Thread "How often should I update? " in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 2:09PM, Sep. 20, 2019

So the standard answer seems to be "as often as possible", which for me would mean weekly.

The thing is I'm working on a novel, not a strip, so each page I upload represents just a minute or so in story time. I personally would struggle to maintain an interest in a comic that's so stop and start, never building momentum unless I decide to go through the backlog every few months.

The way I'm doing it now is 5-10 pages bi-monthly. This allows scenes to breathe and build momentum, but probably doesn't do well for the algorithm. I'd probably get more eyeballs if I uploaded weekly, which I want for self-evident reasons.

I'm unsure what to do. What is your personal upload schedule? Why? What do you think I should do?

Posted at 7:09PM, Sep. 20, 2019

quinn o matic wrote:
So the standard answer seems to be "as often as possible", which for me would mean weekly.

The thing is I'm working on a novel, not a strip, so each page I upload represents just a minute or so in story time. I personally would struggle to maintain an interest in a comic that's so stop and start, never building momentum unless I decide to go through the backlog every few months.

The way I'm doing it now is 5-10 pages bi-monthly. This allows scenes to breathe and build momentum, but probably doesn't do well for the algorithm. I'd probably get more eyeballs if I uploaded weekly, which I want for self-evident reasons.

I'm unsure what to do. What is your personal upload schedule? Why? What do you think I should do?

With my friend and I's comic, we upload in bursts. We make an entire chapter, and then upload one page of it every 2 days. Once a chapter's uploaded completely, we stop uploading for a good while to work on the next one, and then we repeat once the next chapter's made.

It works for us because instead of working on a little bit 24/7 and forcing yourself to stick to a hard schedule, we can make a lot all at once and then take a break. And because everyone reading it knows we go on hiatus between chapters, nobody thinks "How dare they be gone one day later than they said??", but instead, "Oh, they're just still on hiatus, like they said.".

Summary:

-One page every 2 days (or however many days you're comfortable with, but I don't recommend going less than one per week)
-Take breaks between chapters (or your story's equivalent) to make more chapters

Pros: Consistent schedule during chapters, very flexible and easy to stick to without being irritating for readers.

Cons: Long hiatuses may cause some to lose interest (Of course, an easy fix would be to say how long you plan each hiatus to be.)

Posted at 12:09AM, Sep. 21, 2019

Regularly. be it daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly just try and be consistent.

Posted at 9:09AM, Sep. 21, 2019

How often? That depends entirely on you. Set a pace YOU can maintain. Why kill yourself to put out 3 or 5x a week updates, especially if story and art start to suffer? It sucks as a reader, having to wait longer… but knowing you can count on updates can really make up for that.

Posted at 11:09AM, Sep. 21, 2019

BustyLaroo wrote:
How often? That depends entirely on you. Set a pace YOU can maintain. Why kill yourself to put out 3 or 5x a week updates, especially if story and art start to suffer? It sucks as a reader, having to wait longer… but knowing you can count on updates can really make up for that.

Considering the upload scheduling set date thingy feature I figure I can upload weekly with no change in my process.

Posted at 8:09PM, Sep. 21, 2019

It depends on how you make your work. Seeing at your comic and the transition from analog to digital, it looks awesome and very detailed. It might take a lot of time to get ready a single page.

I work on stages: instead of make a page and then the next one, I make the complete storyboard, then the sketches, the inking and all that stuff. Working this way, I could focus on a single task at the time and speed up things. Maybe a chapter is too much, but you could make a bunch of 5 - 10 pages and then working on the others as you upload them weekly.

The thing is that you don't take all the pressure trying to reach your deadline, that only leads to frustration (it happens to me in the last months).

A weekly page is in most cases the standard.

Posted at 3:09AM, Sep. 23, 2019

Pace yourself, set a schedule you can live with and respect your audience.

I've completed five comics, one unfinished reboot, and three anthologies that update whenever there is a new story and have build a whole new audience each time.

When I have a comic in production I try to maintain a buffer. After a decade of experiments I've settled into two updates a week with at least two days between them. The buffer should be about two weeks worth.

I've done everything else in between. Constant production and updating until the end is my goal. Keeping the audience engaged with regular scheduled updates until it's done. Update at least once a week, twice is a touch better in my opinion to keep the readers from forgetting you completely. But keep to a regular schedule. "New page on Tuesday," means new page on Tuesday so the reader can set his schedule around it.

Posted at 6:09AM, Sep. 23, 2019

Genejoke wrote:
Regularly. be it daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly just try and be consistent.

This. You want people to get into the habit of routinely checking your project.

The social media machine demands daily posts, but I don't think creators should have to cater to that. Give your work the time it needs, just don't make the mistake of taking too long like me. 😜

Posted at 9:09AM, Sep. 28, 2019

quinn o matic wrote:
Considering the upload scheduling set date thingy feature I figure I can upload weekly with no change in my process.

Well there you go! :)

Posted at 11:11PM, Nov. 8, 2019

I’m an old retired guy, so I’ve tried posting a page on Wednesday’s, Friday’s, and Sundays. There’s about enough time to stay ahead.

— Rick Rudge