Scheduling a Story/Poem publish?

[joeyjax]

I’ve think I’ve heard that authors can request a series written in multiple installments/chapters be published every xx days (or something along those lines). Is it also possible to request a story/poem be published after a certain date?

If asking for it would add a burden to Laurel, I wouldn’t bother, but I’m thinking about lining up some poems and/or stories and would like to have them published on the first of each month. Mostly, to help me be a little more disciplined to make progress on several things I have in the works and just haven’t finished.

Is this a possibility? And do you think it’s worth trying even if it is?

 

[LexxRuthless]

If you submit all of the chapters of a story at once, they will go "live" every day or so rather than all at once. I have not heard of other authors requesting to have them spaced further apart, but I have to wonder why you wouldn't leave them in your Drafts folder instead if you want them published at such wide intervals. It would make those stories / poems more accessible for you should you feel inspired to make changes prior to publication.

Have you sent Laurel a PM to ask?

 

[ElectricBlue]

I’ve think I’ve heard that authors can request a series written in multiple installments/chapters be published every xx days (or something along those lines). Is it also possible to request a story/poem be published after a certain date?

If asking for it would add a burden to Laurel, I wouldn’t bother, but I’m thinking about lining up some poems and/or stories and would like to have them published on the first of each month. Mostly, to help me be a little more disciplined to make progress on several things I have in the works and just haven’t finished.

Is this a possibility? And do you think it’s worth trying even if it is?

If you submit every chapter at the same time, yes, Laurel will set a release clock running - the default seems to be a daily release. I guess you could ask for a longer period - all she will do is set a timer, so it shouldn't create any extra effort.

A monthly release seems a bit of a gap in terms of continuity with your readers. I'd have thought a release every couple of weeks would be a sensible target in terms of regular exposure - especially for shorter pieces (which I assume poetry would be).

 

[joeyjax]

This is why I should ban myself from posting too late at night/early in the morning (I had worked super late last night, almost an all-nighter, then couldn’t sleep). Anyway, after reading my own OP this morning, my proposed solution is honestly kinda stupid and I’m not sure what I was thinking.

Clearly, finishing a work sooner than I might want it published is NOT my problem! .

I know I was trying to think of some way to light a fire under my butt to finish some of the works I’ve built up and just haven’t finished yet. But I’ll definitely rethink this. Maybe I was thinking a self-imposed schedule would help, I’m really not sure.

Actually, I have no idea what I was thinking.

Again, I shouldn’t have posted when I was so tired, methinks. :-D

 

[Zeb_Carter]

You can take them out of the queue by editing them and just saving them as a draft.

And EB, there is no publishing clock, except the actual clock on the server. Laurel just puts a to be published date on the story in the database.

There is a server job/task running all the time on the server, in the background, that looks for the current date of the server clock and any items it finds gets published. She probably also sets an approved flag on the record. Which will get reset if the record is changed after the flag and date are set by her.

 

[SimonDoom]

A question for those who try to time the release of multiple chapters to a story when they submit them all at once or close together:

Wouldn't it make more sense for the chapters to be released a few days apart than one day after another? That way the chapters will appear on the new story hubs longer and, presumably, capture more attention. Is that wrong?

 

[ElectricBlue]

You can take them out of the queue by editing them and just saving them as a draft.

And EB, there is no publishing clock, except the actual clock on the server. Laurel just puts a to be published date on the story in the database.

There is a server job/task running all the time on the server, in the background, that looks for the current date of the server clock and any items it finds gets published. She probably also sets an approved flag on the record. Which will get reset if the record is changed after the flag and date are set by her.

That's what I meant by "publishing clock" - the midnight server run. All of my staggered stories went live at exactly the same time, 24 hours apart. So Laurel obviously sets a future date or time in the system and lets it run. That's a clock, in my simple world .

 

[Zeb_Carter]

That's what I meant by "publishing clock" - the midnight server run. All of my staggered stories went live at exactly the same time, 24 hours apart. So Laurel obviously sets a future date or time in the system and lets it run. That's a clock, in my simple world .

See in my world that is a process driven by a clock. Although the process is running all time just looking for an entry in the queue with the current date as the to be published date. That's why you sometimes see a story published at odd times, probably due to data entry errors.

 

[ElectricBlue]

A question for those who try to time the release of multiple chapters to a story when they submit them all at once or close together:

Wouldn't it make more sense for the chapters to be released a few days apart than one day after another? That way the chapters will appear on the new story hubs longer and, presumably, capture more attention. Is that wrong?

No, it's not wrong, but the effect is much the same - if it's in a fast churn category (The Penguin March, Ch. 29) the first chapter is going to drop off the page just as quickly as a story ever does - and that's the important one.

In a slow moving category, yes, you'd be there longer but I'm not sure it makes a huge difference. My Dark Chronicles thing (13 chapters) moved through the Sci-Fi/Fantasy hub over a five week period, but the take-up was all from the first chapter (typical chapter drop: 50%, 50%, steady state at Chapter Three). It trundled through the category at the same rate as every other story there, dragging its tail behind it.

 

[Salacious_Scribe]

I’ve think I’ve heard that authors can request a series written in multiple installments/chapters be published every xx days (or something along those lines). Is it also possible to request a story/poem be published after a certain date?

If asking for it would add a burden to Laurel, I wouldn’t bother, but I’m thinking about lining up some poems and/or stories and would like to have them published on the first of each month. Mostly, to help me be a little more disciplined to make progress on several things I have in the works and just haven’t finished.

Is this a possibility? And do you think it’s worth trying even if it is?

I just uploaded a 12 part serial and requested one part be posted every 3-4 days. So far it seems to be working. Two parts have posted, and a story from a different series that I submitted two days after the 12 part one went live today While the other parts have not yet.