How long did it take to get a following?

[Costratos]

Hi, Novel writer here. I posted a novel here on Tapas a week ago, so I haven't been here long and I am not expecting an overflowing of readers comments and subscribers overnight, but I was wondering, how long did it take for your story to take off?
This is mostly for novel writers. Comic writers are welcome to chip in, but I feel like on Tapas it is a bit harder for novel writers to get a foothold. Comics are just so much easier and (most of the time) more fun for people to read, so I feel like for readers it feels like less of a commitment to click on the comics.

[nostalgicroxas]

What are judging as a following? Active readers, views, likes, comments?

[QingDom]

think it would be all of the above

[Random_Guy]

Three months and counting.

[Costratos]

yeah all the above. I feel like they all go hand in hand

[nostalgicroxas]

Ok well. It kind of... isn't? It can be but novels are extremely hit and miss on any website.

I've been on barely a year and this is my main novel's stats for just views.

The spin off novel by comparison is violently changing in views.

And mostly any other novel is hit or miss, with MANY of my novels being 0 views, 0 subs, ect.

The only thing that seems to effect stuff is consistency of updates. Pick a day and a word count and schedule updates out. NTN and BTC both are scheduled out episodes, with about 300~600 word counts per release. NTN updates Wed/Sun, and BTC updates twice a month on alternating Friday's. Campfire by comparison has no schedule and no word count goal for a chapter, thus why it's view and stats are wild.

Overall, I recognize that I have readers and I have been on the site for over a year now. But do I have a following that comments / reads everything / is active? Ehhhhh I have maybe 3 or 4 readers who will read each update, either on the day it's scheduled, or binge read, and only 2 or so will like things. I have some random people appearing who seem to like things (they'll sub to most writings I have, but not comment and views won't be wildly effected). And I'm talking tens like 3 views a week jumping to 20 and then dropping down to 1 a week again. Binge readers can wreak havoc on stats.

Keep in mind that Tapas is formulated for "small doses" of fun basically. So 500 words an update is a good juicy number it seems, even though they do allow up to about 1200~1500 words.
(Note: Views to do not reflect reader retention. As with my studying stats on many sites I've posted to, the first 1, 5 and 10 chapters are where you'll have your biggest spikes of readers and drop off. In short, those stats do not matter. Look at stats for chapters farther to see how much retention is happening. For example, my recent updates for NTN and BTC only have 2-5 views on them. That means while earlier chapters have something like 145 or 300 or something huge, as a whole, these are people who just dip in, and dip out for whatever reason {{misclick, didn't like it, wasn't what they expected, ect ect}}

Take for example this finished story that's on a scheduled release to finish releasing in Sept this year. Three views a month.

[Costratos]

wow lol about what you said about length. I write like I'm writing a novel. I have to split up my chapters in half to even get it down to 1500

[nostalgicroxas]

I have to split many into fifths and sixths lol but I'm aiming for that 500~600 word count sweet spot since as I said, it seems to work best on Tapas.

[thedude3445]

The longest your chapters can be is 15,000 words which comes out to about 2600 words, at least from the chapters I had to split up or abridge.

[Drewbie]

What are you considering "A following"? When I started out I went about it as "one sub a day" but even that was a bit of trouble. Another big thing about this is while comics do need to get promoted on the forums Novels definitely need the help. Momentum is everything IMO so be sure to promote here as much as you can.

[rajillustration]

Yeah it takes a while. I started posting a novel like a week or two ago and have...10 subs now? Even though I have webcomics linked to my account as well (this is the novel of a webcomic I have like over 100 posts of) it's still like starting completely new.

[thedude3445]

What qualifies as "a following?"

[Maps]

Honestly, when I started sharing in the forums, I felt more momentum.
I had made the mistake of dropping like 30 chapters in one go at the start (cries) and hardly got anything out of it. But I realized consistency updating helped me gain readers and followers. I went from uploading every two days to more of a week. Spacing out the days seemed helpful.
I also actually write 8,000-15,000 a chapter and do need to split them up into parts pretty often. I hadn’t originally written the story for the Tapas format/number restriction.
My months do fluctuate like mentioned above. And I’ve noticed I’ve got more readers since quarantine (I think people need something to do)!
I’ve been on a hiatus for a couple of months but somehow it’s taking off again. I just hit my 250 mark this week. I can’t explain it (figured it could have been bots but I’m actually see four active readers right now).
I did begin posting in 2018 and it’s been slow, but it’s also been worth it.
Oh, and it’s a BL. That really helps

[darkone4587]

Honestly been over a year and I don't have much of one outside of the occasional speratic reader every so often. Mainly because I have a lot of content so it's hard to read in one sitting.
For a general following just keep working on it, spreading the news around, and eventually you might gain a handful of readers.