Not a "consistent" schedule - always a bad thing?

@Zanreo Zanreo
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 10:07:03 +0000

@Zanreo wrote:

So, a while after I started making comics I've noticed discussions about reader preference for "consistent" updates - not only updating regularly, but also at the same day(s), same time every week as far as it's possible. Sure, I understand it can be good to know exactly when a comic updates, but I was wondering more if it would be something that could significantly HURT a comic/its readership?

I've never had "consistent" updates - regular, yes, as in "trying my best to not let it go more than 7 days between each update, but not consistency with certain update days and such. First of all, my comic isn't a story-based one - it's a mix of 1-page jokes and shorter multi-page stories. I really just make pages and then upload it right after I'm done - unless the point is to post it on a certain day, which was the case with one comic - in which case I just queue it up. Anyway, a big reason for this (other than impatience and just wanting to get my page out right away) is that quite a few of the comics are based around recent news. In those cases at least, it feels better to just get them out as soon as I can, while it's still "fresh", rather than waiting. Say I got Friday as my update day, and... I find out about a piece of news that gives me a comic idea later that Friday or on Saturday. Should I wait all the way until the next Friday to post that comic? Though would this still be a good idea for the non-news basd ones (say, one-page fun facts?)
Another type of comics is the multi-page stories one, typically "history" comics, that tend to be about 5-9 pages. Now, one thing I want to avoid with these from now on is having other kinds of pages in-between (several critiques pointed out this was an issue when reading through it, and well, I went back to fix it later) and from now on I'm trying to finish all or most of the pages before posting so I can just post them after each other with no breaks, but if I were to post these on the same schedule as the rest, just once a week (which is usually the most I would be able to do, 2 a week if I'm lucky) I'd have to possibly miss out on the "news" pages. So what I've been doing with the last one, and plan to keep doing, is queue them all up and post with 2 days in between - I feel this is a good amount of time for a "break" between each while still getting all the pages out as soon as I can so I'll have time for potential news again as soon as possible (that's the thing about them - I never know when they'll happen). It's a kind of "consistency" in a way, but does this make sense to only to for one kind of comic? Maybe I should keep a consistency for the non-news fun facts-type pages, and just post news right away whenever instead... but non-news fun facts are really the least common type of page so I don't know how noticeable this would be.

So yeah, what do you think? Do you keep consistency or not, and do you find this important? Could there be cases when irregular consistency of the "just post a page whenever done" would actually HELP a comic?
(Plus, maybe this doesn't feel like that big of an issue to me because I'm also subscribed to most of the comics I read on CF or here, so I can just easily go into updates and see the newest updated comics right away... which probably makes this easier for me than, say, someone not registrered to those sites but just likes reading comics and might want to know the "right" time to return for a new update)