Three Questions

HammerGod

Experienced
Joined
May 30, 2012
Posts
36
Hail folks,
I just have three quick questions to ask more experienced authors. Thanks for your time.

1. I recently posted a new story, and for the first 2 days, it's view count rose steadily. Slowly but steadily. Then, it stopped at 1,943. It has not increased in 3 days. I find this surprising, as it's prior chapters have increased gradually over time, and are still increasing. Even this story's votes are increasing, again slowly, but they're there. Is there a glitch here, or has literally no one looked on this story in 3 days, despite all of my others getting views?

2. A while ago I submitted a non-erotic story, which I assumed meant that the story needed no erotic content. However, readers seemed to hate it and one insisted that even in the non-erotic category, erotica is still expected. Is this in fact the case? If so, perhaps this should be clarified, as I assumed "non-erotic" denoted a place for non-erotica stories.

3. I'm considering starting a website to showcase my stories and sell some of them on the Kindle. Is there any way to encourage my readers to support me in this endeavor, or would that be considered advertising and thusly be forbidden?
 
1. I recently posted a new story, and for the first 2 days, it's view count rose steadily. Slowly but steadily. Then, it stopped at 1,943. It has not increased in 3 days. I find this surprising, as it's prior chapters have increased gradually over time, and are still increasing. Even this story's votes are increasing, again slowly, but they're there. Is there a glitch here, or has literally no one looked on this story in 3 days, despite all of my others getting views?

I suspect you're looking at the view count at the bottom of the story. That one updates very irregularly. For an up-to-date count you're better off looking at the counts on your Submissions view: http://www.literotica.com/members/submissions_view.php

2. A while ago I submitted a non-erotic story, which I assumed meant that the story needed no erotic content. However, readers seemed to hate it and one insisted that even in the non-erotic category, erotica is still expected. Is this in fact the case? If so, perhaps this should be clarified, as I assumed "non-erotic" denoted a place for non-erotica stories.

Non-erotic is what it sounds like. If readers are looking for sex in Non-Erotic, that's their problem.

3. I'm considering starting a website to showcase my stories and sell some of them on the Kindle. Is there any way to encourage my readers to support me in this endeavor, or would that be considered advertising and thusly be forbidden?

You can include a link on your profile page, but not in a story post.
 
Regarding the view counter, I'm looking at the one on my submissions page. Just to test this, I went and viewed the story from 3 separate computers. Still, my view counter reads 1,943.
 
Regarding the view counter, I'm looking at the one on my submissions page. Just to test this, I went and viewed the story from 3 separate computers. Still, my view counter reads 1,943.

Well, I went and viewed it myself after reading your post, so it should be at least 1,944 by now. Sounds like a minor bug - I know of other pages (well, one) that haven't been updating as they ought.

Certainly views will slow to a trickle after the first few days, but it shouldn't have stopped altogether.
 
The views started increasing again today, though at a trickle. I'm going to assume this was a bug, because a 3-day dead-spot hasn't even happened to my oldest story yet, and that's several months old. Anyway, thanks so much for the help.
 
Several things:

You gain your first views during the vetting process.

When it is posted, your story is on the "New" page and far more people see the title than will ever see it again.

When it leaves the 'new page' you are on your own for promotion. Unless you are a favourited author, a contest winner, a contest entry or advertise, your story can be forgotten quickly.

If you post on the AH you may gain more reads and if lucky some talk.
 
I figured as much. I have several stories up already. My concern was not with the lower number of views, but that they stopped altogether for a few days at random, even when I was viewing the tale from other computers just to see if my view counter would rise. I've seen my stories' views slow down before, but never totally stop for 3 days and then restart.
 
Several things:

You gain your first views during the vetting process.

That used to be the case, but it doesn't seem to happen any more - at least, not on mine. No more of those phantom views while it's pending.
 
Someone somewhere told me those views acquired whilst pending were actually the product of a glitch that has since been fixed, so that's not an issue for me. :) I do wish there was a way to link the chapters of a tale together though, since views tend to decrease as my stories get more chapters. A simple Previous/Next Chapter link would be really great to make sure readers knew there was more to be found. Example: My novella-length story "Heart of Steel" got some decent views on parts 1 and 2, but less so on 3, and I got a few emails from readers lamenting the ending of part 2 as an unsatisfying ending, simply because they knew not that chapter 3 existed.
 
Several things:

You gain your first views during the vetting process.

When it is posted, your story is on the "New" page and far more people see the title than will ever see it again.

When it leaves the 'new page' you are on your own for promotion. Unless you are a favourited author, a contest winner, a contest entry or advertise, your story can be forgotten quickly.

If you post on the AH you may gain more reads and if lucky some talk.

Every tale of mine starts at zero. I get no vetting views atall.
 
HammerGod, the site puts series together, so if you title your story with Ch. 1,2 etc. the site will link them and you should get a link box to the other chapters at the end of each instalment.

On kindle publishing, sure you can put a link in your profile page and also on your bulletin board address. However, the tried and trusted method is to post some stories to get a 'following' here before launching the web page.
 
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