Favoritors and Followers, What gives?

[Mastered_again]

On the first point, if you're viewing your Control Panel through a computer and web browser, the notifications do not differentiate between Favorites (hearts) and "Added to Reading List" (bookmarked, any user can set up multiple 'Reading Lists' and bookmark stories in them). They all get reported on the web-view Control Panel as "Favorites." So it's possible some of the Favorites are simply readers thinking "this is an interesting story, I'll bookmark it for later." Thus, they won't vote because they haven't, as yet, actually read it.

If you download your statistics from the Control Panel and open the file in a spreadsheet, you'll see two columns:
- "In reading lists" - this column is the actual number of Favorites.
- "Reading lists" - this column is the number of Favorites and "Added to Reading List" added together.

Same, so far as I can tell with Followers. I simply take a follow that they were intrigued by something enough to keep some sort of eye on what I'm releasing. Maybe they haven't yet read all the way through, or, they did some time in the past and "ah, I remember this author, I'll follow 'em". All of this indicates they paid some, at least minimal, amount of attention to my stories, so hey, I'm not complaining about whatever the specific form is.

As to comments, there are hundreds of threads on this board kicked off by "how do I get more comments?" or "why doesn't anyone comment?" In the mainstream publishing world, it's like "how can I get reviews? I need reviews!" Some categories seem to have more loquacious readers but most don't. Of my not quite fifty stories, the MAXIMUM number of comments on any one is ten. Yes, ten. Half of my stories have zero or one comment. YMMV.

I hear you, along with others. Lesson learned and I suppose I should count my lucky stars. One story gathered 14 comments. All others 6 or less with several goose eggs.

All that said, I won't change what I writing to chase accolades.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I hear you, along with others. Lesson learned and I suppose I should count my lucky stars. One story gathered 14 comments. All others 6 or less with several goose eggs.

All that said, I won't change what I writing to chase accolades.

Excluding the LW category, if you write really well or really badly, readers will let you know. My rule of thumb, from around 120 stories/chapters over nearly ten years, in 18 or 19 different categories, is one Comment per thousand Views. If a story gets a higher comments ratio than that, it's hit a chord and readers are expressing their appreciation. I can spel, so I don't get the other, except on very rare occasions...

 

[LexxRuthless]

Of late, I've had stories favorited and gained some followers. What strikes me as odd is that none of them voted or commented. I mean, if you like a story or a particular author, wouldn't you follow through to encourage more stories?

One thing I noticed when I was curious about the sort of folks who were following me and my stories was that if I clicked on their profile and looked at their "Favorites" list, most of the time I would find my name or story at the end of a very long list. Most Lit members who use the "Follow" and "Add to Favorites" functions do so very frequently. So, most of the people who follow me aren't really "my" followers -- they follow lots of authors and have no particular reason to vote on my stories. None of my stories have as many votes as I have followers. The ratio of views to votes varies from category to category as well.

Comments have no significant correlation to the number of views or votes a story receives. There are some people who comment frequently, while others never do. I have a handful of fans who follow me and regularly comment on my stories, as well as at least a couple of detractors who crap on everything I write. If you remove those comments from the equation, the rest of my comments are all over the place, and I get one for every 5,000 views or so.

If you weren't aware of it, you have a little "download story stats" icon on your author page. It will give you a current "snapshot" of the statistics on your stories, in the form of a spreadsheet:

 

[Mastered_again]

Well, I guess my bitching paid off. Dumb luck more like, but three feedback emails in one day! Perhaps, I should be blushing

or I'm a sorceress.

So VERY WELL WRITTEN - all portions a pleasure to read. You brought together her emotions and feelings to make the narrative very robust - as well as sharing their back-stories to "round them out". You made both believable and human. Such a switch given the massive amount of "suck and fuck" stories at this site.

Your work is so far above ANY others I have found here – I peruse Literotica ever month or so stumbling onto you today.

I am quite taken by your narratives on a number of levels. You obviously spend a lot of time crafting your stories.

 

[Tomh1966]

Right or wrong, I take it personally. Maybe I'm projecting, but I hope readers find a connection with my characters, and by extension, me. Indulge my inner romantic, would ya?

I love those comments when they say that my writing affected them. I had one that said they had 'wet eyes' at one point of my story. That is a win.