Long versus short stories - impact on comments and favourites

[THBGato]

There was a thread recently proposing the number of times a story had been favourited as an indicator of quality. Also, whenever the question about whether readers prefer long or short stories comes up, the received wisdom on the AH seems to be to go long.

That got me thinking: do long stories do better in terms of favourites and comments (because we all love comments)? When my rather short (3,473 word) story I have seen love dropped on Friday and got a wonderful response (15 comments in 24 hours), which I wasn't really expecting, it got me thinking that maybe the received wisdom was wrong. Being a solipsistic procrastinator, rather than starting on something in my work in progress folder, I started crunching numbers.

Bear in mind, I only write Lesbian stories (though two I published in Non-Erotic). My findings may well not apply to other category (or even other authors). Though if anyone else wants to do the same and share findings, we might get a bigger picture.

Results (Comments):

So, in gross terms, my longest story (Eve & Lucy) at 87,740 words over five chapters has the most comments, at 72 in total.

HOWEVER, if we work things out as a ratio of comments to total words, the picture is very different.

Eve & Lucy got a comment for every 1,215 words; meanwhile, The Parting Glass, at 2,614 words got a comment every 100 words. (Incidentally, at 4.73 it's one of my lower scoring stories, lower than Eve & Lucy). It's not even an outlier:
Coda: 10 songs - 750 words - a comment every 107 words
The Hardest Step - 1880 words - a comment every 111 words (and my lowest scoring story at 4.56)
I have seen love - 3473 words - a comment every 232 words

So, for comments, it seems that if comments are what you crave, the best return for your effort is to go short. The ratio of writing to comments will increase.

Results (Favourites):

Things weren't so clear for me with favourtites. My most favourited story (Love is the Place) has 98 favourites which, at 24,340 words, works out as a favourite every 248 words. In terms of the ratio of words/favourites that ranks 3rd in my stories.
1st - Coda: 10 songs - 750 words - a favourite every 187 words
2nd - The Parting Glass - 2,614 word - a favourite every 238 words

However, Love is the Place seems to be the outlier. With all my other stories, except The Hardest Step, the longer they are, the fewer favourites/words they have.

There's very little to separate most of my stories in terms of scores. Therefore, all other things being equal, in the Lesbian Sex/Non-Erotic categories at least, it seems you will get the best return for your efforts in terms of comments and favourites by writing shorter, rather than longer stories.

That's exactly the motivation I need to tackle the 100,000 word novel I'm currently writing!

 

[TheWritingGroup]

The obvious question is, does this result apply to other writers, or just to you?

I haven't published enough to draw any conclusions.

-Annie

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You have probably reached the correct conclusion. Short stories will always get considerably more reads than longer ones. I intentionally said reads rather than views. The number of words doesn't show before a reader actually clicks on a story so I would say that many readers abandon the story once they see it's a long one. Most visitors want shorter stories (and quick gratification) that don't require a considerable time investment.

"Short" in this case doesn't mean those 1k words scenes Lit is being flooded with every day. A short story can be anything up to 10-15k words in my view. So yeah, more actual reads = more comments and favorites. Chaptered stories tend to narrow the readership so they are unlikely to garner many favorites and comments although it depends on the category and kink.

 

[THBGato]

My findings may well not apply to other category (or even other authors). Though if anyone else wants to do the same and share findings, we might get a bigger picture.

The obvious question is, does this result apply to other writers, or just to you?

Well, indeed. That's why I was inviting others to do the same and share data.

I haven't published enough to draw any conclusions.

We've published about the same number of stories (I've published 24, but two are reviews so don't really count).

 

[Plathfan]

Who could have thought an authors' hangout would turn out to be an underground haven for statisticians?

 

[TheLobster]

There is an obvious factor missing in this analysis: publication date.

Older stories will have more time to accrue comments or favorites, regardless of word count. If there is a better unit to measure both numbers against, it would be something like word-day (or word/day) that combines the two.

 

[THBGato]

There is an obvious factor missing in this analysis: publication date.

Older stories will have more time to accrue comments or favorites, regardless of word count. If there is a better unit to measure both numbers against, it would be something like word-day (or word/day) that combines the two.

I thought about that. But it seems (again, received wisdom, but I think this is true) that we get the most engagement with our stories while they are on the new lists. After that, unless you've won a competition or something, traffic dies down.

However, in my case, most of my top stories for favourites and comments, either gross total or per word, were all published this year between 20th February and 19th April. So not a huge amount to separate them by publication date. My top story, The Parting Glass, was published more recently, in July - it was part of an event, so maybe that helped?

(It was also why I was surprised by how the response I got to I have seen love - 15 comments in 24 hours is unheard of for me.)

 

[SimonDoom]

A few thoughts:

1. TheLobster is right. You have to adjust for publication date because the longer a story is up the more comments/favorites it will get and that favorite/word ratio will keep increasing over time.
2. The best way to do this is to analyze a number of stories published in a particular category on a particular day. 8Letters has done this and published the results, and longer stories tend to do better.
3. I'm not sure paying attention to "reward per effort" is a useful benchmark for an author. What the OP is saying makes sense as an illustration of the law of diminishing return. A 2 page story might get, say, 100 favorites. The same story stretched out to 4 pages, with more buildup and character development and a longer, hotter sex scene, might get, say, 150 favorites. In this case the longer version of the story gets a better reception, but if you're focusing only on favorites per WORDS then it does not. That might lead one to say, "I should just write short stories to economize on my effort," but if one does that one is going to be settling for stories that aren't as good and that don't get as good a reception OTHER than as measured on a per effort basis. I don't think most authors would be motivated to write this way. I'd rather take the extra effort to boost my story from an 80% story to a 95% story even if it takes a disproportionate amount of effort to get from the one level to the next. I suspect this will seem intuitively correct to most authors.

Edit added: I'm not suggesting that longer stories are better, objectively. I don't believe that. One shouldn't stretch one's story out just to get higher numbers, in my opinion. But the reverse doesn't make sense to me, either. If 4 pages seems to one about the right length for the story, it makes no sense to "economize" on effort to maximize the return on word usage. I suspect most authors will, in their hearts, feel the same way.

 

[SimonDoom]

There are two other factors to take into account with your stories.

One, obviously, is that two of the stories you cite are chaptered stories. I have observed that favorites and comments are, to some extent, a function of views, and when you write a chaptered story the first chapter will have far more views, and therefore comments and favorites, than subsequent chapters. And a story of X length that ends in "Chapter 1" will very likely do worse than a story of X length that is not a chapter at all. You cannot compare chaptered stories with non-chaptered stories in an analysis like this.

Second, you're relatively new, but you've quickly picked up a follower base. The bigger a base of followers you have, the more you will have a ready-made base of quick and positive comments and favorites, especially if you tend to keep writing the same general kinds of stories, which you appear to. This will alter the favorite/comment:word ratio as well.

 

[THBGato]

2. The best way to do this is to analyze a number of stories published in a particular category on a particular day. 8Letters has done this and published the results, and longer stories tend to do better.

Yeah, but then you are introducing the variable of the quality of the writing. My stories are all roughly of the same quality (I would say) and the scoring - flawed as we know it all is - seems to agree. Thus comparing stories by the same author, in the same category, seems more accurate to me, even when there is a small gap between publication dates.

I am NOT, by the way, arguing that we should all be writing shorter stories. Obviously, first and foremost, we should write the stories WE want to write, however long they may be. I was just interested in testing the received wisdom here and exploring the notion of favourites as an indication of quality as was brought up in the other thread. It seems that the latter idea would be heavily affected by the length of the story and, thus, not a useful guide. It also seems that the received wisdom of longer = more popular isn't so straightforward.

One, obviously, is that two of the stories you cite are chaptered stories. I have observed that favorites and comments are, to some extent, a function of views, and when you write a chaptered story the first chapter will have far more views, and therefore comments and favorites, than subsequent chapters.

For the purpose of my analysis, I totaled up series and counted them as one story (as they are). I added together words, comments and favourites for all chapters. But some readers will favourite/comment on all chapters: therefore, you would expect chaptered stories to do better overall than shorter, single-issue stories. I didn't find that this was the case at all.

The bigger a base of followers you have, the more you will have a ready-made base of quick and positive comments and favorites, especially if you tend to keep writing the same general kinds of stories, which you appear to. This will alter the favorite/comment:word ratio as well.

Surely that would counteract the issue of publication date?

 

[SimonDoom]

It also seems that the received wisdom of longer = more popular isn't so straightforward.


For the purpose of my analysis, I totaled up series and counted them as one story (as they are). I added together words, comments and favourites for all chapters. But some readers will favourite/comment on all chapters: therefore, you would expect chaptered stories to do better overall than shorter, single-issue stories. I didn't find that this was the case at all.


Surely that would counteract the issue of publication date?

Your analysis does not challenge the "longer = more popular" observation. It merely demonstrates that there's a diminishing return, not a negligible return, on length.

For the purpose of my analysis, I totaled up series and counted them as one story (as they are). I added together words, comments and favourites for all chapters. But some readers will favourite/comment on all chapters: therefore, you would expect chaptered stories to do better overall than shorter, single-issue stories. I didn't find that this was the case at all.


Surely that would counteract the issue of publication date?

It counteracts it in the short term, but it still has to be taken into account, especially with an author like you who hasn't been around here that long. In my case, there's not going to be a big difference between a story from 2018 and one from 2019.

You should expect chaptered stories over time to do worse in terms of favorite:word ratio. Say you publish a chaptered story where every chapter is exactly 8000 words. Chapter 1 will usually have a lot more views, often twice or more times as many views, as all other chapters. It will almost certainly have more comments and more favorites. Every time you publish another chapter you water down the favorite:word ratio, because you aren't getting the same views for each subsequent, but equally worded, chapter.

If you want to economize on effort, you should NEVER write chaptered stories. You should only write standalone stories. Each published story will tend to receive a lot more views and therefore more favorites and comments, which are, to a significant degree, a function of views. Note that I'm not making a comment on the wisdom of publishing a particular long story in standalone or chaptered fashion. That's a separate question. What I'm saying is that if economizing return on effort is your goal, then the best way to achieve it is to write only standalone stories that are, say 4,000 to 8,000 words in length.

An author who does something like this is HeyAll. He publishes often, his stories, although they span many different categories, have a certain pattern and style, and they tend to be limited to under 3 pages in length. He writes standalone stories. And he's the third most followed story at Literotica. So his strategy, or style, or whatever you want to call it, works. He's the best example I can think of of an author who has an "economical" pattern of writing and publishing down, even if he doesn't consciously think that way, and it obviously is very successful. I'm somewhat this way as well. I sometimes feel like I could stretch my story out (more talk and emotional buildup, or a longer sex scene at the end) and perhaps receive higher statistics, but it's not worth it to me either from the standpoint of artistic satisfaction or return on my time. I'd rather just move on to the next (probably standalone) story.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Who could have thought an authors' hangout would turn out to be an underground haven for statisticians?

Anyone who has heard pro writers talking about their Amazon ranking, day by day and even hour by hour.

-Annie

 

[Plathfan]

Anyone who has heard pro writers talking about their Amazon ranking, day by day and even hour by hour.

-Annie

Anyone who cares more about numbers than words might be a pro, but not in writing.

 

[8letters]

If you want to economize on effort, you should NEVER write chaptered stories. You should only write standalone stories. Each published story will tend to receive a lot more views and therefore more favorites and comments, which are, to a significant degree, a function of views. Note that I'm not making a comment on the wisdom of publishing a particular long story in standalone or chaptered fashion. That's a separate question. What I'm saying is that if economizing return on effort is your goal, then the best way to achieve it is to write only standalone stories that are, say 4,000 to 8,000 words in length.

An author who does something like this is HeyAll. He publishes often, his stories, although they span many different categories, have a certain pattern and style, and they tend to be limited to under 3 pages in length. He writes standalone stories. And he's the third most followed story at Literotica. So his strategy, or style, or whatever you want to call it, works. He's the best example I can think of of an author who has an "economical" pattern of writing and publishing down, even if he doesn't consciously think that way, and it obviously is very successful. I'm somewhat this way as well. I sometimes feel like I could stretch my story out (more talk and emotional buildup, or a longer sex scene at the end) and perhaps receive higher statistics, but it's not worth it to me either from the standpoint of artistic satisfaction or return on my time. I'd rather just move on to the next (probably standalone) story.

My feeling is that if you are happy with the response you are getting from your stories, then keep doing what you are doing. If you aren't satisfied, then research how you can get a better response. Yes, I'd get more stories published if I wrote shorter stories, but I enjoy the bigger palette longer stories give me. Writing chaptered stories is fine if you are happy with building a small, engaged audience for each ensuing chapter.

 

[StillStunned]

Anyone who cares more about numbers than words might be a pro, but not in writing.

Who said anything about caring "more"? These stats, whether here on Lit or for pros on Amazon, are an indicator of how well we're reaching our readership, how much they're enjoying what we write, and whether the effort we're putting in is justified by the response we're getting.

Because like it or not, and no matter how many times people say "just write what you want, and it will be its own reward!", reader response validates our feelings about a very personal product. We care about our stories, and it makes us happy when other do to. If they're disliked, or ignored, that makes us sad.

And we get all of that from those numbers. So yes, we care about the numbers.

 

[SimonDoom]

My feeling is that if you are happy with the response you are getting from your stories, then keep doing what you are doing. If you aren't satisfied, then research how you can get a better response. Yes, I'd get more stories published if I wrote shorter stories, but I enjoy the bigger palette longer stories give me. Writing chaptered stories is fine if you are happy with building a small, engaged audience for each ensuing chapter.

I completely agree with you, which is why I began my post with the word "if." There's no one way to approach this site or to evaluate your success. Do what gives you personal and artistic satisfaction. I think you are an example of an author who for most of your tenure here has a pretty strong, well-developed idea of what you want to achieve and how to achieve it. Your focus has served you well. Many authors, especially new ones, aren't really sure what they're trying to achieve and are even less sure how to achieve it. I think it helps to have an idea in your mind of what "success" means and then to be true to that. It doesn't have to resemble anybody else's idea of success.

You and HeyAll represent two different, but both successful, ways of approaching incest stories. I think I'm somewhere between but a little more like HeyAll than like you. There's no one right way. I think something all three of us share is that we have a fairly clear idea of what we're trying to do, and that clarity is very helpful. I recommend for all authors that they try to be fully conscious of what they're trying to do and then stick to their guns and achieve success on their own terms.

 

[Cagivagurl]

There was a thread recently proposing the number of times a story had been favourited as an indicator of quality. Also, whenever the question about whether readers prefer long or short stories comes up, the received wisdom on the AH seems to be to go long.

That got me thinking: do long stories do better in terms of favourites and comments (because we all love comments)? When my rather short (3,473 word) story I have seen love dropped on Friday and got a wonderful response (15 comments in 24 hours), which I wasn't really expecting, it got me thinking that maybe the received wisdom was wrong. Being a solipsistic procrastinator, rather than starting on something in my work in progress folder, I started crunching numbers.

Bear in mind, I only write Lesbian stories (though two I published in Non-Erotic). My findings may well not apply to other category (or even other authors). Though if anyone else wants to do the same and share findings, we might get a bigger picture.

Results (Comments):

So, in gross terms, my longest story (Eve & Lucy) at 87,740 words over five chapters has the most comments, at 72 in total.

HOWEVER, if we work things out as a ratio of comments to total words, the picture is very different.

Eve & Lucy got a comment for every 1,215 words; meanwhile, The Parting Glass, at 2,614 words got a comment every 100 words. (Incidentally, at 4.73 it's one of my lower scoring stories, lower than Eve & Lucy). It's not even an outlier:
Coda: 10 songs - 750 words - a comment every 107 words
The Hardest Step - 1880 words - a comment every 111 words (and my lowest scoring story at 4.56)
I have seen love - 3473 words - a comment every 232 words

So, for comments, it seems that if comments are what you crave, the best return for your effort is to go short. The ratio of writing to comments will increase.

Results (Favourites):

Things weren't so clear for me with favourtites. My most favourited story (Love is the Place) has 98 favourites which, at 24,340 words, works out as a favourite every 248 words. In terms of the ratio of words/favourites that ranks 3rd in my stories.
1st - Coda: 10 songs - 750 words - a favourite every 187 words
2nd - The Parting Glass - 2,614 word - a favourite every 238 words

However, Love is the Place seems to be the outlier. With all my other stories, except The Hardest Step, the longer they are, the fewer favourites/words they have.

There's very little to separate most of my stories in terms of scores. Therefore, all other things being equal, in the Lesbian Sex/Non-Erotic categories at least, it seems you will get the best return for your efforts in terms of comments and favourites by writing shorter, rather than longer stories.

That's exactly the motivation I need to tackle the 100,000 word novel I'm currently writing!

There are so many variables to it. Far more than just length.
What day did it post on? Some days are better than others.
Was there a competition or challenge running at the time?
Was it part of a challenge?
What category, even if the stories appear in the same category, the content may squig some readers.
How many new stories appeared on the same day as yours?
How long did your story stay on the categories new page....
So many things can affect reader participation...
When I glance over some of the stuff I've posted. I shake my head and wonder. I have posted long stories broken into chapters and also extremely long stories as stand alone ones. There is no easy answer. Some have done better than others.
WHY?
I think because as it is with everything. Some are better than others.
Some are awful...

There is no silver bullet.

Personally now I prefer to post as one entry regardless of length. I figure we're all adults and can put a story down and go back to it later.

Maybe I'm not thinking about it properly. Who knows.
I think we do stress over these things too much. Now I like to focus on writing, not posting it. Cast out and hope for the best.

Cagivagurl

 

[Inkent]

The audience is as varied in what they are after as much as we authors provide a diversity of material for them to feast on. Personally, I prefer to get my teeth into writing a longer story, I've learnt a lesson that if you are going to do that, write it up first, then release it, even if you have small breaks between them.

I nose through my comments, sometimes replying within them too. I enjoy developing characters and plot lines and I'll have comments complaining the story is too long, and could have be written in half the words, but the scoring & comments paint a more balanced picture. So I don't think that the length impacts on the comments and those that add to favourites.

As for a reaction reflected in comments & favourites, I feel that if you can create something that strikes an emotional chord, or is sufficiently different to the norm, people tend to add them to their favourites list. I'll temper this in that I generally write in LW and Romance, and they seem to be key factors for stories in those genres, exp LW. But looking at one of the winning entries in the recent Winter Story Competition one, in my opinion, is of the best pieces of erotica I've read. https://www.literotica.com/s/all-i-want-for-christmas-cest-toi The story has 37 comments and 30 views. Does it make it a bad story or poorly received? No, it's in a genre where most people read, relax and enjoy.

 

[onehitwanda]

Cast out and hope for the best.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Who could have thought an authors' hangout would turn out to be an underground haven for statisticians?

You haven't been paying attention. There are some uber-nerds in here.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I'm not seeing this correlation. Almost all of my most commented stories are Novels or Novellas(>17500 words)
A few notable ones:
Most commented; Teacher's Challenge. At 29.065 words, it has 103 comments: 282 words per comment
Highest words /comment; Savage Daughter. At 41.367 words, it has 49 comments or 844 words per comment
Anomalies;
Serendipity comes in just under the Novella line at 14,470 words and 35 comments or 413 words per comment.
Ride it Like You Stole it is only 5771 words but has 45 comments giving it 128 words per comment.

AS for age of story, I don't see that either Teacher's Challenge is 935 days old, but Savage Daughter is only 195 and Ride it Like You Stole it, 260.

Here's my complete data set for my top 20 commented stories. You can play as you will...

 

[Rob_Royale]

I've only noticed one thing that seems to effect the number of comments.

Emotion. My stories that are just a simple sexual escapade get just a handful. But my stories that are emotional and romantic and sweet, get much more. Sometimes it's just a "thank you for writing this" but those are still worth a lot to me.

 

[8letters]

Let's look at some story statistics from 34 weeks of stories. First up, is number of comments by category and page length:

In general, it looks to me that the longer the story, the more comments it gets.

Now favorites:

Again, in general, it looks to me that the longer the story, the more favorites it gets.

 

[THBGato]

In general, it looks to me that the longer the story, the more comments it gets.

Yes, true. But I had been interested in the ratio of words to comments.

But anyway, a story should be as long as it needs to be.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Ahhhhhh,
So there is a way....
If only you had mentioned this earlier...