What happened to the sequel?

I posted a short story of mine called A Personal Question about a month ago. It was in the First Time category and received glowing reviews, a 4.71 rating, and several requests for a sequel. Feeling pretty good about myself, I quickly penned a follow up called, A Personal Question 2 (original, I know) and posted it in the Erotic Couplings category. It was the same characters after all, and it was their second time together, so First Time just didn't work. Its been up now for a few weeks, and while it has a respectable 4.40 rating, it's gotten very few views and no comments, good or bad. So now I'm asking for the good people who hang out in this section of Literotica to take a look and let me know if the second part is worthy of the first. I'm pretty sure that the fans of the first story who begged for a sequel have no idea that I've posted one, and I don't know how to inform them. Anyway, I've linked both parts, but reading the first is not necessary, as the second story can stand alone. Thanks in advance for any advice.

https://www.literotica.com/s/a-personal-question

https://www.literotica.com/s/a-personal-question-ch-02

My experience has been the EC stories get FAR fewer reads and votes than almost any other category. It seems to me that on Lit each category has its very own personality, so to speak.

You want high scores, post to Romance
You want trolls, post to LW
etc.

I've never submitted a story to First Time so I can't say for sure, but it may be that the first time is one of those categories where people love the kind of story you write.

I consider any score over 4.00 a success. The sad truth of Lit readers is that most of the time most of the people vote either a 5 or a 1. So a 4.00 or higher score means that by far most of your readers liked the story.

GoldenCojones said:

You want trolls, post to LW
etc.

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Made me laugh. Thank you. :-D

Thanks for the reply GoldenCojones. You may be right about the EC crowd. I just thought it funny that the story had very few views compared to my other stories, and it's my only story without a single comment. I generally get comments immediately after posting, some good, some bad, then the comments stop. But with this second story... nothing. I had plans for a third chapter after the success of the first, but with the lack of interest after chapter 2, I've put chapter 3 on hold. It'll probably never get written now.

I'll add to the comment that about EC getting far less traffic than first time.

Also seeing part one was in first time most EC readers didn't read it and are to lazy to go look for it.

This brings up an interesting topic. The first time category is about the first time so if the second chapter features the same couple having sex again it technically does not belong in first time which is why you moved it, but I wonder how upset the FT category would be providing it was a direct follow up to the first one.

MY Earth Day contest winner last year was in First time and here and there I have thought of a sequel but this is the sticking point, what do I do with it?

Category counts, for sure.

I put two chapters of a four part story into First Times, got around 8k and 11k reads (second chapter was 1st time anal, hence the higher read count, I suspect), 62 and 38 scores, 7 and 4 faves, ended up with 4.26 and 4.29

3rd and 4th chapters went into Erotic Encounters, both just under 1900 reads, 11 and 12 scores, 4.67 and 4.73.

I made it pretty clear in a long preamble to Part 2 that the heart of the story was Part 1 and Part 4. My conclusion - a small group of readers who indulged me, went along with me for the ride, coz they wanted to find out what happened ('twas a true story, angst ridden and tragic, but for me, one of the great loves of my life).

I guess the question for laffalot is, why are you writing? For yourself, or hypothetical readers and their reactions? Your comment re "lack of interest" suggests the latter.

I write for myself, and if I get a little band of readers, that's a bonus.

Thanks for the replies folks. As to the question from electricblue66 "why are you writing?", my answer is that I write stories that I think are interesting. If I get a really great response, I'm always tempted to write a sequel. I got the idea for the sequel pretty quickly, and that usually doesn't happen to me. Since the first one was so well received, I spent a few days typing up the sequel, and posted it right away, figuring I would strike while the iron was still hot. It got so few views that I thought most people were just passing it by because it had the number 2 at the end of the title. That is why I came here to ask for some feedback. I'm not writing more of that particular story because there doesn't seem to be any interest, and I have multiple other ideas and half written stories that I could be working on instead. I hope that answers your question.

These matters happen often laffalot. When I submitted Lesson In Biology, I received numerous requests for a sequel. Within months, 2 sequels followed and, again, I received many emails complimenting the stories and requesting a Part 4. Unfortunstely, I had experienced writers block for a couple of years before writing again. But this comeback brought on a different writing style that improved my stories, according to the majority of my readers. I had submitted about 3 stories, all of which were rsted hot by the readers before finally submitting Part 4 of Lesson In Biology. Sadly Part 4 didn't go so well with the readers. Most liked it while many complained and hated it.

EC gets a lot of posts and doesn't have that many readers. Also, since EC is the "catch-all" category, the readers there don't have any particular taste and may or may not respond to your story.

As far as the number of views (not reads) is concerned, that could depend on a lot of things. How many other stories posted at the same time? Do readers in the category recognize you? Were the early scores high or low? Did the title and/or description pull people in?

Your title said that it was chapter 2 so people who hadn't already read the first chapter may not have even gone for a view, much less a read.

The one series I posted to I/T had a sexless title and descriptions that didn't pull anyone in. The first chapter came out on a busy day and didn't get many views. It has just over 16,000 reads in nearly a month and the most-viewed follow-up chapter has 1/3 of that. In contrast, my most recent story got nearly 40,000 views in a week. The last chapter in that I/T series had a description that probably discouraged reading and it has less than 3,000 views.

It's hard to guess what influences the number of votes and/or comments. The number of views has nothing to do with the content of the story, but the number of votes probably does. There are people who might read the start of a story then vote low, but I would guess most readers won't vote unless they get to the end. If they don't react very strongly to a story (good or bad) then maybe they won't vote.

lovecraft68 said:

I'll add to the comment that about EC getting far less traffic than first time.

Also seeing part one was in first time most EC readers didn't read it and are to lazy to go look for it.

This brings up an interesting topic. The first time category is about the first time so if the second chapter features the same couple having sex again it technically does not belong in first time which is why you moved it, but I wonder how upset the FT category would be providing it was a direct follow up to the first one.

MY Earth Day contest winner last year was in First time and here and there I have thought of a sequel but this is the sticking point, what do I do with it?

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novels and novellas.

laffalot said:

I posted a short story of mine called A Personal Question about a month ago. It was in the First Time category and received glowing reviews, a 4.71 rating, and several requests for a sequel. Feeling pretty good about myself, I quickly penned a follow up called, A Personal Question 2 (original, I know) and posted it in the Erotic Couplings category. It was the same characters after all, and it was their second time together, so First Time just didn't work. Its been up now for a few weeks, and while it has a respectable 4.40 rating, it's gotten very few views and no comments, good or bad. So now I'm asking for the good people who hang out in this section of Literotica to take a look and let me know if the second part is worthy of the first. I'm pretty sure that the fans of the first story who begged for a sequel have no idea that I've posted one, and I don't know how to inform them. Anyway, I've linked both parts, but reading the first is not necessary, as the second story can stand alone. Thanks in advance for any advice.

https://www.literotica.com/s/a-personal-question

https://www.literotica.com/s/a-personal-question-ch-02

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Story one went up on a Friday (Great day)

Story two went up on a Sunday (Worst day)

That right there can be a big factor in views an comments.