Help on raising my Author profile? Attracting more comments

[EroticCupcake]

This "How to" by Tx Tall Tales I found super helpful while starting out:
https://www.literotica.com/s/love-your-readers-categories

It does a break down of categories and what the audience is looking for.

 

[intim8]

1. Write compelling stories - be that smoking strokers where it’s all about the sex, or more nuanced works with rounded characters and real emotions / motivations.
2. Publish often. There is so much new stuff flooding this place every day (much of it of questionable quality) that you need to be out there with a new story regularly.

Yup. Without those two, there's nothing there to succeed with.

I'd add a number three (and, note, I am not saying this from any personal experience of success at building an audience), Get out there and do things to direct readers to your work. There's no one big thing, no "one wierd trick", there's a ton of little things, most of which by themselves will bring few or zero new readers. But you never know which ones will work and how much, so try them all. As others have said, the contests, the tag line in your forum posts, hitting multiple categories. Timing your publication to when they will get in front of the most people and/or stay above the fold longer, that kind of stuff. But also, telling your friends, telling people in your social networks (assuming you're open with them about doing this, not everyone is). A bunch of other stuff that I haven't figured out yet.

It's a numbers game, but success in just about anything looks like the picture below. The first part of that is indistinguishable from zero, but it all builds on itself until, one day, that curve turns north and you look like an "overnight success". That is, if you've done #1 and #2 sufficiently for it to be possible at all.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Yup. Without those two, there's nothing there to succeed with.

I'd add a number three (and, note, I am not saying this from any personal experience of success at building an audience), Get out there and do things to direct readers to your work. There's no one big thing, no "one wierd trick", there's a ton of little things, most of which by themselves will bring few or zero new readers. But you never know which ones will work and how much, so try them all. As others have said, the contests, the tag line in your forum posts, hitting multiple categories. Timing your publication to when they will get in front of the most people and/or stay above the fold longer, that kind of stuff. But also, telling your friends, telling people in your social networks (assuming you're open with them about doing this, not everyone is). A bunch of other stuff that I haven't figured out yet.

It's a numbers game, but success in just about anything looks like the picture below. The first part of that is indistinguishable from zero, but it all builds on itself until, one day, that curve turns north and you look like an "overnight success". That is, if you've done #1 and #2 sufficiently for it to be possible at all.

I wish there were better facilities to engage with readers. Mostly threaded comments which would encourage author / reader dialog. Maybe an author AMA page on the profile.

Em

 

[intim8]

I wish there were better facilities to engage with readers. Mostly threaded comments which would encourage author / reader dialog. Maybe an author AMA page on the profile.

Em

No threaded comments (with notifications) has been my biggest pet peeve here. Real private messaging would be a big help too, at least for authors to talk to one another.

I've noticed that a lot of writers are using their profile bio as a blog. That's really wonky to have to do it that way. Even an "author blog" category would be helpful, though there is a "reviews and essays" category. NTH made a big splash with his Loving Wives article there, but it doesn't really fit what I'm talking about.

 

[djrip]

I wish there were better facilities to engage with readers. Mostly threaded comments which would encourage author / reader dialog. Maybe an author AMA page on the profile.

Em

If I felt like doing all that work///I mean socializing, I'm under the impression some authors have like discords or subreddits linked from their bio, and interact with readers there. But something more built in would be nice.

 

[MillieDynamite]

If you want to enter a contest, read the rules for that contest and follow the notation and tagging requirements. You can't retroactively enter a contest, and the story must be published specifically for the contest. Writer more stories, post as frequently as possible, and above all else, love what you write. If you don't, how can you expect others to love it?

 

[ChloeTzang]

This is great feedback. I will have to see if its even possible to change the the category I put them in! I wasn't trying to avoid trolls as I didn't know that was a thing! LOL

Lol. Post a story or two in loving wives and you'll get comments and discover trolls. You can't change a story category - except maybe by asking Laurel. Easier to write a new story