Sequels not taking off

[gunhilltrain]

This is what both impresses me and puzzles me about people who do stories with 10,20,30 chapters.

Some people just have some Tolstoy in them - at least for length. If they have thirty chapters in them, so be it.

 

[Mastered_again]

Some people just have some Tolstoy in them - at least for length. If they have thirty chapters in them, so be it.

I don't know if I'd put myself in that league, but I do like to climb in my characters' heads.

 

[orangecurious]

This is what both impresses me and puzzles me about people who do stories with 10,20,30 chapters.

I am ending one series at number 20... there may be spin-offs as another series had. Basically, it feels as if the original premise has run its course

I have also done some lonnnnnnnnnnnnnng ones.

it depends on how much i can think of at a time and if THAT story fits that style. A series gives you room to play with the characters, the longer ones have all had a definitive end, a tale that doesn't stray (apart from my own meanderings along the way)

It's quite nice to keep established characters, but I have found the confines of them restrictive, hence why my series' have all ended (even if the further adventures pop up)

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Here's my take on your situation:

The first part of your story isn't titled as "part1", which to many who read it initially would imply that it was a completed story so they would not automatically be seeking out additional parts. There are no author notes or other indications besides than the pseudo-cliffhanger ending to even suggest that there might be more to come.

There are three main story constructs that readers find here on Lit: A stand-alone story (one and done, with beginning, middle, and end); Chapter stories (a stand-alone story submitted in multiple posts); and series stories (different stand-alone stories with common characters, theme, settings, etc.).

While there is frequently not a lot of consistency among writers in how they submit their stories, setting the expectations for readers as to what you will be delivering to them can greatly increase their willingness to stick with you. You also should take a longer-term approach when gauging reader reaction to your stories. It can take weeks, months, and years for a story (or chapter) to reach its full potential with readers here.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I had seen comments before about the drop from the first installment but was wondering about this. I did a four part story last month (wrote all four first then posted them a day apart).

Part 1: Views: 14,277 . Rating: 4.79 / 231 Comments: 9
Part 2: Views: 6,610 . Rating: 4.72 / 134 Comments: 3 (This made sense given what everyone said)
Part 3: Views: 4,709 . Rating: 4.89 / 109 Comments: 1 (Views down but ratings up. Loyal readers?)
Part 4: Views: 7,787 . Rating: 4.72 / 139 Comments: 3 (Ratings back down to same at 3 but views way up)

So, did more people read the final part than read the Parts 2 and 3? The ratings look fairly consistent but the number of raters and the comments certainly dropped after the fist part.

Being a data freak, I have an overwhelming urge to analyze this but I promise that I won't try to do an article on readership trends in erotic writing even if I knew what journal might publish it.

~BT73

As I have mentioned in other threads, my readers have overwhelmingly requested that I post chapter stories as single submissions, so last year I went to Laurel and asked her to replace the four stories that I had previously posted in chapters with a single submission for each that I provided her. These four stories averaged around 133,00 words each or around 46 Lit pages in Novels/Novellas.

Retaining the downloaded data from back then allows me to compare a few things...

- The rating for all four stories increased an average of 0.15 points
- Taking the views for the last chapter of each story (assuming these are the readers who finished reading the whole thing) and comparing these to each of the whole stories, the average views per day increased by 40%. The views per day averaged 95% of the first chapters for each story.
- The Votes-to-View ratio decreased for each of the stories by approximately 30%. (From reader comments, I attribute this to readers who had read the stories previously believing that they couldn't vote for them again)

It hasn't been quite a year yet so I'll take a look at the numbers this summer to see if they are holding.

 

[alohadave]

The first part of your story isn't titled as "part1", which to many who read it initially would imply that it was a completed story so they would not automatically be seeking out additional parts.

If I see a part #, it automatically implies that there are more to come because there's no point in labeling a stand-alone story with a part #.

Part and chapter are interchangeable here.

 

[THBGato]

31K for the first part, and 6K for the second.

That's not too bad, especially not for volume of reads. I've got nothing close to that. I tend to see a three times as many views for Chapter 1 compared to Chapter 2.

This is what both impresses me and puzzles me about people who do stories with 10,20,30 chapters.

Have you looked at the top rated stories on the site lately?

I mean.... wow.... that's a dedicated fanbase I guess!

 

[Rob_Royale]

Have you looked at the top rated stories on the site lately?
View attachment 2349446
I mean.... wow.... that's a dedicated fanbase I guess!

Yes, you've hit the nail directly on the head - in this case. Without taking anything away from the writer, the scores reflect a massive fanbase which they have totally earned. I've read the first dozen or so of these stories and they are very entertaining and well written. Five stars, all day long. But, they have a over 10000 followers and the story has only been read 12600 times.

 

[alohadave]

That's not too bad, especially not for volume of reads. I've got nothing close to that. I tend to see a three times as many views for Chapter 1 compared to Chapter 2.

Have you looked at the top rated stories on the site lately?
View attachment 2349446
I mean.... wow.... that's a dedicated fanbase I guess!

I once read a mega story that had 600+ chapters. It was an experience.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

If I see a part #, it automatically implies that there are more to come because there's no point in labeling a stand-alone story with a part #.

Part and chapter are interchangeable here.

No argument from me. I simply pointed out that the first story in the OP's "series" didn't have any indication that more was to follow and that could influence additional parts being noticed by readers.

 

[THBGato]

They also provide the positive comments that attract new readers to my stories.

How does that work though? How do other readers see when individual users have commented? The only way I can tell to do that is from the "Recent comments" section on each category page, but that only holds 5 comments at a time. Do people actually browse the comments section ever?

A great addition to the site would be if:
a) the comments of those I follow popped up in my home feed
b) on a user's profile you could click on the comments to see all their comments. At the moment, you just see a number but can't see which stories they commented on

 

[AlexBailey]

That makes sense, thanks guys. I think I was just quite surprised at the difference in numbers, but I'm not totally discouraged! I'm not here to be famous lol

A couple of thoughts:



First off, “part 2” probably attracts fewer views simply because not as many people will be interested in starting there.

Second, your descriptive line for part two is specific to the story rather than being a general enticement. Part one says your “best friend….gets fucked.” Part two says you’re gonna “talk”.

Part two is going to miss out on the horny click bait aspect.


I have a four part novel that has a little less than 1/2 the original views for part two, actually few k more for part three, and about 1/4 for part four. Reflecting after the fact, the last part of my story has the least erotically enticing description, but on the other hand, I think it’s a better bellwether of how many readers actually engaged in my story.

$.02

 

[lilshymynx]

They have followers too. Two commentators have over 300 followers, another 500 and I'm sure there is one in excess of that.

None are writers, yet. Just readers but they resonate with their comments: Normally short and brief but very succinct with what they've read and what they're recommending. They crossover on genres as well: LW, Romance, Non-erotic, non-con and others I'm sure.

They also follow a lot of the top writers on Lit, Laptopwriter comes to mind, but they also read stuff written by us lesser mortals.

Yes, people read comments especially if the stories are long, they read comments to see if it's worth reading. Know your customers, I guess.

Comments don't show up in your feed if you are following someone, only profile updates, story publishing, and if one of their stories wins a contest. If you go to someone's profile, you can see how many comments they've made, but there's no link to the comments themselves, so I'm not sure how you are getting that there's this word of mouth campaign on the site via comments.

People may respect the opinion of certain commenters, but there is no direct mechanism that I am aware of on the site for people to actually follow what someone is commenting on.

 

[lilshymynx]

Comments show up on your stories or by email. You do get to see that a reader has commented about following you (I have amended this, apologises), liked etc via your homepage.

I don't want to view their comment page at all, who even has the time to do that?

Word of mouth campaign? Nope. Just works for me.

Yes, you, as the author, get notifications on your control panel when someone leaves a comment on your story or follows you. That doesn't support your original statement THBGato questioned, the idea that people, particularly respected commenters, leaving comments on your stories drove others to your stories.

The word of mouth idea was yours, not mine.

They also provide the positive comments that attract new readers to my stories. Word of mouth works even in printed form.

There are also some readers/commentators that other readers take note of as 'knowing their shit' and I can tell you now that if they comment on my story, they attract readers that will also READ my stuff and comment/fav/email.

 

[BgDaddy33]

I wrote a story, that ends pretty openly, intending to carry on into a series. The first part gets a lot of views, (not actually that many, but a lot for little old me) and positive ratings and comments, many asking for a sequel. I wrote the next part, published it, then had to wait for the series to be created (not entirely sure how that works but think it's up and running now). The second part is relatively short, and almost a stop-gap until the third instalment, but it's not got a lot of views at all.

Very normal. Same happened to me. Like you, my first received a good amount of encouragement and I was excited to get something "out" so I wrote a short "Stop-Gap" as you called it and was crushingly disappointed with the response. I guess I was waiting for people to go, "Yay! You're continuing this!" or "I can't wait to see where this goes!" but the crowds here are not that type of crowd.

I reached out to the forum here and got some good advice that changed my perspective (some) and level set my expectations.

Write for yourself first and don't do it for the feedback. When I wrote the first story I was hoping that the feedback would keep me encouraged to keep writing, and the opposite almost happened.

It is easy(er) to write small chapters but maybe write a few before you publish to make sure your story is going where "you" want it to go. I had a story that I thought would make a good "chapter" story, posting as I wrote, but after my first "series" I am tacking it differently and trying to write the whole thing out. I am 40K words in and pleasantly surprised when something I want to add can be made better, or have it have better impact by mentioning something related BEFORE, and since I haven't published, I can. My story is ever evolving now and I think it is much better than when I first started to write it.

 

[MillieDynamite]

My favorite line from the first Simsons Movie was the baby at the end, "Can you spell sequel?"

 

[RestraindCuck]

I rate everything I so I can easily tell if its new to me or not. I will normally only favorite the #1 of a series so its easier to fund in my favorites list, and the list doesnt reach a ridiculous number to try to dig through later.