Forum: Author Hangout

I'm a very erratic writer and, since I don't post regularly the same day of every week, for example, I'm pretty sure readers find me by serendipitous means rather than loyalty.

I try to post on quiet days. From the UK readership's point of view, that currently includes Sundays, whereas Fridays and Saturdays are popular with regular authors and get a lot of submissions.

By deliberately posting on quiet days, I hope I'm helping to even out the flow of submissions and, to some miniscule extent, create a better image of the site to new members.

Does anyone have a feeling for what posting on quiet days does to readership counts? Do new/updated stories get more readers on Fridays and Saturdays because they're more obvious to people at home for the weekend? Or do new/updated stories get more readers on quiet days as readers have to delve deeper for something to pique their interest?

AJ

There's always the chance that visitors to SOL are people of habit and visit the site on certain days of the week. So always posting on the same day of the week might miss people who visit on other days. I doubt it, but you never know.

Posting at slow times means you stay on the front page longer.

Does anyone have a feeling for what posting on quiet days does to readership counts?

I don't think it really matters.

In the New Stories and Updates categories, any new addition will be marked without shading the next time you access the category. When a readers accesses the category, they will skim down through the listing until they hit the first shaded story, which identifies a story that was previously unshaded. It may take a day or so for them to access your story, but that is due to their reading pattern, not your posting pattern.

Of course the above is predicated on the readers being interested in your story.