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A way to notify your followers.

E

EenViezeVent

Virgin
Joined
Apr 29, 2017
Posts
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As a writer I personally would love to keep my followers updated on how my works are progressing.

Now so far as I know, Literotica only notifies followers if their followed author has published a new story. What I would like to see, or be able to do, is to send my followers a short text notification to keep them updated on how far my writing is progressing. (For example, I would be able to send them a message like; 'Story ... is 75% completed.' or; 'My new story has been published today, expect it to be uploaded soon.)

Currently I am updating my profile page once in a while to do this in some sort of way. (See jpg attachment.)

So my question to you, fellow authors is; Would you like to see a feature like this? (If it would be possible to add something like this.) To have some sort of personal notification board option on your author's page to keep your fans updated?
 

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I like this idea. Right now, the only way I know how to do this is to write a comment in the comment section for the last chapter of a story I'm working on. But probably most readers and followers will never see that. They may also not see an update on my profile page. This would be a good idea.
 
SimonDoom said:
I like this idea. Right now, the only way I know how to do this is to write a comment in the comment section for the last chapter of a story I'm working on. But probably most readers and followers will never see that. They may also not see an update on my profile page. This would be a good idea.
Click to expand...

If you have followers, they see every update on your profile page, and notification of every new story you post.

I know several writers who post "this is what I'm doing now" updates on their profile page on a regular basis - I follow them, I see their updates.
 
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You aren't ever going to get this.

And here is why - once that feature arrives, you can email your followers basically anything you want. Links to other sites, links to twitter accounts, links to ebooks you may have out and so on.

Laural and Manu maintain this site for free - well, it's not for free, they are paid via advertisments. But this site costs a fair amount to maintain. As a result, they want to own the reader. The reader isn't really that connected to you, the author. They are connected to Literotica, and Manu/Laural want to keep it that way.

The moment they don't control all access to the reader - where you, the author, can go directly to them - they've lost that control. They have no idea how you might be circumventing the reader having to come here to read your stuff and thereby cut off their livelihood.

Laural once bounced back a story of mine because it had my twitter name in it. Given that point of view (and it's a valid one, I should say. I don't like that we have no access to readers, but I understand why that is), you aren't going to get a mass mailing/messaging mechanism.
 
If I were following a writer here and got messages when he/she was 75 percent finished with a story and then when it was submitted and was waiting to post, I wouldn't be their follower anymore. They'd be on ignore as assuming too much that I worship them. Sure, put it in your profile. Someone wanting to follow you that closely can pull in the information rather than having it pushed at them in a world where everyone is already pushing everything at them.
 
EenViezeVent said:
As a writer I personally would love to keep my followers updated on how my works are progressing.

Now so far as I know, Literotica only notifies followers if their followed author has published a new story. What I would like to see, or be able to do, is to send my followers a short text notification to keep them updated on how far my writing is progressing. (For example, I would be able to send them a message like; 'Story ... is 75% completed.' or; 'My new story has been published today, expect it to be uploaded soon.)

Currently I am updating my profile page once in a while to do this in some sort of way. (See jpg attachment.)

So my question to you, fellow authors is; Would you like to see a feature like this? (If it would be possible to add something like this.) To have some sort of personal notification board option on your author's page to keep your fans updated?
Click to expand...

Nope. In addition to changes on the works page, the current mechanism ALSO notifies followers of the slightest change on the profile or biography page as well. So, all you have to do, all several authors are already doing, is to write updates in there and it will go out to everybody following you that you've updated your biography and they can click the link to flip over and check out what you've said.

Some, I dare say, use it TOO much. It's not freaking Facebook people. I don't really want to know about what happened in the bathroom this morning as a result of what you ate last night. :vom emoji:

But, for keeping followers up to date who actually give a crap enough to click the link and check every time it pops up that such and so updated his/her biography, it works just fine.

If they tried to give people a way to fill my inbox with spam, I'd quit following any author and leave the site.
 
electricblue66 said:
If you have followers, they see every update on your profile page, and notification of every new story you post.

I know several writers who post "this is what I'm doing now" updates on their profile page on a regular basis - I follow them, I see their updates.
Click to expand...

I've seen this too, but in the notification itself you don't see this. You just see that a change has been made to the profile and you have to check the profile to find out what's been changed.
 
SimonDoom said:
I've seen this too, but in the notification itself you don't see this. You just see that a change has been made to the profile and you have to check the profile to find out what's been changed.
Click to expand...

Well yes, you do have to go look. I'd be the first to disable the feature if I saw the content of every profile update every time.

I followed someone recently who's updated their profile ten times in as many days. Why? No significant change that I could see. If she keeps doing it, I'll un-follow her as an author, and just fave a story so I keep a bookmark to her work. I don't need to know the drivel.
 
sr71plt said:
If I were following a writer here and got messages when he/she was 75 percent finished with a story and then when it was submitted and was waiting to post, I wouldn't be their follower anymore. They'd be on ignore as assuming too much that I worship them.
Click to expand...

Absolutely! I follow a very few authors so that I know when they publish something new. But I could not care less about their progress or real-time thought processes.

I get enough spam. If I start getting it from Lit writers, I'll bail on them in a second.

rj
 
electricblue66 said:
If you have followers, they see every update on your profile page, and notification of every new story you post.
Click to expand...

As a writer, I started checking my Literotica Activity page every morning for comment alerts and learned that it gave alerts about my Favorite Author's new stories. As a reader, I never knew that existed, and I probably would not have checked in often anyway since new stories tend to be few and far between.

I guess my question is - does anyone have a feel for how often non-writers check their Activity page for alerts?
 
So I just went to check my Activity page, since I was thinking about it, and I started clicking around on some things I hadn't tried before. If you click "My Authors Activity" there are two sub-options: "Latest Works" and "Latest News". Apparently there is a way receive news, but I can't seem to find a way to post it.

Anyone know anything about that?
 
EenViezeVent said:
As a writer I personally would love to keep my followers updated on how my works are progressing.

Now so far as I know, Literotica only notifies followers if their followed author has published a new story. What I would like to see, or be able to do, is to send my followers a short text notification to keep them updated on how far my writing is progressing. (For example, I would be able to send them a message like; 'Story ... is 75% completed.' or; 'My new story has been published today, expect it to be uploaded soon.)

Currently I am updating my profile page once in a while to do this in some sort of way. (See jpg attachment.)

So my question to you, fellow authors is; Would you like to see a feature like this? (If it would be possible to add something like this.) To have some sort of personal notification board option on your author's page to keep your fans updated?
Click to expand...

I've never presumed that just because someone favorited me that it meant they wanted me to spam them with "news." Imagine what that would mean for those readers who had 100+ authors on their list.

Check your ego. It might be getting a little out of hand.
 
It wouldn’t ever occur to me to let my “followers” know when I’m 3 more percent done with a new story than I was yesterday. It would annoy the living shit out of me to get notifications like that if I was following somebody.

People don’t follow me because they care that much about my future stories. They just want to know when I’ve posted a new one. This is a story site, not yet another way to “interact” with people. The internet’s already got about 50,000 ways to do that. Write your stories, post them, and move on.

The people who read your stories aren’t a “community.” They’re just your readers.
 
I do progress reports, but I do them on my blog and forum. I only update things like Facebook, Twitter, and my bio here at major milestones on chaptered stories most of the time.

I don't think most readers interpret a "follow" here as something that's going to result in an update every other day or so. As others have said, they want to know when new stories or chapters are ready to read.

Create another avenue such as a blog for those frequent updates, link it from your profile, and let those who want the information seek it out. If they're that interested, they will.
 
EenViezeVent said:
So my question to you, fellow authors is; Would you like to see a feature like this? (If it would be possible to add something like this.) To have some sort of personal notification board option on your author's page to keep your fans updated?
Click to expand...

As long as I, as the recipient, can turn it off if I don't want to know about unfinished stories.
 
I use my profile to post dates of upcoming stories, and i use twitter to post my new stories.

I know a lot of authors make their own newsletters, where if someone emails them, they put them on a mailing list and email out a new story when it's posted.
 
Jesus, some people really get mad over this suggestion.

It has nothing to do with me stroking my 'E-cock' or "Ego" like NotWise said, it's just that I had a lot of readers mailing me, wondering when the next chapter would be done. So for someone like me that doesn't use any social media (Facebook, Twitter and all that other crap.) at all, it would be a little bit easier to reply to these people instead of going through mail after mail.

Now of course I dislike spam as much as the next person, so IF something like a notification board would be available than I rather have it like a sort of Youtube subscription idea, people could 'subscribe' on top of following you, giving you, the author, more options to notify those that are interested on your progressions without using external sites or email.

Anyway, it seems that whenever you update your profile it will notify those that follow you. It won't specify what exactly but it is something I guess, so that answers my own suggestion a bit.

Thank you all for giving your thoughts about it, negative or positive.
 
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EenViezeVent said:
Jesus, some people really get mad over this suggestion.

It has nothing to do with me stroking my 'E-cock' or "Ego" like NotWise said, it's just that I had a lot of readers mailing me, wondering when the next chapter would be done. So for someone like me that doesn't use any social media (Facebook, Twitter and all that other crap.) at all, it would be a little bit easier to reply to these people instead of going through mail after mail.

Now of course I dislike spam as much as the next person, so IF something like a notification board would be available than I rather have it like a sort of Youtube subscription idea, people could 'subscribe' on top of following you, giving you, the author, more options to notify those that are interested on your progressions without using external sites or email.

Anyway, it seems that whenever you update your profile it will notify those that follow you. It won't specify what exactly but it is something I guess, so that answers my own suggestion a bit.

Thank you all for giving your thoughts about it, negative or positive.
Click to expand...

Okay. That makes more sense. You don’t use social media much, which is why you think this is such a good idea.

I’d advise forcing yourself onto Twitter especially for the purposes of publicizing your erotica. This is what my publisher had me do, and I now post rare updates; I don’t find it works for me, but YMMV. Publish the link in your profile, inviting your “a lot of readers” to follow you there. Then, use it to update them to your heart's content. You can tell them your middle name and your shoe size, while you’re at it.

The ‘net is packed with ways to do this already. Don’t bring it here.
 
It looks as if you may be posting at least partially as you finish chapters.

I would advise against that. You can quickly get yourself in a bind when life or a lagging muse gets in the way, and readers get far more irritable at an incomplete story than they do waiting for the next story to post.

Your best course is to finish the whole thing, then post it on a regular schedule. That way, they always know when the next chapter will post. You'll still have folks curious about when the next story is coming, but it will be a lot less urgent than the next chapter questions.

In my experience, you also have much stronger retention doing this. More views, votes, and comments per chapter. It reduces the standard drop from Ch. 1 to the finale.
 
RejectReality said:
It looks as if you may be posting at least partially as you finish chapters.

I would advise against that. You can quickly get yourself in a bind when life or a lagging muse gets in the way, and readers get far more irritable at an incomplete story than they do waiting for the next story to post.

Your best course is to finish the whole thing, then post it on a regular schedule. That way, they always know when the next chapter will post. You'll still have folks curious about when the next story is coming, but it will be a lot less urgent than the next chapter questions.

In my experience, you also have much stronger retention doing this. More views, votes, and comments per chapter. It reduces the standard drop from Ch. 1 to the finale.
Click to expand...

This is excellent advice, and I know it is because I don't follow it, and all of what RR has said is true.

I have provided progress reports by posting a comment to my own story immediately following a comment asking "where's the next chapter." And then I have to post another update later when I fail to meet my revised schedule. And so it goes. It's a pain for me and the readers don't like it.

And the bottom line is that you WILL lose readers if you wait too long. I've seen that happen.

I'm nearing the end of my chapter series, finally, and once I get it done I'm not going to write chapter series the same way. Finish the story, then post the chapters at regular intervals of no more than a week.

On further reflection, I take back my comment above. It's better to write stories in a way that obviates the need to provide updates.
 
Oh, I'm certainly speaking from experience. After the first of the year, I'm finally going to begin adding chapters to SOTM again, after a lag of ohh... 5 frikkin' years.

I will never begin posting something that isn't complete again. It's been almost as hard on me as it has been for the readers.
 
RejectReality said:
I will never begin posting something that isn't complete again. It's been almost as hard on me as it has been for the readers.
Click to expand...

Yes, you have to learn incredible patience with yourself. I'm eight chapters in to a crazy huge thing which I've been writing since about June, and I've given up predicting when it'll be done, or how long it will be. I figure by the time I'm done and posted I'll be on the first page of the category for a couple of months, so should keep readers happy. Assuming it's any good, of course...
 
I find the easiest way to escape the anxiety is to fill all the gaps when you're not feeling the long story with quickies. That's what this pen name is all about. Fast, dirty, meaningless sex. LOL

You get something out there, and it keeps you from tweaking.

I've put out a couple of long stories ( Lowborn as Dark and Jackin' Jill as Les ) that were 5 and 3 years from first word on paper to first posting, so I'm over needing to get it out there now.

The amount of readers who stuck with them from beginning to end with chapters posting twice a week further cemented my ability to wait. Lowborn Ch. 1 had 353 votes at last check, and Ch. 10 had 344. That kind of retention on a chapter story that long is hard to dismiss.
 
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