What is best: Short Weekly updates or Longer but Sporadic?

[edmourabarbosa]

This is something that I've been thinking a lot lately. Short but weekly updates are good because it keeps your comic on the mind of your readers, but they might get discouraged on reading just a few panels. Longer updates are better to the flow of the story, but taking weeks between updates might confuse your readers, maybe they don't remember anymore what happened in the last update, or even completely forgot about how good your webcomic was!

What do you think?

[BlairFujin]

From experience - more frequent updates are the way to go

[magnavarra]

i'd say that you need to start with more frequent update to draw attention and audience, later when you have enough loyal subscribers you mau switch to less frequent updates.
Personally I don't like 1page updates unless it's a finished strip due to the genre

[Mallory]

AFAIK, most "social media marketing" experts say that you need to be frequent and consistent with new content. When I was in university, my "Writing for the Graphic Medium" prof brought in a bunch of semi-successful webcomic artist and they all basically said that you need to be frequent and predictable. I recall one of them saying that to really ramp up your success, according some to research they read, once a week was an absolute minimum.

So in that vein, I think it's better to do shorter but frequent updates. I agree with you though, when you're telling a longer story, it doesn't seem worth it to just upload page by page, because it feels like publishing the story in paragraphs. So, the "expert" answer is once a week is better. In reality... I dunno, I think you can get away with once a month with more content to show for it. Plenty of big-name comics around the world publish on a monthly schedule and keep their readers (though of course they actually usually publish on a WEEKLY schedule, just not with the same stories...).

From everything I know though, the recommendation is definitely for a consistent schedule, not a "whenever I'm done" schedule. And I would hesitate to go longer than a month between updates.

[rajillustration]

I think it depends on what comic you're making and how intense the art is, honestly. I do page updates because my comic style is page-format anyway, so it doesn't feel so weird to do a weekly/biweekly update. But, if I were doing something that was in the style of a long format phone comic, I think people would be dissapointed by an update that was less than 8 panels (and you see it sometimes, where people do long format--but only one page of long format at a time. It works for them, I guess, but it means you sometimes get updates that are like...2 panels).

I think it's really more about how much content you're posting every update--and that can depend on the comic itself and the speed it tells stories. Some stories can say a whole ton in one page. Some stories say virtually nothing in 20 panels of long format comic. Just gotta make sure that every update is a complete thought, and that it is satisfying enough for your reader. The length doesn't necessarily make it satisfying.

Oh yeah, and like people have mentioned, consistency is everything to an algorithm. You decide what your schedule is, and it's fine if stuff happens and you have to take breaks, but you want to try and make a schedule that you can easily manage.

[Rhonder]

There's a give and take for both options- generally speaking, shorter, more frequent updates will be better for visibility but may harm the reading experience some (less content can be less satisfying to read, and there's more chance to end at an awkward spot)

Where as updates that are a little longer (maybe like 3-5 pages or so, maybe more?) But less frequent can be more satisfying to consume per update but your visibility suffers.

Deciding which option to go with is hard. From the little bit of experience that I have + observation, my gut tells me that going with shorter more frequent updates is good if your comic has a certain amount of "wow factor" where you can consistently hook and draw people in even with shorter updates. Whether it be due to your comic having a snappy enough pace that something interesting is happening every few pages, or maybe it's just visually stunning or interesting, etc. Basically if you can still wow people at that pace, the hit to the overall reading experience is probably worth it.

Buuuut if your comic moves at a slower pace or requires more context to build up to the big moments, it may very well be worth actually doing fewer but more substantial updates. The added visibility won't help very much if each individual page isn't actually enticing people to read and subscribe. This goes double at the beginning- I'm a fan of comics that at least have a lot of pages launched up front even if they slow down afterwards because it's really hard to judge if I'll like a comic when clicking to it the first time if there's just a single page available. If that page isn't stellar I'm probably not gonna sub lol. This issue goes away regardless once you're several updates in, but first impressions count!

Lastly I'll share the "3rd" option that I'm going to try out with my next comic that I'm working on this year- "front load the work and have weekly long updates". The best of both worlds, with the downside being the long stretch of off time while I'm away working on the comic lol. After doing the 1 page a week thing for a year, I grew to despise that workflow... i was bad at maintaining buffer and thus under a lot of unnecessary stress all the time. This way i can work at my pace & have long weekly updates they... just won't be starting for a long time dunno if it'll pay off, but giving it a try anyways~

[edmourabarbosa]

C'mon guys, you're NOT helping here. I want a definite answer! SHORT OR LONG?

Jokes aside, thank you all very much for the answers. I see that everyone is in the same boat as myself. To be honest I still haven't decided on the best solution... I might try the longer format, but I'm afraid of losing the readers.

Thanks again!

[dwopey]

Personally I prefer short weekly updates, but I usually can't stand reading a page at a time. My ideal output is for a week pages, but weekly. Once I simplified my art style for my comic I was able to do that.

[MoonlitHues]

Basically, you want to aim for predictability and visibility.
Predictability in terms of people knowing when to check back.
Visibility in terms of people finding you / being reminded your work exists.

In other words, decide on a regular update schedule of some sort.
Try to stay true to it as well as you can.

There's no one correct answer to how long or short an ideal update should be.
I like the approach where you try to think about content rather than actual length. Does this update give the reader something of value? Does it add to the story or move it forward in some way? Depending on what is currently happening in the story... Sometimes it takes a more to achieve that. sometimes it takes less.

It is often said that the more often you update, the better.
And while there is some truth in that, all I'm going to say about that is...

Consider your own health. Physically and mentally. Do what works for you.
Slow and steady is better than constantly saying sorry for being late with an update or guiltripping yourself over having to go on (repeated) hiatus because it's too much.
Frequent breaks are better than getting an arm with chronic tendonitis.

Don't start out too strong. Take some time to find your rhythm.

Without you, there is no story.

[Inspector_Spinda]

i think short is better. if someone wants a long update, they can just wait 10 weeks and binge your comic. but if you update frequently, the people who like to read a page at a time can also do that so it's two birds one stone