Need help on my schedule

[PBJ_Time]

I thought 12:00 AM (where I live) would be a good time to post new chapters, but the second chapter didn't get as much traction as the first one.

Beware the Horde [Isekai LitRPG] - 2. A World Above the Clouds | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

So, I gotta ask: would it be better to post on the afternoon or something? Where I live, when it's afternoon here, the whole Western Hemisphere falls asleep, so this may not be a good idea. I also planned to post only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because I'm afraid my backlog will run out too fast.

I'm also thinking about posting the first five chapters of my book, but I don't know if I should post them at random times. What do you think? Should I stick to my planned MWF schedule every midnight or should I post them randomly now?

 

[John_Owl]

unless you have a following, it's considered better form to block-post the first few chapters. once those are out, I'd recommend 2-3 chapters per week. Plan for it after work for your target audience. If your aim is to have US residents read it, plan for around 3-8pm in the US. Not sure of where you live exactly, but I'd imagine you can figure that out. I'd aim for the east coast 5pm, personally. Or upload on weekends. You don't want your first hour to be when your target audience asleep or busy with work.

 

[PBJ_Time]

unless you have a following, it's considered better form to block-post the first few chapters. once those are out, I'd recommend 2-3 chapters per week. Plan for it after work for your target audience. If your aim is to have US residents read it, plan for around 3-8pm in the US. Not sure of where you live exactly, but I'd imagine you can figure that out. I'd aim for the east coast 5pm, personally. Or upload on weekends. You don't want your first hour to be when your target audience asleep or busy with work.

So, I should post at either 4:00 AM or 9:00 AM where I live. What about posting the first five chapters every day with this schedule? Is that a good idea?

 

[John_Owl]

So, I should post at either 4:00 AM or 9:00 AM where I live. What about posting the first five chapters every day with this schedule? Is that a good idea?

For the time of day, you could schedule each upload the night before. The scheduling system for this site is pretty good. And you could post a chapter a day for 5 days, but I'd still recommend 5 chapters at once, then reducing it to your normal planned schedule. I've personally tried daily uploads, and there was a major drop off after day 3, despite being the same time each day.

But again, it's just a recommendation. My personal experience is hardly representative of the total collective.

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

I thought 12:00 AM (where I live) would be a good time to post new chapters, but the second chapter didn't get as much traction as the first one.

Beware the Horde [Isekai LitRPG] - 2. A World Above the Clouds | Scribble Hub

www.scribblehub.com

So, I gotta ask: would it be better to post on the afternoon or something? Where I live, when it's afternoon here, the whole Western Hemisphere falls asleep, so this may not be a good idea. I also planned to post only on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because I'm afraid my backlog will run out too fast.

I'm also thinking about posting the first five chapters of my book, but I don't know if I should post them at random times. What do you think? Should I stick to my planned MWF schedule every midnight or should I post them randomly now?

If you can, post the first five at random times within the day. This is because some readers love to have something to read, and would determine whether they will pick your work or not within those 5 early chapters.

As for the subsequent postings, regular postings at the different times and days are recommended than having a fixed hour of release. This is so you can maximize exposure for your work, as we have global readers awake at different times in our timezones. Using autorelease function is a great help in this way of updating, which, fortunately, ScribbleHub has.

 

[Paul__Michaels]

Dude... It's your first book and you only posted two chapters. Of course you have no traction yet because you're new and readers aren't going to come over until they see a consistent delivery of chapters.

You can start worrying about audience capture if you posted your 15th to 20th chapter and you have no views coming in. Like 5000 views for 20 chapters isn't a good sign that your books going to succeed on SH.

 

[PBJ_Time]

Like 5000 views for 20 chapters isn't a good sign that your books going to succeed on SH.

Speaking of which, I got 100+ views on my first chapter alone in less than 9 hours posting it. Is that a good sign instead?

 

[Paul__Michaels]

Speaking of which, I got 100+ views on my first chapter alone in less than 9 hours posting it. Is that a good sign instead?

It is a start but it doesn't mean anything at this point of everything you've posted right now.

Keep in mind your first Chapter will get the most traffic out of all your chapters over time. The important thing is to post a chapter a day to keep putting your novel on the front page of the site and to get it shown as recently updated on the popular tags.

Usually the best way to get more eyes on your book is pushing two chapters out a day and you Space them out around 12 hours from each other.

But if you can't two chapterd a day, which is the best thing to do when starting out a new book. Try to get a chapter out a day until you have a good audience then you can do a Three chapters a week type of schedule.

You're doing good as author if you're pulling in around a 1k views a day. You're doing really good if you pull in over 2k views a day. Or You might be able to have a career in this field if you're pulling in 3k+ a day. 6k and up a day you're getting Patreon members easily and you're on your way to becoming an author for your day job.

All I'm saying is it takes time and don't be disappointed if you don't reach those numbers immediately.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

My system is probably not the best - send the first chapter for approval. When/if it gets approved, then push out chapters two and three a few hours apart. Then two a week after that.
It worked for one of my stories and is not working well for the rest...