Where do views come from?

[NotWise]

I've always wished there was some way to know how readers get to our stories. Did they get it from the New list? From the category hub? From a search? etc, etc. That will probably never be possible, but I got some insight from my most recent story, which was new in Romance on Tuesday.

The top graph below shows views over time. The graph can be described in three straight line segments, shown in the lower graph. The break between the lines come at changes in how the story is shown to readers.



At first, the story was readily visible on the New list and the Category hub, and got 311 views/hour. That dropped to 74 views/hour after the first day, The story was deep in the New list where it probably got few views, but it was still among the first 10 stories on the category hub. A simple explanation is that the New list delivered 237 views/hour on the first day and the category hub delivered 74 views hour. That's 76% from the New list. Then the New list views disappeared on the second day.

The story got 30 views/hour on the third day when it was "below the fold" on the category hub. Again, simple explanation is that the story got 30 views/hour from people who were willing to look below the fold. There was a loss of 44 views/hour, or 59%, of readers who wouldn't look beyond the first ten stories on the category hub.

This pattern would be different in a busy hub like I/T. It's probably common to other low-traffic hubs like Romance, but the exact numbers are going to vary from story to story.

 

[ronde]

I think the short answer is readers use any and all techniques for finding a story, and it's important to understand that a "view" just means a reader clicked on your story. It doesn't mean the click actually resulted in a read.

I've never recorded my statistics by the hour, but I do have some opinions based upon the data I do track.

The majority of early reads, votes, and comments probably come from followers. I've also had readers tell me that they never read anything that doesn't already have the "Red H", so that can take a while longer. Readers with a particular taste will search the new story list for something in that genre. Some readers like searching for tags. Then there are the readers who "favorite" a story so they can find it, but don't read it until later. That will show as a "favorite', but not necessarily a "view". Trying to figure that out is probably an exercise in futility.

Another factor in reads over time is the day the story is published. I tend to get more views, votes, and comments on Saturday and Sunday. I would suppose that's because people have more free time on the weekend. I also see more of each over a holiday, and again this is probably because people have more time to read. A story published on Monday might not show an increase in views until the weekend, especially for a relatively unknown writer with few followers. A story in the new list on Saturday might accumulate views much faster.

 

[RejectReality]

I think you're giving way too much credit to the full new story list. That list is uber long, difficult to parse, and inevitably contains a lot of stories from categories that the reader isn't interested in, or is completely repulsed by. The readership on Lit is extremely tribal. It's far more likely that almost everyone has migrated away from that overall list to the category hubs of the categories they care about since the hubs were introduced.

What you're seeing is the drop-off of people who already looked at it yesterday, and don't care that it's still on the hub's new story list. You're still getting people who didn't see it yesterday, so when it drops below the fold, that falls off a cliff.

If you drop something in an extremely slow category like Letters and Transcripts, you don't see that much additional longevity from the weeks it may remain above the fold.

You will see a massive difference if a nearly full list has mid-day additions ( such as approving contest stories ) and pushes you below the fold of the hubs on day one. It likely is in no better or worse position on the full new story list, but it's essentially invisible on the hubs, and your views fall off a cliff.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The majority of early reads, votes, and comments probably come from followers. I've also had readers tell me that they never read anything that doesn't already have the "Red H", so that can take a while longer.

I'd agree this. The first flurry of readers are most likely followers, and I reckon day of release must count. I've got two 750 worders running at the moment, both in Erotic Couplings. Three weeks apart. View rates about the same over time, Vote rates roughly proportional. One got more one-bombs, I saw that happening, so it's only 4/58, the earlier story 4:47/36.

The later story has a thousand more Views and more Votes. That must be day of release, influencing that.

 

[Cagivagurl]

There are so many variables to consider...
How many stories in the category appeared on the day yours did.
How long your story stays on the front page of your selected category.
Was there a competition or writing event running at the time yours posted.
What day it was posted.
Was it a holiday.
That's just the first couple of days when there appears to be a surge of interest in a new story in the category.
The views dry up as your story drops of the front page.
Then you rely on people being able to find your story by searching tags, or titles.
There'might also be a surge if your story appears on the random story generator....
You may release another story, which will draw attention to your existing catalogue.

For data to be worth anything it needs to be collected for numerous stories in the same category. Thern compared to establish trends.
One story, or even two is far to small a sample to draw conclusions.
IMO, at least...

Cagivagurl

 

[Bazzle]

You dont want to be published on a Saturday or Sunday for some strange reason either. I am convinced of that.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Here's why Favorites are a fairly pointless indicator of anything: someone is methodically going through and favoriting my entire story file. Why doesn't he just fave me as an author? That's just... odd.

 

[jaF0]

"Where do views come from?"


Viewers?

 

[NotWise]

I think the short answer is readers use any and all techniques for finding a story, and it's important to understand that a "view" just means a reader clicked on your story. It doesn't mean the click actually resulted in a read.

I've never recorded my statistics by the hour, but I do have some opinions based upon the data I do track.

The majority of early reads, votes, and comments probably come from followers. I've also had readers tell me that they never read anything that doesn't already have the "Red H", so that can take a while longer. Readers with a particular taste will search the new story list for something in that genre. Some readers like searching for tags. Then there are the readers who "favorite" a story so they can find it, but don't read it until later. That will show as a "favorite', but not necessarily a "view". Trying to figure that out is probably an exercise in futility.

Another factor in reads over time is the day the story is published. I tend to get more views, votes, and comments on Saturday and Sunday. I would suppose that's because people have more free time on the weekend. I also see more of each over a holiday, and again this is probably because people have more time to read. A story published on Monday might not show an increase in views until the weekend, especially for a relatively unknown writer with few followers. A story in the new list on Saturday might accumulate views much faster.

I had about 800 followers when the story posted, and the story passed 800 views before the first data point on the graphs. My followers had very little to do with it.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

You will see a massive difference if a nearly full list has mid-day additions ( such as approving contest stories ) and pushes you below the fold of the hubs on day one. It likely is in no better or worse position on the full new story list, but it's essentially invisible on the hubs, and your views fall off a cliff.

Interesting. I noticed my last contest entry was a midday addition, which I thought odd and possibly an error at the time, so good to know. All things equal, I wonder what’d be more beneficial for exposure, midday #1 slot for a hub, or slots 5-10 at regular publishing time.

 

[SimonDoom]

Based on my own personal experience, I would break this into two questions:

1. What drives views early on? On the first day, in the first week or the first month?

2. What drives views long term?


EARLY VIEWS: As to the first question, it's a lot of things. Category, obviously, because some categories get more views than others. I agree with RejectReality that the majority of views are coming from the category based new story hubs. The other obvious source is follower lists, because if someone follows you your story pops up in their feed as soon as it is published.

The other subsidiary question is what causes someone to click on your story after they see it in a list.

I believe careful attention to things like title, taglines, and tags make a difference between whether someone clicks on YOUR story or someone else's. I think I've been pretty good at this, and my stories get more views as a result. After over 8 years of publishing 64 stories, my average is over 188,000 views per story. That's skewed by all my incest stories, but about half my stories are NOT incest stories, and some of them are in categories that don't get a lot of views.

It helps to have a high score right out of the gate, but it's not as important as some think.

Write good stories. That doesn't mean writing stories to the highest "literary" standard, whatever that is, but it means writing stories that engage readers and, considering the nature of this Site, turn them on. Concentrate on turning on your readers. Good grammar isn't essential, but it definitely helps. Be a good craftsman. All things being equal, it's better to have good grammar, spelling, and punctuation than not to.


LONG TERM VIEWS: Obviously, readers aren't finding old stories on new story lists. HOWEVER, they may find them by going to those lists and looking at the attached lists of popular stories in those categories. I assume they also find them through searches. And I'm VERY confident that a big factor is whether one's story attracts enough favorites to start appearing on "similar story" lists at the end of very popular stories by other authors. If your story has a particularly titillating, unique, and/or popular words in its title, then over the years it will be found more often via searches by readers looking for that word. Example: My story A Bikini With A Mind of Its Own. Never once has this story cracked the 4.5 boundary. It's been sitting at 4.44 for years and was published in 2017. But it has over 388,000 views and 478 favorites. That story still gets about 90-100 views every day, 8 years and 4 days after its publication, and it's in a category, E&V, that typically only gets middling view numbers. I'm convinced the word "Bikini" has a lot to do with it.


Long-term, acquiring favorites, followers, getting on similar stories lists, and things like that, increases the visibility of your story and will drive up views.

 

[NotWise]

I think you're giving way too much credit to the full new story list. That list is uber long, difficult to parse, and inevitably contains a lot of stories from categories that the reader isn't interested in, or is completely repulsed by. The readership on Lit is extremely tribal. It's far more likely that almost everyone has migrated away from that overall list to the category hubs of the categories they care about since the hubs were introduced.

What you're seeing is the drop-off of people who already looked at it yesterday, and don't care that it's still on the hub's new story list. You're still getting people who didn't see it yesterday, so when it drops below the fold, that falls off a cliff.

If you drop something in an extremely slow category like Letters and Transcripts, you don't see that much additional longevity from the weeks it may remain above the fold.

You will see a massive difference if a nearly full list has mid-day additions ( such as approving contest stories ) and pushes you below the fold of the hubs on day one. It likely is in no better or worse position on the full new story list, but it's essentially invisible on the hubs, and your views fall off a cliff.

The story was near the top of the New list, so the length of the list was irrelevant.

The drop-off of readers who've already seen the story is real. The phenomenon gives a pretty good description of the trend in views over a long period of time, but it doesn't describe what's happening in a three day period. There are millions of readers, and the numbers are just too large for drop-off in a short period of time.

In a short period, like the three days this story was up, it's pretty clearly the change in where the story is presented that causes the drop-off.

Contest stories may follow a different pattern. Stories in I/T will probably follow a different pattern. I'd guess that most I/T readers come from the I/T hub. NC/R would probably also have a different pattern because those stories are always at the bottom of a day's New list, so most views come from the hub.

 

[alohadave]

That list is uber long, difficult to parse, and inevitably contains a lot of stories from categories that the reader isn't interested in, or is completely repulsed by.

I go through it every day and I miss new stories or chapters from authors that I've read before.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

You dont want to be published on a Saturday or Sunday for some strange reason either. I am convinced of that.

I had assumed the weekend was primetime for free time for readers? Curious what your experience has been like. Seems like it would hard to do a comparision, not being able to control for factors like story position on the new page list and differences in the "catchiness" of titles.

 

[8letters]

Another factor in reads over time is the day the story is published. I tend to get more views, votes, and comments on Saturday and Sunday. I would suppose that's because people have more free time on the weekend. I also see more of each over a holiday, and again this is probably because people have more time to read. A story published on Monday might not show an increase in views until the weekend, especially for a relatively unknown writer with few followers. A story in the new list on Saturday might accumulate views much faster.

You dont want to be published on a Saturday or Sunday for some strange reason either. I am convinced of that.

If only someone had posted how the day of the week published affects story statistics...

 

[ronde]

If only someone had posted how the day of the week published affects story statistics...

That's just my observation of my own stories absent the inconvenience of any statistics. I suppose I could look at my next few stories and confirm my opinions.

 

[lovecraft68]

To quote Ted Nugent from Cat Scratch Fever

I don't know where they come from, but they sure do come.

Double meaning in this case, but my feelings on the matter.

Why worry about what can't be controlled-or even accurately quantified-in any way?

 

[Bazzle]

I had assumed the weekend was primetime for free time for readers? Curious what your experience has been like. Seems like it would hard to do a comparision, not being able to control for factors like story position on the new page list and differences in the "catchiness" of titles.

I just always feel, at least in Fetish where 90% of my stories reside if you get a Saturday or Sunday publish date, it's not going to get as many views.

It might be other factors, but its my feeling.