Comic authors! Page every week or a Chapter every month?

[Alkareel]

I'm thinking of starting a webtoon for my novel, similar to the art style from its book cover and first episode illustration.
https://tapas.io/episode/1973190

What is your experience on posting a page per episode versus posting a full chapter per month?
Which one do you think would gather the attention of new readers?
Would posting per panel be more advantageous? Seeing as you get more views?

[Puck]

Bunch of panels per week or a certain amount of panels on a fixed day per month.
Imagine your favourite tv series would only upload one scene per week to netflix

[Alkareel]

I mean, like, some authors post their comics one panel at a time and build up a lot of episodes.
Some have very few episodes because theirs are posted a full chapter per episode.
Are there any significant differences, aside from the release date?

[skippyjoeskilling]

I would not do one panel at a time. It may keep your comic on the front page more regularly, but ultimately reading in such small increments will annoy readers, mess up your pacing, and definitely not lend to a good visual flow from panel to panel.
One of my comics updates with one page per week, and the other with one multi-page (usually about 10) chapter per month. So I feel like I can compare and contrast pretty well.
Page-per-week - This is the most common update style, and the one that most readers are used to, and that websites are based around promoting. It also lets you build up a solid buffer of queued pages (you always want about 3-6 months worth of comic finished and ready to go for when life inevitably gets in the way.). However I think that posting a chapter per week can also really slow the story of a comic to a crawl, especially in dialogue heavy scenes. As a reader I usually read these comics once every couple months, when there's enough pages to really catch up. Numbers wise, you do good views, but the actual audience engagement really heavily varies from page to page.
Chapter-per-Month - As a writer, this is definitely how I prefer to work. It's how most print comics come out, and I wish more webcomics would use this style. Every month you get a much more satisfying update, and is usually much smoother to read. Cons are that these chapters take MUCH longer, so I definitely bump up against my deadlines more often, and since it only pops upon the general feed once a month, you get less new readers, and have to push your word of mouth marketing more. However, I find the readers you do get are more dedicated, I can rely on a steady amount of comments and engagement from my small audience, probably because each chapter is going to have something meaningful.
Also, whichever one you growth,remember your own limits as a writer or artist. It's easy to say that you can post four pages a week or whatever, but unless this is your full-tie job or your pages are super simple get finished super fast, that's a lot harder than it looks. It's all about figuring out what works best for you.

[Alkareel]

Oh, I think I may have confused panel and page, sorry.
I'm still a novice on making comics so your advice is much appreciated!
I may have to go for a page every few days to a week, since I'm also still writing the novel.
I'm actually hoping to draw more novel readers from making a comic/webtoon.

The thread question was pretty much answered by @skippyjoeskilling, but I'll leave the thread open in case anyone else wants to add.

[Lady_T_Musings]

I work by chapter ie, I do all my thumbnails, roughs, line art, and coloring for the whole chapter before moving to post the next page online and my comic is posted print style over vertical scroll, so there's that. Having a buffer is super helpful no matter which way you decided to post though. I do a page a week bc that's what's manageable for me. If I could do a few pages a week I would, but that's not possible with work and just me making the comic.

[skippyjoeskilling]

Glad I could help! Good luck with your comic!

[CursedBeasts]

Depending on how many pages there will be in your chapters, I would probably advise going towards a page a week, as it's a more forgiving pace IMO. I go a page a week for my comics personally. Sometimes I draw more than one page, so at times I post 2 pages a week.

But also posting the whole chapter once it's ready is a perfectly valid approach as well.

[Iridium]

Well, talking as someone who did a whole writing and chapter division process prior to actually drawing my comic (I've been working on the plot of Menmar for almost 2 years before publishing it de facto as I am doing), I prefer to do a monthly full-chapter publishing first than doing weekly pages. However, if your plot allows you to break a chapter into smaller parts, acceleration your production rate, then you should move to a bi-weekly or even weekly basis.

I know I want to do a bi-weekly basis for Menmar soon enough, but I still need to pick up an even faster production rate to make it reality. But as many have already said here, it depends a lot on the content of your work and how much the actual plot you wrote allows you to break it down in smaller pieces and still flow as you desire.

[darthmongoose]

More frequent content definitely seems to help build an audience here on Tapas. Not only will you appear in "Fresh" more and have a chance to be seen there, but update days lead to increased likes, and recent likes are what the "popular" rankings are based on. To appear anywhere near the top of even just your genre in "popular" you'll need over 30 likes in the space of a day or two, so the most effective way to appear up there regularly and have a chance to be seen is to update frequently. I do two pages a week stacked into a single update.

[R.n.P]

chapter every month
my story is made for you to read through everything at once

[aleiahaith]

Not gonna lie I always feel bad just posting a single page as an update. Unless the page is important/cliffhanger, I feel like there should be more there. So at minimum (now, lol) I try posting 4-5.
A full chapter a month, depending on who you are, is difficult to churn out. For me I make the chapter ahead of time and then post a group of pages per episode.

But yeah definitely multiple pages per episode. The wait for a chapter per month would be too agonizing for me personally.

I feel like most readers would want more, not less when they get their updates. If it's only one panel per update it might feel tedious and they might feel cheated.

Either way, good luck!

[Alkareel]

I've decided to post up a few pages per week to pace myself, as I don't think I could keep up with a chapter/month deadline while working on the novel.
Thank you, everyone, for all the advice!

[ble]

Well, now that i returned to make comics, I'll post at least 2 Pages per week.

It helps with the visibility, but also, to get more likes on webtoons. Like if I made only one chapter per month, and say it receives 50 likes. Instead, if my single pages got something like 20 likes, at the end of the month it will contribute to the number of total likes (in the canvas category you can see how many likes a series has).

I think people are more likely to click on a unknown series if it has more likes.

[WoollyPAR]

I upload my story in parts instead of whole episodes at a time. I do this because it's easier for me to stay focused on making it and frequent uploads are more important to me. Uploading a whole episode every month means more of the story gets out with every upload (assuming you have more than 3-4 pages in your episodes lol), so weekly uploads actually make the story move slower. Really the choice is between having frequent uploads but having the story come out slower and less frequent uploads and getting more of the story come out faster.

[haitchu]

I would like to update one chapter per month. At first I managed to do so, I even had buffer for 6 months ahead! I don't know how I did it...

So in Tapas I upload once a week and to Webtoon one chapter at a time.
Updates to Webtoon aren't frequent, 3-5 months can pass between updates (because once a week updates means 4 pages per month), but I don't have energy to single-page-update them there too...

Frequent updates give more visibility and keep readers interested, also they don't forget the comic, I think.
Although my Tapas updates get less likes than Webtoon updates...

[iHateFridays]

I post two pages a week XD I personally think weekly updates are better just for consistency's sake.

[Redsheis]

^^ I would stick with the per page uploads. A chapter upload will not get you more eyes on your comic. I am not a big fan of per panel uploads and if not done well it can get a negative response in viewership.

[allenT]

Right now 3~6 pages every episodes, and post once per month. It won't be consistent. Since story haven't reach important scenes, i can slow down and work on other aspects of my comic/ other side projects)

If i'm more focused, i can post 2 episodes in a month. (4~5 episodes a chapter.)

[saffasas]

I think it’s probably best to do what makes you the most comfortable and keeps you the most motivated, especially if you’re just starting out. I’ve just finished posting my first chapter and I’ve been posting a page a day (because that’s been an achievable amount of work for me during lockdown), but at a different time, in different circumstances that wouldn’t be achievable and would make me really stressed.

It’s a great motivator to work on the next page when you’re already getting feedback from people on the one you’ve just posted, I find. But as a reader I definitely find it easier to sink into a comic that posts a few pages at a time for me to scroll through :’)