A question about how to create a "Series" without "Chapters"

[bridgetrose]

So I saw the "Series (Beta)" option in my control panel a while ago, but never paid it much attention... but recently, I realized that it may be exactly what I want!

I have noticed that when I post a story with multiple chapters, the first one or two chapters tend to get read a lot, whereas later chapters dwindle rapidly in # of views. I suspect this has to do with the fact that people might see a late chapter number and, if they haven't read the previous ones, automatically assume they won't like the later chapter unless they go earlier. So they don't bother.

Because of this, lately I have been posting very lengthy stories that are MUCH longer than some people want.

So now I come to the "Series" idea. Because it looks to me like I can post a "multi chapter" story without designating chapter #s.

I have two questions about this system:

1. How has your experience been with this new system? Are people reading each story in the series more than they would have if it had been designated as "Ch 03" or something like that?
2. Is there a way to dictate the "sequence" of the stories on that list (since you don't use chapter #s as reference)? Or does it simply go based on alphabetical?

Thank you!!

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

1.) It's a good system, as far as I can tell. But I don't use it to tell a chaptered story. I use it to loosely tie together stories that can stand on their own. If you use it to tell a chaptered story with unique titles, I imagine some readers might be confused if they haven't read necessary, earlier chapters. But maybe there's an art to it you can manuever if that's your goal.

2.) Yes, you can dictate the sequence at any time.

 

[alohadave]

I have noticed that when I post a story with multiple chapters, the first one or two chapters tend to get read a lot, whereas later chapters dwindle rapidly in # of views. I suspect this has to do with the fact that people might see a late chapter number and, if they haven't read the previous ones, automatically assume they won't like the later chapter unless they go earlier. So they don't bother.

This is normal and has nothing to do with the series function. The first chapter/part/title with always have the most engagement. Subsequent entries will have fewer views/likes/faves until you hit your core readers. This will be about what any further entries will get (sometimes with variation with some chapters).

 

[WCSGarland]

If it is any consolation, the second half of my Talia's Legacy series received more engagement than the first half. I don't know if it's because I named them differently than the first half (with the male protagonist in the chapter title versus the female protagonist in the chapter title). But from my experience, it is not necessary to name the chapters with numbers in the UI.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I have two questions about this system:

1. How has your experience been with this new system? Are people reading each story in the series more than they would have if it had been designated as "Ch 03" or something like that?
2. Is there a way to dictate the "sequence" of the stories on that list (since you don't use chapter #s as reference)? Or does it simply go based on alphabetical?

Thank you!!

I haven't done this so I can't speak to it exactly. Blackwell_Link does -- each chapter in his The Belromanticum and Cascades series has a unique title. Belromanticum looks like it has a similar decline to most ongoing series. It's all in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and it looks from the story descriptions like an ongoing story that doesn't have standalone chapters. Cascades hops categories and each story is carefully crafted to stand alone without any knowledge of previous entries. The six stories have the same characters and form a cohesive whole, but don't require any prior knowledge. A reader might not even know they're a series until they get to the end. The three most recent stories have significantly higher readership than the first three. So that's maybe instructive.

 

[SimonDoom]

My experience is that it makes no difference. If you post it as part of a series, or even if you don't officially designate it that way but it's clear that it is, readers will catch on and you'll get the same attrition effect you would if you labeled each successive story as a chapter.

I did this with my "Late Night" series. The first story was my most popular, published back in 2017. So I decided to publish a sequel two months later. That story did well, but nowhere near as well. As of today, it has about 1/7 the number of views of the first chapter. Then in 2022 I decided to publish a third story, and it has about one half the views of the second one. The only thing all stories have in common in the titles is the words "Late Night" at the beginning.

So, based on my experience, which may differ from that of others, I'd say don't overthink it and instead make it as clear as possible that the stories are successive chapters in a larger story.

 

[RejectReality]

It won't make much of a difference if they're actually chapters. If you have to read submission A to make any sense of where submission B picks up, it's going to have the same sort of attrition as if you'd labeled them Ch. 01 and Ch. 02.

If every submission is a full and complete story in and of itself — even if there's still a timeline within the series — you'll see a lot less fall-off. IOW, an actual series as opposed to a serial.

If you want to cut down on attrition in a serial ( chaptered ) story, make sure it's all complete before you post chapter 1, and post two chapters a week as consistently as the queue will allow. That has produced the best retention of any release strategy I've observed or tried.

 

[ElectricBlue]

1. How has your experience been with this new system? Are people reading each story in the series more than they would have if it had been designated as "Ch 03" or something like that?

Makes no difference, that I can tell.

With chapters you get some idea how many readers are in fact finishing your story. Typically, the second chapter gets 50% the View count of the first chapter, the third drops another 50%, and typically levels out at that point. So it's a reasonable inference that the View count of the last chapter is roughly the number of readers who read the whole thing.

With a standalone story, there's no clue as to how many have read the story.

2. Is there a way to dictate the "sequence" of the stories on that list (since you don't use chapter #s as reference)? Or does it simply go based on alphabetical?

Yes, the auto sort function is alphanumeric.

Story Title
Story Title Ch.02
Story Title Ch.03

Story Title - Annie
Story Title - Bobbie
Story Title - Charlie

The thing about the Series function is that, by doing it manually, the Story Titles don't matter. If you look at my Emma and Bobbie series, for example, there's no common title.

The Emma and Bobbie Stories

 

[yowser]

Cascades hops

Very clever.

 

[StillStunned]

I've used it for my non-chapter series "My Little Sister Sal", "Flesh for Fantasy" and "Loving Lily". In each case, there was none of the second-chapter drop-off that I've had with numbered chapters.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I'm going to lay out a few of different examples from my own portfolio for you as a way to explain my view on this:

I have one series of six stories with a common theme being the erotic adventures of different women before they became famous. Each story in the series is unrelated to the others except for that common theme. The average score for this series is 4.59

I have another series of three stories with shared theme and characters but each is an otherwise completely different story. The average score for this series is 4.69

I have twelve additional chapter stories that are all single submissions. Four of them were originally published in chapters or parts, but reader feedback convinced me to have them converted to one submission each. The average score for those stories rose .10 or higher once converted to a single submission. The average score for the lot is 4.79.

Stay true to whatever you are writing, but choose the format that allows the tale to flow best.