When is the best time to post?

[jamontoast98]

https://tapas.io/series/World-of-Fighters

Now that scheduling is a thing we can post our comics at any time.
However I do not know what time that should be?
Wondering if you guys had any ideas!

[Rhonder]

There's not really a solid answer to this because people from all over the world use Tapas, so even if you post at an "ideal" time for one country or area, chances are it'll be at a really inconvenient time for many many other time zones.

Even just picking a day to post is highly subjective- some people would say "post on the weekends, more people have free time then" but then you'll hear other people say "well, I only read webcomics on the week days, during my commute to and from work" and so on. There's just no way to please everyone, in other words.

So you have a few options.

One is to target a specific demographic and target your uploads towards them. If you pick a specific country or time zone you can start making educated guesses about when your demographic might be getting on their app to read comics. What age group are they in? Do they have work/school? If so would they rather read in the morning, at lunch time, or afterwards? Is the weekend best? Again these will still differ person to person, but it's a starting point.

The other consideration that I've seen suggested but have yet to try myself is to find a premium series that is in a similar genre/content-matter as your comic and try to ride their coattails, uploading a short time after their scheduled release times. The logic here is that premium series are more heavily advertised and are generally are what draw casual readers to the site. So they'll be subscribed to those series and check in to catch the latest episode. If you're lucky, after finishing some of them might check to see what else there is to read and if your series is there when they look, it may warrant consideration. This seems like sound advice to me, tbh, and is something I'm considering for my upcoming series.

Best of luck!

[jamontoast98]

Thanks, that's some really solid advice! You sound like a smart person

[Kaydreamer]

The idea of hitching your wagon to a premium series timing-wise is a really good one! I'm not sure what's out there for sci-fi in that regard, but I'll definitely have a look and consider trying that.

[skicoak]

I don't have any science to back it up but I'm going with June 28th, 2016.

[Rhonder]

Right? I've only seen it suggested by 1 or 2 people in the past but it's stuck around in my brain because it... seems relatively sensible lol. I was too deep into my previous comic's schedule to give it a go before, but I'm going to try it for my upcoming one~

Sci-fi may indeed be a little rough on tapas to find a match it looks like there are currently... 0 active premium sci-fi comics If you cross-post on Webtoons too, though, they currently have some sci fi originals so that might give a basis for that platform at least! Or, I see on your comic's description on tapas it's also tagged action/fantasy which might have some overlap with something here lol

[Kaydreamer]

Yeeeeeah, I definitely chose the least popular genre, haha. Hitching my wagon to a fantasy/action series may be a good bet. The guts of Blue Star Rebellion is definitely more fantasy anyway, it's just set in space.

I do cross-post on WEBTOON, so I'll have a look at the possibilities there as well.

Thanks for the ideas!

[purrlpankras]

I usually post at 6pm GMT (UK time), it's when half the world is online for me.

[thedude3445]

7 PM EST, or 4 PM PST.

I can't say for absolutely certain that this is the best time, but it's the time when the majority of readers on the website are going to be pretty glued to their devices as they settle down for the evening, or as they get done with their work/school day and go home for dinner.

[skyfarron]

It's not important what time of day you post, imo, as long as you post at least once every two or three days. You'll inevitably find your way in the Fresh section, even though you may only have less than 20 likes or subscribers, just because you're getting consistent views. The Fresh section is the easiest place to find your work, requiring the least amount of taps in the app. I'm all the way at the top in the Fresh section for Horror because it's kind of a barren category for frequently updating series.

[crowstories]

One other consideration is that if you post at a time/in a genre where there aren't a lot of other comics scheduled, you'll remain towards the top of "fresh" longer. There will probably be fewer active readers during those times, but the ones there are will have a larger window in which to find you.

Of course I have no idea what those times would be.

[skyfarron]

Two things you definitely shouldn't do are:
1. Post more than once a day (unless it's the same chapter broken in half). You'll lose potential viewers because the algorithm will only count the most recent post you made, and twice in the same day is just one day posted. The site doesn't bump you up because of quantity, but frequency. If you have subscribers, you'll annoy them by giving them constant notifications, and probably lose them.
2. Posting less than once a week. You'll hemorrhage viewers as the algorithm decides you aren't frequent enough to draw a consistent audience. However, if you already have a lot of subscribers, this can work in your favor, as they'll look forward to your once-a-week updates and use the notification to swipe into the app instead of opening the app looking for your post. If you post once a month, unless it's some of the highest quality anyone's ever seen on the site, people are going to get bored and unsubscribe.