Advice Wanted: Novel vs Chaptering

I’m nearing the end of a longer piece (120-180 pages) and as a newbie I’m weighing the pros and cons of issuing it as one longer piece or as a bunch of chapters.
On one hand I wonder if the stories listed under Novels get much attention. But at the same time it can get old sifting through endless chapters of books (Cum Dumpster, Chapter 63!)

Thoughts? Advice?

Is that Word pages or Lit pages? A lit page is roughly 3750 words. That is close to three Word pages on average. If you want your Word page to be like a Lit page, set all margins at 1.25" and use a size 12 font.

I've posted long stories in Novels and I've posted long stories as Chapters. The scores have both been good and the readership has been about the same. Actually, I think the scores in Novels are a little better in the long run.

As a reader, on one hand, I dislike the Novels/Novella category, because it makes it more difficult to know if a work is on topics in which I am interested. On the other hand, works spread across many separate postings may do a disservice to other authors, because the top lists are dominated by many chapters from relatively few works.

What I personally like best is when works are broken up into the largest pieces that make sense, and each section assigned to the category that makes the most sense for that section. This should benefit the author, in that it will increase the likelihood that readers who focus on only a couple of topics will encounter the work. Also, it helps the top list more closely approach the goal of showing "the top N works".

Some thoughts:

1. How many words is your story? If you have 180 pages of double space text with generous margins then your story might be about 45,000 words. That translates to about 12-13 Lit pages, which is on the longer side but by no means excessively long. Plenty of stories that long do very well here.

2. You don't say what the subject of the story is and what category it would fit under. That might make a difference.

3. I would say that in general if your story is already done and it's 10-13 Lit pages you should publish it as a single story rather than in chapters. The reason is that with chapter stories you lose a significant chunk of readers with each successive chapter. That's especially true if some of the chapters do not provide one or more scenes that fit within the overall category under which the story is being published.

4. Chapters are best when either (a) you don't have the patience to wait until the story is completely done before publishing, or (b) your story has a serial quality, where each chapter is a discrete episode that provides the bang that the reader of the category is looking for. If your story doesn't fall under one of those two categories, I'd suggest publishing it as a single unit.

LightningSeed said:

Thoughts? Advice?

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You can post a long story or chapters in any category. It doesn't have to go to Novels and Novellas. The advantage to posting in Novels and Novellas is that your story should be able to cross categories without eliciting a lot of offended responses.

I have some experience with longer pieces both as chapters and single chunks, but not a lot. If you break your story up into chapters it's best to make sure that you have everything ready to go before the first chapter is published. Following chapters should be published on a regular basis without much delay between them. That helps reduce the inevitable drop in readership from chapter to chapter.

Unless you're a well-known author, you're likely to have few readers finishing a story published in a single chunk. Your rating could be high, but the number of votes very low. That's especially true if you publish it in a small category. Novels and Novellas is a small category.

If you look at what's in Novels and Novellas now, you'll see no large chunks of story. Even those that aren't labeled as "Chapter x" are short. My first story in Novels and Novellas was 30K words. The reader response was positive, but other, shorter stories and chapters that were up at the same time got more votes.

TxRad said:

Is that Word pages or Lit pages?

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It’s probably going to run 65-80 thousands words.

BentonVirtus said:

What I personally like best is when works are broken up into the largest pieces that make sense, and each section assigned to the category that makes the most sense for that section.

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Thanks. Will think about that strategy.

SimonDoom said:

You don't say what the subject of the story is and what category it would fit under. That might make a difference.

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Most likely Loving Wives

NotWise said:

Unless you're a well-known author, you're likely to have few readers finishing a story published in a single chunk. Your rating could be high, but the number of votes very low.

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...and that’s what scares me the most. I want people to read it. But I don’t think having a bunch of chapters usually helps with that. As a newbie I disregard all the “Chapter 23s” on the new list just because I’m hopelessly behind at that point.

If I do chapters I was thinking one per week?

One other consideration: you can’t enter a multi-chapter story in a contest. And for a new author, submitting a story in a themed contest can vastly accelerate your readership – assuming your entry is any good.

I had a conundrum when I finished The Flume at Falcon Rock. It was by far the longest story I’d written: over 40K words and 11 Lit pages. I myself would never start reading a story that long: 11 pages? No way! But it fit the theme of the National Nude Day contest, and I had seen how my previous contest entry had produced a big upswing in my readership.

In its final draft I had even structured the story into three long chapters in case I couldn’t find a volunteer editor willing to edit such a lengthy story – that way I could utilize 3 separate VEs who would be willing to edit shorter manuscripts. I even had the story broken down into 12 sections to help people navigate such a long story. The 2 VEs I used ended up reviewing the entire manuscript, and I left in the 12 section titles.

It was a fairly popular entry in the contest, but one never knows how many potential readers were lost by presenting such a lengthy story. And I could easily have submitted this outside the contest using the sections as a 12-chapter story. That would have made my meager output look more voluminous and extended my presence on the New Stories list over several months.

I'm not sure how much difference it makes to post as a single long story vs. as multiple chapters. Either way, readership is going to fall off through the story, though only in chapters will you see the numbers on how and where it happens.

We can speculate on whether readers are more or less likely to get to the end of one many-page story vs. if it's posted in bite-sized pieces, but I don't think anybody has data to know for sure.

LightningSeed said:

It’s probably going to run 65-80 thousands words.

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I've done 80k words as a single post. As long as you tell readers right up front it's never been a problem for me.

Bramblethorn said:

I'm not sure how much difference it makes to post as a single long story vs. as multiple chapters. Either way, readership is going to fall off through the story, though only in chapters will you see the numbers on how and where it happens.

We can speculate on whether readers are more or less likely to get to the end of one many-page story vs. if it's posted in bite-sized pieces, but I don't think anybody has data to know for sure.

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Agree - we know from Views how many start a story, but we never know how many finish it. With multi-chapter stories, you actually get a reasonable idea of true readership, because you can see where readers start to hang on for the ride and how many stick through to the end, by looking at the individual chapter views.

The OP's story length suits it to six or seven 3 Lit page chapters, which are good sized bites.

LightningSeed said:

If I do chapters I was thinking one per week?

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My best success came from putting them out every other day. I haven't experimented with every day, but I have gone for a week. I think you lose people with a 1-week lag between chapters.

NotWise said:

My best success came from putting them out every other day. I haven't experimented with every day, but I have gone for a week. I think you lose people with a 1-week lag between chapters.

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I'm pondering this myself. My "stupid big thing" is almost written (about 110k words over twelve or thirteen chapters) and I'm pondering the best release strategy. So far, I'm thinking submit the next chapter as soon as the last one is posted - but then each chapter is subject to Laurel's review load at the time. Or, submit it all at once, and leave the release timing to Laurel. I think she usually releases a chapter every two or three days, if she does it - which lines up with your recommendation, NW.

electricblue66 said:

Or, submit it all at once, and leave the release timing to Laurel. I think she usually releases a chapter every two or three days, if she does it - which lines up with your recommendation, NW.

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Laurel publishes fewer stories over the weekend than she does on most weekdays. I've tried to get things out on the weekend, but they're often postponed. That makes it hard to get a perfect every-other-day schedule when posting yourself. Maybe if Laurel posts them for you then she can keep the schedule more regular.

To get a story up every-other day I was waiting to see the initial reaction on one, then posting the next. At the time my stories were going up on a two-day lag.

Another advantage to putting things up in chapters is that you get more feedback. If you put the story up in chunks then you'll get votes/favorites/comments on each chunk instead of just from the (often few) people who make it all the way to the end.

The disadvantage to chapters (as far as I can see) is that you have to keep messing with the story until it's all out. I'm usually sick of a story by the time it's all edited, so I want to get rid of it in one chunk.

NotWise said:

The disadvantage to chapters (as far as I can see) is that you have to keep messing with the story until it's all out. I'm usually sick of a story by the time it's all edited, so I want to get rid of it in one chunk.

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Or complete the whole thing first, before you publish the first chapter. It takes some discipline, but removes all the pressure of trying to keep up with a steady stream of content (publishing each chapter as it's written). I did that once, will never do it again.