Where do I go from here?

[PrimalDual]

My apologies for bringing up this "evergreen" topic, but I'm about to give up on this site.

I've put about four dozen stories here. Half are in a pair of series of a dozen each, but all are intended to be read and enjoyed singly. I have no impact here whatsoever.

I've tried following advice, such as taking part in the periodic contests (I've done Halloween last year and Sports this year) to gain some visibility. I've chatted with people here on AH. If anything, my visibility has declined since my early stories three years ago. (I've actually dabbled with Lit for a couple of decades or more, but put it aside for a time and forgot my login name and password so I started all over in 2022.) I've tried being patient.

People who post here in AH effortlessly garner tens of thousands of views, dozens of comments, and of course plenty of votes. Good for them. Me, I get 900 to 5000 views and essentially no votes, which I presume to be mainly bots or else bored people clicking. The one exception was 50K views and almost 1000 votes for the purposely bad Halloween story I submitted in the Incest category - go figure.

It's rare that I garner even as many as 10 votes, which seems to be the threshold to achieve Hot status (and presumably get noticed) even if the average score is high enough.

I feel like my works are good-not-great in general, with a few I am proud of. But I'd be prepared to be told no, it's pretty much crap. But I don't even get comments to the stories, constructive or otherwise. Crickets.

Apparently there's 100+ stories published here every single day. I don't like reading them. It's too much, and it's mostly mind-numbingly repetitious. I can hardly blame other readers for feeling the same way.

Now I have a couple of stories in some state of partial to complete first drafts. I'm asking myself this: do I invest the effort to polish and publish, or cut my losses? Or phrased another way, what am I missing?

 

[crookedletter]

I guess what I'd ask is what you're in it for. Why do you write? Why do you publish what you've written?

If your goal is to generate wide acclaim, to get noticed by hoards of readers, then there are probably shortcuts to that. As you noted it seems like posting incest is a quick way to score some views, if you're into that sort of thing.

I only have one story posted here, so a pretty small sample size. It placed in a contest, which was a thrill and probably earned me more views than it might otherwise have gotten. Honestly, though, I would have thought 900 to 5000 views would be pretty cool. Literally hundreds to thousands of people reading your work (depending on how literally you interpret those views).

Comments and votes are great. But your work is getting out there and getting read. To me, that's the point, whether it's 900 people or 90,000. It's more than would read it if you didn't write it, or if you didn't publish it.

 

[PennyThompson]

I don't think your stories are for me, so I'll leave thoughts on writing style and subject matter to someone more immersed in those genres...

But just glancing at your author profile, my first comment would be that your story titles and descriptions have a lot of room for improvement!

A lot of them are single words that don't seem to mean much, and the descriptions don't really illuminate the topic very well either. There are multiple stories published in every category every day, dozens of stories per day in some categories. If your title and description doesn't generate curiosity or excitement or interest at first glance, why would I click on it over something that sounds more promising?

Your jokey Halloween incest story that got 52,000 views, "Halloween Blow Job from Sister Sam?" Regardless of the merits of the story, it tells a potential reader exactly what they're in for

I don't think there's one right way to title and subtitle a story in a way that gets views. The title can be super literal like that one, or they can be more abstract and intriguing, and let the description line say more about what the story is. But one of them, either the title or the description, needs to give the reader an idea of what's going to happen.

 

[crookedletter]

I guess what I'd ask is what you're in it for. Why do you write? Why do you publish what you've written?

If your goal is to generate wide acclaim, to get noticed by hoards of readers, then there are probably shortcuts to that. As you noted it seems like posting incest is a quick way to score some views, if you're into that sort of thing.

I only have one story posted here, so a pretty small sample size. It placed in a contest, which was a thrill and probably earned me more views than it might otherwise have gotten. Honestly, though, I would have thought 900 to 5000 views would be pretty cool. Literally hundreds to thousands of people reading your work (depending on how literally you interpret those views).

Comments and votes are great. But your work is getting out there and getting read. To me, that's the point, whether it's 900 people or 90,000. It's more than would read it if you didn't write it, or if you didn't publish it.

Just to add some additional context, replying to myself.

If you write non erotic fiction and manage to get it picked up, let's say in a literary journal, unless it's the New Yorker you're probably garnering a few dozen readers and are unlikely to hear what a one of them thinks about your work. By all metrics a success, you did it, you're published, but compared to the exposure you get on a site like this you might as well be stuffing your work in a bottle and throwing it out to sea. A couple thousand views is by comparison a blockbuster hit.

 

[OddLove]

I don't really get much traction either. And other than one Gay story, all my other stories are in BDSM.

My advice would be to try getting more value from writing itself. Work on writing a story you like and try caring less what others think. That's the mindset bit of the advice, easier said than done, obviously.

Advice regarding getting more readers. Make sure the title of your stories, as well as the short story description partly explain What The Story Is About. For example, if you write a story about a custodian who hooks up with his powerful lady boss and she gets him a maids uniform and has him working late so they can do naughty stuff. You could call it "Timmy has sex with hot new boss." and give it a description like "Timmy's boss is hot and sexy and horny."

But to grab more attention with descriptive titles and description, like, "Janitor gets a new sexy uniform." then give it a description like "Timmy's sexy boss Kayla requires much more than maid services."

It tells the job, the cross dressing element, the employee/boss dynamic, and the femdom element. So there's several things in the title and description that could grab someone's attention over another story titled something less informative, so as "Hot steam sex with boss."

Best of luck regardless. Keep writing cause you enjoy creating.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Yeah, I'm not doing too much better myself. Nor do I think do most writers. Most of the writers who hang out in the authors Hangout, are more serious about writing than the majority of people who post works on this site. And therefore, they might have more talent, or practice. And so when they get talking about numbers it might be a little disheartening. But really, it's best to just compare yourself to you. Be a Goku, don't be a Vegeta.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I think Penny is pretty much on the mark. You do a lot of BDSM and that's fine but I don't know what the readership is like in that category. But even in those stories, your scores aren't great to be honest. So you need to figure out what it is about your writing that isn't reaching readers.

 

[TheLobster]

I second (third?) @PennyThompson and @OddLove advice that you should look into improving your titles and taglines. They are both important and difficult to get right, but if you don't want to get fancy there is no shame in going for a blunt / straightforward option which smacks the reader on the head with what the erotic content is.

This saying, I believe your problem unfortunately lies deeper than just marketing and presentation. I'll try to phrase it gently but there might be some harsh truths in there.

First, your ratings are generally low. Now, in many cases ratings by itself do not indicate quality, but with some exceptions (hi, PSG!) they usually establish a waterline of quality. Most of your stories seem to languish in the below 4 range, which outside of LW typically indicates missing readers' expectations (subjective) or some actual, objective problems with the writing. I cannot quickly evaluate your entire corpus, of course, so I'll just pick one story at random outside of BSDM which is not my cup of tea.

So, it's "Rules are Rules" because I like the description.

I open it up and skim the first few paragraphs, and, uh, yeah... They are pretty long; they are full of indirect speech instead of dialogue; there is some very weird meandering prose that includes, and I quote, "an interesting philosophical tangent." Well, it wasn't interesting; it pretty much made my eyes glaze over. There's also little in the way of helping me relate with the characters, and it's not even clear where the whole thing takes place until MC offhandedly mentions Singapore, and then there is more talking that is only related in indirect speech, and although there is a very erotically "productive" thread about genitals being depicted in the work of art that MMC and FMC discuss, it doesn't seem to bear any obvious fruits, and...

Well, you get the picture I hope. I feel like I'm attacking a piece of rock with an pickaxe, trying to chip away pieces of interesting content and finding mostly crumbles. I didn't read until the end but there doesn't seem to be much of an erotic action which, let's face, is what people here are mostly looking for (and everything that leads to it). There isn't much of an emotional thread to latch on either, something that'd string me along. Perhaps if I was already invested in a piece of writing it'd be okay to have such sections, but not really as a standalone work.

Indeed, the only comment by anon says as much:

Unusual word construction and sentence structure for Literotica. Most stories are more simplistic in their words and thought. Your work belongs in a novel.

Perhaps that is one issue? I clicked through a few of your other works, and most of them seem short. People here actually do like longer narratives, but they like to be brought along on a journey (with a hopefully happy ending, in more sense than one). It's really difficult to do it in 2k words, much more so than in 12k or 20k.

But other than that, I think your biggest problem is that you're not doing a great job making the reader care. That's the biggest thing here: if the reader doesn't care, he will click away, and he'll be right to do so. Start with some enticing tease then build up on it. Prefer action to exposition. Dialogue, properly punctuated and set in a setting, trumps indirect quoted speech. And above all, try to infuse your writing with emotion and eroticism.

Good luck!

 

[StillStunned]

A few years ago I was in exactly the same boat as you. Then I wrote a story called "Too Cold Not To Fuck", in T/I. Over the next few months I wrote a handful of sequels. Hundreds of thousands of views, thousands of votes, dozens of comments, and scores of followers.

And even with the resulting attention, my SF&F stories and even some E&V stories struggle. A few thousand views is what I've come to expect.

One easy trick is to advertise your new stories in the New Story Advertisments thread in Story Feedback. I've started including a word count and a bit of background as well, to attract more readers who are likely to finish reading and leave a vote.

 

[TheLobster]

A few years ago I was in exactly the same boat as you. Then I wrote a story called "Too Cold Not To Fuck", in T/I.

I tried not to include my succinct yet somewhat flippant advice from earlier today but hey, maybe it’s all there is to it

 

[NuclearFairy]

So, what you all are saying is, if I want my squid people stories to soar, I should go all squid billies on them?

 

[MrPixel]

First, your ratings are generally low. Now, in many cases ratings by itself do not indicate quality, ...

In categories where readership and especially voting counts are low, score trolls can artificially depress scores with a few clicks.

 

[StillStunned]

In categories where readership and especially voting counts are low, score trolls can artificially depress scores with a few clicks.

That doesn't take trolls. If you have a few hundred followers, that's at least a few handfuls of readers who are predisposed to enjoy your content or style. That translates as a bunch of 5* ratings. Without those followers, you have to rely on more objective - or perhaps more critical - voters.

 

[PennyThompson]

So, what you all are saying is, if I want my squid people stories to soar, I should go all squid billies on them?

Help me Step-Tentacle, I'm stuck!

 

[EmilyMiller]

People who post here in AH effortlessly garner tens of thousands of views, dozens of comments, and of course plenty of votes.

It’s not effortlessly for me. It takes a lot of work. Others may have a different experience.

Good for them. Me, I get 900 to 5000 views and essentially no votes,

Many of my stories have under 5,000 views. I write in a lot of different categories and some of them have graveyard-like qualities. SciFi & Fantasy numbers used to be OK, but have declined very rapidly of late. As for Celebrity & Fanfic… tumbleweed. Fetish and BDSM seem slower than before as well.

If what you crave is lots of views, write in the honeypot categories. Notably I/T and Loving Wives. If that’s too rich for your blood. There are mid-ranking categories like Romance, Anal, Group Sex, and Lesbian.

Don’t assume everyone here is racking up hundreds of thousands of views. They aren’t. I’ve clocked up more than 1.5 million views, but that’s across 133 stories and poems on this account, so my average views per story are 11,000. And even that is skewed by just a few stories.

Don’t give up, don’t be discouraged. I’ve been discouraged before, but I need to write, and so here I am.

 

[iwatchus]

So, what you all are saying is, if I want my squid people stories to soar, I should go all squid billies on them?

With thousands of siblings, squids should be able to be the best of GS and T/I! I am not sure if any cephalopods pair bond (do cuddle fish?) so LW is out.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

And troll the Story Ideas forum. Lots of weird stuff there that can be combined into one.

 

[NuclearFairy]

With thousands of siblings, squids should be able to be the best of GS and T/I! I am not sure if any cephalopods pair bond (do cuddle fish?) so LW is out.

Well... A magical squid person could. Also, a squid that raises their offspring would not be having as many at once, otherwise what's the point of raising them? And if you're not raising your offspring, then how can they know that they're siblings, or really even care?

Although! The only ones I have published is about a human squid hybrid, so ya know... But nah, I don't see myself being able to write any true incest.

 

[MrPixel]

If you have a few hundred followers, that's at least a few handfuls of readers who are predisposed to enjoy your content or style. ...

Not necessarily. Not all "followers" are there to praise Caesar.

 

[ronde]

I have not read your stories so I can't comment on writing style or story content. I do have a couple observations that might help you.

The genre you seem to favor tend to have readers with very definite opinions about the content of those stories. Perhaps it would help you to read some of the "Hall of Fame" stories in those genre and compare the style and content to your own work.

The number of reads and votes you're getting might also be the result of the genre. I don't write in those genre so I don't know what a valid expectation for the number of reads and votes would be. Check out the story listings in your preferred genre and you might find out those authors aren't doing much better than you are. There will always be a few authors that find the fight niche, but look at the others as well..

I'm in agreement with some of the commenters above about language use and writing style. Almost all newspapers, magazines, and books both in print and in digital form are written at an 8th grade reading comprehension level. Keep to commonly used words and standard writing conventions or you'll have readers clicking out after the first paragraph and they probably won't waste their time on another of your stories.

Your average rating is about 4.0 but isn't what I'd call a failure given the number of readers on Literotica and how many readers actually leave a vote.

It looks like you get a decent string of stories going in a series and then have a couple bombs. I wonder if those bombs are the result of writing to have something to publish every week instead of a story you've put together that you're proud of. I've done that and it usually doesn't work well.

MY last observation is that almost all your stories were published in the past 12 months. A year may not be enough time for enough readers to find you and develop a following. The only fix for that is to keep writing and improve as you learn more.

 

[SDaddy666]

I'm sorry OP, I can't help you as I'm basically new here and in (English) writing. But I wanted to say that the amount of general advice here is also very useful for someone like me. I don't really care for visibility but for someone who wants to improve, the replies provide very good pointers imho

 

[TheLobster]

Two things which are forgot to mention in my dissecting post above. Hope I didn't sound too grumpy there...

First, I notice you've got almost 50 stories published over little over a year. That's... a lot. And I say it as someone who had a few month-long writing spree and is now up to 30 submissions in a year and a half. Are you sure you are putting enough effort into each piece?

For comparison, and I'm sure everyone is different, in my estimation I spend about an hour writing each thousand words and probably around the same amount of time editing it afterwards. For a 10k story, that's 20 hours of work! And until I found TTS, I'd still let very embarrassing mistakes through (now they are only embarrassing).

I know it may be fun to just bang out some fantasy and send it off for the world to enjoy, but writing good erotica is surprisingly unsexy at times (although still satisfying, though maybe in a, uh, different sense).

Second thing is more straightforward: official contests and unofficial events provide a lot of visibility. Take part in them, polish the stories you submit to them, and you will likely find readership.

 

[StillStunned]

Not necessarily. Not all "followers" are there to praise Caesar.

Fair enough. But unless you go out of your way to piss people off, I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of readers follow a writer for good-faith reasons.

 

[MrPixel]

Fair enough. But unless you go out of your way to piss people off, I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of readers follow a writer for good-faith reasons.

Granted. Problem with the scoring system is what some of us complain about, that one or two entrenched malicious followers can turn an 'H' into <4.0 in a trice when the total vote count struggles to make 20. Again, low readership/low voting categories bear the brunt.

 

[alohadave]

People who post here in AH effortlessly garner tens of thousands of views, dozens of comments, and of course plenty of votes.

Hah. Not effortless.

I looked through your catalog, and you are posting in some niche categories. Humor & Satire, Letter & Transcripts, Erotic Horror are low story count categories. They won't get you a lot of views.

Your titles and descriptions are weak. Many of them don't give people a reason to click on your stories. Vague descriptions are a killer for clicks.