As the title asks, I'm curious what people prefer. I know idealistically you'd prefer decently long chapters with daily chapter releases, but in a more realistic situation would you prefer longer chapters (2k-3k words) released semi-frequently, or would you prefer shorter chapters (1k-2k words) released on a more regular schedule?

I've experimented with releasing shorter 1.5k word chapters, and I've also tried longer 2.5k-3k words, and haven't been able to ascertain what people prefer based on my limited testing.

Again, in a realistic situation. Do you sit down to read longer chapters or are you more interested in picking up a quick chapter and blasting through it in a few minutes?

And for writers: Have you found longer chapters or shorter chapters to work better in retaining reader feedback and attention?

    Readers here, on the whole, prefer consistency of updates. If you're posting small chapters multiple times a day, or one larger one every day, or a big one every few days to a week, the most important thing is that readers know with certainty when they will get the next update.

    That said, having tested this pretty extensively, I can say without doubt that posting smaller chapters more frequently dramatically increased my user engagement compared to one large chapter every other day, and a lot of other writers seem to have the same experience.

    Your mileage may vary, but that's my experience, for what it's worth.

      Clowniac Great for the feedback!

      When you mean smaller chapters, do you mean only 1k words on average or hovering closer to 2k words? I know it's not an exact math, I'm just curious what are the best results writers have found over their experience.

      I haven't posted any chapters in around half a year, but I went 160k viewers with only 140 or so collections, with nearly zero reader feedback. Wanted to see what I could do in the future to improve those numbers, even though it's not an exact math.

          Yep it doesnt matter how long. More people like stable update. If daily update it would be Perfect xD

            JVenior

            One of the top novels on here, Full Marks Hidden Marriage, posts chapters 500-700 words long a couple times a day, and has since the beginning. I personally only post chapters 600-700 words long each day, sometimes multiple times a day, and my interaction rate has skyrocketed.

            I would say the value readers place on different things here could be ranked as follows:

            1. Stability of updates
            2. Frequency of updates
            3. Size of chapters
            4. Premise/Plot
            5. Characterization/Dialogue
            6. World-building/Descriptions
            7. Grammar. Believe it or not, most readers literally don't care if grammar is horrible. Some actually don't like it when the grammar in a story is good. Don't ask me why.
            8. Literally anything else that goes into writing, such at theming, subtext, symbolism, or complexity. In fact, most of the time these are completely ignored.

                It depends on the type of story!

                Usually for light-hearted, straight to the point kind of plot, I would prefer shorter chapters and more dialogue (600-700)?
                But for worldbuilding types, I tend to build my imagination feeding off the descriptions, so although it is wordy, I prefer it slightly longer. (1k and up)

                I haven't yet come across any chapters that are 2.5k and above... but I'm guessing if the plot is great I wouldn't even mind 5k words per chapter lol.

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