What does following someone do?

[WasatchWind]

I am new to the site, and it appears as though following someone doesn't actually notify you when new chapters are posted. To that end... what's even the point of following someone?

 

[CakeEatsNothing]

It tells you when they post a status update and if they made a new story

 

[WasatchWind]

It tells you when they post a status update and if they made a new story

But why doesn't it notify you of new chapters? I think that's kind of dumb. Every other writing site does this. I don't know about other authors, but I'm not regularly adding new stories, but adding new chapters to current ones.

 

[Deleted member 20302]

Normally readers know this through the reading list.

Readers often scroll their reading list to check if there's any story that is updated or has not yet reach the latest chapter. Thus, if they like and want to read your story after seeing that the chapter they are on isn't the latest, they will definitely check it out.

If you really need hard facts, after posting a chapter, go and check back on your readers under "Statistics" after a few hours. You can get a feeling of how fast people do bother to read your story every time you update a chapter. You know this easily especially when the same username keeps popping up every time. The only exception is those who like to binge read a few chapters at a time, but the majority I see tend to read every chapter pretty quickly.

However, some authors do frequently post their chapter updates in their profile, so that helps too.

 

[WasatchWind]

Normally readers know this through the reading list.

Readers often scroll their reading list to check if there's any story that is updated or has not yet reach the latest chapter. Thus, if they like and want to read your story after seeing that the chapter they are on isn't the latest, they will definitely check it out.

If you really need hard facts, after posting a chapter, go and check back on your readers under "Statistics" after a few hours. You can get a feeling of how fast people do bother to read your story every time you update a chapter. You know this easily especially when the same username keeps popping up every time. The only exception is those who like to binge read a few chapters at a time, but the majority I see tend to read every chapter pretty quickly.

However, some authors do frequently post their chapter updates in their profile, so that helps too.

That's something I was wondering, if people would be annoyed if I posted a status update every day indicating the release of a new chapter.

 

[DarkGodEM]

I hope there was the option to follow novels and get the chapter notifications.

 

[AliceShiki]

But why doesn't it notify you of new chapters? I think that's kind of dumb. Every other writing site does this. I don't know about other authors, but I'm not regularly adding new stories, but adding new chapters to current ones.

It would be kinda annoying for people that visit the main site infrequently, I'd log-in to hundreds of alerts, and they'd all be of new chapters of stories that I'm like... Well, hundreds of chapters behind.

Considering that the Reading List already does what you want anyways, it feels like this would inconvenience the more casual users without much benefit to the users that use the site daily.

 

[WasatchWind]

It would be kinda annoying for people that visit the main site infrequently, I'd log-in to hundreds of alerts, and they'd all be of new chapters of stories that I'm like... Well, hundreds of chapters behind.

Considering that the Reading List already does what you want anyways, it feels like this would inconvenience the more casual users without much benefit to the users that use the site daily.

Would you find it preferable then for the author to post a status update every time they update?

 

[Deleted member 20302]

Would you find it preferable then for the author to post a status update every time they update?

That's something I was wondering, if people would be annoyed if I posted a status update every day indicating the release of a new chapter.

At least for the ones I followed, there has been no complaints every time I see it and people sometimes leave a comment to say thanks.

And even if that 1 person does, the worst case is you losing 1 follower.

 

[WasatchWind]

At least for the ones I followed, there has been no complaints every time I see it and people sometimes leave a comment to say thanks.

And even if that 1 person does, the worst case is you losing 1 follower.

At the point I'm at, leaving one follower means losing a third of my followers! ?

 

[AliceShiki]

Would you find it preferable then for the author to post a status update every time they update?

I'd actually just unfollow the person that does that and be done with it... >.>

 

[WasatchWind]

I'd actually just unfollow the person that does that and be done with it... >.>

Oof... okay, guess I won't do that...

 

[AliceShiki]

Oof... okay, guess I won't do that...

Bear in mind I might very well be in the minority here. Especially among forum users, most people seem to use the main site a lot and read tons of chapters daily...

Well, I basically use only the forums and almost never touch the main site, I enter it like... Once a week just to check alerts or whatever. So I'm the kind of person that would be bothered by chapter update alerts, but dedicated readers might actually be pretty happy with it.

So... I dunno if it would be a good idea or a bad one to use status posts to notify readers of new chapters. I just know it would personally annoy me.

 

[CadmarLegend]

Bear in mind I might very well be in the minority here. Especially among forum users, most people seem to use the main site a lot and read tons of chapters daily...

Well, I basically use only the forums and almost never touch the main site, I enter it like... Once a week just to check alerts or whatever. So I'm the kind of person that would be bothered by chapter update alerts, but dedicated readers might actually be pretty happy with it.

So... I dunno if it would be a good idea or a bad one to use status posts to notify readers of new chapters. I just know it would personally annoy me.

It would annoy me as well. Imagine if you were one of those readers who wanted to stockpile chaps to read on a story that rarely gets updated, but you have a bunch of other stories that are updated frequently. You leave for a week or so, then, when you are back on, you have a TON of notifications.

The bad part is.... if you open "Notifications" once, and then close it, all the things that are supposed to be new look like the older ones...