What is your Chapter 1 to Chapter 2 dropoff rate?

[bulgariansumo]

On most sites, a 50% drop off rate is usually common between the first and second chapters.

Mine goes:
Episode 1 (Section title + Image): 246 views
Episode 2 (Actual Chapter 1): 115 views
Episode 3 (Chapter 2): 51 views
Episode 4 (Chapter 3): 42 views

I have noticed that Tapas counts views pretty weirdly, which results in artificial inflation. One person went through my series up until a certain point, and even though they were the only person who viewed certain chapters, the view count would go up to 20-something.

[IndigoShirtProd]

So from episode 1 to episode 2 I went from ~1300 views to about 630, retaining 45% of readers. But my latest episode that came out a few months ago has around 50 views. But that an incremental drop off over the course of years.

I have noticed that Tapas counts views pretty weirdly

Yea, I can't tell if individual files count as one view or if one completed episode does or an entirely different metric.

[rajillustration]

It also depends like if you've done a lot of online promotion or if you've been promoted, people will be more inclined to click the link without considering if the genre is even for them. So my dropoff rate is even higher than 50% but then tapers off.

1: 2.2K views
2: 623 views
3: 555 views
4: 455 views and so on.

But also people are more inclined to read and sub to works that have a few more episodes anyway, it pulls them in better because there's more of the hook written, so I think you'll see a better retention rate with time since now you only have 4 episodes.

[CandyDaisies]

This is all very helpful! Thank you, everyone.

[smokesalty]

I decided to make my first 4 episodes much longer than my usual updates specifically because of the drop off rate I wanted to establish my hook early on just so people weren't waiting around to see if my comic's for them, and I think it worked pretty decently.

The drop off is to be expected though haha

Ep 1: 1.2k views
Ep 2: 1.2k views
Ep 3: 847 views
Ep 4: 568 views

For a bit of a guide: Ep1 is 17 pages, Ep 2 is 8 pages and Ep 3 is 10 pages and Ep 4 is 9 pages. My usual weekly updates are 3-4 pages. Don't know how useful that is but here

[ccmatta]

Long time creator here (2+ years). My dropoff rate is bigger with time, 100+ episodes or so.

Prologue: 2.9k views
Ep.1: 2.2k
Ep.2: 1.3k
Ep. 137: 240 lol

So yeah, kind of 10% of the people who started, stayed through the comic. I never stoped to analize this numbers, so thank you for this thread xD Makes you wonder what's the problem at the same time is a reasonable number, how many comics you open the 1st episode and end up not reading? For me, it's a lot.

[darthmongoose]

Oh mine's gonna be horrible because I was featured in the Tapas easter egg hunt event, where people got the chance to win ink by commenting on just the first episode.....

And so I went to check and.... PFFFT! Yep, this is ridiculous!

Episode 1: 13.8k views
Episode 2: 4.6k views
Episode 3: 3.5k views
Episode 4: 3.1k views

By about a week after coming out, a new episode usually hits a bit over 500 for reference and comparison. Errant has 133 episodes, currently and is just coming up towards its third birthday.

[allenT]

Chap 01- 1 of 3: 3.3K views
Chap 01- 2 of 3: 781 views
Chap 01- 3 of 3: 659 views
Chap 02- 1 of 4: 593 views

Based on 1st and 2nd episodes, around 1 in 4.3 readers retained (23.6%). Other than that there's is reading decline on each episodes.

My story pacing is slow and I post between 2 weeks~1 month(at that time). Also it's a anthro/furry webcomic with B&W instead of color.

But I don't really care much about those numbers now

[CommissarTarkin]

Mine is rather depressing:

1: 135
2: 45
3: 24
4: 10

[TheDoublekey]

Well huh, I don't know about my Webtoon stats much, so I'll go with Tapas.

Episode 1 (Prologue): 1.3 k views
Episode 2 (Beginning of chapter 1): 434 views
Episode 3 (Chapter 1.2): 284 views
Episode 4 (Chapter 1.3): 187 views

Unfortunately views have decreased every episode and, the thing that I find the most interesting is the fact that there's always a big gap between my first and second episode. I guess the prologue wasn't gripping enough? Or maybe it's because of the formatting? I really don't know.

I mean, this thing pretty much happens with everyone so, I don't know lol.

[DualDragons]

Mine is a bit depressing

Ep 1: 3,5k views
Ep 2: 579 views

This is why I contemplated redrawing my episodes in 2019, but I'd rather work on the story itself for those who do follow it. I can always do a overhaul in the future

[Fedriz_Marini]

Mine is heartwrecking, especially knowing that It happened because of the whole "Treasure hunting" thing (Which also gave me some "Subs").

Prologue - Part 1: 3.4k views
Prologue - Part 2: 760 views

Following that, the rest of the Prologue has an average: 500 views, while Chapter 1's average is: 200, Chapter 2's: 100, and Chapter 3 barely gets over the 100s in average...

I know the first Book is slow (meant more to introduce the overall situation and the world + with the help of the Lorebook Entries not to fill Dialogues with unrelated Exposition), and due to financial reasons and to help the Artist don't feel stressed I tend to go in hiatus after each chapter, but this is ridiculous, especially with 270 Subs total...

[CarltonIsaac]

Episodes 2 and 3 were later inserts but they hijacked the publish date and time of the original episode 2 which is now Episode 4.

The drop off seems to be by about 50-60%.

Not as bad as Youtube Subs view count though.

[igneriss]

For 6,75, my first updates were just one page long each, so I'm not sure if it counts
Ep 1 (Cover) : 4k
Ep 2 (prologue 1st page) : 2.4k
Ep 3 (prologue 2nd page) : 1.9k
Ep 4 (prologue 3rd page) : 1.7k
Ep 5 (chapter 1 cover) : 1.6k

then throught the chapter 1 it little by little goes down to ~ 500 views. It very slowly goes down with each episode (again, I used to upload one page per episode), and then after chapter 4 it keeps more or less between 100 and 200 views till chapter 12- this is when I went on hiatus. After coming back I have ~50 views per episode.
And, well, my series is very long, so no wonder why views are decreasing with time also no wonder why first episode has the most clicks, some people just click to add it to bookmarks and never read more, some just read synopsis and decide it's not for them, and that's okay

For TMIC, my dropoff rate was much smaller tho.
Ep 1 : 2.1k
Ep 2 : 1.8k
Ep 3 : 1.7k
Ep 4 : 1.6k
The views decreased with time, but much slower and by the time I quit drawing it, I still got ~400 views on newer episodes.

[RobertBMarks]

Easier to do a screenshot...so, here are mine:

I don't know how representative this is when it comes down to it. What I can add is that the prologue is written in a normal 3rd person, the first chapter is a first person narration (italicized to set it apart and part of a bookend with the epilogue), and the second chapter returns to a more normal third person.

The prologue and chapters 1 and 2 were all published on the same day, with other chapters following on a weekly basis.

[Azifri]

My comic started in grayscale scroll format, and later I replaced the early episodes with a new version in color and page format.

Old version (2018-2021)
Ep. 1: 1.6k
Ep. 2: 805
Ep. 3: 584

New version (2021-2022)
Ep. 1: 1.7k
Ep. 2: 328
Ep. 3: 260

Currently on episode 134 and views are around 150-200 per episode.

I wonder why it took less time for the new version to get to those views on episode 1. Perhaps people click on colored comics more often but then decide pages aren't for them, or maybe Tapas has more traffic despite comics being more hidden than ever so there are more random clicks. No idea.

[meap]

1:187
2:63
3:50
4:41
seems normal to me

[powerplantanimations]

Episode 1: 2.7k views
Episode 2: 1k views
Episode 3: 816 views
Episode 4: 844 views

Sometimes episodes get less views than other which baffles me because those are usually the episodes where I expect to be talked about a lot so keep an eye out with stuff like that.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I got around 30%
Don't worry, the ratio will get more disproportionate once your series get more views too

[KennethLopezJr921]

I only have one chapter currently (one long one which is still not finished) so I'll go Part by Part

Part 1: 1.8K
Part 2: 492
Part 3: 473
Part 4: 589
Part 5: 593
Part 6: 477
Part 7: 577
Part 8 (Released June 24th): 230

So as you can, the first ep has the most views whilst the rest of the episodes vary in view count. I literally have no idea how this happens as you would need to view the previous chapter before going onto the other so I dont know how some have more views than others