How often do you update? (and how many pages)

[niinasalmelin]

I update new page once a week. Twice would be best, but I'm not fast enough maker to not run out of material sooner. Best way to avoid stress is to make as much ready pages as you can and then start uploading once or twice, while you'll be making new ones without a pressure.

[Kayke]

When I was in college I used to make 2 new pages a week, but once I graduated I had to drop down to one page a week so that I could work on my comic and still have time for freelance and illustration stuff.

If you're going to do bigger updates rather than one page at a time, don't leave too long of a gap between updates! I know as a reader I hate waiting months and months between story chapters and even if I like a comic sometimes I'll stop checking it if it doesn't update regularly. Maybe set a schedule? Like "first Tuesday of the month" and post 5 pages at a time?

[DynamoToon]

I upload new Room for Improvement episodes every tuesday and thursday. I take the weekends off and resume comic making in the week.

[Amymone]

My comic updates 12 pages, once a week, but this is because I worked to build up a large buffer. It took me a year to put 30 chapters (360 pages) of distance between me and my readers. Averagely, it takes me a week to churn out a single chapter if I'm completing two pages a day. Whenever I know I'll be hitting the road for a week, I try to bring two chapters worth of work with me so I don't fall behind, but living in and out of a car really zaps the energy out of you.

I keep a very tight production-schedule book and I know what day my series will end and how much time I have to complete it before I absolutely must start my next story project, so I'm ALWAYS constantly freaking out about days/time I've lost and days/time I have left to work. ;A; It's horror and I don't wish it on anybody. I have these anxious conversations with my family and they keep telling me "Don't worry, you have plenty of time" and I'm like waving around my schedule book "NO I DON'T" The only way to make more time is to push a project back another year and time is precious! Tomorrow is promised to NO MAN! I'm alive NOW! Seize the day!

[AnnaLandin]

I keep a very tight production-schedule book and I know what day my series will end and how much time I have to complete it before I absolutely must start my next story project, so I'm ALWAYS constantly freaking out about days/time I've lost and days/time I have left to work. ;A; It's horror and I don't wish it on anybody.

Just curious - why do you have such a tight production-schedule, if it's making you this anxious? I'm sure your readers would be just as happy with 6 pages in a week, or five, or whatever. If it's making you feel this bad, perhaps it's time to reconsider it?

[serenitysquirrel]

With work and everything, I can manage a page a week. Occasionally the pages are late as well. So is life.

[Kura]

One page, sometimes two, everyday for No Future

One page every week or two weeks for Raven Wolf Though I've had to temporarily slow down a bit because of health and real life issues.

This is the schedule that works for me. With the one that gives me the least stress 'No Future' even though I update everyday. It's art style is simple so that it doesn't hurt or over exert me too much to draw (I have autoimmune disorders, where my system sees my joints and moisture glands as an 'enemy' and attacks and destroys them giving me much pain and arthritis) as well as it just feels nice to have the story going. As opposed to Raven Wolf, which has more detail and is not nearly as simple, so it hurts like hell to work on, and I constantly feel like "I'm working so hard yet I feel like I'm going nowhere the progress through the story is so slow." It's unfortunately the drawing pace I can manage at the moment.

For No Future I have two versions, one that I release it in parts in a scrolling format, the other page by page. My readers seem to prefer the page by page format and it's more commons for them to comment and share it. The scrolling one consisting of around 10 - 15ish pages reformatted to scroll, hardly gets much views, readers or comments at all.

[joannekwan]

In color
Demon House - 2 pages a week (sometimes it's 1 depending on how I've paced scenes)

In grayscale
Heavy Horns - 1 page a week

In pure black and white
Erie Waters - 2 pages a week

[Amymone]

Just curious - why do you have such a tight production-schedule, if it's making you this anxious?

Specifically, the schedule got tight from every week I lost, the first few times I had to hit the road. In other words, I lost time back when I had the mentality that I "had time". I only recently started bringing my scanner/printer with me in a bag and even then it was a hassle to try to figure out when and where it was appropriate to bust it out. I was actually supposed to be starting the next story project this September, but I had to push it back to January because of all of the lost time, which means that I only have 20-something weeks between production and when the story is scheduled to start posting. Thankfully this season of mandatory road-trips will end soon,so I'm hoping to not have to many prolonged gaps in my schedule..

I'm sure your readers would be just as happy with 6 pages in a week, or five, or whatever. If it's making you feel this bad, perhaps it's time to reconsider it?

Building up the buffer isn't really something I'm willing to reconsider because it means too much to me to have a consistent posting schedule and to be as far ahead of my audience as possible. The only thing that really makes me feel bad is when other variables try to jump out and eat away the time I've already scheduled for work. For example, I'll be moving into a new home sometime soon and I can already see losing a week or two of work on just that alone.

[Kamikaze]

I'm with a lot of people here that it's better to update on a consistent basis once a week. There's a lot of people who can pull off the 'I'll post it when it's done" model, but folks get suuuuper antsy waiting so long. You don't want to give them more time to forget about your work. Seriously, the only person I've seen able to really pull that off is Aaron Diaz behind Dresden Codak.

The comic I work on, Kamikaze, is updated once a week with one page, and in the very rare occasion, two (full story page and a splash).

A bit of advice: Please, please, please be sure you have a buffer of some kind pulled together no matter how long you wait between posts. The more pages you have in your back pocket the better. My team and I made the stupid/brilliant decision to just DUMP 23 pages worth of our buffer at the beginning of Kamikaze all at once. This meant that we could hook our readers in and give them lots of story from the get go...but it also meant we had NO buffer. We've been playing catch up ever since. Not fun. Not fun at all. :/

[starvebeast]

I've been updating Starve the Beast twice a week, one page at a time. But I might try to update 2-3 pages every week all at once. I know that I'm always a bit disappointed when I see an update from a comic I like and only get a page.

Do you all think readers are more likely to like/comment on single pages or multiple pages?

[atlas]

One to two pages a week. My job has slowed me down substantially.

[hiwar95]

I barely have time to draw. But when I do have time to draw, i draw and post at least 20 pages with bonus material (backstories, profiles, weapon-information, basic explanations etc) My shortest chapter was 12 pages the longest 43 not including my one-shot chapter that was 48, because it wasn't about my main comic.
I used to draw 5 chapters a year, but I think I can make time to draw perhaps 1 chapter a month.

[ErithEl]

Readers will always show a little more interest in comics that update with several pages per week, or in longform format, but I've always been very patient with comics that only update one page per week, because that's all I can do for my own comic, Burning Bright.

I actually have a pretty big buffer, but I work full time at an exhausting job and I know I can't finish pages quick enough to upload more than once a week.

I can only blame so much on work, though...like right now I should be working on my comic, buuuttt Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood is on Netflix, and my bed is really comfortable...

[rainbowolfe]

Oh boy, almost everyone on here so far has such an organized upload schedule.

I try to update my comic twice a week with 5 to 6 pages. But ever since I ruined my buffer, I've just barely managed to do that while managing my normal school work. XD
I mostly do this because as as reader, I prefer updates with multiple pages! There's less forgetting of the plot and getting into it better. However, too many pages in an update is a bit much when your reading on mobile ^^; I've noticed longer chapters make the app crash on iOS I think my only exception to this is Tag, but they update, like, daily.

I honestly don't mind waiting long for a comic to update, especially if it's really good and I love it (like Fisheye Placebo or Midnknighters). Fisheye was actually on hiatus, but Midknighters is posted in "seasons", so there's usually a few months between major chapter update.

[Bii0]

Lol it's a good thing I couldn't care less about popularity, if I'm lucky I'll manage 1 page every 2 weeks, working a 10 hour job that sometimes goes 12 days straight really messes me up. Also being an introvert, directly working with 100+ unpredictable people a day, I hardly ever have the energy to even move around after work. I just want to sit by myself in a quiet room, and watch let's plays.

[Aspie_Gamer]

Right now I'm aiming for a few pages per week with Life of an Aspie

[GlenMiles]

I update one page a week on no particular schedule so pretty much whatever day works best for me based off when I can find the time to work on the pages. I don't have a buffer, I jumped right in with posting because I'm too critical of my work and if I didn't just start uploading I would have gone back and edited, and deleted, and rewrote stuff. (I still wound up going back and editing stuff).

So essentially my story would have never come out if I didn't start posting immediately after creating each page. And just as a point of reference each page takes me about 2-3 days to complete, depending on the page and what's going on in my life. (Wife, kid, family, errands, etc.) So when I get a tad more acquainted with sequential story telling I do plan to either start posting twice a week with my series Battle Brats or start developing a second story that's been haunting me and begging to be developed.

[Zpreader]

I'm actually in this same situation right now. After thinking about it for quite some time, I honestly think I'll just settle on block updates. For me that means fairly large chapters (upwards of 20 pages) released every 1-2 months. I know it isn't really good for building a large subscriber base, it has its benefits for someone like me.

1) A slightly freer work schedule than weekly uploads can provide. Good for someone going to college full time.

2) I tend to have fairly large chapters (and even larger one-shots) written and edited before I even think about picking up my pen, so a full release just feels much more comfortable and complete.

I actually wondered if 20 pages bimonthly would be small, but then I realized that it's actually slightly more than a biweekly update schedule.

[blu3random]

pg or two a week. I like an avg of 3 pgs a week if possible, that way ur readers will have a sufficent amount of material to enjoy week by week

ps: i just joined yesterday! Newb pride : D