SERIOUSLY need thoughts on this. Made threads about it before, but never got responses. Is Posting Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday a good idea?

[powerplantanimations]

I don't think I understand the last bit. What do you recommend weekly?

[Katzalcoatl]

Depends on the lenght of the chapters.
1 page comics can be daily.
Parts of an episode (let's episode 1.1 then episode 1.2) longer than 1 page would be good for 2 times a week.

Full episode once a week.

If you go manga style with 45-60 pages then you can go all the way up to once a month.

The longer a chapter the longer it stays in peoples mind thus they require less reminders of what is happening in the story. That being said once a month is really pushing it.

I would recommend weekly episodes of around 15 pages long (it can be less or more I am just using an average) depending on the style of your comic.

People read on the weekends so making too many episodes makes it hard for them to catch up.

If you are writing a novel the ideal amount of episodes is around 1 or 2 per week.
2 if you have short episodes like tapas.
1 episode if your episode has 2k words up.

[thepenmonster]

The audience has been trained to expect a new update once a week.

[Tanako]

Once a week is NOT a good idea especially if you have no help whatsoever. I would never attempt that lol. I post 2 or 3 times a month and and I use the rest of my days creating buffers so if anything were to happen at least I can continue to post.

When I first create my comics I make sure I have at least 3 months of work ready to go. it may be extreme but at least it gives me days to goof off when I am not feeling up to it. another thing I do is incentify my audience to donate ink for extra pages and it works like a charm

for example. if I post two times in February, my third post will encourage them to tip 10,00 ink for a bonus page and I usually hit that goal either in 24 hours or 2 days. once the goal is met I then post the bonus page then wait for the following month to repeat the same thing. anyway, just my two cent.

[Katzalcoatl]

No worries there mate @powerplantanimations ' comic is stick figures mainly. Pretty interesting. It saves lots of time making each episode. The artist of the series does do more complicated art in the series from time to time but not enough to really slow down the process.

You should check out the series. At least the cover and name makes anyone get interested.

[powerplantanimations]

Thanks guys! I've decided to do 2, but I'm still picky about dates. I know I want one on Friday.

@Katzalcoatl mentioned weekends, gonna make a separate thread to see what days people like to catch up on if this is the case. Btw thanks for the compliment!

[Katzalcoatl]

From what I have investigated most people use weekends but some people enjoy starting mondays with a good story. I read this in previous threads in tapas while investigating. But do start a new thread to get fresh opinions.

[candiedcotton]

Once a week is the norm. If anything it's what your average reader wants.

I post every 6 days (for some reason my readers really like that, I have no idea why, but they voted on it) and I have zero issues. It takes me 4-5 days to finish an episode, I have never had burnout, I am fully able to create a buffer (I keep a single episode buffer because that's what I prefer), etc etc.

It's not ideal for everyone but it is totally doable, and it also vastly depends on a person's own schedule, how fast they work, and how big their episodes are.

[Tanako]

I see... I had no idea once a week is a norm. Personally just because it's a norm doesn't mean you have to engage in it.
It's better to start small and see how much you can handle then increase it as time goes on. There is nothing more dishartning than when an artist offers more than they can handle, suffers a burn out then comes back to the audience to tell them they will have to reduce how much work they produce because they can no longer keep up. That's a for sure way to lose readers. which is why I encourage, 2 or 3 posts a month, this way, you can spend more time working on buffers and as time goes on, you can increase your post schedule.
I stuck with that and I have a pretty decent following and viewership.

That's good you are able to keep up with that. but it isn't like that for others and I won't advise someone new coming into comic to participate in once a week schedule unless you have lots of disposable time in your hands.

[powerplantanimations]

Btw off-topic, just checked your webcomic. JEEEZ. I think you have the highest number count I've seen on this forum! Pretty cool c:

Also yeah. I wish I could do the 10,000 ink thing. I could TRY something like that (someone gave me 10,000 to do a Beach Episode so it's possible). I actually might try something like that. I can come up with clickbaity arcs, to make people go "Wait, how're they going to do that with stick figures" lol.

[candiedcotton]

I've got over 5k subs across the three sites I use and it's been... four months that I've been publishing. Numbers don't mean much.

Once a week is normal. I don't think it's really that helpful to try and dissuade someone from it when you don't even know how big their episodes are or how long they take or how much time that person has. Those things do matter. Most webcomics are updated weekly.

[NickRowler]

Starting out I used to post 5 days a week then at one point did 3 for a while. But I will suggest doing 2 at most a week.

The reason why is people may decide to not read your comic through out the week and just wait to binge it during one day.

I also remember you saying you’re a writer with a hired artist. I don’t think you should be putting too much strain on your artist. I have heard of collabs where artists got burned out and writers being unempethetic.

Yes, I know it is possible to pump out daily comics, like Garfield or Peanuts. But a lot of these comics are very short with simple art. And they also have a larger incentive of being paid.

[Tanako]

Lol thanks. Honestly, that comes with time. I just wanted to share what I eventually started doing to get my readers engaged.
Since you are kind of new to this I'd suggest just growing a following first, then slowly implement the ink incentive. I didn't start doing that right away until my comic was at least one year old. meaning I had been posting for at least a year and by then I had some pretty solid fans. The ones that would support me regardless. so yes take your time with that but just keep it in mind to do in the future.

I can come up with clickbaity arcs,

This is also good for promotion and engaging your audience. so yes, work on it.

[Tanako]

I'm not exactly sure what your problem is and my post was not addressing you. you say your opinion and you keep it moving. All I ever did was give OP my OWN personal opinion and it's up to them to decided which one works best for them.

I did in no way "dissuade", them form anything. you are trying to create something out of nothing. If posting once a week or twice a week works for you then that's good. I don't care how simple, easy or fast it is. people work at different phase and the foundation of any project is start small then work your way up.

I do not need your opinion. if you want to address OP go ahead and do that. do not argue with me because I'm not interested. I do not share your views so there is nothing you will say tthat will convince me.

If you are telling me just to tell me then don't bother because like a mentioned earlier, it's whatever works for you.

[candiedcotton]

I have no idea why you're suddenly going off on me but I think you severely have misunderstood my tone and intention. I had assumed we were having a civil conversation.

[drewdoniger]

I would say just do once a week, unless you have some help creating your comic.

Also, I suggest sticking to the same hour on the same day of the week. What I do is I do four pages a week each Wednesday at 4 PM Eastern standard time, as that is a time when not many other people update, and my target audience is in the mood for reading comics.

Put a bit of research into when you want to schedual, and you will find the optimum time for you.

[powerplantanimations]

The rate of comics is still the same as before. We explained in a Q&A that we're just snipping comics in half to give us this extra time. I thought three was enough, but two will allow us to take longer breaks. Like we had 4 weeks worth of content. Splitting it up quadruples that number. Something like that. I experimented with this during the Season Finale. If what you say is the case though, I'll just do Fridays and Saturdays since I think Wednesdays and Fridays could be stressful for the reader who want to find time to binge.

[candiedcotton]

Don't do your releases back to back, if you're going to do it twice a week then definitely spread them out. Wednesday and Saturday is fine I think. If you do it both Friday and Saturday it may confuse people and they might even only think there's a single update, since some people won't see the update Friday, and will just see on Saturday that there's an update notice. I personally check the comics I'm following about every other day so I know I'd be one of those readers who wouldn't realize you were updating twice.

And then people who do get the update and read it on Friday might be annoyed that there's another notice the very next day.

[rajillustration]

So it depends on your genre and audience expectations of that genre's update schedule more than just trying to find the magic words that manipulate the algorithm. There is no magic words, you just want to keep your quality consistent and your schedule consistent for that project. I've personally done both a comic that updated 1-2x a week, and am currently doing a comic that updates 2x a month. Seems like a big difference right? You'd think that the 2x a week comic would have done way better because it updated so often, right?

But the one I did weekly had no difference in views whether it was one time a week or twice, and had a fraction of the veiwership of the comic I'm making now that is bimonthly (the weekly comic was about 250 subs, the bimonthly comic is currently above 4K subs). The reason why? Because scroll format fantasy/romance is a bigger sell than my black and white page format comic I used to do. Sometimes we focus so much on update schedules, it's overthinking things that are honestly not what our audiences needs are.

TL,DR; you can do whatever, so long as the schedule remains consistent so people know when to tune in.

[thepenmonster]

I see... I had no idea once a week is a norm. Personally just because it's a norm doesn't mean you have to engage in it.

This is true but unfortunately the public has no interest in the concerns of art nor of the health of the artist. They've been treated to factory produced art released quickly for a century now and all they want is that quick hit of dopamine. If you want their money you need to pander to them and their expectations.