Best Posting Schedule

[FeverDream]

As a new author, I noticed that one of the only ways for new people to find my novel is to find it in the "latest updates".

Older authors, what are the best ways for me to use this in my favour? Is it better to post small chapters, but regularly like every day?

What are the best times to post? In the morning? At night?

Please, share your knowledge if someone trying to get new readers :)

Any advice is appreciated

 

[Underload]

A consistent schedule is the best one. For that you need to write everyday. Can't write everyday? Then you are not consistent. Be consistent. Be happy.
Join us and we'll teach you to be consistent. The starter pack costs 1 young soul.
The question is... Are you young?

 

[SakeVision]

The top countries where I get most views from are USA and France, according to the insights in statistics. So just post whenever Americans and europeans are awake, lmao

disclaimer: I am neither american nor french, so these views arent from me

 

[Biggest-Kusa-Out-There]

I get most views from U.S., Canada, and the U.k. but don't post in a time that's easy for them to follow afaik.

I'd say get a schedule and stick to it? I release chapters three times a week, but it was 2 times a week before that, and my views increased a lot since then. I can't post everyday due to IRL responsibilities and yet I've made it to the trending top 10 a few times these last two months.

It's all pretty finicky IMO, so don't be too discourage if your fiction is not growing as fast as you expect it to. It took me three months to go over 500 readers.

 

[GreenHexagon]

I usually post either before or after a huge stockpiling session. So around 9 Am or 9 PM EST. I could probably get more views by putting it in the middle of the day, but this works the most for me.

 

[RaizarP]

I mostly post my novel every day. I always get 10-25 new readers when I did that.
There was a time when I paused for 2 days, and the readers dropped considerably.

So for me, I think it's best if you can write everyday. I got 780 Readers in just 1 month.

 

[FeverDream]

I mostly post my novel every day. I always get 10-25 new readers when I did that.
There was a time when I paused for 2 days, and the readers dropped considerably.

So for me, I think it's best if you can write everyday. I got 780 Readers in just 1 month.

Yeah, I see your novel in the front page quite often! Do you always post at the same time? I was wondering what coud be the best time to post, since it's impossible to me for post everyday

 

[RaizarP]

Yeah, I see your novel in the front page quite often! Do you always post at the same time? I was wondering what coud be the best time to post, since it's impossible to me for post everyday

I usually posted my novel at 16:00 - 17:00 (GMT+7). Well, I just posted it around that time and it's best for me because my Readers mostly comes from US or Indonesia when I saw it on the dashboard

 

[LostLibrarian]

Honestly, it doesn't matter that much. Especially later, most people will find you through trending or lists (or the search) and your time on the frontpage also often equals out. Post at a time with a lot of activity and your novel will stay on top for only a short time, post at times with less activity and less people will see it.

Same with chapters: small chapters will make you more visible, but really short chapters will turn some readers away. Long but rare chapters can make hitting trending easier if the chapter gets a lot of traction, but it can also push people away. It's not the length but the content that matters.

The best way imho is the vary things and change it up a bit, so that different people can see it in the "last releases". But overall, it just doesn't matter that much in the long run... just post your story and keep at it over a few weeks/months. Seeing that is more important for many people compared to a time or chapter length alone...

 

[Anon_Y_Mousse]

Honestly, it always works best for me to post at a time where there's a lot of traffic(new post like every 2 minutes), it always gets me more than when I post at an odd hour where there's only a few updates, sure it's there for a while but there is a lot less people that will click out of curiosity. Specially since my story doesn't have popular tags.

 

[Cipiteca396]

In the first few weeks, I suggest posting at random times. 2-4 hours in between. That way, you can figure out which timeszones attract the most readers for you. After that, you can schedule consistent releases.

 

[Derin_Edala]

Be consistent in posting regularly, but post at a different time every day. This way, you cover as many timezones as possible.

Some people say you should post for the time zone where most readers are online -- I disagree. If you're posting for the English, then any English reader who's seen you in the latest update list five times isn't gonna change their mind and click the sixth time they see you. You want as many *new* eyeballs on your story as possible, and that means changing up the times. If you post the same time every day, you're gonna run out of new eyeballs a lot faster than if you vary your times.

 

[Snusmumriken]

From my own perspective starting up on SH:

Early on you want to post daily if you want to catch as many eyes as possible. That is the gist. You can shift the schedule a bit but no need to be precise about it - maybe split the day into 4 parts and try posting in each and see the results. When you found your peak (which is different for everyone - for me it was Europe afternoon I will explain why later) just stick with it and continue daily posts.

The reason why is that early on most of the clicks you will be getting not from the front page (where you will stay for an hour or two maximum), but from the readers who search tags with "recently updated" sorting. So the reason Europe was working best for me wasn't that I was getting clicks from recently updated but because readers in the afternoon Europe and US would see my story at the top of their searches.

Don't worry about exhausting readers in a particular timeframe. I have been hitting trending every Saturday for the last two months or so and I still get 100 readers every time.

You want to have tags to be searched for and you want to have daily chapters because that would usually mean that you will be on the 1st page of the search (maybe 2-3rd if the tag is very common so don't expect to get a lot of hits from things like "fantasy". Try to tag specific and niche categories that set your story apart - these are the ones readers would search the most often. Noone here is searching for "isekai" "action" "fantasy" etc, You might still want to have them not to confuse the readers with their absence, but make sure these aren't the only ones you have.