When did your story start to pick up an audience?

[kosamsel]

I’ve seen a few posts now from people wondering how long it takes before your story starts to gain traction, so I thought I’d ask: if you have a reader base, no matter how small, how long did it take you to develop it?

 

[Tyranomaster]

It was over six months before any real traction began for me. It seems that number varies by person, but it does generally float between 70 and 100 chapters. My hypothesis is that a large number of readers filter by greater than that number of chapters, especially ones who just read, and don't interact. They look for more than X chapters, and regular postings.

 

[Eldoria]

I don't know what indicators for calculating the reader bases are: views, favourites, or bookmarks. Well, all three indicators have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Views are the most superficial indicator; every visitor who stops by our novel page, even if only reading the synopsis, will be recorded as one view per page.

Then, favourites are an indicator that shows reader preferences, but each reader can add many favourites, so practically, it can't be a measure of the reader base.

Finally, bookmarks are an indicator of readers saving our novel to read now or later. This is the most realistic, showing how many people keep our novel as a book on their shelves.

But these three indicators are less able to represent silent readers. It's possible that readers only read but never interact and become silent fans, who knows?! So what about my novel?

Do I have the reader bases? My short answer is I really don't know. My novels are only 2 months old and have hundreds of bookmarks, but few favourites (the number of views can be ignored because it is too fake). Maybe there are some readers who actually read it, or maybe they just stopped by.

Well, whatever it is, I am grateful for every reader who visits my novels. I hope you enjoyed my novels. Hopefully, we can inspire each other.

Best regards.

Spoiler: Blood Rose Princess

Blood Rose Princess Just Wants to Live in Peace with Her Little Daughter

What if the world chose to forget its saviour and its sins, while the saviour chose instead to protect her daughter’s innocence? Seven years ago, the age of tyranny was erased from the memory of mankind. Civilisation crumbled, the tyrants fell into an eternal sleep, and the victims woke...

www.scribblehub.com

It was over six months before any real traction began for me. It seems that number varies by person, but it does generally float between 70 and 100 chapters. My hypothesis is that a large number of readers filter by greater than that number of chapters, especially ones who just read, and don't interact. They look for more than X chapters, and regular postings.

That makes sense. Some die-hard readers have a tradition of "saving up," where they'll wait until they've reached tens or hundreds of chapters before binge-reading them.

 

[kosamsel]

It was over six months before any real traction began for me. It seems that number varies by person, but it does generally float between 70 and 100 chapters. My hypothesis is that a large number of readers filter by greater than that number of chapters, especially ones who just read, and don't interact. They look for more than X chapters, and regular postings.

Oooh, that’s interesting to hear and makes perfect sense, thank you!

I don't know what indicators for calculating the reader bases are: views, favourites, or bookmarks. Well, all three indicators have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Views are the most superficial indicator; every visitor who stops by our novel page, even if only reading the synopsis, will be recorded as one view per page.

Then, favourites are an indicator that shows reader preferences, but each reader can add many favourites, so practically, it can't be a measure of the reader base.

Finally, bookmarks are an indicator of readers saving our novel to read now or later. This is the most realistic, showing how many people keep our novel as a book on their shelves.

But these three indicators are less able to represent silent readers. It's possible that readers only read but never interact and become silent fans, who knows?! So what about my novel?

Do I have the reader bases? My short answer is I really don't know. My novels are only 2 months old and have hundreds of bookmarks, but few favourites (the number of views can be ignored because it is too fake). Maybe there are some readers who actually read it, or maybe they just stopped by.

Well, whatever it is, I am grateful for every reader who visits my novels. I hope you enjoyed my novels. Hopefully, we can inspire each other.

Best regards.

Spoiler: Blood Rose Princess

Blood Rose Princess Just Wants to Live in Peace with Her Little Daughter

What if the world chose to forget its saviour and its sins, while the saviour chose instead to protect her daughter’s innocence? Seven years ago, the age of tyranny was erased from the memory of mankind. Civilisation crumbled, the tyrants fell into an eternal sleep, and the victims woke...

www.scribblehub.com

That makes sense. Some die-hard readers have a tradition of "saving up," where they'll wait until they've reached tens or hundreds of chapters before binge-reading them.

Aggghhh, I know what you mean; interpreting the silent majority is challenging. I tend to think of my reader base as, like, people whose names I recognize. Not necessarily ones who favorite or comment all the time, but if I check the stats page, I definitely come to recognize the people who keep up with every chapter (although that’s not a super accurate method either, since users can choose to hide their activity).

 

[Puji-Maki]

Around 100 chapters.

 

[Deleted member 166465]

They didnt, womp womp.
I got just a few selective, wonderfull readers. My work is not for the Plebeians.
*Adjust monocle in a sofisticated, snob fashion*
Nahhh. my stories are too short. The longest one is 200k words, but the chapter are usually long (3000 to 9000) words, so people dont bother too much since is only 75 or so chapter. Also I made a mistake, trying to be "orginal" I started the story with each character and its background in an individual chapter, is boring to read, also there is no mistery behind it. It is just me telling a story.
The MC is a regular guy, who got nothing special and can be kind of an ass, so no point there.
Is not what most readers in this space are looking for. The looking for isekai and romance... Yuk.

 

[expentio]

I guess I was super lucky with my first novel. My style wasn't even all that good back then, but for some reason, I got several weeks in a row trending, often first place, and the reception was so much better than I imagined.
I had like three hundred readers after some weeks, and seriously couldn't complain.

 

[kosamsel]

I guess I was super lucky with my first novel. My style wasn't even all that good back then, but for some reason, I got several weeks in a row trending, often first place, and the reception was so much better than I imagined.
I had like three hundred readers after some weeks, and seriously couldn't complain.

Oh, that's so awesome! Congratulations!!!!

 

[Deleted member 166465]

They didnt, womp womp.
I got just a few selective, wonderfull readers. My work is not for the Plebeians.
*Adjust monocle in a sofisticated, snob fashion*
Nahhh. my stories are too short. The longest one is 200k words, but the chapter are usually long (3000 to 9000) words, so people dont bother too much since is only 75 or so chapter. Also I made a mistake, trying to be "orginal" I started the story with each character and its background in an individual chapter, is boring to read, also there is no mistery behind it. It is just me telling a story.
The MC is a regular guy, who got nothing special and can be kind of an ass, so no point there.
Is not what most readers in this space are looking for. The looking for isekai and romance... Yuk.

ohh and smut, dont forget that pest.

 

[melchi]

When I gave @RepresentingCaution a 1 star.

 

[ChrisLensman]

It started when my story was randomly featured on the front page but it only really picked up steam when I got a piece of cover art.

 

[Deleted member 84247]

Not really that long at all. For stories posted when I already had a following it took maybe a month to get like 500 readers. When I first started, getting that same number took around 1 month and around 30 chapters. my witch story has over 2k readers with 50 chapters, but I wouldn't take my experiences as likely outcomes.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

On SH? Either after 30-60 chapters or it snowballs right from the get-go.

 

[Frowfy]

I’ve seen a few posts now from people wondering how long it takes before your story starts to gain traction, so I thought I’d ask: if you have a reader base, no matter how small, how long did it take you to develop it?

I was also a bit lucky. I had three chapters and a prologue. After releasing it, I stayed silent for an entire month, just writing quietly. When I came back, there were already some readers waiting for me, around 1.5k if I remember correctly. I used to reply to everyone and connected with some readers this way. People steadily came to read my novel, and those 1.5k became 3k, then 7k, and eventually 15k. It grew steadily and even had some big spikes in views when it appeared in the trending section. I was surprised that so many readers were getting emotional with my stories. I received a lot of touching reviews, with people saying they cried while reading them.

My story doesn’t have many chapters. It’s been a year, and there are only 50 chapters, but I try to make each one impactful in some way, or at least a good experience.

Now I have a Patreon with around 300 readers. Many of them are the same readers I used to reply to in the beginning, and most have been with me since the start. I believe that was very important for me: answering everyone honestly, trying to connect with them, and providing the best I can through good chapters.

 

[Corty]

Less than a month, but that's because I was posting 14 chapters per week. I cheated as the story was completed, so I had 300 chapters to upload and published it with 40 chapters right on the first day.

So, if anyone is starting out, that's my best advice. Have a finished story to build a following. And make sure it is in a popular genre.

 

[HisDivineShadow]

Less than a month, but that's because I was posting 14 chapters per week. I cheated as the story was completed, so I had 300 chapters to upload and published it with 40 chapters right on the first day.

So, if anyone is starting out, that's my best advice. Have a finished story to build a following. And make sure it is in a popular genre.

Not sure about the genre
I see a lot of unnoticed stories in popular genres maybe because of the high competition.

 

[Clo]

State of the Art is about 8 months old on this site now, and I have a pretty active and enthusiastic readerbase who comment regularly, which is great.

I am certainly not in the same range as the 1million+ views from the most popular stories, but I think I do fairly well for a new author.

My other story is around 3 months old now, and it has better average views per chapter, hinting that it will probably grow bigger than State of the Art, over time.

Clearly, having a readers already hooked to one story tends to cross-polinate into others, so that's one way to build your readerbase—having more stories.

 

[DireBadger]

When I send them to Kindle unlimited.
Until then, I have like two fans, and don't make rent.

 

[ZenNchill]

What do you mean by 'traction'? How many readers? Or?
My story has been going for about 6 months. I have about 200 readers but only 2 that ever say anything.

Sooo idk :)

 

[CharlesEBrown]

For Strange Awakening, it happened around chapter 11 for some odd reason.
For my two stories on PocketFM, it happened when my mom made a Facebook post about them.
That's pretty much it...