A question and an announcement · 4:16am August 3rd
First: Hello to Administrative Angel readers! I'm tagging that story to let you know of an exciting opportunity to see it and all its sequels — including the just-launched but fully-written novel, Even Changelings Get The Blues — in print! More on that below the break.
I've also got a question for Blues readers, as well as anyone who has previously published longfic here. Namely: How frequently should I hit "publish" on new chapters?
Basically, I'm in the unusual position of serializing a story which is already fully written, edited, and text-locked (due to being in the book I'll discuss in a moment). This removes the question of whether I'm publishing faster than I can write; the only question is how to make it friendliest to my readers.
On one claw, longer delays mean I'm allowing readers to spread out the time commitment of a novel over a longer stretch. (Every chapter is a 15 to 20-minute read; if a backlog builds, I might be taking hours out of someone's day.) It also might encourage more discussion, since there's more speculation time between new drops. (That also allows me to chat with readers in comments more frequently!) It also builds up more anticipation on cliffhangers.
On the other claw, longer delays also builds up more frustration between releases. It means more time to forget the things you've previously read. It forces readers to commit to the story for a longer overall time — if I were to drop to one chapter per week, say, that's a full half year before the novel's done. And on a site where my story's still in the New column a day and a half later, how conscientious do I really need to be about leaving y'all time to read everything else?
Right now I'm planning on two drops a week, but this is entirely arbitrary. (It does mean that I'll go to Everfree right after Chapter 10, which is fitting for reasons I'll discuss after it drops.) But that also means the story will still be publishing through mid-October. I had also considered three per week, which would end it in late September. Less than twice per week feels slow. Faster than three per week is certainly doable, although I do want to have a decent fraction of the story still to go at the end of August, so that Everfree book purchasers get the bonus of being able to finish the story early.
So: How frequently would you like to see Blues come out? And if you've serialized stories before, what spacing did you try, and how did that work out for you?
Anyway! Speaking of the book which I've mentioned several times ...
If you read my last blog post to the end, you caught all the details, but they're worth repeating:
The Other Me will debut at the Everfree Northwest fanfic bookstore, collecting the full series of stories about characters confronting the reality of their mirror selves: Administrative Angel, Devil May Care, Fang and Flame, and Even Changelings Get The Blues. There's also an afterword essay tying it all together (and talking about my Otherkin background which inspired these in the first place), and a short introduction to MLP for the benefit of non-pony readers.
Featuring a gorgeous cover by Rocket Lawn Chair, this will be the definitive collection for the series — and something I can give to genfic readers looking for fiction about not fitting your form. 
I would think about two to three times a week, at symmetrical points of the week, for long stories over 50 chapters, and maybe once a week for shorter chapter runs.
When I did this for The Fishbowl, two chapters a week was a good balance.
You won't hit the front page again if you do it more often than that. And at two a week, you stay fresh in people's heads.
I made the mistake of publishing the final chapter and epilogue at the same time, thinking I was being helpful. But some people managed to read the wrong one and get confused.
Will the book be available to the rest of us some day?
Huh, I never knew that Administrative Angel had any sequels.
if the entire thing is written, i would say anywhere from twice a week to every other day. if you care about the featured box, the 24 hour cooldown makes updating every day tricky to time + people might not have had time to read the most recent chapter yet. even every other day may be a bit much depending on the length of the chapters, so probs youll need to gauge the amount of traffic you get on days that there arent a new chapter + how much is traffic to older chapters, and go from there.
on my end, even tho there r two chapters out, i normally dont have time to read until weekends anyway, and i still need to catch up on fire and flame first :P looking forward to changlings tho, people r telling me it’s very good so far!
I've been doing the same thing with my latest story, but for slightly different reasons. I started releasing chapters once I had the story 60% written, so that I would have time to finish it while keeping a reliable schedule. But now that I've got the whole thing complete, I'm posting the last 20% in two big chunks. Or that was my plan until...
5796278
That is a very good bit of information, thank you! I may have to change my plans slightly.
Recently, Rambling Writer released his pre-written third longfic story in a series, Death Valley, on a schedule of Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I think this allowed it to have a decent update schedule that allowed for a good amount of comment section interaction and speculation without the story getting too far ahead for people who might not have enough time to catch up until the weekends. I think this would be a good model to follow.
5796282
I was also not aware of this.
Sorry for the different subject, but will you be at EFNW this year? I will and it'd be great to meet you!
5796282 5796344
Then I'm glad I made this post
Devil May Care is where to head next; it's a direct sequel to AA and extends Celestia's character arc. Fang and Flame is the third short story in the series, but there's a clean break between it and the other two; it's about Ember and her counterpart. And I just started posting Even Changelings Get The Blues, which follows directly from Fang and Flame, but is long and ongoing if you'd like to sink your teeth into a new story currently being serialized!
5796279
The Other Me will absolutely be available to non-EFNW attendees! It's being published by Ponyfeather, like my last collection, and sometime after the convention Dash will add it to the site inventory and you'll be able to order it shipped to you directly via Lulu. I'll post a blog once that happens.
5796420
Absolutely! I'll even be hosting a panel on time loop stories on Sunday morning.
5796274 5796278 5796292 5796340 5796342
Thank you all for the feedback!
I've been dithering between doing two and three updates per week, and from what I'm hearing, that seems to be the approximate sweet spot. I think for the moment I'll stick with two/week, and consider speeding up to three if I feel like there's dead time between new drops. I'll probably re-evaluate after a week or two and see how readers have been feeling.
2 a week is good. If you're concerned that that would drag things out too much then you can find a place in the story where it would make sense to do a double drop for a week here and there.
5796274
Echoing this; I did once a week for PONY Legacy but that was only a dozen chapters -- with Blues's length I think two a week makes sense.
I will say that I dropped the final chapter and the epilogue together, also thinking I was being helpful/it felt strange to hold the epilogue for a week, and I didn't hear from anyone that this was confusing, but IDK how many weekly readers I had/I'm smaller-time than y'all. Plus if someone's doing more frequent drops the wait between the final chapter and the epilogue would be smaller...