Why is it so important to update your stories regularly if they are ongoing paid books?
There are several reasons for it:
1. To get regular readers
If you are a commercial author and want to sell your ongoing book, you will need to reach at least 100 regular readers to be able to apply for a bookscription.
Many authors are struggling to get those numbers and when we check out their reading statistics it turns out that their updates are irregular.
The irregular updates lead to the lack of regular readers, as the regular readers are those who come back to read your updates. No updates = no regular readers.
The visibility of the book on the platform depends directly on the reader's engagement. The more views, comments, and likes you get - the higher ranking your story receives. To increase the interaction with your story, you need to make sure to give regular updates. When you update the book with at least 500 characters, the story appears on the top list in the readers' libraries and they are more likely to prefer your story over other books they've added to them. If there are no updates for a long time, the book is lost in the library and readers don't come back to read the updates. Many readers tend to add over 20 books to their libraries and you need to struggle for their attention.
2. To retain your potential buyers
When your story finally becomes paid and your loyal readers have bought the book during the first days of sales, some authors may take a break and skip regular updates or even give preferences to their free books. This is a huge mistake! Many readers don't buy ongoing books because they are afraid that you won't update them frequently or won't finish the book at all, and if you skip updates as soon as the book becomes paid and relax, waiting for huge sales, readers who want to buy the book but are waiting a few days to check if you continue updating regularly, might not wait till your book is finished and just delete it from their library and switch to another story.
If there are both free and paid ongoing books in your profile, slow down the updates of your free stories and focus on your paid books. If you dedicate more or the same effort to a free story, your loyal readers will also be focused on it.
3. To make sure you won't infringe the contract
Before you start selling ongoing books on the platform, you sign a contract for ongoing sales. It states that you need to update your ongoing paid book with at least 40,000 every thirty calendar days. Many authors understand this clause incorrectly and think that they can update the book with 10,000 characters four times a month or once a month with 40,000. But this is a false opinion!
The period of every 30 calendar days starts every day.
This means that if you make a long gap between the updates, you may infringe on the contract, even if your updates are long.
What happens when an author infringes the contract for ongoing sales?
Their paid book turns into a sample and new readers can't buy it, while the author doesn't receive any royalties from sales till the book is finished within 100 days.
Why do we do this?
This is done to protect the readers that have paid for the book and those who might buy it. In case the author doesn't finish the story and we could refund money from purchases to the buyers.
4. To give your readers the best service.
As we've mentioned, when one of your stories is ongoing and paid, you need to provide your customers with the best service and give them regular updates. A satisfied buyer is your loyal buyer that would recommend your books to their friends and buy your other stories.
Tips for updates:
If you write long chapters, divide them into several smaller parts and schedule them so that your readers receive them 3-4 times per week. We remind you that you may schedule updates on the desktop version of the booknet.com website and they will be published automatically even if you are not online.
If you are a slow writer and can't update 4 times per week, don't start a bookscription! Write the book offline and when it is almost finished, start uploading it. It is better to wait till you finish the book than release chapters once a week and lose your readers because of that.
Announce your update schedule in blogs and make sure to follow it. If you have a force majeure, let your readers know about it, don't disappear.
We value our readers and we want to provide them with a high-quality service.
Therefore, we will make sure not to accept books for bookscription if they are not updated 3-4 times per week with at least 15,000 total per week.
