In the first 17...

[Comshaw]

...hours after I published my new story "The Best Job I Ever Had" in Erotic Couplings, it seems to be doing pretty good: 6.8K views, 79 votes and 6 favorites. No comments yet. I rarely put tags on my stories and this one was no exception. I'm happy with how it's doing. Anybody else publish anything lately? how's it doing?

 

[mildlyaroused]

Oh yeah, it sounds like it's doing well. Good job.

I'm always a little surprised to see people flaming EC, calling it a graveyard. My first ever story was in that category and is sitting at 15k views, 4.69/81, 31 favourites, 7 comments. Those numbers aren't awe inspiring, but they're far from nothing.

 

[RejectReality]

Oh yeah, it sounds like it's doing well. Good job.

I'm always a little surprised to see people flaming EC, calling it a graveyard. My first ever story was in that category and is sitting at 15k views, 4.69/81, 31 favourites, 7 comments. Those numbers aren't awe inspiring, but they're far from nothing.

It's just a poor default choice many people fall into when they could be increasing their readership by placing it in an appropriate category with a far larger audience. I made the mistake of ignoring the Mature category and putting my first couple of age-difference stories in EC. Laurel moved one to Mature and it had eclipsed all of the EC ones by more than double in 12 hours. Even the lower readership categories are often a better choice, because they attract followers at a far higher rate than the transient readership of EC.

When it's the right category, it's the right category, but it's typically a last resort choice for me.

====

As to what's out and how it's doing, OWT is doing more or less what I expected. I haven't put anything out as Dark in years. It's only tangentially connected to the larger story and characters in the rest of the Danica universe. It's sex-light ( Mostly brief, transactional sex scenes with a couple of longer, more detailed ones ) and action-light for the Sci-Fi&Fantasy category as well. It's a prostitute turf war, and it's a game of chess rather than crossing swords. Hovering more or less around 40 votes per chapter, a couple of favs, and a comment or two. I enjoy the hell out of it, so anybody reading it is a win, frankly.

We'll see what happens with the unconventional fate of the antagonists and the very conventional happy ending of my band of societal outcasts comes out.

 

[Rob_Royale]

You aren't helping yourself by not using tags. Most readers use them to zero in on their target link. You might have the best CFNM story of all time, but who will know if it doesn't pop up when someone searches for that.

 

[lovecraft68]

You aren't helping yourself by not using tags. Most readers use them to zero in on their target link. You might have the best CFNM story of all time, but who will know if it doesn't pop up when someone searches for that.

I use tags, but have been told I don't use enough and they're all very similar, in other words, I suck at them.

But I don't have any issues getting people to read my stories. That could be because I've been around a long time and have a lot of followers or countless other reasons because everything on this site as countless reasons why a story succeeds or fails.

 

[Comshaw]

It's just a poor default choice many people fall into when they could be increasing their readership by placing it in an appropriate category with a far larger audience. I made the mistake of ignoring the Mature category and putting my first couple of age-difference stories in EC. Laurel moved one to Mature and it had eclipsed all of the EC ones by more than double in 12 hours. Even the lower readership categories are often a better choice, because they attract followers at a far higher rate than the transient readership of EC.

When it's the right category, it's the right category, but it's typically a last resort choice for me.

====

As to what's out and how it's doing, OWT is doing more or less what I expected. I haven't put anything out as Dark in years. It's only tangentially connected to the larger story and characters in the rest of the Danica universe. It's sex-light ( Mostly brief, transactional sex scenes with a couple of longer, more detailed ones ) and action-light for the Sci-Fi&Fantasy category as well. It's a prostitute turf war, and it's a game of chess rather than crossing swords. Hovering more or less around 40 votes per chapter, a couple of favs, and a comment or two. I enjoy the hell out of it, so anybody reading it is a win, frankly.

We'll see what happens with the unconventional fate of the antagonists and the very conventional happy ending of my band of societal outcasts comes out.

Hmmmm...perhaps that's your experience, but not mine. I have 10 stories in that category and every one is doing well: an average vote of 4.60 with a sum of 4,979 votes and a sum of 429,083 views over the ten of them. Not the stats of a top-of-the-heap author, but I ain't a gunna throw rocks at it either.

You aren't helping yourself by not using tags. Most readers use them to zero in on their target link. You might have the best CFNM story of all time, but who will know if it doesn't pop up when someone searches for that.

Maybe so, but I prefer it this way. For one I don't get pigeon-holed as to what I should be writing. I believe (with no way to prove it) that using tags readers begin to feel you should be writing only one type of story. I've had several comments that said they read stories from a particular category and mine, even though it was in that category, didn't match what they thought of as ***** but they really enjoyed it anyway. I've also had a few on the other side, virtually yelling that my story was junk and in the wrong category. But the pro comments outweigh the cons.

I'm sure I could attract more readers with a bunch of tags. But as I said, I prefer to do it the way I do.


Comshaw

 

[RejectReality]

Hmmmm...perhaps that's your experience, but not mine. I have 10 stories in that category and every one is doing well: an average vote of 4.60 with a sum of 4,979 votes and a sum of 429,083 views over the ten of them. Not the stats of a top-of-the-heap author, but I ain't a gunna throw rocks at it either.


Maybe so, but I prefer it this way. For one I don't get pigeon-holed as to what I should be writing. I believe (with no way to prove it) that using tags readers begin to feel you should be writing only one type of story. I've had several comments that said they read stories from a particular category and mine, even though it was in that category, didn't match what they thought of as ***** but they really enjoyed it anyway. I've also had a few on the other side, virtually yelling that my story was junk and in the wrong category. But the pro comments outweigh the cons.

I'm sure I could attract more readers with a bunch of tags. But as I said, I prefer to do it the way I do.


Comshaw

Looking through yours in EC, I would strongly encourage you to give Mature a try for those age-difference stories. While you're doing just fine, I think you're leaving a lot on the table by not presenting those stories to the audience most likely to appreciate them.

I don't write a lot of cheating/cuckold/wittol, so I can't say how those angles will play, but the age-difference is the bread and butter of the Mature category. You'll undoubtedly get more eyes on it than you will in EC.. There's a huge audience there. I would guess you could double your numbers across the board compared to releasing it in EC.