How many chapters do you post per week?

[ThisAdamGuy]

And how long are those chapters?

Right now I'm posting a chapter every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but those books are all already finished so I'm not at risk of running out of chapters before the book ends. While I'm doing that, I'm working on my WIP, Road to Olympus, and I'm trying to decide what the ideal posting schedule would be when I eventually release it. My chapters usually range from 1800-3000 words. Would SH readers be satisfied with one chapter per week at that length? Or will they expect two or three chapters per week?

 

[Zinless]

This is only my assumption, but:

3 chapters/week is the average, I assume. I don't think anyone would complain if you use this schedule, just plan your days properly.

As for 1-2 chapter(s)/week, a lot of people would consider that too slow of an upload schedule. People might forget your story exists by the time the next chapter is uploaded. If you want to use this schedule, do it on the weekends.

5-7 chapters/week is optimal if you want to be popular, but you're at risk of being chased by deadlines since you're basically doing one chapter everyday.

Any more than that, then you're wasting your efforts.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

And how long are those chapters?

Right now I'm posting a chapter every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but those books are all already finished so I'm not at risk of running out of chapters before the book ends. While I'm doing that, I'm working on my WIP, Road to Olympus, and I'm trying to decide what the ideal posting schedule would be when I eventually release it. My chapters usually range from 1800-3000 words. Would SH readers be satisfied with one chapter per week at that length? Or will they expect two or three chapters per week?

I'm just dumping chapters at this point, so first time was four every weekend. Last time was a chapter everyday. Nowadays, it's weekend and Wednesday.

Prolly next arc will be every weekend again.

Also, how long?

Arc 1 Main chapters have variable lengths, with 3.5k min and 6.7k max.
Arc 2 - 5 chapters have a 4k min and 4.6k max.

Side chaps are around 1k to 3k words.

My total chapter count is around 445 chapters and a total of 1.2 million words.

 

[JustAnError]

As a Writer, I mostly post a chapter per week and the words are between 3k - 5k. As a reader, if it's one chapter per week then that chapter should be lengthy, like 3k+, better if beyond 5k hahaha.....well that's only my preference since I'm mostly used to lengthy chapters but somewhere around 2k is fine but if its 1k words then post as much as possible.

 

[Iamnotabot]

Before, once per week. Now, one per two or three.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

3 chapters/week is the average, I assume

I'm almost definitely not going to be able to keep up with that. I want to have at least a year's worth of buffer when I start uploading, and at three chapters a week that equals 156 chapters. Like I said, I can do that now because the books I'm posting (I have 14 written) are already finished so I can afford to to do three chapters a week. But once I get to posting brand new content, it'll be much harder to keep a good 156 chapter buffer going while I'm writing and uploading it at the same time.

Two chapters a week sounds way more doable for me. I just hope that's enough for the readers here.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

I'm almost definitely not going to be able to keep up with that. I want to have at least a year's worth of buffer when I start uploading, and at three chapters a week that equals 156 chapters. Like I said, I can do that now because the books I'm posting (I have 14 written) are already finished so I can afford to to do three chapters a week. But once I get to posting brand new content, it'll be much harder to keep a good 156 chapter buffer going while I'm writing and uploading it at the same time.

Two chapters a week sounds way more doable for me. I just hope that's enough for the readers here.

What the readers want are consistency, more than the pace of uploads.

See, a lot of writers would post interesting stuff, only to shoot it down when they lose interest. For many serious readers, this is a big issue, hence they tend to stay off picking works until they deem the author to have invested enough time not to drop it.

 

[WinterTimeCrime]

As a forever busy college student and analyst, I only post two chapters a week publicly and three on my Patreon. I never go over 1.5k words, but make a minimum of at least 1k words.

But my goal isn't to obtain web novel readers, it is simply as a hobby. So you just have to figure out your end goal to justify what schedule you need to succeed.

And why the cladda-ladda-bing-bong are your chapters so long? I know for a fact that no one reads more than two thousand words in one sitting unless you're a slouch or your prose is as smooth as Ryan Reynolds's voice.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

And why the cladda-ladda-bing-bong are your chapters so long?

I thought 2000-3000 words was considered the happy medium for webnovel chapters. 3000 words is roughly ten pages, which most people can read in less than an hour, not to mention over the course of a whole week, or even half a week.

 

[Jerynboe]

I post once a week for my main story, usually 3500-4500 words. Thats the one where I’m genuinely trying to hone my craft, make it as good as I can manage. I have an editing process and everything.

I have other stories that I write just for fun, when I feel up for it, and those have far less set schedules because they are PURELY me having fun and experimenting. I don’t want to leave things in a bad place, so I write those by arc and then dump one chapter a day until I have posted the whole arc. Not great for retention, but I don't feel bad ignoring the story for a while

 

[melchi]

What the readers want are consistency, more than the pace of uploads.

See, a lot of writers would post interesting stuff, only to shoot it down when they lose interest. For many serious readers, this is a big issue, hence they tend to stay off picking works until they deem the author to have invested enough time not to drop it.

Consistency is key. Like take super support on rr. Very popular and only posts one big chapter a week.

 

[MajorKerina]

For about 20 months I kept pace with five updates a week. I discovered a few things. Whenever a work seems like it's reaching a new book or starting a new thing people will jump in and be interested. Otherwise it tends to dip quite a bit.

How often you update isn't as important as keeping regular updates. Unfortunately my life right now is such that I can't but I'm doing my best to keep it active.

I think about the maximum an update should be is 1000 words every 12 hours. With a maximum around 2000 words a day. I was incredibly effective doing sub 1000 updates on a story like an Isekai. Monday Wednesday Friday is not a bad set up although I'm kind of iffy on Friday. Friday always drops hard for viewership. Never update on weekends... there's no one around.

The most ideal update schedule I can think of would be somewhere between 1000 and 2000 words on Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday or even MWF. Now if you've already established yourself and people are jumping in and want more then you're probably well positioned and do it however your sanity best allows you. But more than once a day posting is just wasteful.

 

[Tyranomaster]

You've been asking a lot of questions in the past few days, and many of them have been answered in one form or another already. I'd advise you start searching the forums for answers to these questions first.

1000-3000 words is generally accepted as the wider range that chapter lengths should ever be.

Most people recommend 1200-2000 (keeping exceptions to a minimum).

I aim for 1500 words, and post three times a week. Though when I hit it off I was only doing 2 posts a week, my patrons have been kind enough to keep my goal income high enough to support me doing 3 posts a week.

Every story is unique, and there are exceptions to every writing 'rule'. It's been mentioned before that consistency is key, and I agree, it's one of many keys to success. One of the biggest and best things you can do though is to take the responsibility of figuring out what you need to do yourself. All these questions you've been asking have been asked and answered already. It's good you want to get them right, however, any random post you make is going to cast a far smaller net than reading the six nearly identical posts made by others already. When I went to go write my current story, which was the first story that I truly wanted to write to some amount of success, I sat down for multiple days and just did research.

I searched forums, I searched advice, I listened to videos by famous and not-so-famous authors. Anything and everything that I thought might matter. Chapter length, posting schedule, topics, writing style, websites to use, best practices for patreon, you name it, I probably looked into it. It's all out there already. Rather than playing catchup with each concept as you think about it, start from some of the writing advice guides that are already on the forum.

I'd recommend starting at: Corty's Tip Jar

 

[Bartun]

I post a 7K-words chapter every few months, but nobody reads my story anyway.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

. . . chapter? . . . s?

 

[theInmara]

We post a chapter once a day (seven days a week), and are currently aiming for 3k words per chapter. Our default is to write 5k to 12k words a day, when we're writing a book.

We personally prefer Wildbow length chapters of 7k or more when both reading and writing. 3k feels tight and short, but doable. We're sticking to 3k here in order to be sure we have a buffer for our ridiculous update schedule (writing on average two chapters a day), and because it feels like what readers here are used to. But if we do a story that updates once or twice a week, we're going back to the longer chapters.

Don't be like us. Don't compare yourself to us. We're not competition, and we're not normal. We're not normal at all.

(Also, Wildbow updates his long chapters twice a week and has been struggling with burnout on and off for years. It's important to consider your own health and capabilities before you consider what audiences want.)

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I try to do at least one per story per week. Usually two (generally one late Monday or some time Tuesday, one late Thursday or some time Friday) per story but sometimes only one, occasionally another goes up during that week but at no set time.

Lenth has been very variable. Diamond in the Rough has been about 1200 or so words per chapter, Strange Awakening has had ... a lot more in general (roughly twice as long with half as many chapters .... though most of that word count comes from two very long ones, that I need to cut down - which will probably delay the next chapter upload but ... eh...)

 

[SoaringMoon]

I'm trying to aim for 3 a week, mon-wed-fri.
However, I'm not sure how well I will be able to keep that schedule.

 

[LoneQuack]

It doesn't really matter if you are doing it as a hobby, but if you aim for something professional 5-7 chapters is the norm, and some go as far as 14 per week (two chapter per day). As for length around the 1200-2000 mark.

Me personally 5 chapters per week at the 1500 mark. Although I'll have to drop down on 4 after the first volume ends. (I post on Royal Road, too bored to worry about scribblehub)

 

[SoaringMoon]

It doesn't really matter if you are doing it as a hobby, but if you aim for something professional 5-7 chapters is the norm, and some go as far as 14 per week (two chapter per day). As for length around the 1200-2000 mark.

Me personally 5 chapters per week at the 1500 mark. Although I'll have to drop down on 4 after the first volume ends. (I post on Royal Road, too bored to worry about scribblehub)

I don't think you should be tuning your chapter length to your posting schedule.
You should set your posting frequent to the speed at which you are able top compose you chapters.
You should be thinking about what length of chapters your want to write, then adjust your posting schedule to that.