Concerns about viewership

Hello,
hopefully I'm not asking a question that has already been answered, but I have an issue.
I am in the process of writing 2 story-chains, both of them in a fantasy setting.

-Uploaded three chapters of story "A" as a lesbian story, because - well, it is a lesbian story, just in a fantasy setting. Gotten like, ~2k views on the first day on each one, had a steady increase in viewership.
-The fourth chapter was a "straight" chapter, so I uploaded it as "sci-fi/fantasy". Since I like consistency, I asked the admins to change the previous parts to "fantasy" as well.
-Next few days: viewership on last chapter is below 500, despite it's rating being significantly higher than the prev. chapters. My first three chapters stopped getting hits as well.

Story "B" is pretty much the same, just switch out "lesbian" to "solo/toys". As soon as I changed it to fantasy/asked the previous chapters to be changed to fantasy, I stopped getting views.

Now I don't want to be greedy, but the only thing I get out of writing these stories is the feedback, and I feel like I shot myself in the foot when I asked them to be in the "fantasy" folder for the sake of consistency. I feel like you should be able to place a story in more than one category, because people just wouldn't find it like this. Shall I just deal with it?

Thanks for Your answer!

No one has responded to this, so I'll give it a shot. This is just my impression as I stick to incest stories without any other kinks. In general, I think there are specific kinks that trump other aspects of the story. If a story has gay male sex, it's not going to do well outside the gay male category even if it has incest or has a fantasy setting. Gay male stories I've seen in Incest/Taboo always have a score below 4. My impression is that incest trumps other kinks (besides gay male), so an incest story in fantasy setting will do better in Incest than in Fantasy. So what I would guess you're seeing is that Lesbian trumps Fantasy and Solo/Toys trumps Fantasy.

Hopefully a Fantasy reader can chip in and verify.

It would help to see a link.

But if I understand this correctly, your first story was lesbian, then your last chapter was in sci/fi.

two things:

1. Generally speaking, there's often a dip in readers from one chapter to the next, unless the story is really popular.
2. Switching categories for chapters leads to big decreases. After all, many people nowadays look for stories using the Hubs. So chances are, the readers of that story won't see it.

Also, unless you are an established author here, nearly all of your reads are going to be in the first week after the story has been put on the New list. Changing category isn't going to get the story back on the New list. Most of your readership is exhausted in the initial days after that first posting.

Further, if you are going to obsess about the feedback you get on Literotica and getting feedback is the whole incentive for you posting stories here, you might read in on the frequent threads noting that there isn't a great deal of feedback here. How's your golf?

8letters said:

No one has responded to this, so I'll give it a shot. This is just my impression as I stick to incest stories without any other kinks. In general, I think there are specific kinks that trump other aspects of the story. If a story has gay male sex, it's not going to do well outside the gay male category even if it has incest or has a fantasy setting. Gay male stories I've seen in Incest/Taboo always have a score below 4. My impression is that incest trumps other kinks (besides gay male), so an incest story in fantasy setting will do better in Incest than in Fantasy. So what I would guess you're seeing is that Lesbian trumps Fantasy and Solo/Toys trumps Fantasy.

Hopefully a Fantasy reader can chip in and verify.

Click to expand...

ShyChiWriter proved this with the Afflicted series (which was damn good, regardless). Certain genres seem to have a truly dedicated readership and follow it constantly where as others might be more of a perusal type readership. I have some genres I look at daily and others I check in on every few days or so. But that has a lot to do with how fast stories come into those genres also

Thank you for the responses.
my profile: https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=3317270&page=submissions
It is fairly buggy, sometimes loads with the old categories, but on my submission page / news page, it is universally sci-fi/fantasy, and that's what most people see.

It is pretty visible at the "Beth and the plug" storyline, where the viewership just plummets at the 3rd chapter, despite being highest rated. I realize that it is also the newest, but the differences were much smaller when it was in the "toys and masturbation" category. (Losing 5-10% between the 1st and 2nd chapter, and more then 50% between the 2nd and 3rd)

I'm not desperate for viewship, but it still feels good when more and more people read it, after all I write it to share.

If you post any chaptered story or a story in multiple parts, you are going to get reduced readership after the first chapter/part.

People will look at the first one. If they don't like it they won't look at the second and certainly not the third and subsequent ones.

Those who continue beyond parts one and two are interested in the story. There will be fewer of them but they are likely to vote higher.

So - views will drop but rating will improve.

After part six the few readers who have stayed with the story are likely to those who really enjoy the story.

BUT - if after chapter/part one you change category, or introduce 'hard' categories such as Incest, Anal or Gay Male you are likely to lose readers fast.

.......

ChloeTzang said:

Very much what I find with my stories as well. But the ones that like the series stories tend to stick with you, and also read your other stories. I made that change category mistake accidentally once and it really did hit the views hard.

Click to expand...

I have a contest entry as jeanne_d_artois. It is number 11 in her Laundry series. Each one of them can be read on their own. They are complete stories.

But posting a contest entry with a part number was a mistake. The views and reads are minimal and once the story was off the New list they've stopped coming. The story will struggle to get 10 votes let alone the 25 minimum.

The OP story is mostly telling NOT showing.