Story categories

i think the categories should be more specific. i post a lot of gay incest stories which are automatically slotted in the incest/taboo category. they get slammed fairly often because the incest people are homophobic and i refuse to post a "caution! don't read if you're a homophobic asshole" warning. a gay lesbian incest category would solve the problem. i have a ftm trans story i want to write but i'm not even sure WHERE i'd post that.
 
i think the categories should be more specific. i post a lot of gay incest stories which are automatically slotted in the incest/taboo category. they get slammed fairly often because the incest people are homophobic and i refuse to post a "caution! don't read if you're a homophobic asshole" warning. a gay lesbian incest category would solve the problem. i have a ftm trans story i want to write but i'm not even sure WHERE i'd post that.

Matching the story and the right readers seems to be an age-old problem here, at least as far as a lot of authors are concerned.

There are problems with making more categories that probably will prevent this from happening. First, it divides the readers into two many small groups. It lowers the number of readers for one's story. That's something I don't want, even if it means weeding out a few readers that won't like my story. I want as many readers as possible.

Second, it makes it harder for readers to find stories. Readers don't always know exactly what they want, and they might want a larger rather than smaller menu.

Your better bet is to use an intro disclaimer, which you've said you don't want to do, or use tags that identify the subject matter more fully. I think something the site can do is to put the tags in a bar across the top of the story so readers know what they are getting.
 
I've noticed that some categories draw in more readers than others, I'm relatively new here, been posting since May 2017 and initially most of my stories went to "Erotic Couplings" because that was the category they seem to fit in. My first story garnered about 37K views though it took five months to get there and around 300 plus ratings but since then I have added eight other stories and they have struggled to get over 10K views on average.

Meanwhile I switched and did two "Non-consent/Reluctance" stories and one "MindControl" and they exploded by comparison. The Non-consent stories have hit 33K views in only a few weeks and my newly release Mind Control story has 1.2K in only 6 hours. It bums me a little because I prefer to write in the more traditional category but if I want people to actually read my stuff it would appear that I need to go the non-traditional route.

I've heard the incest category really brings them in but I really have no interest writing those kind of stories.
 
Literotica has recently revamped their TAGS system to be more intensive (likely the wrong choice of words, but it's what came to me - I haven't searched by keyword(s) in a while) now. I've heard some claim Lit would do-away with categories altogether, but I doubt that.
 
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Literotica has recently revamped their TAGS system to me more intensive (likely the wrong choice of words, but it's what came to me - I haven't searched by keyword(s) in a while) now. I've heard some claim Lit would do-away with categories altogether, but I doubt that.
The revamp of the tags system was a non-event for me. I go to the I/T category page whenever I'm looking for a story. Though I have no idea how many readers are like me.
 
The revamp of the tags system was a non-event for me. I go to the I/T category page whenever I'm looking for a story. Though I have no idea how many readers are like me.

I suspect many readers are fans of a only a few categories, to the exclusion of others, as evidenced by the often vehement advocacy of their "rules" and protests when they "don't like that."

I don't see the category system changing any time soon, but hopefully the tag system will be improved. If the tags were put at the top of the story rather than the end, that would solve a whole bunch of issues, quickly. It's not so much helping readers find what they like, it's helping them avoid what they don't like.
 
Categories

Surely if your story falls broadly across 2 or 3 categories e.g. Fetish with Group sex and Lesbians for instance why could it not be possible to have your story posted within those categories?
 
Surely if your story falls broadly across 2 or 3 categories e.g. Fetish with Group sex and Lesbians for instance why could it not be possible to have your story posted within those categories?

So, you're saying "duplicate copies" of the same story in all three categories? Taking up bandwidth and whatnot...
 
Surely if your story falls broadly across 2 or 3 categories e.g. Fetish with Group sex and Lesbians for instance why could it not be possible to have your story posted within those categories?

No - the current system is "nominate a category" - singular. The web site has over fifteen years' of stories, there's simply no way to re-categorise the story file, it's simply too big.

Tags is the best you've got, so the best thing is to figure out which search words are best for you both as a writer and as a reader.
 
An individual story may only be slotted into one category. A series could span categories, with each chapter in its appropriate location, but you'll likely confuse and lose readers. I tried that. Ick. LIT may someday abandon categories for tags but hold not thy breath.
 
You just have to pick one. I wouldn't look for any major changes to the site in the near future.

I too, am working on a story that spans several categories. I haven't decided where to post it yet. Novels and novellas is supposedly the catch all category, but mainly I just see multi-chapter stories there. My tale might end up with a chapter 2 or even 3, but not a chapter 17 like many of the stories in the novels and novellas category. I won't post my story there because I'm afraid it'll get lost among the ones that have chapter a 453. (Ok, I'm exaggerating a little.)

So for now anyway, we have to deal with it as best we can. (And remember, they are not charging us to put the stories on the site.)
 
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