ElectricBlue
Connoisseur
- Joined
- May 10, 2014
- Posts
- 15,442
I'm yet to be convinced, but I'm not sure how you could ever test it.I'm curious whether this really is what other people have experienced: that publishing a story for a contest significantly increases its views and votes above what a similar story in the same category would have enjoyed if published outside a contest.
My Songs of Seduction - Water (my mermaid story) was published late January in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, outside any contest, and stayed on the category front page for nearly two weeks. In that time it pulled several thousand views and a solid score, and is now up to 8100 views (which I think is pretty good for the category).
By comparison, my Geek Anthology entry, which fell off the category front page in three days because the story title was far down the alphabet, is only just crawling up to 1700 views (with a similar score).
I reckon it might have run stronger if it had been outside the Anthology, and stayed longer on the category front page in its own right. Mind you, it has received a much better vote/view ratio, and proportionally more comments (most from fellow Anthology entrants).