Subscriber Stagnation Questions

[Possum]

I found that recently my subs have started to stagnate and it's really starting to scare me. Yeah, I don't write books for the subs, but usually i get one or two a day and I haven't had any for a while? Anyone have any idea why this is happening? If it's my work, I'm more than happy to take critique.

Here's the work i'm on about. It's been at 15 subs for about 4 days.

Demetori | Tapas

[domisotto]

See how it goes over the weekend. Tuesday and Wednesday are slower days?

[ivanskilling]

Same here! My views and subs across my 3 novels have dropped the past 4 days or so. My guess is it's that time of year where people are returning to school (be it online or offline).

[grotesqueice]

It took me quite awhile to amass subscribers too. And the amount of views I'm getting is still lower than the sub count so..

I usually get many subs from the threads I'm following here on the forums and during events like Inksgiving. But now, I'm also stuck at 30 (now 29 because someone un-subbed ; but yeah.

[Possum]

Not really sure. I only released hte novel about 2 weeks ago, so everything is a bit random.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Stagnation, sub drop, like drop, lack of comment, feeling your novel is not going anywhere, feeling it's pointless to write it, feeling unable to see the front page without being jealous of the featured. . .

[arpeggiomax87]

I just received my 19th subscriber and 200th like at this point, and I can say that advertising your work on the forums or anywhere else helps greatly. Also, make sure your quality improves as far as your dedication to the project pushes to become a much bigger deal than it is.

This is coming from someone who failed 3 times previously with other projects. Though the reason I actually became more well known was thanks to a failed co-op project that helped my popularity overall.

Just make sure you're open to ideas you come up with and try your best to inject them into your work favorably. You'll definitely get feedback from your efforts.

Also, you have to realize that you're not always going to get a daily dose of subs for early work. It's going to take a while. A LONG while. As it may seem, it took me forever to get up to 19 subs. WEEKS.

[foxnflames]

Subs usually drop during the week but pick up like Thursday through the weekend. I need more people to engage and I don’t know how

[HGohwell]

Sometimes subs just come in ebbs and flows. You'll get new subs every day for a few weeks then next to nothing for a month then a dozen in one day. It's just one of those things you get used to. Sometimes there's just no rhyme or reason to it. You'll often pick up subs quick while you're new then slow down too. (Also, if I read that right 15 subs in 2 weeks is actually pretty good so don't worry too much)

[Jen-Jen]

I have nothing new to add, but since you asked for a critique, I'll give you one. I got invested in the drama between Gris, Lydia, and Ignis. Your tone compliments intrigue very well. Then, finding out Gris isn't the main character was jarring. I guess that's more of a personal problem, but it's what I have. There's also a lot of dialogue without tags, which can get confusing, like in episode 4, where Adeline and Lydia are conversing.
You've done a lot of world building, which is nice as a reader. The relationships between your characters are very interesting, especially considering how abuse is not always shone in a negative light in the fantasy genre. Don't worry too much. You'll get more subscribers.

[Possum]

THank you so much for the critique! I am NOTORIOUS for not tagging dialogue and just expecting readers to catch it (oops)! Thank you I can go back and correct that part.

As for the Gris not being the main character and stuff, I get you. Originally, I dind't know whether I wanted to even include the prologue on Tapas as I was thinking it would confuse readers. All I can say about it, without spoiling the novel, is those characters become more and more relevant as time goes on, they're central and integral to the plot after the first part of the book. Hopefully, people come to like Adeline more than her mother (ahhaha).

Thanks so much for the feedback, it honestly is a really valuable to me <3

[WolfUnderTheMoon89]

I haven't got any changes for mine.
How often do you update?
It can be that? Update days tend to bring in more

[BlunderingAlbatross]

Likewise I'm not doing it for the subs, I just want people to read and enjoy my book, but a couple of times over the past weeks I noticed I actually lost some subs which really winds up the ol' anxiety and makes me wonder what (if anything!) I've done wrong (I've gained more than I lost over that time but still...)

[WolfUnderTheMoon89]

I also lost some subs along the way and I think some came from the few sub4sub I did at the start (yes, not very clever to start)

[Panpan]

This week has been weird. I updated twice because last week I got around 40 subs within a few days and I wanted to keep that going. As soon as I updated, nothing.

I think it just comes in spurts.

[joannekwan]

The middle section of months have been known to be slower for traffic. Just gotta keep promoting on social media!

[darthmongoose]

It's pretty natural to see this kind of pattern. You were trending early, making your work more visible and you got used to 2 per day. This isn't a typical rate of new subs for a series with a small number of subs; I'd expect more like... picking up somewhere around 5 a week mostly clustered around update day at that size.

Exactly how trending works isn't clear, but from my observations, very new series that are doing quite well seem to have an advantage, and usually it contains just very big and very small works and not a lot in-between (for example, when my comic was on staff pick, and my subscribers increased by 80% in a week, going from 275 to 500 and I was near the top of my genre in the "Popular" rankings, I didn't trend once) so I think it's good to understand that you have to pace yourself. This might be the typical pace of things for a while now. Keep updating, keep promoting and you should get a steady trickle of subs that increases over time.

It could be worse. A couple of weeks after I was staff pick, I had a run of weeks where my new subs didn't outpace people unsubbing and had to deal with my subs going downwards! It seems to have steadied now, but yeah... sometimes subs plateau or even decrease. The best thing is not to pay attention to the minute numbers too much and instead to focus on making something good and letting people know about it.

[DogshitJay]

Summer is a slow down time apparently! I had a big dip last week of July too, like suddenly daily subs cut in half.
Don't worry, it'll pick up again! It's a good time to try out some other strategies for a boost though.

[KRWright]

You only released 2 weeks ago. It's standard to pick up more subscribers at release and then slow down after the initial push, only to begin to increase much faster again once you reach the 1k subscriber mark. You're doing fine. Don't worry abou tit.

[oshirockingham]

Subscribers come and go, true readers stay and support your efforts on each update.
I even need 1 year for my comic to reach 300 subs, and it's less than 10% of the total subscribers that are considered active readers.
And I need almost a month to get my first sub so yours have a much better start.