Dip in views

[testudo]

So I published an eight part story recently. The views aren't really that high but I'm pretty happy overall. The reviews have been good. But one little thing is baffling me. Parts five and six of the story have considerably lower views than the rest. I'm a little miffed because I'm particularly proud of part six. Has anyone else experienced this? and if so do you have any guesses about why it would happen? It just seems odd to me to read parts 1-4, skip two parts, then pick it back up.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

I've noticed that the readers always drop off in my chapter stories. Even if the scores are good, by the last few chapters hardly anyone is reading them. I've started doing longer stories, to get away from doing chapters, and it seems to have helped.

 

[Bamagan]

I've experienced the same thing on a longer series, and I've gathered it's fairly common here.
A graph of views:

The drop-off from the earliest chapters is fairly steep, as expected, with people sampling the first few chapters and probably deciding it's not for them. Also, these are raw numbers and don't account for average views per day. But you'll notice that there are a number of dips and climbs. I'm not certain, but I believe these factors contribute:

• The volume of stories posted around the same time affects the length of time the story appears as new, which is the time it is most likely to be clicked casually. The smaller peaks roughly correspond to chapters that lingered on the front page of the category for at least a second day.
• My stories feature a somewhat large cast and not all of them are in every chapter. I advertise accordingly (blurb and tags), so I think some people are likely skipping the chapters that deal with characters they don't like or are less interested in.
• In a similar vein, some of the fetishes I write about may be contributing to avoidance of certain chapters where they feature prominently.
• Finally, from the behavior of people who tend to bookmark my chapters, it's clear that some readers only check in weekly or less often. More casual readers may miss chapters if they're not paying close attention, and at least in the case of my story, they might not even realize they skipped some.

The first point is probably the only one that's more or less universally applicable, and maybe the fourth. I'm curious to see if anyone else has additional hypotheses, though.

 

[ElectricBlue]

So I published an eight part story recently. The views aren't really that high but I'm pretty happy overall. The reviews have been good. But one little thing is baffling me. Parts five and six of the story have considerably lower views than the rest. I'm a little miffed because I'm particularly proud of part six. Has anyone else experienced this? and if so do you have any guesses about why it would happen? It just seems odd to me to read parts 1-4, skip two parts, then pick it back up.

That's typical. My rule of thumb, based on my various chaptered stories, is that maybe 20% of people who click into Chapter One will read the final chapter.

With regard to your dip, perhaps look at it this way - those two chapters are you baseline reader numbers. The surrounding chapters might be better, and folk are reading them twice. So, don't see those two chapters as dips, see the surrounding chapters as peaks.

Also, remember that readers are strange, and there's often no logical explanation for what they do.

 

[12oclocktales]

I also noticed that in the Similar Stories box at the end of stories, if one of your chapter stories is included it’s always just Chapter 1. So more readers are referred to just that chapter, thus the increased views there.

 

[HeyAll]

If you make chaptered stories, the best thing you can do is finish the whole thing, then release it every few days so it stays fresh in the readers mind. Otherwise there are so many stories that people will forget or lose interest.

 

[EroticCupcake]

If you make chaptered stories, the best thing you can do is finish the whole thing, then release it every few days so it stays fresh in the readers mind. Otherwise there are so many stories that people will forget or lose interest.

I've been releasing one chapter per week to maximize views. I'm sitting on 4 chapters and the conclusion and I really want to release it all. Are you saying that potentially following my impulse will maximize views?

 

[Duleigh]

So I published an eight part story recently. The views aren't really that high but I'm pretty happy overall. The reviews have been good. But one little thing is baffling me. Parts five and six of the story have considerably lower views than the rest. I'm a little miffed because I'm particularly proud of part six. Has anyone else experienced this? and if so do you have any guesses about why it would happen? It just seems odd to me to read parts 1-4, skip two parts, then pick it back up.

Welcome to Literotica. My Longest story is 14 chapters in length, this is what the views look like



It's pretty typical. Chapter 5 won a contest that's why it's an outlier. Chapter 13 used to be the highest rated chapter until a recent troll attack

 

[HeyAll]

I've been releasing one chapter per week to maximize views. I'm sitting on 4 chapters and the conclusion and I really want to release it all. Are you saying that potentially following my impulse will maximize views?

Put them out quicker. Not at the same time though. That could create problems with submissions i think, in terms of the stories being in order.

 

[Duleigh]

I have had readers complain when I put stuff out too quickly so you're going to have to figure out what your readers like.

 

[KeithD]

But one little thing is baffling me. Parts five and six of the story have considerably lower views than the rest.

That's not baffling at Literotica. That's the norm at Literotica.

 

[RejectReality]

The best retention I ever had was releasing twice weekly.



And approximately a month after release of the final chapter ( Score, votes, views )

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

The best retention I ever had was releasing twice weekly.

View attachment 2282043

And approximately a month after release of the final chapter ( Score, votes, views )

View attachment 2282046

This is interesting! How'd you go about the timing of submitting each chapter? (e.g. click submit right when previous one published?)

 

[ElectricBlue]

This is interesting! How'd you go about the timing of submitting each chapter? (e.g. click submit right when previous one published?)

If they're all ready to release, you can ask the site editor to schedule a release.

The default is 24 hours apart, but you could ask for daily increments longer than that.

If you write borderline content or inadvertently trigger a rejection, you do run the risk of a chapter being bounced back, and it might publish out of order. To prevent that happening, you'd have to pull all unpublished chapters back to Draft while you fix the offending chapter.

 

[RejectReality]

This is interesting! How'd you go about the timing of submitting each chapter? (e.g. click submit right when previous one published?)

They're not perfectly timed. I was aiming for Tuesday and Friday, and some of them went early/late. You're always at the mercy of the queue.

I ended up getting Wed, Tues, Fri, Tues, Thurs, Tues, Thurs, Tues, Fri, Wed.

The first Wednesday was underestimating the length of the queue if I remember correctly. I adjusted and put the next chapter out the following week, because I avoid weekends like the plague and there was no time to get through the queue by Friday. Nailed it and got my Tuesday. Got the next one on Friday. Got the next one on Tuesday. Then I got my next two Tuesdays, but got Thursday instead of Friday. The the final chapter went long to Wednesday.

Ideally, it would be nice to say "They'll be out every Tuesday and Friday" but saying twice a week around Tues/Wed and Thurs/Fri is close enough.

 

[madelinemasoch]

It's pretty typical. Chapter 5 won a contest that's why it's an outlier. Chapter 13 used to be the highest rated chapter until a recent troll attack

I thought chapters couldn't be in contests?

 

[Bamagan]

I thought chapters couldn't be in contests?

They're eligible for monthly contests, just not the seasonal/themed contests, I think.

 

[RejectReality]

I thought chapters couldn't be in contests?

They are still eligible for monthly/annual contests. The new series beta is step 1 in changing that with the inclusion of the complete/in progress setting. The plan is to eventually have only finished stories be eligible for any contest.

 

[madelinemasoch]

My mistake.

 

[Duleigh]

I thought chapters couldn't be in contests?

The monthly contests are different, they're based strictly on number of votes and final score and chapters are allowed. The montly awards are not like a themed contest, all stories are elegible. Chapter 5 was the #3 story for August 2022

 

[overwatcher]

That's typical. My rule of thumb, based on my various chaptered stories, is that maybe 20% of people who click into Chapter One will read the final chapter.

With regard to your dip, perhaps look at it this way - those two chapters are you baseline reader numbers. The surrounding chapters might be better, and folk are reading them twice. So, don't see those two chapters as dips, see the surrounding chapters as peaks.

Also, remember that readers are strange, and there's often no logical explanation for what they do.

 

[overwatcher]

Yep. you've got it in one. I experimented with my last story series and the result says the same thing. look at your last chapter and that is probably your captured audience but only a percentage of those actually read to the end. You will still get those that have only viewed the last chapter and for one reason or another call it quits early and at the other end those who follow it to the end.

So, for example and without looking I think views for Ch.01 maybe between 30k and 35k (close enough) and Ch.05 maybe 11k (or thereabouts). So, from that and my other story chapters I suspect true reader numbers are probably somewhere around 4k mark maybe.

I divide views by favs. That has been revealing because some of my stories with smallest views have had the best ratio.

I've charted views on my stories since 2020 (covid and idle brain) on a daily for two weeks then weekly basis after publishing for a month. After that any readers are gonna be random and distort the figures but not hugely, that's also why any stories before 2020 and resultant views/favs are maybe a bit skewed but still seem to the close to the mean.

One note though I don't allow votes, comments only on challenge stories - so a lot of my readers come to read or so their emails tell me.

 

[Stimtheone]

Pretty much the standard. I have a 9-part series here that I consider my "flagship". The first chapter is rather short, just ten google doc pages. It has 7.4k views. The "final" chapter only has 2.5k views, which is practically a third, and the epilogue has even less, 1.8k. It's been out enough to have people pass through it. Some just stop somewhere in, I did the same with some stories.

 

[EmilyMiller]

So I published an eight part story recently. The views aren't really that high but I'm pretty happy overall. The reviews have been good. But one little thing is baffling me. Parts five and six of the story have considerably lower views than the rest. I'm a little miffed because I'm particularly proud of part six. Has anyone else experienced this? and if so do you have any guesses about why it would happen? It just seems odd to me to read parts 1-4, skip two parts, then pick it back up.

I’ve only got two chaptered series (Coleoidphilia is more a trilogy) and I see the same - though I seem to have the penultimate work get a boost for some unknown reason:

https://imgur.com/a/TAI7eT4

Em

 

[Bamagan]

I’ve only got two chapters series (Coleoidphilia is more a trilogy) and I see the same - though I seem to have the penultimate work get a boost for some unknown reason:

https://imgur.com/a/TAI7eT4

Em

I've a hypothesis that at least part of the late peaks is related to which day the chapter posts. Some days get a lot more traffic than others, or at least that seems to be the case, so if a story winds up on the front page of the category hub on such a day, it appears to generate some extra 'incidental' views. If the story happens to linger on the front page that probably helps, too.