this to uploading 8 pages every month at a rate of twice a week. Or, you could build up a backlog of 30 pages, and then once you reach that mark you post them daily over a whole month, and then build back up for the next dump. This method leads to much smoother pacing than a "once a week" upload schedule, but also helps you reduce the stress of deadlines which leads to rushed pages.
These alternative posting strategies also help with one other big issue that comes from a strict update schedule:
Post anxiety
I don't know about you, but I tend to lose entire days to obsessing over my stats after I post. One way that I tried to avoid this was by posting on days that I was busy with work or school. But, then your days off are consumed by post anxiety instead, and you're less able to interact with your readers comments. Other people post before they go to bed or while they should be asleep, in my case this just kept me from sleeping. Eventually you can grow numb to your stats, and I reached this nirvana for a time, but eventually the anxiety crept back to me. Using one of the alternative posting strategies that I talked about above can hopefully compress your update days together, which may help you reach that "nirvana" state sooner, but if that doesn't happen you still get enough time in between posts so that you can be a productive human being when you're not posting.
END
Hopefully this post helps you reconsider how your own update schedule is affecting your work and mental health. Even if the potential solutions I outlined above don't work for you you'll be able to come up with something that will. As I said at the start of the post, I don't have all of the answers, and the answers I do have might not work for you. I encourage you to share your experience as well, and hopefully we can all learn healthier ways to pursue our passions.