How long did it take before your first book gained traction?

[LevJrtheWriter]

Hey everyone,
I just posted the first three chapters of my light novel The Island of No Return yesterday, and I’m curious how long it took for your own stories to start getting real traction.

1. How long after you posted did you begin to see a steady flow of reads/followers?
2. Were there any specific steps you took that noticeably boosted your audience (posting schedule, cover change, tagging strategy, engaging with the community, etc.)?

I’m trying to get a feel for what’s normal and what actually helps early on. Any tips, lessons learned, or encouragement from your experience would mean a lot.
Thanks in advance. looking forward to hearing your stories!

The Island of No Return

 

[Worthy39]

Well, my story doesn't exactly have much traction, but consistent updates and posting at the right time is always helpful. I usually schedule chapters the night before and have them upload early in the morning.

 

[LevJrtheWriter]

Thank you, I'm on my first story so I'm glad your helping.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

Man, I've posted six books on this site (under three titles) over the past year, and I still don't have any readers or commenters. Maybe yours will be different. Just don't assume that it'll get more popular the longer it's been on here.

 

[Eldoria]

To attract new readers usually depends on the following 3 factors: (1) a visually appealing cover - SH readers tend to like anime/light novel style covers with waifutable characters; (2) an engaging synopsis - write a clear, concise synopsis that captures the attention of readers, usually the uniqueness of the story you are offering to them; (3) a prologue that has a hook so that new readers are comfortable, curious and want to continue to the next chapter.

Then how long does it take for a story to develop until it has a large audience? It depends on the readers' preferences. There are novels that have hundreds of chapters and have been released for years but only have less than 10K views and dozens of bookmarks. There are also novels that only have teens or tens of chapters but already have tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of views and hundreds to thousands of bookmarks.

On the side of the dominant market segment, it greatly influences the popularity of a novel. If a novel has few readers, it doesn't mean the novel is bad, maybe the novel has masterpiece quality, but the market doesn't like it, so novels like this are usually quiet and only have a small but loyal readership.

Here, you will encounter the classic author problem of adapting your novel to market tastes (usually at the expense of the author's ideals) or sticking to your initial concept and trying to open up a new market niche.

 

[Alucard21]

I'm not entirely sure what the magic bullet is for gaining readers. @Eldoria makes a good point, and you should probably use that as a baseline for how to get readers.

After three months of writing, I'm up to 555 readers and 57k views. I used an AI cover I found mildly appealing. And I update 4 times a week. I have no prologue, and my synopsis is rather vague.

My novel is medieval fantasy and pretty dark, so it's not the usual litrpg/gamelit that seems popular on here. It seems a bit of luck is involved.

One thing to note is that most people tend to overlook novels with fewer than 20 chapters, so my growth was pretty slow. Once I hit 30+, then it started increasing steadily. The highest bumps came from being on the trending page. So don't dont get discouraged that growth starts slow. I'm new to writing on here, so I dont know how well my experience lines up with the usual.

 

[Eldoria]

I'm not entirely sure what the magic bullet is for gaining readers. @Eldoria makes a good point, and you should probably use that as a baseline for how to get readers.

After three months of writing, I'm up to 555 readers and 57k views. I used an AI cover I found mildly appealing. And I update 4 times a week. I have no prologue, and my synopsis is rather vague.

My novel is medieval fantasy and pretty dark, so it's not the usual litrpg/gamelit that seems popular on here. It seems a bit of luck is involved.

One thing to note is that most people tend to overlook novels with fewer than 20 chapters, so my growth was pretty slow. Once I hit 30+, then it started increasing steadily. The highest bumps came from being on the trending page. So don't dont get discouraged that growth starts slow. I'm new to writing on here, so I dont know how well my experience lines up with the usual.

Those are all my observations, those could be right or wrong. It's true that regular updates, chapter count, and trending factors play a role, but that only applies to novels that have been released for a while, not just one-day releases.

In the case of a new novel released one day, the cover, synopsis, and prologue will significantly influence reader attention, especially a visually appealing cover.

I've experimented with this. I released a novel with an attractive cover, and in just one day, the novel could get tens of bookmarks (which is understandable, since the latest novel is displayed in the latest novels section, which is equivalent to the trending position on the SH homepage).

But after that, its development slowed down. I think it was because the content was quite heavy and didn't fit SH's dominant market segment.

So, actually, when a new novel is released, the opportunity to be included in the latest novels section provides a once-in-a-lifetime promotion for the novel. If the cover isn't visually appealing, this promotion almost feels like a wasted opportunity.

 

[Shorgoth]

Well, I've been on Royal Road for 2 years and have 41 subscribers there... and 11 here after starting a week or two back. I don't have traction. Truth be told I do not expect to ever have traction. My work is experimental to the extreme.

To quote one of my reviewers: " To describe this story's style as "avant-garde" is the same as calling a bullet wound to the head a migraine. "

It will never have mainstream appeal.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Define "traction" - my first story never really got much. Neither did my third, fifth or sixth.

Second one hit a bit of traction week three, about the time chapter 11 I think posted, and kept going well until I hit a logical break point and have not been really able to get back to it.

My seventh story hit traction after my mother mentioned it on Facebook.

 

[Bobple]

A slow burn. I had a few small jumps after a few months, but mostly a slow increase.

 

[RainyLiquid]

I don't know.

 

[Bartun]

It has been five years since I posted my first chapter, and I still haven't gained 'traction'. I gained a few readers, and some people commented, so at least I'm not completely invisible.

Hopefully, yours is going to fare better.

 

[kelmor]

I had 20 or so chapters when I crossposted my story over here, and a simple but somewhat distinct cover. Seemed to gain some form of traction almost immediately. Dunno why. Maybe just lucky, maybe just hit the right niche audience with a decent amount of content. I’ve got next to no traction over on Wattpad, to the extent that the stats there are comparable, so it may just be luck of finding your audience.

 

[Corty]

A month? Maybe a bit less.

 

[ArchlordZero]

never lol

 

[MajorKerina]

The first thing I posted was actually stupendously popular but it kind of fizzled out one thing I did try was posting an interesting and provocative story related to one of the contests that are sometimes run those can help get you some visibility I don't know if there's been one recently though

 

[ChrisLensman]

For me it took months before the story really blew up but I also didn't have a piece of cover art until months after I started so my experiences might not be universal.
But for general advice, have patience, use eye-catching chapter titles to grab people off the home page and if your genre has a big presence on Reddit, go advertise it there.

 

[Ren_Muyiwa]

I published my first piece here a few hours ago and it’s already getting some traction the notifications started rolling in faster than I expected a handful of likes a couple of comments and a few people already following the story it’s wild to see readers finding it so quickly I wasn’t sure anyone would notice on day one but it feels like it’s catching eyes right out of the gate

 

[Eldoria]

I published my first piece here a few hours ago and it’s already getting some traction the notifications started rolling in faster than I expected a handful of likes a couple of comments and a few people already following the story it’s wild to see readers finding it so quickly I wasn’t sure anyone would notice on day one but it feels like it’s catching eyes right out of the gate

My friend, if you get excessively complimentary comments and then end up asking for collaboration or something, be careful! They target new writers who are still innocent. Harsh comments that smell like criticism are more honest than empty and deceptive praise.

 

[LeilaniOtter]

It really depends on the quality of the work and the subject matter. I can hardly get any nibbles at all for some books, while others are quite successful. People really love isekai and LitRPG here though, so make sure your keywords and genre tags are accurate for good search results from others.