How do you go about Hiatus?

[Bokyongyo]

Wanted know y’all’s methods of going about Hiatuses and how do you adjust trying to return.

Have you seen views begin to dwindle after a lengthy Hiatus or are they not impacted for your series?

Coming off of a Hiatus myself and wanted to know your take in it all

[Mari]

How to go on hiatus, the Mari method (clinically tested & recommended by dentists:

Step 1. Stop posting

For the same low price the come back method:

Step 1. Start posting.

[DualDragons]

How to go on hiatus, the Mari method (clinically tested & recommended by dentists:

Is it recommended by 9 out of 10 dentists?

[ble]

Mine, more than a hiatus, was a dramatic goodbye to making comics forever and ever, that lasted several months until next week where I will post again.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

For me nobody cares anyway if I go to hiatus or not, my statistics is shitty as usual. In fact many old readers never come back to my rebooted series.

It would be good that before you leave you give your audience a heads up about it. If you are comfortable disclosing the cause, you could go for it. More importantly explain what should audience expect after hiatus (e.g. "I will rewrite my series" or "I'm just taking a break from all creative work.")

Do not expect all your audience will retain, I was stupid to expect it. At least one or two will disappear, but you stay with true ones that worth your attention.

[Panqiuyan]

For me i warn people my updates will be irregular in the first episode because life is unpredictable. so it is easier go on hiatus and come back

[rajillustration]

It depends on what's going on hiatus--if it's social media, then you're not going to see a huge drop. People only notice your gone if you make a post about "sorry I'm gone" like...just don't do that and take a break, you'll be fine. Especially during this year when basically everyone is taking a break. I've had like...a month hiatus a few times this year on twitter and lost maybe 2 followers. (and gained more than two when I started posting again) you're fine, so long as you don't post negative stuff all the time about it and have a public melt down, just keep it positive and go with the flow when you're ready.

As for comics, I have heard that the algorithm bites your ass if you go off schedule--but for me I have a small following, so I announced on my wall I was going to take a little break for a few weeks--ppl seemed chil about it and no one left (I didn't make a post in the comic or anything--I did that once, I made a post that was like "I'm going on a short hiatus!" and lost like 2 subs that update). When I came back, I felt refreshed and stats went back to normal after a week or so.

I didn't take a very long hiatus, though, only a few weeks. Now I will say I ended my comic and then several months later posted a new update--and that update (it's an inktober incentive) has a huge boost of views compared to what I made before it, since I made this inktober update really shiny and pretty, so honestly I don't think it matters so long as you don't make a big deal out of it, and come back with content that is pretty and fun to read.

[indagold]

I take a break and post either art in between sparsely or a quickly made side comic. That way subscribers get something in between.

[Black_Conscious]

well for me I just disappear for a couple of months might give out small updates if I'm still uploading and then I go silent.... (probably because I ain't that popular)

Yeah thats about it tbh

You should probably not do what I do ..

[kitschensyngk]

Sometimes I take time off from my comics for holidays and vacations, or whenever I need to recharge my creative batteries.

I usually take two weeks off from Nachos Con Carne in December for Christmas and New Year's, but this year I was feeling especially burned out because 2020 and all, so once I finished the most recent chapter, I took the whole month off from updating the website to focus on Tapas and Webtoon and plan out the next chapter. I plan to start up again sometime this month.

Words., on the other hand, I plan to take a breather from after next week. It's been on this "Henchmen" arc for several weeks now that will finish with the next update, and that will be the season finale.

[jensrichard77]

I made 5 episodes about Hiatus
Starting here

https://tapas.io/episode/1915344

[alexlcuri07]

I gave a heads up that I was going on a hiatus, said I would come back after a month, then sort of didn't come back for about three months.

Honestly, not as horrifying as you'd think. How I came back was a bit extreme though.

My return was a bit different because I redid the branding and episode structures of my story. I did a big relaunch for last Christmas. Redid the story graphics (cover, thumbnail, etc) and also edited and rewrote the parts of my story that I really wanted to fix. Then I reset my episodes and also deleted the comments on all of them because they didn't align with the episodes I now had.

I think the best thing I did though was make a thank you/ author's note episode to all the previous commenters, likers, and readers. In it I thanked them for their continued support and clarified my new posting schedule. I would really recommend if you're coming back from a hiatus. Its a simple way to give your audience a heads up about your return.

My biggest advice though, don't come back until you're ready. And don't worry too bad about what happened while you were out because that just defeats the point of the hiatus.

[thedude3445]

Be really transparent however you can. Be upfront about the reason for the hiatus (unless it's private, obviously), give estimates for when you will be back, and most importantly post status updates during the hiatus about how things are going, especially if you think the hiatus will be longer than you originally expected. Readers only abandon stories on hiatus if they think the story is likely to be gone for good; if they're a fan they'll stick with it, as long as they have confidence that the hiatus is definitely going to end. You'll definitely have less views when you come back, but after a while readers will mostly return.