How long is too long to wait?

[Arking]

I am currently writing a multi chapter story, 22 chapters, currently there are 17 chapters published and 3 waiting to be published. The question is how long is too long to wait for the next chapter to be posted/published? It seemed the early chapters were published about one a week, sometimes two a week. These last 3 chapters have been waiting now since the 18th of March.

I just feel like my story now has lost the momentum it had built up.

Within that time I have had stories posted in the April 1st contest and friends on here have had several stories posted since the 18th March.

Who can I turn to for help or an explanation?

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Are you talking about waiting for Laurel to publish the next chapters? It can be a few days, to a week, depending on when she gets around to it, she does it all by herself. Plus there are three of them she has to go over.

 

[Winter_Fare]

These last 3 chapters have been waiting now since the 18th of March.

I just feel like my story now has lost the momentum it had built up.

Within that time I have had stories posted in the April 1st contest and friends on here have had several stories posted since the 18th March.

The question comes up a lot on here. Because the stories are all waiting for one person to approve them, it really varies alot depending on the number of stories in the system. Events and contests slow everything else down.

It's also worth noting that if you have three chapters submitted, they might all get published at once, and that the sheer number published on one day when the hiatus ends can lead to fewer reads and votes.

 

[DHerbert]

I've been tending to wait until one chapter is up before trying to post the next - just in case there are changes needed to meet the site requirements. In which case I might need to edit the next sections to keep the story straight.

 

[Arking]

I've been tending to wait until one chapter is up before trying to post the next - just in case there are changes needed to meet the site requirements. In which case I might need to edit the next sections to keep the story straight.

Thank you.

 

[MrPixel]

I had an interesting experience with this last month. I posted five chapters of a story all in one sitting. It was only a day or two before all were approved for publication, but - get this - each chapter after the first had publication dates in the future, each chapter following one day after the previous. It was pretty cool, actually, and Laurel deserves a tip o' the hat for publishing each "episode" this way which, at least by the view counts, seemed to sustain reader interest.

Curious what she will do with the next installment of the series, with 13 chapters. That's a lot of work on her part.

I guess what I'm saying here is waiting until a chapter goes up to send the next may not work to your advantage. If you're walking on the edge of acceptibility risking rejection you may need this strategy, but if you have solid material and play well within the rules, a multi-chapter work doesn't have to suffer the delays of waiting to submit each subsequent episode based on the pub day of the prior; that delay (IMO) is where you lose readers.

 

[Arking]

I had an interesting experience with this last month. I posted five chapters of a story all in one sitting. It was only a day or two before all were approved for publication, but - get this - each chapter after the first had publication dates in the future, each chapter following one day after the previous. It was pretty cool, actually, and Laurel deserves a tip o' the hat for publishing each "episode" this way which, at least by the view counts, seemed to sustain reader interest.

Curious what she will do with the next instalment of the series, with 13 chapters. That's a lot of work on her part.

I guess what I'm saying here is waiting until a chapter goes up to send the next may not work to your advantage. If you're walking on the edge of acceptability risking rejection you may need this strategy, but if you have solid material and play well within the rules, a multi-chapter work doesn't have to suffer the delays of waiting to submit each subsequent episode based on the pub day of the prior; that delay (IMO) is where you lose readers.

Interesting that you had your Chapters posted consecutively, and I agree with you, all credit to the team for doing so, however, some of the feedback I have had, both privately and publicly was that it was in the middle of the month when the team was running a competition, hence, and rightly so, the competition stories had to take preference.

Initially, my stories did walk a fine line, but from memory, these Chapters had little or no sexual content. It was after all a romance story at heart. When they were published, it all happened very quickly. A Chapter a day.

I am in no way critical of the editing team, regardless of how few or many there are. Their work is appreciated.

I believe, however, that a direct reply when the original post [27th March] was made, would have allayed my fears at that time.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Initially, my stories did walk a fine line, but from memory, these Chapters had little or no sexual content. It was after all a romance story at heart. When they were published, it all happened very quickly. A Chapter a day.

I am in no way critical of the editing team, regardless of how few or many there are. Their work is appreciated.

I believe, however, that a direct reply when the original post [27th March] was made, would have allayed my fears at that time.

If you leave it to the site to release chapters, a 24 hour interval is typical.

You'll never get a direct response to a "When will my story be released?" question. Laurel will either release it or reject it, but you'll never get a status update. She does respond to questions seeking advice about publication matters outside the norm, but not to status queries like yours.

 

[Arking]

If you leave it to the site to release chapters, a 24 hour interval is typical.

You'll never get a direct response to a "When will my story be released?" question. Laurel will either release it or reject it, but you'll never get a status update. She does respond to questions seeking advice about publication matters outside the norm, but not to status queries like yours.

Thanks for that, is there a reason she doesn't? Possibly there would be many more queries than one person could handle? Sounds like she needs an extra pair of hands or more than 24 hours in her day.