In it for the long haul

[pink_silk_glove]

My numbers aren't even worth posting. If you take the lowest scoring least popular story posted in this thread, most of my stories score lower and ALL of them have less votes and views. Remember, that's comparing my entire category to just the worst numbers posted in this thread. I knew that I was unpopular but this really puts things into perspective. I literally don't exist here.

 

[THBGato]

I mean, that's not too bad for 1,800 words of not-very-much-happening and a really obvious twist ending in non-erotic. Very happy with the number of comments.

Basically, if you want your stories to hold up over time here you need to:
- somehow master the algorithm that gets your story regularly recommended in the "similar stories" sidebar
- win a contest, so it's constantly linked to from the category hub
(-previously, getting into the all time top list may have helped, but these days they aren't linked to from the category hubs anymore)

 

[SimonDoom]

Are the two in the same category?

No, and that's definitely a factor. The first one is in Erotic Couplings, which is why I think it's one of my stories that "disappeared" and gets few views. The other one is in Exhibitionist and Voyeur, and it did extremely in views despite not scoring highly.

 

[old_prof]

(-previously, getting into the all time top list may have helped, but these days they aren't linked to from the category hubs anymore)

I still see them linked from the category pages. That said, being on them brings their own death by 1-bomb these days, so I'm not sure it's great for your stories and they won't stay there for very long.

 

[THBGato]

I still see them linked from the category pages. That said, being on them brings their own death by 1-bomb these days, so I'm not sure it's great for your stories and they won't stay there for very long.

In classic view, yes. The new version shows something else.

 

[Not2Pervy]

Getting probably around a dozen views per day.

 

[old_prof]

In classic view, yes. The new version shows something else.

I think I'm getting the new version, but I still see a link to the all time lists. I'm confused. Not entirely shocking for me.



(This is from the bottom of the popular section of the Lesbian story page.) If I click the More Popular button, I see the current all-time, 12-month and 30-day top stories (more or less, but that's a different issue).

Is this not where you are talking about?

 

[THBGato]

No, you're right. But I wonder how many people click through? The old version had the top twenty all time stories on the category hub page. They all had pretty high view numbers, and I suspect it was a virtuous circle situation.

 

[old_prof]

No, you're right. But I wonder how many people click through? The old version had the top twenty all time stories on the category hub page. They all had pretty high view numbers, and I suspect it was a virtuous circle situation.

I vaguely remember the old version, now that you say it. I had used the all-time story lists to help find gems to read when I was just a reader.

 

[ElectricBlue]

My first story is recount of an encounter with a Tantra masseuse.

Some tropes are already there: my descriptions of clothes, the observation of her poise, her husky voice, the precise description of her smooth pussy lips. When I read that sentence this morning the feeling on my fingers was visceral, tactile.

There are details that I didn't remember, but now that I've read it again, they're vivid. There's a bit of kink I'd forgotten, and an intimacy that I hadn't, which was nice to look back on.

Technically, the flow is clunky in places, and I have no idea when I learned about the leading capital in dialogue, because it isn't there in this piece. The dialogue is clunky too, or maybe that's how we spoke.

I don't track scores or votes over time - I think the score is pretty stable, but the Vote count took me by surprise. It's a steady back catalogue piece, I reckon, down the bottom end of my portfolio. Not too shabby

 

[Kumquatqueen]

My first story is here from 2017.
24.9k views, rated 4.6 from 55 votes, 9 favourites (including one today from someone adding almost my stuff), 3 comments, but none in the first three years. That's the BDSM category for you. It's not particularly bad, though the tenses are changeable and I clearly didn't spend much time on it, but it's an account of fairly hardcore SM in a club so not a particularly popular trope.

Almost exactly 2 years later I posted my third story, my first good BDSM one, which got a lot more reads, judging from the views to vote ratio, and seems to get recommended in "Similar stories" a fair bit;


It happens to also be about two people in a fetish club, but it's a nice story, much less off-putting to most readers.

18 months later I had another BDSM story which placed in a Valentine's contest (with 26 votes!), and now has 166 votes and 61k views. It gets a bigger trickle of views than the other two, partly because of the kinky lesbians but more from people reading stories about disability, judging by the comments. (Wheelchair Bound?)

My only story to trouble an all-time top list (BDSM again - it's less than half my stories, honest!) lasted about 24 hours before being downvoted off, so I didn't get to see if it got a bump in views.

 

[PapaRomantic]

This was to be a stand-alone, but I ended up writing five more chapters. The number of views was helped tremendously by a Christmas contest entry after this series was posted. That story reached 100k views very quickly. This story and subsequent series probably doesn't get many daily views, and the scores have been very stable since it was first published.

 

[NotWise]

My first story on Lit was "A Necessary Seduction," published on 9/29/2015--three weeks after I signed up here. It was less than a full Lit page, and I thought that was too long. It's in EC, scores 4.4, and it currently gets just under 4 views/day. Its averaged 12 views/day since it was published.

It doesn't get much attention, and I'm fine with that. It shares the low viewing rate with most of my stories that aren't in I/T. I attribute it to the category, and my choice of title and short description.

It wasn't even a very good learning experience because I was on a wrong track at the time.

 

[RejectReality]

Barely over the 20 year mark. Gets about 2 views a day. The chapters average 20k words a piece, and the whole story is around 450k words. From what I recall, it took about a month to get to 10 votes.



In this name, I'm still shy a few years of 20. Gets about 2 views a day. Should have been in Mature, but I didn't know any better at the time.

 

[anthrodisiac]

My only non-anthro story. Mostly crickets, a few views a day, tops. It's, uh, out there. Tossed it together for Haloween, though I'd started work on another story prior to that, which is the first in my series, but this was the first thing I published here. Almost all the favorites, comments, likes, and ratings came within the first few days, a bit after Haloween, and has been idling every since.

 

[DEFCOM5]

My first entry. Good idea but awfully written.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

My first story is recount of an encounter with a Tantra masseuse.

Some tropes are already there: my descriptions of clothes, the observation of her poise, her husky voice, the precise description of her smooth pussy lips. When I read that sentence this morning the feeling on my fingers was visceral, tactile.

There are details that I didn't remember, but now that I've read it again, they're vivid. There's a bit of kink I'd forgotten, and an intimacy that I hadn't, which was nice to look back on.

Technically, the flow is clunky in places, and I have no idea when I learned about the leading capital in dialogue, because it isn't there in this piece. The dialogue is clunky too, or maybe that's how we spoke.

I don't track scores or votes over time - I think the score is pretty stable, but the Vote count took me by surprise. It's a steady back catalogue piece, I reckon, down the bottom end of my portfolio. Not too shabby

View attachment 2598896

Certainly a work to be proud of

 

[Actingup]

We all realize that new stories tend to get more views initially. I think we should consider how our stories hold up over time.

So, what I am curious about is how your oldest story is doing.

Take your very first story published here and share the date that it was published, the category, and the current views-per-day stat.

If there are mitigating factors that might influence that stat, such as the story being on a top list, having a red H, or being a contest winner, please include those details.

***********************************************************************************************************************************

My first story here was published in Novels/Novellas on 04/19/2014 (4,341 days ago) and as of today, it is still receiving 38.34 views per day. It was a monthly winner, has never lost its red H, currently rated at 4.83, and remains somewhere on the top list for its category.

I think this could be a 'is anybody reading the instructions?' thread!

My first story, Map of Tasmania, was published in Romance on 17/08/2024 and has had 15439 views. If I were to divide total views by number of days (15439/560), I'd get 27.6 views per day. But if I were to follow the instructions, I would notice that I downloaded my stats in mid-December, and over the last 77 days the views per day averages out at 4.5 per day, which is a much better approximation of the current views per day.

It's still a bloody good story IMHO. And if four and a half people are reading it per day, that's just fine.

 

[LetsMisBehave]

My first story was Strangers on a Train
Rebecca has an opportunity to increase her college fund..
09/25/2022 in Erotic Couplings Stories
For some time, it was above the 4.5 mark, and even now it's at 4.46 (it got a few one-bombs after I ventured into loving wives in later stories) and has 18.7K views.
I still think the idea was great, but the implementation could have been better. Practice makes less imperfect
.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I think this could be a 'is anybody reading the instructions?' thread!

My first story, Map of Tasmania, was published in Romance on 17/08/2024 and has had 15439 views. If I were to divide total views by number of days (15439/560), I'd get 27.6 views per day. But if I were to follow the instructions, I would notice that I downloaded my stats in mid-December, and over the last 77 days the views per day averages out at 4.5 per day, which is a much better approximation of the current views per day.

It's still a bloody good story IMHO. And if four and a half people are reading it per day, that's just fine.

You are correct.

I track my story stats weekly so the views per day that I quoted was the weekly difference over the two most recent weeks divided by seven days. Interesting that the stat is 11.09 higher than the overall views per day average for the story since its publication date. I attribute that to the recent publication of an entry for the Valentine's Day contest that likely drew more views for many of my other stories.

 

[RejectReality]

Mine are pulled from a track November 30 to come up with current views per day.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Mine are pulled from a track November 30 to come up with current views per day.

If one was to take the views per day from just the two most recent days, I'm not sure that this would be a reliable stat.

If someone took the average of the views since the story was posted and divided it by the number of days since then, that would not necessarily reflect the "current" views per day state either.

I didn't intend for this to be a comparison, but as an indication for writers of how their own stories have persevered over time. Measure that however you want.

 

[Actingup]

If one was to take the views per day from just the two most recent days, I'm not sure that this would be a reliable stat.

If someone took the average of the views since the story was posted and divided it by the number of days since then, that would not necessarily reflect the "current" views per day state either.

I didn't intend for this to be a comparison, but as an indication for writers of how their own stories have persevered over time. Measure that however you want.

I actually think it's quite an interesting subject. I think that publication of a story does result in more views of other stories, however when I tried to measure the impact of getting a contest placing in this thread, the results weren't very exciting. Some other readers here do download their stats every day and probably have much better data on this.

 

[LetsMisBehave]

I actually think it's quite an interesting subject. I think that publication of a story does result in more views of other stories, however when I tried to measure the impact of getting a contest placing in this thread, the results weren't very exciting. Some other readers here do download their stats every day and probably have much better data on this.

My experience is that a good/ decent/not-so-bad new story (a sort of Firefly reference) does result in an increase in people trying out my earlier stories, but I am not a popular author, shall we say.

 

[RejectReality]

If one was to take the views per day from just the two most recent days, I'm not sure that this would be a reliable stat.

If someone took the average of the views since the story was posted and divided it by the number of days since then, that would not necessarily reflect the "current" views per day state either.

I didn't intend for this to be a comparison, but as an indication for writers of how their own stories have persevered over time. Measure that however you want.

Mine should be fairly reliable as a bottom. That's 80+ days at the time I posted, I think. I haven't put out anything in any pen name in months. LOL ( Much longer in two of them ) So that should be a reasonable idle number for them. Posting something new would naturally kick my numbers, but those should be good for dead-stick like I am now.