Winter Holiday 2024 Contest Support and Seasonal Story Discussion Thread

[RejectReality]

You just need the 25 votes, so you're qualified.

* Assuming the sweeps don't drop you below 25.

With 51 in the pocket right now, unless you have some rabid fans multi-voting your story or one-bombing others, you should be in pretty safe territory.

 

[taytay4eva]

You just need the 25 votes, so you're qualified

* Assuming the sweeps don't drop you below 25.

With 51 in the pocket right now, unless you have some rabid fans multi-voting your story or one-bombing others, you should be in pretty safe territory.

Sweeps? What are sweeps? I only have 11 fans and I think you need to be a member to vote, so I'm pretty sure I don't have multi-votes, but I'm still pretty new to all this so I'd love to be sure that I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch.

 

[NotWise]

Sweeps? What are sweeps? I only have 11 fans and I think you need to be a member to vote, so I'm pretty sure I don't have multi-votes, but I'm still pretty new to all this so I'd love to be sure that I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch.

Sweeps are our term for Literotica's system for removing fraudulent votes. They'll probably start sweeping votes this week, with the most comprehensive sweep done right before the contest results are determined.

No-one needs to be a member to vote. Voting is open to all.

 

[taytay4eva]

Sweeps are our term for Literotica's system for removing fraudulent votes. They'll probably start sweeping votes this week, with the most comprehensive sweep done right before the contest results are determined.

No-one needs to be a member to vote. Voting is open to all.

Oh. Well, I did share it to facebook, sort of [I shared "www(dot)literotica(dot)com/s/sammi-elf-gets-her-stocking-stuffed" and just kind of assumed that they were clever enough monkeys to figure it out from there], and I do have a public page and a number of folks who follow me, but I can't imagine that I'd get THAT many responses from my post, considering how few folks responded to it on facebook itself.

And we're allowed cast a vote / rate for our OWN stories, right?

 

[RejectReality]

Oh. Well, I did share it to facebook, sort of [I shared "www(dot)literotica(dot)com/s/sammi-elf-gets-her-stocking-stuffed" and just kind of assumed that they were clever enough monkeys to figure it out from there], and I do have a public page and a number of folks who follow me, but I can't imagine that I'd get THAT many responses from my post, considering how few folks responded to it on facebook itself.

And we're allowed cast a vote / rate for our OWN stories, right?

Yep, as long as you only vote once on your own story.

And never underestimate your fan club's willingness to "help" you. It only takes one. There's a reason I put an author's note coda on almost everything I post admonishing folks not to multi-vote or downvote others. Most of those folks aren't truly malicious, and when told not to engage in voting shenanigans, they don't. Unless told straight-up not to, some take it as permission by omission. They have no idea that they're likely hurting you rather than helping you because they end up getting all their 5s on your work wiped out due to their unscrupulous voting.

 

[Actingup]

Look at the x axis labels.

Winners won’t be announced until the 13th, so the xaxis may have to change if there is a backlog still being worked through.

Also…. for those who have been following these graphs… I’m going to be in a country with extremely restrictive Internet censorship this week and I’m not sure that I’ll be able to access Literotica, so these updates might pause. Hopefully I’ll return with all limbs intact.

@AlexFourways FYI

 

[Inkent]

LOL paying the price for spending a lot of time hammering 3 stories out for this compo! Have 2 x rooms to get decorated and a new floor to lay before writing anything else....or the mini barbed wore roll goes down the centre of the bed .The instructions given failed to mention reviewing work just returned from editing though, so don't count in my book

 

[taytay4eva]

Unrelated, but I just got an influx of bluesky followers and it took me a hot minute to realize that it's because my user name there (taytay4eva.bsky.social) is the same as it is here.

I was just like "how did you find me, though?!" for a little bit.

 

[NotWise]

Unrelated, but I just got an influx of bluesky followers and it took me a hot minute to realize that it's because my user name there (taytay4eva.bsky.social) is the same as it is here.

I was just like "how did you find me, though?!" for a little bit.

It might be because Lizette Monroe (Erozetta on Lit) posted links to the holiday stories by BlueSky participants. There are a few other things that could explain it. The Lit authors there are mostly there to promote stories, and they'll promote you and yours, too.

 

[NotWise]

Oh. Well, I did share it to facebook, sort of [I shared "www(dot)literotica(dot)com/s/sammi-elf-gets-her-stocking-stuffed" and just kind of assumed that they were clever enough monkeys to figure it out from there], and I do have a public page and a number of folks who follow me, but I can't imagine that I'd get THAT many responses from my post, considering how few folks responded to it on facebook itself.

And we're allowed cast a vote / rate for our OWN stories, right?

Lit is capable of producing a lot of votes even without promoting your story. My last contest story in First Time had 200 votes during the contest and about 275 before the contest page came down. You should be getting votes from New List readers for a week and First Time readers for at least a week. The contest page lately has been producing 100s of views/day, and several votes/day. The contest page will be up until some time next month, and it'll still be good for a vote now and then for the whole time.

 

[MelissaBaby]

It might be because Lizette Monroe (Erozetta on Lit) posted links to the holiday stories by BlueSky participants. There are a few other things that could explain it. The Lit authors there are mostly there to promote stories, and they'll promote you and yours, too.

It's because at Bluesky, you can create "Starter Packs" of user accounts that are accessible to other user. Emily started one for Lit authors, and adds new members as they join.

Literotica.com on Bluesky

 

[ChloeTzang]

I had all but given up hope you were going to make the deadline but I m glad you did.
I do enjoy wandering the wasteland of Chloetopia.
God Rest Ye Merry, Ms Tzang.

Why, thank you. It was touch and go with the deadline but I haven't entered anything for a while now so I pushed it - gotta keep in the game, altho like I said, this one's not a contender for a place at all. Incest and LW as a combo tends to not exactly pull the 5 star votes LOL. If it finishes over 4.5 I'll be happy.

Chloetopia LOL. You must have been having fun. I've mostly been working on half a dozen novels this year - I might even get one finished over Christmas. I have a bot of a backlog and real life has been getting in the way of writing all year.

 

[Inkent]

I enjoy participating for a couple reasons. Firstly, the challenge of coming up with an idea or two centred around a set subject/theme, and hopefully something new for the readers. Secondly, I really enjoy the forum chatter, there really are some decent people in here along with the other compo forums. Beside that, it definitely helps to gain some exposure - just over a year ago I had, something like 4 or 5 followers, have a tad few more now , and competitions always seem to bump the numbers too. Generally happy with my lot

 

[ChloeTzang]

I enjoy participating for a couple reasons. Firstly, the challenge of coming up with an idea or two centred around a set subject/theme, and hopefully something new for the readers. Secondly, I really enjoy the forum chatter, there really are some decent people in here along with the other compo forums. Beside that, it definitely helps to gain some exposure - just over a year ago I had, something like 4 or 5 followers, have a tad few more now , and competitions always seem to bump the numbers too. Generally happy with my lot

It is fun, and I find having a deadline actually pushes me to finish. I'm horrible at closing stories off - "il edit and edit and edit and keep finding things to add forever if I'm not pushed. Having a deadline really helps. And yes, great exposure - you stay in front of more readers for longer, which is good. And people do go back and read stories in the old events too so you keep getting views - and if the like your story they'll often take a look at your others.

If you write in different categories, you get more exposure that way too, because some readers just stick to the one or two categories they like - but if they like your story they will often look at stories you have in categories they don't usually read. Really, it's win win all around putting stories in the competitions and events.

 

[Actingup]

For the data lovers, this might be of interest. The reason I've been keeping track of the number of stories in the comp is that I'm interested in understanding the dynamics of how that affects the engagement with the stories.

I've entered two stories in this comp, in the same category ('Romance'). This wasn't really by design but that's how it ended up, so it's a useful coincidence when looking at stats. They are of similar quality and are scoring similarly (the first one is scoring a little higher). I doubt that they're quite in medal contention (which doesn't really matter). The major differences between them are that one was in the first batch of stories (when there were 14 in the comp), and one was a week ago (when there were 116), and that the second story is only 10000 words whereas the first story is 18000 words.

If the the number of stories in the comp is a major factor in the number of votes or the amount of engagement, I would expect that the first story would have way more votes, and the second one could never catch up. On the other hand, if it's just a minor factor not worth worrying about, I would expect that the stories would perform similarly, and that the engagement would be driven by how 'new' it is as well as length and perceived quality.

From the graph below, my take on this is that the timing within the competition is not important. The second story has easily caught up to the first one in terms of engagement. It's not scoring any higher, but it's shorter so it's more accessible for readers, and that seems to be enough.

Your milage may vary on this, and obviously the raw numbers of votes are dependent on number of followers, category and other things, so the results won't translate exactly. But I am interested to know if it's at least consistent with other experiences.

Also, as a minor point, there was a small bump in views, votes and comments on the first story when the second one was released.

 

[RejectReality]

I did a check of the winners a few years back, and there was pretty much an even distribution of day-1, mid, and last second entries placing in the contest. If anything, there was a slight, inconsequential bias toward middle or day-1 entries from what I recall. The difficulty of making the 25 vote qualifying bar back in the day probably accounts for the slight bias against late entries. You had less time to accumulate the necessary votes or beg for those last few votes you needed to qualify. That's largely moot nowadays outside of the slowest categories.

( The accusation floating around at the time was that late entries had some kind of advantage, which makes no sense considering there's a full week after the close of submissions, which is as long or longer than the period when most votes are cast anyway. )

There used to be a strong bias toward Romance, Fantasy, EC, and Non-Human back in the day, but that shifted to include GM and Lesbian after a while, and then broadened to the point where even LW and Incest were placing. ( Which was absolutely unheard of early in the history of themed contests ) Some contests have stronger bias toward certain categories. ( Halloween has more horror winners, valentines has more romance, you get the picture )

There's little reason to worry about when you get your story in, or really even what category it's in. Write the best story you can, and it will compete. Some categories like LW and Incest are always going to be a stretch because of the way voting goes there, but with everything else, you've always got a shot.

 

[NotWise]

View attachment 2440193

The big difference I see is that your second story has a much bigger first day than your first. Those first-day votes usually come from the New list and Category hub. The contest votes are what you see after your story is off the New list and Category hub.

Any idea why your second story had such a big day? Things like being at the top of the New List, or the only new story in the category can have big and largely uncontrollable effects.

 

[Actingup]

The big difference I see is that your second story has a much bigger first day than your first. Those first-day votes usually come from the New list and Category hub. The contest votes are what you see after your story is off the New list and Category hub.

Any idea why your second story had such a big day? Things like being at the top of the New List, or the only new story in the category can have big and largely uncontrollable effects.

I don't know - I'd like to do more numbers there, but I'd say that Story 2 has in general had a better day nearly every day than Story 1. I'm attributing that to the different lengths, which means that it's much easier for a reader to get the story finished if they're cuddling up to their device in an evening.

 

[Actingup]

another graph... we've made it to 176 stories, with 14 published today. And now I'll be quiet for a bit and catch up on some reading...

 

[SpicySalami]

This is my first contest and I think that I’m the only Hanukkah story this year, which makes me kinda nervous. But honestly I loved writing it so much that I’m considering turning it into an entire book tbh! Happy holidays y’all

 

[MelissaBaby]

Made it in, just under the wire.

No strategy, just procrastination...

Lake Effect

 

[MelissaBaby]

This is my first contest and I think that I’m the only Hanukkah story this year, which makes me kinda nervous. But honestly I loved writing it so much that I’m considering turning it into an entire book tbh! Happy holidays y’all

Congratulations. Offering something unique can be an advantage. Good luck with it.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Made it in, just under the wire.

No strategy, just procrastination...

Lake Effect

LOL. Likewise. And it looks like all the last-minute entries are up and live now too.

 

[Voboy]

This is my first contest and I think that I’m the only Hanukkah story this year, which makes me kinda nervous. But honestly I loved writing it so much that I’m considering turning it into an entire book tbh! Happy holidays y’all

I did a Hanaukkah piece several years ago and that was the case then, too: I was the only one!

I think it's par for the course.

 

[thanagar]

Well, mine is live. I thought 48,000 words was going to be long, but I saw someone yesterday hit 95,000. So clearly I am an amateur. And because I've always hated trying to sum up a story in a couple of dozen characters, here's the longer blurb.

Dildo for the Holidays
Emma Pinsent’s life looks pretty good. She’s a rising star at her bank, both feared and admired, who is up for promotion in the new year. She also has a hot boyfriend (semi-famous actor) and girlfriend (very good chef), who at least tolerate each other.

But the cracks are beginning to show, and to make matter’s worse, her mother finally guilted her into returning home for Christmas. The secrets she’s managed to keep from her loved ones in Toronto and Newfoundland for 10 years are at risk of coming out. Maybe the local hot bed and breakfast owner will distract her, or just make things worse.

One way or another, it’s all going to come to a head….in Dildo.

I've been working on this on and off for two years and still ran out of time. But I hope you all like it.