In it for the long haul

[WaxPhilosophic]

My first story was supposed to be one and done, but I've kept coming back to these characters over the years. I like to think my writing has improved in that time as well.

 

[alohadave]

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.

I track weekly, and if you publish regularly, it can be difficult to nail down increases in views on other stories. I have a series of 4 stories, and when each additional chapter was published, it did cause a bump in each of the previous stories for about 2 weeks, then views went back to baseline views.

After I slowed down posting, I could see that some stories got a bump when a new story was published, but not all.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

My very first story, published on 02/02/2020, has 89 favorites, 552 votes for 4.81 rating, 33233 views, and 20 comments. It has my most favorites and votes, and my third highest views. It is the first part of a five part story and is the lowest rated one of the five.

 

[Voboy]

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

Not necessarily the first written, but the first published. I was working on a couple of stories simultaneously.

Published on April Fools' Day 2016, long before I ever thought of entering any contests; it is not themed. Just a fairly straightforward Mature story. It's had a red H since about the second day it was published. I've got no idea whether it's ever been on a toplist; I don't check those.

87,233 views. 4.71 on 793 votes, fourteen comments. I still think it's a good story.

 

[Voboy]

My first 2 stories, just over 20 years ago (cheese and crackers I feel old). I like them equally but obviously I’m alone in that regard lolView attachment 2598871

"Brand" rings a bell, so I swung by just now and checked it; I didn't really recognize it, but when I got to the end I found I'd already given it five stars, perhaps many years ago.

If I gave it five, it must have worked for me!

 

[BellaBestia]

"Brand" rings a bell, so I swung by just now and checked it; I didn't really recognize it, but when I got to the end I found I'd already given it five stars, perhaps many years ago.

If I gave it five, it must have worked for me!

lol glad it worked! Thanks!

 

[RejectReality]

May as well do this one too.



Danica was my first story ever submitted here, as Darkniciad. Divorcing My Vibe was my first story here as RR. This is my first story as LesLumens, currently a few months shy of 20 years old, and also my first venture outside of the three slow categories I'd written in as Dark. ( Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Humor & Satire, Chain Stories ) My first introduction to the wider readership of Lit was quite the shock. Moving from the lowest tier readership categories to the middling categories was like night and day as far as how fast numbers accumulated. This one was in the Winter Holiday Contest, which gave it another boost. Little did I know at the time it was a drop in the bucket compared to the upper tier categories.

Using the same track from Nov. 30 as I used for the others vs. today and doing the math, this one deviates from the other two in getting about 3.5 views per day. ( Nothing has come out since mid-2024 in this name ) I attribute this to three things: (1) Most of my themed contest wins are in this name, so it gets featured more often than the other two. (2) My most recent contest win is in this name ( the 2024 story ) and seems to come up a lot more often in the sidebar. (3) It has two Mom/Son stories that consistently get favorites even when I haven't posted anything new in years.

 

[LegendInMyOwnMind]

My first story. The first of 10 out of 12 to earn an H.

 

[MK_Whimsy]

Interruption, a straitjacket bondage piece. Published on 6/13/24. It's in Reluctance/NonCon, though I don't think there's actually a good category for it. Currently sitting at a score of 4.04 out of 25 ratings with 12.2k views, as of this comment. I'm not really sure about current views per day though.

Another one of my stories, Rectification (a Nonhuman category foot fetish piece) and published shortly thereafter on 6/27/24, is currently sitting at around 2k views total after all this time. I guess the takeaways are one, that I write really niche stuff, and two, that I'm bad at titles.

 

[MrStill]

Congrats to all of you who really hit the ground running with big numbers and those high ratings.
I started more modestly in what is apparently one of the backwaters, and heck it was almost 6 years ago!

 

[ADirtyPerv]

I've made a big deal out of my first story being my proudest, so I have to link it. Chloe is the tale of a young woman avoiding a reverse harem made up of her four brothers. By her own definition, she walks out of there a virgin. It was way too much to tackle as my first story, but even as I reread it, I don't know what I would change, aside from the title and some formatting.

It sits at a 4.16/83, which is very low for T/I. My next-lowest score is in LW.

 

[lovecraft68]

I can't get my head around counting views. Especially when its been a long running discussion that they don't mean reads. They can be bots, people clicking then immediately back clicking, if you click on it, its a view etc.. I can see votes, score, comments, favs because they're all worth something, a view is a nothingburger without one of those other things coming from it.

 

[RejectReality]

I can't get my head around counting views. Especially when its been a long running discussion that they don't mean reads. They can be bots, people clicking then immediately back clicking, if you click on it, its a view etc.. I can see votes, score, comments, favs because they're all worth something, a view is a nothingburger without one of those other things coming from it.

Like everything else, you have to evaluate it in relationship to other things. My oldest story as Les gets 3x more views per day ( since Nov. 30th anyway ) than my oldest story as RR. RR has way more followers. RR has a higher production average. RR has a more recent new story. The RR story certainly has a better title/description for erotica. The RR story is a more optimal length. Romance probably has a better chance of higher views than EC, but not by much. So what else is different and favors Les? That's the three factors I put down.

Basically none of the stats are worth anything by themselves. Everything has to be a comparison to tease anything out of them.

It's not as if views are completely random. There's loose correlation with the other stats. Enough at least to determine that higher views = more people reading them, no matter how many are bots or back-clicks.

Finding Karen also has double the new votes over Divorcing My Vibe in that same period, so that higher view total came with higher vote totals as well.

 

[Soixenta]

My first story, "Full Moon Mischief", is 8 months old and has 12133 views. But I do not think this is very "long haul" yet.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I can't get my head around counting views. Especially when its been a long running discussion that they don't mean reads. They can be bots, people clicking then immediately back clicking, if you click on it, its a view etc.. I can see votes, score, comments, favs because they're all worth something, a view is a nothingburger without one of those other things coming from it.

For starters, you are not going to get any reader engagement without views. The amount of that engagement is dubious, but it is the sole opportunity we have here.

So, I look at it like this, if a story is still receiving engagement opportunities over time, compared to when it is fresh on the site, that is something that deserves recognition.

 

[designatedvictim]

I'm relatively new to this, so... not much of a track record.

My first of eight total submissions (only two are standalones) went up in Sept '24.



So... 524 days ago. To my surprise, it's had a Red H from the first vote. From my data (which was kind of spotty and haphazard back then) this submission has the distinction of being the only piece of mine to always have been in H territory.

Traffic was at the noise-level (2 or 3 a day, on average) until a month ago when my latest went up. Spiked up to around 25-30, or so, a day for a week-ish, before trailing off to about five a day.

Now that my latest has dropped off the 30-Day Top List, I expect it to flatline again.

ETA:
That first submission wound up getting rejected several times because some dumbass (who shall remain nameless, here) kept doing stupid formatting tricks (i.e. forgot to unify font and text-size information in my source MS Word doc) several times.

At least I never got dinged as having used AI.

 

[MillieDynamite]

My highest-rated story remains nearly as highly ranked as it was when it started. But views, votes, comments, and hearts are hens' teeth. Have you seen any hen's teeth lately?

While my most ed has fallen out of the red H zone.

As the wise old Owl says, "Give a hoot, people, vote with Stars and Hearts!"

 

[MillieDynamite]

Now we come to my most hated story, most commented on (minus over a hundred I deleted and still on top), and most viewed. And second-to-last in the score category, it and one other are the reasons I no longer publish to Loving Wives. To misquote the words of W.C Fields, "I don't have to take this kind of abuse, I'd rather be in Philadelphia than here."

 

[RejectReality]

Looked through a few things. ( All based upon Nov. 30 to now ) Other than the two "most recent" ones as RR mentioned here, they're all long-haul, being a couple to many years old.

Lot Lizard, which is my most recent story in any name, and in EC gets about 15 views per day.
Inexcusable, which is in Letters&Transcripts by RR also gets about 15 views per day.
An Early Bird, which is my most recent Mature story as RR gets about 50 views per day. I'm typically highlighted in that category as a "top author", which boosts me there.
Holly Jolley Christmas, which is in Incest as RR also gets about 50 views per day.
Mom's Stocking Stuffer and Mom's Second Chance in Incest as Les both get about 30 views per day.
Inher-Tit-Ance, my most recent themed contest win as Les in Mature gets 99 views per day.
Rim Fire, which was a monthly contest winner as RR in Anal gets 150 views per day.

 

[lovecraft68]

For starters, you are not going to get any reader engagement without views. The amount of that engagement is dubious, but it is the sole opportunity we have here.

So, I look at it like this, if a story is still receiving engagement opportunities over time, compared to when it is fresh on the site, that is something that deserves recognition.

My point is-or maybe more of my opinion-is that views are engagement to a degree as again, they're not all real, but is that what people see if they're someone who basis what they read on stats?

You see a high score, you think it must be good. You see a lot of comments you think its gotten some buzz. If its on a lot of favorite pages or reading lists, people must be interested in it. It has a bunch of views and...? Again, this can just be how I see it, but I don't feel a view by itself is worth much.

I might make an exception for the stories that are on the most viewed list because at that point something is drawing people to look in well above average numbers, but its not the total views itself, its something else. Title, tag, score, top list but there has to be another reason.

 

[MillieDynamite]

This is a crazy suggestion, from a totally insane person, but might it be, really, really, really good writing when someone's on a most-viewed list? Or it might be, really, really, really bad writing in that kind of trainwreck way!

My point is-or maybe more of my opinion-is that views are engagement to a degree as again, they're not all real, but is that what people see if they're someone who basis what they read on stats?

You see a high score, you think it must be good. You see a lot of comments you think its gotten some buzz. If its on a lot of favorite pages or reading lists, people must be interested in it. It has a bunch of views and...? Again, this can just be how I see it, but I don't feel a view by itself is worth much.

I might make an exception for the stories that are on the most viewed list because at that point something is drawing people to look in well above average numbers, but its not the total views itself, its something else. Title, tag, score, top list but there has to be another reason.

 

[lovecraft68]

This is a crazy suggestion, from a totally insane person, but might it be, really, really, really good writing when someone's on a most-viewed list? Or it might be, really, really, really bad writing in that kind of trainwreck way!

Two things can be true which would help make the point of whether or not that statistic is viable to measure a story.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Okay, but where do the answers come from? OH, no, it's a math thing. I don't do math beyond checking how much my royalty payment will be and whether we have enough in the bank to cover bills. We do, just in case you were worried we didn't.

Two things can be true which would help make the point of whether or not that statistic is viable to measure a story.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

This is a crazy suggestion, from a totally insane person, but might it be, really, really, really good writing when someone's on a most-viewed list? Or it might be, really, really, really bad writing in that kind of trainwreck way!

But no one knows if it's really really good or if it's trainwreck until after they've clicked it open.

 

[lovecraft68]

Okay, but where do the answers come from? OH, no, it's a math thing. I don't do math beyond checking how much my royalty payment will be and whether we have enough in the bank to cover bills. We do, just in case you were worried we didn't.

Put the calculator away, we don't have to do math. I leave that for the insanely stat obsessed graph and spreadsheet folks.

I am a master of the Kiss principle, so what I see is what there is.

Avoiding the endless "just because it has a good score doesn't mean quality" chirping by the terminally petty, there are ways people can see how a story is doing.

You can see the score
You can see the comments
You can see how many times its been favorited or added to a read list.
If its on a top list.

But views, although visible when someone sees a story, are there readers out there that really even notice, let alone say "Score's meh, hardly any comments or votes or favs, but hot damn, look at those views!!! I need to check this out.

From an author perspective all a view means is 'X amount of people clicked on this yesterday" but did they? Were they all people? No way to know. Even if its people, was every click a read? We don't know.

In fact we often lament the sad votes to view ratio and even sadder comment to view ratio. We see it as look how few people take the time to vote or comments, very low percentage.

But what if its not as low as we think because not all of those views are legit and the ratio of legit views to votes is better?

I'll hold to the opinion its a useless stat and if I want to be a little snarkier its a crutch of "Look, I'm seeing no real action on my story, but dammit, its being viewed!