How long should I go into a story before ceasing posting on a site?

[DaelyxLenAuphydas]

Just thought I'd get some input. I see a lot of threads kinda like this one talking about quitting writing, but, I'm never going to do that. Even if I'm only writing to show off to my family then I'll keep going. But I do wonder at what point I should call it quits in terms of posting on a site. I'm currently posting on every single website I can find where I'm within the rules, and on most of them the readership is negligible at best. Take the chapter of Empire of Mercy I posted here today; As of posting this, ten hours after the chapter went live, not a single person read it. No views, nada. I'm generally a stubborn person so I've just been posting anyways but at some point I have to wonder if the effort of actually making the posting is just a waste of my time and energy.

What do y'all think? how many chapters in would you get before you thought it was time to cut your losses and give up on having anyone outside of your personal circle ever read it? Or would you just start trying to find ways to promote it, maybe?

 

[Deleted member 206441]

When you no longer feel like it, then stop.

 

[DaelyxLenAuphydas]

When you no longer feel like it, then stop.

I mean if I knew what that point was, I wouldn't bother asking. Lots of people talk about only having interest in stories with lots of chapters already, so I generally feel that its worth going some distance in before calling it quits. What that distance is though.... shrugs

 

[Tempokai]

First, it's a fanfic. Fanfics are generally do well, but yours is MLP fanfic. That's a problem, you've chosen niche fandom inside this website, which is most about manga and anime. Second, expecting someone to read it is already shows that you have expectations, but those expectations about readers reading it will be never met, because you're essentially begging some people to read it. I read halfway chapter 1, and gave up because I don't like MLP. Now, imagine people who see MLP and scroll down instantly. Audience will find you, not inverse. All you can do is to finish that for yourself, and hope for the best.

 

[Zenftiy]

Stop if you feel tired, so you won’t keep hoping for someone to read it. BUT, if you still want people to read it without exhausting yourself, start posting again once your story is finished.

It’s easier said than done, though. For me, I just can’t stop myself from posting every time I finish a chapter lol

 

[DaelyxLenAuphydas]

First, it's a fanfic. Fanfics are generally do well, but yours is MLP fanfic. That's a problem, you've chosen niche fandom inside this website, which is most about manga and anime. Second, expecting someone to read it is already shows that you have expectations, but those expectations about readers reading it will be never met, because you're essentially begging some people to read it. I read halfway chapter 1, and gave up because I don't like MLP. Now, imagine people who see MLP and scroll down instantly. Audience will find you, not inverse. All you can do is to finish that for yourself, and hope for the best.

Oh, thats just cause that was the specific story I posted today. I'd have said the same thing about Immaculate, to be clear. Actually, Empire of Mercy is way more popular than any of my original works by literally three orders of magnitude... just... ya know, only on the site dedicated to MLP. Hence why the thread is about how far I should go on individual sites. To be honest the only reason I started posting Empire of Mercy here and on other original fiction sites was because, seeing as how it was far more popular than my other stories, I had some hope it might lead some readers to my other works.

The other reason being that my kinda-vaguely-nebulously-sorta a fanfiction sort-not story, Birthright, which is not currently posted here or anywhere but was at one point in time, actually did better on the original fiction sites than it did on the pony site. Kinda a weird middle ground, too original to be fanfiction and too fanfiction to be original. So I had hoped that maybe posting the fanfiction over here might net a reader or two to it.

And to be fair, I have seen at least one other author for that particular fandom here.

I feel I've given the wrong impression. I'm not trying to complain about it, I was more just... trying to give an impression of what the state of it is. I guess if I was to try adn rephrase the question, I'm trying to ask at what point in a story its clear that no-one will be interested in it at all and its a waste of effort. Cause I know its not immediate.

Stop if you feel tired, so you won’t keep hoping for someone to read it. BUT, if you still want people to read it without exhausting yourself, start posting again once your story is finished.

It’s easier said than done, though. For me, I just can’t stop myself from posting every time I finish a chapter lol

I generally stick very strictly to my upload schedule (Biweekly) even though literally no-one but me cares. I guess its a matter of personal discipline and motivating myself to continue. But lately I do kinda feel like I might use up more energy than I want just checking pointlessly knowing fully well that no-one will have read it no matter how many times I refresh that page.

Also, I like your profile picture.

 

[Corty]

The moment you thought about creating this thread.

What do y'all think? how many chapters in would you get before you thought it was time to cut your losses and give up on having anyone outside of your personal circle ever read it?

I had multiple stories that garnered no attention. Still, I only stopped them after reaching a closure and giving it an end, even if an open one, so I could later come back and continue if I feel like it. But leaving any story unfinished? Nah. That's lame.

 

[Deleted member 206441]

The moment you thought about creating this thread.

Nods*
After reading a few more replies thats the feeling i got.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

End of an arc, or book.
Ideally.

The most ideal is to stop when all the arcs has been resolved and "final boss", "final conflict" has been resolved as well with everyone saying their final goodbyes. Complete woth epilogues.

Thats the True ideal, a complete story.

Does not mean that the story can't be continued, and there may be many problem has yet to come, as authors also create afterstories. But the story feels complete enough by that end of the arc.

But maybe in your story, it seems that the story hasn't complete all of the conflicts yet, as many story do.

You feel like you need to put a clear end goal as you're getting tired of writing this.

You can also put the story into some break end, like Naruto before shippuden, and make the characters take a year or two timeskip, so that you can take a break and bring back the story's continuation Season 2 into drafting board again.

Taking a break might help you take a look back and reflect on what you extecped to write in this story you've started, and what's you actually write all this time.

You can also try to put gap between regular chapter releases.

For example, if you're usualy put 4 chapter a month, as in 1 chapter per week, you can try reducing it into 3 chapter a month, as in you dont put chapter in the third week.

 

[SidikRizal]

From what I’ve read, if you truly believe in your story’s potential, you can post up to a hundred chapters just to be sure.

Realistically, though, one big arc or around 20-30 chapters should be enough to see if people are interested.

If that still feels like too much, I believe you can tell whether the story is going well from just seven chapters, sometimes even less.

At the end of the day, it’s all up to you. If the effort feels like too much trouble, you can stop anytime.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Fifty chapters. That seems to be when readership picks up if it ever will.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

Just thought I'd get some input. I see a lot of threads kinda like this one talking about quitting writing, but, I'm never going to do that. Even if I'm only writing to show off to my family then I'll keep going. But I do wonder at what point I should call it quits in terms of posting on a site. I'm currently posting on every single website I can find where I'm within the rules, and on most of them the readership is negligible at best. Take the chapter of Empire of Mercy I posted here today; As of posting this, ten hours after the chapter went live, not a single person read it. No views, nada. I'm generally a stubborn person so I've just been posting anyways but at some point I have to wonder if the effort of actually making the posting is just a waste of my time and energy.

What do y'all think? how many chapters in would you get before you thought it was time to cut your losses and give up on having anyone outside of your personal circle ever read it? Or would you just start trying to find ways to promote it, maybe?

I don't look for chapters.

Once I felt my works aren't accepted, I stop uploading, and before, I even delete it. Nowadays, I stopped doing the latter, but also stopped updating since it has become nonsensical for me to care for something no one cares about.

Today, I only update my stories on other sites where I can still feel the appreciation. ScribbleHub isn't one of those, and I gave up thinking I can do something that'll launch my career as an author.

But, I never stopped writing. I still write just to keep my mind sharp. This is similar to why I keep studying coding even when my systems aren't accepted, or I still keep drawing even though others care about my work when I give it for free. All so I can have something to keep my senses sharp as I grow older.

Many peeps who know me would disagree of how low I belittle myself. Nevertheless, I'm being honest with myself...and also expecting the worst. This is so that it won't really hurt so much.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Realistically, though, one big arc or around 20-30 chapters should be enough to see if people are interested.

If that still feels like too much, I believe you can tell whether the story is going well from just seven chapters, sometimes even less.

My one successful story here hit its stride around chapter 11 (unfortunately the history doesn't go back that far as far as I can tell to verify). The "sweet spots" that tend to draw readers are:

1. Getting a lot of comments and reviews and activity to combine and go into trending. (which happened around 11 for Strange Awakening) - nobody (possibly not even Tony) really understands the algorithm here, so no clue how it works..

2. Hitting Chapter 20 (though in Strange Awakening's case it dipped DOWN after that - but two other stories seemed to get bumps there).

3., Hitting Chapter 50 (my only story that did THAT - Between Worlds - had to be pulled, at least temporarily, due to shenanigans with Pocket FM, so I can't verify this).

 

[kosamsel]

Personally, I’ll post a chapter a day to a new site for around 2-3 weeks. If I don’t pick up any traction at all by then, I assume it’s a lost cause. It’s tough with web novels because there are definitely readers who won’t give anything a shot until it’s X chapters in, but geeeenerally I think you can see how the wind is blowing within 20 chapters. If there are a couple of consistent readers I’ll probably keep trucking even if the numbers don’t look so hot, but if I’m not getting any response at all my mental gives out fast LOL

 

[DaelyxLenAuphydas]

I feel like a lot of people didn't understand what I was asking, based on the number of people who seemed to think I was going to stop writing entirely or cease posting...

But as far as the rest of you, thankyou for the answers. It sounds to me like around fifty chapters is pretty much the absolute limit, if theres no readers by then there never will be. So I'll keep posting until I reach fifty and if theres still negligible readership at that point I'll call it there for an individual site.

To be clear; I wouldnt say I'm that upset or impatient. I'm literally just thinking about the economy of effort. I'm still gonna upload everything somewhere, its just a matter of me trying to figure out what the most productive pattern for uploading to different sites is. Since I'm taking a bit of a shotgun approach and posting it everywhere that I feel its within the rules.

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

Keep doing it. With a bot if you don't want to think too much about it. When people look for it, they will see the story posted everywhere. Most people are lazy and will simply see the large reach it has and think that it might be popular in other spaces.