Questions from an indecisive writer.

[Draecath]

So I am a friendless lone who doesn't have anyone to bounce ideas off of (Someone please point me towards a forum or discord or like to brainstorm ideas with other writers and readers. I want to get all my ducks in a row before I start posting chapters as I know many readers will tune out a story if it starts out not quite right. Bouncing ideas off other people before I post chapters may help make me feel better and improve my story along with helping other authors I brainstorm with.

Over the last year to year and a half, I've written around 440k words separated into 152 chapters. My first question is when I finally work up the nerve to post my story should I do a chapter a day even though I can't sustain that after my backlog runs out since I work full time or three chapters a week which I can sustain. I would like to keep a big cushion so I don't feel pressured to force my way through chapters just for the sake of it and also leave a good amount for a possible paid advanced chapter setup on Patreon or similar for some extra income if my story somehow takes off. My original plan was to post the first arc which is the first 6 chapters in one day to establish my story as many don't read a story with only a few chapters and then post three a week. The problem with this is I am seeing a lot of people suggesting a chapter a day to have a better chance at building popularity at least early on. I don't know if I like cutting the release scheduled down but I would be forced to if I posted a chapter a day.

My second question is about the beginning of my story. So my main character who was male in his previous life sort of reincarnated into another female body (Some funky things went on which get revealed later in the story). I wouldn't really consider it a gender bender because of spoilers later on and other than a somewhat short adjustment period, her previous gender doesn't get mentioned after around chapter 10. There aren't really any transgender topics other than her trying to figure out how her new body works which would have happened to some degree if she was female in her previous life. At least at first, she is uncomfortable with her body mainly because she isn't sure if it is her body or she stole someone else's but after she adjusts everything becomes natural. As for my question should I make her female in her previous life and tweak some things to avoid the gender bender tag as I know many people actively avoid gender-benders though they are popular on this site. It would be doable but I kind of like the idea of her being the opposite gender in her previous life just to add a little bit more flavor to her adjustment at the beginning of the story but I don't want to lose readers for something that I could change.

My third question is about tags which I'm sure have been asked a million times before but I figured I would throw the question in here. The gender bender tag becomes pretty much obsolete after chapter 10 and the spoilers explaining how she took over her body later on somewhat void the tag but that tag is a sort of sticking point forcing me to use it for transparency's sake. Now other tags such as romance and possible girl's love are a little murky. Romance isn't a big part of the story if barely at all at least so far but there are plans and if there is romance it will be girl's love but I am not 100 percent set on romance or a close friendship yet. Should I include those tags in case they become viable or add them when they do?

 

[Remuria]

For the first question, you have to ask yourself first that you want your story to be popular (and possibly make some money from patreon etc.) or just post as a hobby.

If you only post as a hobby, I would say that either options are probably fine and running out stock option wouldn't be a problem at all.

If you want to capitalize on the popularity though, I recall people recommend updating frequently to hopefully make it to the trending.


For the second and third, if I understand you correctly, it would be anout the gender-bender right?

If the point about the gender-bend truly become irrelevant and obsolete after chapter 10. I kind of agree with the your choice to remove the gender part entirely. (Your call, though)

PS. I am on mobile so sorry for bad format.

 

[Ununique]

1. You shouldn't feel too pressured to release a day just for the sake of popularity if you feel uncomfortable sacrificing your backlog, especially if it ever comes to a point where you'd need to rely on it due to external circumstances. Best advice I can say it to follow your original plan, it's more about consistency and setting up a regular audience than getting popular, well that is a possible benefit of the batch releasing, ie. x amount of chapters within a week often times at different times of a single day.

2. If you think it's better to not include the GB tag then go ahead and make those changes, my only advice here is that as long as you maintain the overall vision of your project there's no guilt in changing a couple of plot points if you think it serves to improve the story or makes it palatable. If you'd rather not change anything but still let your audience know about it you could add a note in the summary or in the chapters, there's really more than one solution but seeing as you believe it adds flavor the latter half might be your best bet to avoid adding the tag without irking the readers.

3. I would say give it some respectable heads up as in add the tags when the chapters including that content are coming up. Otherwise I wouldn't worry too much since you can always change the tags if you change your mind.

 

[Owl]

Phew I'm just gonna say... One reason many people don't like genderbender is an issue that I already notice from your description. Why make it genderbender if you're not gonna touch on the issue of how damn hard it would be to suddenly be a different gender? Mentally and physically? If you already say it's a short adjustment period, there's a chance you might step on the feet of people who are sensitive to that kind of thing being used as comedic relief. Of course there are also others who are into this kind of shallow depiction that's purely there to add some fun.
In general, since it doesn't sound truly needed, I'd not do that.
As for releases, it's correct that 1 a day is better for the start. However, no one forces you to keep that up for long. You can make it a special that there's 1 a day for the first two weeks for example and then switch to every second day or thrice a week. You can also do a quicker pace for another couple of weeks and then slow down when you feel you are starting to steadily gain readers. Personal experience anyway.

 

[Localforeigner]

Release a chapter every day or other day (other day is better for the algorithm) for awhile and you can always slow down after the first 100k is released to 2 or 3 a week or something.

I see no point in the genderbender tag based on what you've said and would just leave the character the same gender originally.

 

[Draecath]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I am going to do some tweaking to get rid of the gender bender tag as it will make me feel better not having to worry about alienating readers.

I would say she delves into the differences a fair bit but she isn't human so many of the issues such as the monthly annoyance become void. Since chapters average just under 3k words, 10 chapters is around 30k words so I wouldn't call it quick but in the grand scheme of the story, It isn't long.

I think I'll go with the suggestion of posting a chapter a day until around 100 thousand words. That should give me an idea if people like my story or not.