What time is best?

[Jess98]

What time of the day do you think is best to post your comic? I usually post in the afternoon around 1:00-3:00pm. Is this not a good time?

[shazzbaa]

I don't think there's anything wrong with that time. If you do a forum search for things like "best time to post" or "update schedule" you'll see there's been a LOT of discussion about this topic! ....but the basic consensus is usually "no one's sure and it depends."
About the only thing we're really sure of is that weekends tend to be extremely low traffic days. Some creators prefer those days (less competition!) but a lot of creators will advise avoiding Friday, Saturday, and Sunday because the internet is so dead. Same goes for major holidays!

But beyond that, I don't think we have enough information to say -- some people prefer posting right at midnight. Some prefer shooting for "lunchtime in the US," since that's when the majority of readers are going to be taking lunch breaks and maybe checking their reading lists. And it's gonna depend on your audience, too. Different social media actually have different "ideal times" to post because of the different audiences on each site -- it wouldn't surprise me to learn that one person's best time is not the same as another's.

I think the only real way to know what's gonna work best for you is to try posting at different times and seeing which ones get the best results. If you want to try switching your updates to midnight/first thing in the morning/whichever for a week, just let your readers know what you're doing and try it out!

[Jess98]

Thank you very much for the advice and information! I really appreciate it.

[dojo]

Yeah, the only thing I do recommend is just making sure to post about the same time every time you do post. That way if you do get fans that are just THAT eager for an update, they always know exactly when it's going to go up so they can scurry off to look even before it's been announced. Maybe test different times on for size for now, but eventually just pick one I'd say (I currently post at 7pm every day my time just because it happened to be when my first scheduled page went up and I just kinda kept doing that but I've been debating changing that since it is a more high-traffic time when, sure, it may be more likely to get seen, but it's also more likely to get buried on the social media I use to tell people it's updated)

[Aspie_Gamer]

Yeah as @shazzbaa said, no one really knows for certain when exactly is the best time to update your comic.

However, what is known for certain is that your comic will get a fair amount of attention if you update it on a regular basis. Consistency is key here. 3 times a week is usually good enough for most creators here myself included.

When's a good time for you? I've found that the earlier you update in the day during the week, the more traffic you tend to get on average, but that's just me though.

Some people will read comics first thing in the morning as they get ready for school/work.

Others like to read them during lunch.

And some people wait until after school/work before they read their favorite comics as a way to help them unwind.

Whatever time seems to bring in the most traffic for you, stick with it.

[michaelbelvedereper]

Okay so this is my line of thinking recently. What I'd like to try doing is finding out when some of the more poplar comics are posted. Ive noticed that Tuesday or Friday evenings are pretty common for some reason. So basically, if everyone is getting online to see the popular comics, maybe its the popular creators that inadvertently decide when "rush hour" is. So watch what they do and if you notice like 10 big names all posting at once, post on that time too since more people will likely be online to read them and more people will be browsing.

Then all you need is an attractive thumbnail to hook new subscribers. This is my theory anyway.

[joannekwan]

Haha, my thinking is somewhat the opposite, where I try to post on days when popular comics aren't updating so as to have less competition for page space in the popular and trending sections.

But avoid Saturdays, Saturdays are pretty slow.

[BubooSenchan]

Sundays are good?

[joannekwan]

I think they're fine. My most popular series goes up then and it performs consistently decent.