It can take several hours or more before characters will start to show up, especially now since so many people are trying to get their characters up. Also, don't leave the game running. You have to close DAO before characters will upload, from what I've seen.
If you go to the old BSN and click the "Profile Diagnostics" button, you can see if any characters are uploading at all. If they aren't listed there, then something else is still wrong.
If you don't know how to find that, go here:
http://social.bioware.com
Click your name in the top-right corner. That should take you to your profile. Click the Games tab, then click on your DAO player profile link. On the page that leads to, you should see the Profile Diagnostics button over on the left. Any characters currently in the process of uploading should appear there. Like I said though, if they aren't, then some other issue is causing problems.