Recommended word count for each chapter?

[eunwei]

Hii y'all!

I was reading some novels on Tapas and realized that some of them upload a single chapter in chunks of episode.

Like CH-1 will be divided into 3 parts and uploaded in separate episodes.

I know this is a good idea for Premium authors. However, I was wondering why is it even normally recommended by Tapas to post shorter chapters as well?

My chapters usually contain around 2k words but they're around 10k-12k characters. Sometimes I exceed 15k characters so it gets difficult to cut it down and add to the next chapter.

Do you think it's better to follow the method of uploading in each chapter in chunks of episodes?

If so, what should be the recommended word count for each ep?

Thank you in advance!

[moontokkym]

Firstly: character count isn't really that important. Basically it's just a way for you to see your average word length if you're a lil word nerd like the rest of us. Don't worry about it. Focus on the word count.

Secondly: online publishing and serial publishing tend to produce shorter chapters on average than full novel books, so the people chopping their chapters into chunks might be doing so because they're writing average novel-type chapters and snipping them down to be bite-sized online and be able to publish more regularly (which is often rewarded by algorithms) and then be easily able to sew them back together for an eventual physical book release.

Thirdly: 2k words per online chapter is pretty much slap dab in the middle of what's often advised for online publishing (1,5k to a max of 3k or pushing 3,5k if there's really no good place to stop), so I wouldn't advise cutting your chapters down anymore at the risk of each chunk having too little in it.

[EncryptedWriting]

Agreeing with @moontokkym. 2k is pretty smack dab in the middle.

Some folks prefer shorter some longer. I know my chapters tend to land on the longer side of things (3k - 5k on average), so I will typically the chapters up into pt 1 pt 2 etc. If you can find a good stopping point, you can always do that.

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

The site's name, Tapas, is almost literally "small bites" or "small dishes". They wanted to present stories in little chunks that could be read quickly by people who may be on-the-go. So, I think that's how the small-post tradition got started.