The Official Authors' Hangout Winter Holidays 2025 Support Thread

The muses have been really frustrating this year, giving me ideas and not telling me how to finish them, but I finally managed a whole new story! Just submitted it for publication. I’m a little anxious about this one, but I’m sure people will tell me if I fucked up.
 
This year, I’m not going to track the scores. I did last year, and up until the day the winners were announced, mine had the highest score. And then it didn’t. And it really annoyed me - one 1 and bam. But I can’t control that. I’m just glad I wrote a story.
 
I don't know if it is the tag itself or everyone in the contest, but the contests definitely bring it out.

I swore during the Nude Day event that I would never enter another contest because of the one-bombers.

They also get brought to by making the all-time leader board (the one that requires 100 votes). I'm realizing, that for me at least who does not have thousands of votes, my stories will do better rating if the are at 4.82 at 99 votes than 4.92. It'r frustrating. The 4.80-4.84 stories slide under the radar and never get hit that hard. But the ones that have the audacity to have a 4.88 or something get bombed back into the 4.7's. I assume they will eventually recover, but the votes come so slowly and it literally a hundred votes (all 5's) to balance out three 1's at that rating.
I’ve had that problem. I had one at 4.9 at 100 votes and then 4.8 a couple votes later. I’d been really excited hoping that a high score on the all-time leaderboard would get me some new readers, but it didn’t stay there. And, as you say, it can take forever to climb back, especially because it’s a lot harder for people to find your stories.

But good on you for flying that close to the sun. ;)
 
I’ve had that problem. I had one at 4.9 at 100 votes and then 4.8 a couple votes later. I’d been really excited hoping that a high score on the all-time leaderboard would get me some new readers, but it didn’t stay there. And, as you say, it can take forever to climb back, especially because it’s a lot harder for people to find your stories.

But good on you for flying that close to the sun. ;)
I'm almost happier having my story that's in that range at fewer than 100 votes. The difference between 4.86 and 4.84 in that category is the difference between being just outside the top 20 and being outside the top 250; every story between 22 and 250 is 4.85.
 
While I have no hard data to back me up, it is my sense that once my stories fell off the ‘new’ list, there have been far fewer reads, votes and comments per day than I have experienced in prior contests. Usually contests seem to keep stories more ‘active’ than what appears to be the case now. Thoughts?
 
While I have no hard data to back me up, it is my sense that once my stories fell off the ‘new’ list, there have been far fewer reads, votes and comments per day than I have experienced in prior contests. Usually contests seem to keep stories more ‘active’ than what appears to be the case now. Thoughts?
Its possible that the sites ongoing issues are contributing to lower view counts.
 
While I have no hard data to back me up, it is my sense that once my stories fell off the ‘new’ list, there have been far fewer reads, votes and comments per day than I have experienced in prior contests. Usually contests seem to keep stories more ‘active’ than what appears to be the case now. Thoughts?
From my understanding, there's gonna be another spike in activity once the deadline passes and the final list of stories is more or less locked in.
 
While I have no hard data to back me up, it is my sense that once my stories fell off the ‘new’ list, there have been far fewer reads, votes and comments per day than I have experienced in prior contests. Usually contests seem to keep stories more ‘active’ than what appears to be the case now. Thoughts?

I do seem to be getting fewer views than previous contests.
 
My second entry into the contest has been published. I usually only do one story per contest, but I had an idea pop into my head as I was finishing my first entry and thought it would be quick and simple to write up. It turned out a little longer than I expected, but I am still satisfied with it.

Winter Solstice Gangbang A story with a wintry wish, some magic snowmen, and some lessons learned.
While I have no hard data to back me up, it is my sense that once my stories fell off the ‘new’ list, there have been far fewer reads, votes and comments per day than I have experienced in prior contests. Usually contests seem to keep stories more ‘active’ than what appears to be the case now. Thoughts?

My first story got my normal rate of votes. It had a lot more views than normal, though I believe just having Sorority in the title gets a lot more eyes on it. But despite 24k views and 130 votes I've only had two comments. I feel like I get a lot less comments than other stories at similar views sometimes, so that just might be a me issue.
 
Yeah, from what I can tell the contest page doesn't link to the story list, and the story page STILL has the Summer Lovin' story list for some reason (can't someone get on that?)

Add to that a more saturated list of stories and it gets more and more difficult to stand out.
 
Awww, I just noticed that the home page Lit lady (does she have a name? I have no idea) is dressed up in Christmas attire. How festive!

Now when they finally release one of those pens that makes the dress fall off, I'll have to get that one too to add to my collection.
 
I've been around forever, so you'd think I'd know this....but this is the first time I've submitted anything. So...define "vote". Is it when someone just views it? Comments? Is there something to check? Second, is there a list somewhere that says "Winter Holidays Contest Stories" or something? Link?

Pardon the ignorance, but I find the way things are set up on Lit to be impossible sometimes!
 
I've been around forever, so you'd think I'd know this....but this is the first time I've submitted anything. So...define "vote". Is it when someone just views it? Comments? Is there something to check? Second, is there a list somewhere that says "Winter Holidays Contest Stories" or something? Link?

Pardon the ignorance, but I find the way things are set up on Lit to be impossible sometimes!
Winter Holiday Stories

At the end of a story's text, you can give it 1-5 stars. That's what voting is.
 
They're ratings. I don't know why or when people started calling them votes.
 
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