The now fully official Author’s Hangout Halloween 2025 competition support thread

[EmilyMiller]

Or is what you really mean that because participation in challenges and competitions has increased (the Halloween stories page certainly seems to be rocking this year), even participating in them doesn't boost your views/reviews/comments that much because even active readers don't have time to read everything submitted for a challenge or competition?

Views in aggregate are apparently up, based on some site announcements. Ignoring the recent submission black hole, the number of stories published is also up, again based on both observation and site announcements.

My hypothesis is that the increase in stories exceeds the growth in readers, and so views per story decreases. That would apply to all stories, including comp ones.

But - as you say - the number of comp submissions also relentlessly increases, leaving less eyeballs for each one.

There may also be a dip in views relating to some U.S. states requiring ID to access adult content. But I don’t have any data on that.

 

[EmilyMiller]

@EmilyMiller, nice reference to the shinning in your painting post!

Thanks - watch out for other movie references in coming days

 

[Eisenloewe]

Something feels qualitatively different. Maybe people are worried about accessing porn in the current environment.

I was shadowbanned on reddit because I exclusively use Tor browser for NSFW content, and I didn't know I was stepping on a landmine there (reddit presumes that all accounts created through Tor are spam/scam and immediately shadowbanned, with an appeals process that makes a black hole seem transparent). I give Literotica serious props for remaining Tor-friendly.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I was shadowbanned on reddit because I exclusively use Tor browser for NSFW content, and I didn't know I was stepping on a landmine there (reddit presumes that all accounts created through Tor are spam/scam and immediately shadowbanned, with an appeals process that makes a black hole seem transparent). I give Literotica serious props for remaining Tor-friendly.

We live in interesting times.

 

[TheDok]

That’s low for Romance, I agree. I wonder how many other stories were published the same day?

Having said that, I’ve had stories at the top of their category page and on page one of new stories and still had low views.

Something feels qualitatively different. Maybe people are worried about accessing porn in the current environment.

Another thought. The announcement for the Halloween contest, quite apart from being hidden, implies and promises erotic horror stories. Why would someone wanting to read Romance look there? Unless the competition entry list is a highly visible list showing the genre of entrants, this will always be a problem, and in the future I will devote my time to April Fool or Winter holidays, where there are no such preconceptions. My bad, I guess. Never mind/

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Interesting, given all the recent concern here. I submitted my tale late yesterday and it is now shown as going up tomorrow.

 

[DEFCOM5]

I just submitted my first ever contest entry, Gypsy Lake.
It will not be in contention. That was not my goal
It is in the SF/F category so I am hoping for 2-3K views which would be in competition for my lowest read story ever.
Now I am hoping it does not get caught in the "pending" bug!

 

[EmilyMiller]

Interesting, given all the recent concern here. I submitted my tale late yesterday and it is now shown as going up tomorrow.

Yay!

Most stories have been processed as normal. It just seems a higher percentage have got stuck and stayed stuck.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I just submitted my first ever contest entry, Gypsy Lake.
It will not be in contention. That was not my goal
It is in the SF/F category so I am hoping for 2-3K views which would be in competition for my lowest read story ever.
Now I am hoping it does not get caught in the "pending" bug!

Good luck

 

[MelissaBaby]

Interesting, given all the recent concern here. I submitted my tale late yesterday and it is now shown as going up tomorrow.

Same here. Of course, my Crime and Punishment story is still in limbo.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Yay!

Most stories have been processed as normal. It just seems a higher percentage have got stuck and stayed stuck.

I assume stories are being scanned for the Halloween notification and given some degree of priority.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Same here. Of course, my Crime and Punishment story is still in limbo.

Really? That sucks

 

[EmilyMiller]

I assume stories are being scanned for the Halloween notification and given some degree of priority.

You would assume

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

My entry has been submitted as of a few minutes ago. I was so excited a few days ago to have my first draft completed, but then I found a section was missing and a couple others had to be reworked. Still, it's the earliest I've been able to submit in a while.

 

[EmilyMiller]

My entry has been submitted as of a few minutes ago. I was so excited a few days ago to have my first draft completed, but then I found a section was missing and a couple others had to be reworked. Still, it's the earliest I've been able to submit in a while.

Yay

 

[Eisenloewe]

Same here. Of course, my Crime and Punishment story is still in limbo.

I finally gave up on mine and pulled it just two days ago. I figure the challenge will be run against next year and I'll have it ready to go.

 

[Dark_Logan_]

The way it’s going around Lit at the moment the Halloween stories will be live just in time for annual Valentines Competition

 

[old_prof]

The way it’s going around Lit at the moment the Halloween stories will be live just in time for annual Valentines Competition

Unlike Crime and Punishment, it seems like the halloween stories are actually being approved in a timely manner. There are complaints about the site's promotion of the entrants, but in at least the Nude Day contest, the major promotion of the contest was after the winners were announced. But as long as everyone gets at least 25 votes before the prizes are decided, do any of the authors really care about when that promotion is?

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Another thought. The announcement for the Halloween contest, quite apart from being hidden, implies and promises erotic horror stories. Why would someone wanting to read Romance look there? Unless the competition entry list is a highly visible list showing the genre of entrants, this will always be a problem, and in the future I will devote my time to April Fool or Winter holidays, where there are no such preconceptions. My bad, I guess. Never mind/

The contest story listing not having the category shown helps on this in a way since some readers may give a different category a chance, but I think you're right that some readers will shell out and try something else when they see non-favored categories or those that don't seem as associated with an event. While Romance stories often do well in all types of contests, sometimes including Halloween, Halloween readers generally wouldn't think Romance first or maybe even tenth with regard to category when they're looking for spooky or scary Halloween stories.

As a check, I've done one Halloween Romance story. It was a fun tale but wasn't really in contention. I've also done a Halloween Mature story that I just compared it to. The Romance was more fun and definitely had a more creative storyline, but other than score (less than 0.2 difference at contest end), the Mature story's stats are roughly twice those of the Romance story. The Mature story just missed placing.

A sample size of two is way too small to be meaningful, but I recall having these same thoughts as those two contests were running and, you guessed it, this year's story is in Mature.

 

[DEFCOM5]

My Halloween story will be published on the 12th, probably 6 hours I submitted it.

Very happy about that!

In the meantime, part 4 of my story is in the pending limbo! Will wait a few days before deleting it and resubmitting it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

The contest story listing not having the category shown helps on this in a way since some readers may give a different category a chance, but I think you're right that some readers will shell out and try something else when they see non-favored categories or those that don't seem as associated with an event. While Romance stories often do well in all types of contests, sometimes including Halloween, Halloween readers generally wouldn't think Romance first or maybe even tenth with regard to category when they're looking for spooky or scary Halloween stories.

As a check, I've done one Halloween Romance story. It was a fun tale but wasn't really in contention. I've also done a Halloween Mature story that I just compared it to. The Romance was more fun and definitely had a more creative storyline, but other than score (less than 0.2 difference at contest end), the Mature story's stats are roughly twice those of the Romance story. The Mature story just missed placing.

A sample size of two is way too small to be meaningful, but I recall having these same thoughts as those two contests were running and, you guessed it, this year's story is in Mature.

Seems to me that Erotic Horror is the worst option.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

My story, submitted about 2-1/2 hours ago, has already been approved for publication on Sunday. Thank you, Laurel!

Seems to me that Erotic Horror is the worst option.

I haven't checked recently but that seemed like a small category to me when I looked at it a while back. I've used elements of EH in a different and larger but still appropriate category.

 

[EmilyMiller]

My story, submitted about 2-1/2 hours ago, has already been approved for publication on Sunday. Thank you, Laurel!

Yay

 

[Voboy]

More generally, my personal perspective had been that the comp effect has somewhat deteriorated over time. But I think this is a part of the general issue that writers face here. Readers have gone up by X%, numbers of stories published have gone up by Y%, Y > X, and so views per story have gone down.

My last two stories have had almost no eyes on them. I have assumed that's the categories I felt I had to select (EH for the Halloween entry, then EC for the Crime and Punishment... EC being one of my least favorite posting categories for precisely this reason). My last Mature submission, from August, is struggling to top 10k views. I hadn't been paying attention.

I wonder now whether this is a broader trend, since July. My June story has significant engagement (27k views) in Toys and Masturbation, which I don't think of as an extremely active category.

 

[EmilyMiller]

My last two stories have had almost no eyes on them. I have assumed that's the categories I felt I had to select (EH for the Halloween entry, then EC for the Crime and Punishment... EC being one of my least favorite posting categories for precisely this reason). My last Mature submission, from August, is struggling to top 10k views. I hadn't been paying attention.

I wonder now whether this is a broader trend, since July. My June story has significant engagement (27k views) in Toys and Masturbation, which I don't think of as an extremely active category.

It’s maybe Global Weirding, what used to feel like hard and fast rules about this place seem to no longer apply .