Renewed interest in older stories

[Rob_Royale]

Whenever I post a story, my older works get a huge boost in interest. Even when the new story bombs like my last LW 750 story. (It's yet to break 3 stars.)
When your story posts, does your older stuff get renewed on the 'other stories like this one' lists ar something?
It has to be more than just readers checking out your library if they liked the new one. My most recent T/I story has done well, but hasn't gotten a lot of clicks. But, I still got the big boost in the back catalog. It's kind of weird.

 

[NotWise]

Views on my back catalog always get a boost when I post a new story. A new story in T/I will boost views in older T/I stories, and a new story in Romance will boost views in older Romance stories, etc., but there's also an across-the-board effect.

Sometimes it's a much larger effect than others, but I don't think I've seen a case where it had to be more than readers exploring my catalog.

 

[Lumiere_Amie]

I've noticed the same thing. My most recent story was published on April 19, and ever since then, I get users adding stories from my back catalogue to their favorites every few days. Sometimes there a muliple users in a day, sometimes one user adds multiple stories. I suppose they discover a new author and want to explore their past works(?) I, for one, appreciate it. As for the positives I've seen, it means more eyes on my stories, more favorites AND more followers. The only downside I've seen is that one of my stories lost the HOT label. Ironically, it is the first story with the characters from my most recent story. It was on the bubble anyway, so it didn't really surprise me.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yes, there's a very strong effect. It's especially strong for stories that are in the same category as the new story. When I post a new T/I story, all my T/I stories get a boost, and some of them get quite a big boost. Overall, I'd estimate that my old stories get a boost of about 25-30% in views when I publish a new story, and more than that if I publish a new T/I story. The boost typically will last for a few days, and possibly more if the new T/I story has done well and obtained a high rank in the 30 day toplist.

 

[MK_Whimsy]

I don't think this has ever happened with me. It may be partly to do with the fact that I write across a wide variety of categories though.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Whenever I post a story, my older works get a huge boost in interest. Even when the new story bombs like my last LW 750 story. (It's yet to break 3 stars.)
When your story posts, does your older stuff get renewed on the 'other stories like this one' lists ar something?

I have checked, and noticed zero effect.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I don't pay attention to stats, but I did notice people putting their hearts on the old work that I "legacied" in the sense that I don't care for it anymore*.

Needless to say though, when you put together a few tags involving t-girls with cis-girls, and 18-year-olds, my stories are pretty much the only ones showing up, which means I'm the only one here who has the gut to write that stuff without crying a river over fictional characters. I guess I should do more considering there's still demand for it. I honestly stopped because I felt I was writing the same story over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

* I might Raymond Chandler** my way out of this one because I may not like it now, but back then I liked it, and I'm aware enough to realize these are just gems that are rough.
** Most Chandler novels were written by him upcycling his short stories, in case you didn't know.

 

[NotWise]

This is what happened to views on My Sisters Wedding, posted on 8/21 when Deal is a Deal went live on 11/14/24.


I only check the views when a vote is cast. Views jumped from 144,322 on 11/9 to 145,476 on 12/6. That's 1,154 views in 27 days, or 43 views/day. The story usually gets 18 views/day. The density of points also says that the voting rate increased.

Deal is a Deal was a contest story, and viewing remained high as long as the contest was going on. Otherwise, the effect might not have lasted much more than three days.

 

[liliput1]

Views on my back catalog always get a boost when I post a new story. A new story in T/I will boost views in older T/I stories, and a new story in Romance will boost views in older Romance stories, etc., but there's also an across-the-board effect.

Sometimes it's a much larger effect than others, but I don't think I've seen a case where it had to be more than readers exploring my catalog.

I confess to sometimes wondering if this is the best an author can do. It might be worth following someone who doesn’t always post tags I like just to keep tabs on the stuff I will.

Most boringly, I wonder if the site does a perfect job of isolating search engine traffic or if some of the views are actually spiders, in which case new pages trigger scans of nearby ones.

 

[DEFCOM5]

I have experience this phenomenon.
When I publish a new story which is rare these days, I get a boost in the number of views/votes/comments in older stories as if new readers were discovering my (thin) catalog.

 

[Stanfield2025]

When I posted my story to T/I, there wasn't a boost for my series in NC/R. I'm tempted to publish more stories just to see if I can get more views on that series, but considering it didn't work the first time, I feel like it would take months or years of posting to actually bring readers in to generate adequate engagement on that first series. And I don't have months/years of ideas.

 

[NotWise]

When I posted my story to T/I, there wasn't a boost for my series in NC/R. I'm tempted to publish more stories just to see if I can get more views on that series, but considering it didn't work the first time, I feel like it would take months or years of posting to actually bring readers in to generate adequate engagement on that first series. And I don't have months/years of ideas.

It might might boost views for your older stories in NC/R if you publish a new story in NC/R. A new story in T/I isn't likely to produce a big effect for a story in NC/R.

 

[NotWise]

I confess to sometimes wondering if this is the best an author can do. It might be worth following someone who doesn’t always post tags I like just to keep tabs on the stuff I will.

Most boringly, I wonder if the site does a perfect job of isolating search engine traffic or if some of the views are actually spiders, in which case new pages trigger scans of nearby ones.

The lowest viewing rates on my stories are less than 2 views/day. I figure that's mostly from the web crawlers.

 

[Stanfield2025]

It might might boost views for your older stories in NC/R if you publish a new story in NC/R. A new story in T/I isn't likely to produce a big effect for a story in NC/R.

Don't tempt me...

 

[StillStunned]

Very little uptick in viewing numbers from my new story, but a couple of people seem to have gone through almost all my fantasy stories and leaving nice juicy 5s.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I've always seen a kick up in activity with old stories getting favorited and an overall increase in view counts. The whole score count of my catalogue has also crept up over time. I don't track the data, but every now and then sort my list by score, and notice stories creeping above the Red H threshold, even very old ones. I write across multiple categories, and see the effect, more or less, across all of them. Definitely a kick-up effect going on.

 

[ronde]

I continue to see reads and even votes on my oldest stories. In general, my older stories keep the same rating, though I have several that have increased over the years. I think a combination of factors is responsible.

The more stories you have published in a particular category, the more readers you'll get who favor that particular category. New readers looking for that category will find your story and read it, and then go looking for your other stories in that genre.

It's also a bit like eBay's note on each item that says, "Seller's Other Items". That's an invitation for you to check out what else the seller is selling. On Lit, it happens when a reader likes you story and then goes looking for anything else you've written. As long as that reader likes your work, then will keep looking until they run out of stories or time.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Yeah, some. Not a ton, but I'm also not pulling in big numbers or checking actual views if they don't translate to votes, comments, follows, or favorites. Sometimes I'll get a couple new people do across-the-board favorites, which I'm guessing they're doing to bookmark for later. I didn't get so much on my last one, but that was in Transgender, so I think most of the readers were surprised to find out it had non-human elements. Like everyone else has said, you tend to get more views and engagement when the story matches others in the genre, and almost all my stories are either Non-Human or SF&F.

 

[RoyalAuthor]

I get this whenever I publish a standalone. I'm working on one long serial with a bunch of spinoffs and standalone works. I've never run the numbers, but I think I get more engagement with the first chapter of my serial when I post a new standalone work than a new chapter in that serial.

I hope that means my readers have tried me out and liked me enough that they are willing to engage with a longer work of mine that has a bigger time commitment than a 15k-word story.

I also sometimes get engagement with my standalones when I publish a new chapter, like maybe they want a free trial first?

 

[RejectReality]

I always see a spike in activity whenever I release something new. How big it is depends upon the category, and how well it aligns with the main body of my work. I don't typically track the back catalog's views/votes when something new is out. I'm basing this almost entirely upon the spike of new favorites on old stories, though I have seen spikes in those numbers when I have been curious enough to run a pre and post track.

If I post something in this name to Mature or Incest, I'll see a huge spike across the board. Something in EC will provide a modest bump, leaning toward the Mature stories that make up the bulk of my catalog, rather than the category of the newly released story. Something in Group tends to favor my other group stories more than an EC would favor that category, but it still leans toward Mature. Anal tends to spike those stories in particular, with a smaller bump to everything else. Dropping a light readership category such as Sci-Fi&Fantasy or Letters & Transcripts doesn't really do much, because there aren't as many people seeing the new work, and they're outliers from the rest of the catalog.

If I drop a Sci-Fi & Fantasy as Dark, I get spikes on everything except my Humor & Satire, because even my chain stories entries are fantasy at the core, so they align. I suspect that if I ever dropped a new LST3K, it would only be those stories that would get a noticeable bump.

Les is a grab bag by design, so the activity on past stories tends to be entirely based upon how many people see the new story. ( Category ) There is a caveat that the fantasy category readers tend to delve deeper into the catalog of those stories than the real world readers do the hodge-podge collection of those stories, even though the overall number of new favorites might come from real world stories. I get more from a Group Sex than a Sci-Fi&Fantasy, but the ratio of views on the new story to new favorites on old stories is much higher for fantasy stories.

 

[designatedvictim]

It might might boost views for your older stories in NC/R if you publish a new story in NC/R. A new story in T/I isn't likely to produce a big effect for a story in NC/R.

I can see the 'new story' impact clearly in the data taken during my most recent posted story (FSWmS 1/27/26 in T/I).

I generally wouldn't call it dramatic, in absolute terms, but a real impact.

While in absolute terms, my previous story (AWoS 3/9/25 in T/I) had triple-rate traffic (peaking at about 240 view/day) for about a week, but in relative terms, my N&N multi-part post can be seen jumping from noise-level counts (1-3 views/day) to about 35 v/d for chapter 1 to about 15 v/d for its most recent part.

The effect is most noticeable for approximately the week the new story stays on the New List, then fades out quickly over the following week or so back to pre-new-story levels.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Views on my back catalog always get a boost when I post a new story. A new story in T/I will boost views in older T/I stories, and a new story in Romance will boost views in older Romance stories, etc., but there's also an across-the-board effect.

Sometimes it's a much larger effect than others, but I don't think I've seen a case where it had to be more than readers exploring my catalog.

I see similar.

Older stories within the same category get the biggest boost.

There is some minor interest (views, not feedback, etc.) as readers click on stories in other categories to check them out, but not much else.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I noticed that during my first year posting, after that, it kinda petered out. Now it only happens if I post something new in a new category. I think, pretty much everyone that is going to find me, has found me.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I noticed that during my first year posting, after that, it kinda petered out. Now it only happens if I post something new in a new category. I think, pretty much everyone that is going to find me, has found me.

You'd think that, but I've been around since 2014, and my latest just picked up nine new followers in 24 hours, 13 story favorites - although Faves are a very low indicator, most are bookmarks I think, to read later - and 9600 Views in the first day.

I suspect the @SimonDoom "pay attention to your title and subtitle" has a lot to do with it:

Taylor's Got a Younger Sister​

She likes older men too

is not subtle, it's fundamentally crass, but there we are. Selling out to Lit readers and a Red H pulls in the numbers, no matter what anyone says.

 

[NuclearFairy]

You'd think that, but I've been around since 2014, and my latest just picked up nine new followers in 24 hours, 13 story favorites - although Faves are a very low indicator, most are bookmarks I think, to read later - and 9600 Views in the first day.

I suspect the @SimonDoom "pay attention to your title and subtitle" has a lot to do with it:

Taylor's Got a Younger Sister​

She likes older men too

is not subtle, it's fundamentally crass, but there we are. Selling out to Lit readers and a Red H pulls in the numbers, no matter what anyone says.

Yes but, you also don't post almost exclusively in non-human and sci-fi/fantasy.

You also might have a point, I'm not the best at naming my story, nor with coming up with a very good hook line. I am trying to get better at it, but my brain is being slow with learning that particular skill.

Only other thing that it might be, is that my stories are getting worse, which doesn't make sense. Eh, I don't really worry about why my other stories no longer get an uptick in views when I post new stuff, I just note that they don't and move on.