Loving Wives? Not worth it in my opinion.

[FrancesScott]

It’s really weird that people don’t understand the decay curve relating to how stories get views over time. Really weird. It’s a very basic thing about here (and most places where content is posted), which I figured out early on. But facts are useless when you want to argue. I begin to suspect ODD or HCP.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I've had figures like that - and better - in other categories, without the negativity. I believe it was @Soixenta who mentioned in this thread that her story in Erotic Couplings had nearly 16k views - and she's a new writer with only two stories.

So you can get all those delicious, feel-good views in LW if you want, and suffer the backlash from that 40% premium, or you can do just as well in other categories and not deal with the hate. My first Incest story, for instance, had 40k views within the first 24 hours. If it's views you want, that's where you should publish.

It's about "why are you writing at all?"

If you want high ratings, then focus on the more selective categories with subsets of readers looking for a particular fetish.

I prefer the marginally higher views in LW, even if some of them hate the story. I have one story which hit the "sweet spot" with 127K views, but it's only rated 3.27 with 1,554 votes and 99 comments after just over two years. I took my previously favorite swinger couple, and threw them under the bus by having the wife "cheat" just to see the LW reaction.

"What Were You Thinking?" "Husband discovers his wife’s deception."

It's rated low because (besides my shitty writing) the husband doesn't "burn the bitch!"

So, when it comes to those who HATE the LW audience reaction, ... stick with what you like. Leave that LW category to those of us who like having some fun with our audience.

My latest story (linked below) was another test to see how they'd react to a sharing story, when the reader must struggle to call the husband a pathetic wimp.

 

[yowser]

It sounds like you did your experiment and got results that worked in the sense that the data will shape your further writing, so maybe my perspective doesn't make much difference.

Like you, I write the story and then decide where it will go, and while there are many motivations to story-telling, I think in general that is a sensible approach.

My first LW story was entirely inadvertent - it got 'category reassignment' surgery from the ruling powers (instead of my 'group sex' designation.) So my 'first time LW experience' was a bit of a jolt to the system.

I know the 'mileage varies' business, but that story, speaking from a long range career here, sent a whole pile of followers my way, the commentary made my head hurt (felt like a barroom debate on a whole 'nother planet) and was an eye-opener all around.

And I think a lot all depends on the nature of the story. My last (probably final) LW story (although many LW themes still interest me) was a twist on the fascination LW readership has on consequences. It was not normal fare (it is the woman who takes her pound of flesh out of the cheating husband) but I was still astonished at the results. An order of magnitude more voting, almost three times the highest vote count for my next highest story, which was a not negligible 794. The usual brainless assortment of comments, including one that criticised a factual detail which the commenter got completely wrong, but the result was entirely satisfying for me.

But, sounds like your education served its purpose, and while I don't know the entire scope of your writing motivations, I would just say that in the future I would hate to have you actively avoid the category if the story fits. Godspeed.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I don't go in it that much, I don't read much here in general. I talk about every so often a layout I did years ago, that I thought would piss off the degens there. It somehow wandered from that, but I don't care, I'd rather write something authentic that they could hate, than intentionally just to piss off the degens.

Maybe one day I will... maybe it'll be this one I laid out a few days ago about a wife who demands an open relationship. I planned on it going in interacial, then realized it could be those degens next "enemy". I'm one of few that doesn't give too many fucks about a Red H, but I still curse that epiphany that brought on an unneccessary pondering of where I should put it.

 

[FrancesScott]

It sounds like you did your experiment and got results that worked in the sense that the data will shape your further writing

No, it won’t shape my further writing whatsoever. It merely taught me to avoid LW.

It’s also interesting that ad hominem attacks in comments have migrated to my other works after publishing In The Eye Of The Beholder. Lots of angry people with time on their hands in the category.

 

[Actingup]

No, it won’t shape my further writing whatsoever. It merely taught me to avoid LW.

It’s also interesting that ad hominem attacks in comments have migrated to my other works after publishing In The Eye Of The Beholder. Lots of angry people with time on their hands in the category.

That sucks. I’ve been luckier there in the sense that direct attacks have only happened within the LW context, and only a few personally directed. But it is a known risk of publishing to that audience. My defence of LW does not extend to defending the sludge dwellers lurking in the (mostly reasonable) audience.

 

[iwatchus]

I seem to have been lucky. My lone LW got plenty of comments, easily the most of any of my stories, but none with the kind of vitriol many others get. In retrospect, I somewhat fed the wolves without really taunting them. It was not my best writing or my best story. (It was my first thing I wrote outside my original series and it shows.) It was kind of a soft BTB story, with a likable (more or less) MMC and a very dislikable FMC. I had not written it for LW, but it made sense once it was done. My nastiest comment was telling me I should have put it in SF&F, where I was thinking when I wrote it.

If I wrote another one that turned out to be appropriate, I would post it there again, but I will never write something targeted at that category. Typical for the category, it has my most votes (by a lot), tied for the most favorites, the most comments (by almost a factor of 2) and the second most views. And easily the lowest rating. So all the usuals for the category except the nasty comments.

 

[FrancesScott]

That sucks. I’ve been luckier there in the sense that direct attacks have only happened within the LW context, and only a few personally directed. But it is a known risk of publishing to that audience. My defence of LW does not extend to defending the sludge dwellers lurking in the (mostly reasonable) audience.

My observation is that misogyny and ‘traditional’ views are rife in the category. Lots of people angry at women, when the cause is probably closer to home.

 

[ElectricBlue]

My observation is that misogyny and ‘traditional’ views are rife in the category. Lots of people angry at women, when the cause is probably closer to home.

Yep, that was blazingly obvious in the few stories I read, back in the first week I discovered Lit, a decade ago. The biggest shift in the thread commentary over time (the chasm across Lit has been a rolling AH topic forever) has been in the last five years or so, with the increasing number of folk writing about cuckoldry as a sexual kink in its own right. Which is a head scratcher, for me.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Yep, that was blazingly obvious in the few stories I read, back in the first week I discovered Lit, a decade ago. The biggest shift in the thread commentary over time (the chasm across Lit has been a rolling AH topic forever) has been in the last five years or so, with the increasing number of folk writing about cuckoldry as a sexual kink in its own right. Which is a head scratcher, for me.

The LW category is SUPPOSED to be about extra-marital FUN and sharing.

And IMO negative labels the haters apply comes from insecurities and immature jealousies, things they learned in high school and carried with them afterwards.

Those who can get past such things realize they don't OWN their spouse's body, treating them like a sex slave or blow-up doll. They can even enjoy seeing their spouse have fun. It sometimes takes a failed marriage or two for some to realize that the way to make their marriage work is to work at seeing your spouse enjoy their life with you, even when their desires inevitably change over time.

The LW stories I don't care to read are those "burn the bitch" stories about those insecure types whining about their spouse having gotten bored by their indifference.

 

[FrancesScott]

Yep, that was blazingly obvious in the few stories I read, back in the first week I discovered Lit, a decade ago.

I guess I’m an experimentalist. That means something blows up in your face every now and again.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

This thread prompted me to go back and look at the stats for the two stories that I have posted in Loving Wives.

I'm somewhat surprised that I hadn't realized until today that this first story not only has the second highest number of comments for all of my stories, it also has the second highest vote-to-view ratio. If you ever want to read some vastly differing views in reader comments, this is one you should check out.

The other story simply had too many twists and turns for many readers to comprehend, as evident from the comments. Those readers that got the plot really enjoyed it, but not enough fit that bill.

In the grand scheme of things, both are successful, even if their scores are among my lowest.

 

[Lifestyle66]

This thread prompted me to go back and look at the stats for the two stories that I have posted in Loving Wives.
View attachment 2563731
I'm somewhat surprised that I hadn't realized until today that this first story not only has the second highest number of comments for all of my stories, it also has the second highest vote-to-view ratio. If you ever want to read some vastly differing views in reader comments, this is one you should check out.

The other story simply had too many twists and turns for many readers to comprehend, as evident from the comments. Those readers that got the plot really enjoyed it, but not enough fit that bill.
View attachment 2563736
In the grand scheme of things, both are successful, even if their scores are among my lowest.

When you copy and paste your story links, highlight the links on your author page to copy (Ctrl-C) and paste (Ctrl-V) it here, instead of the PNG snapshot. It provides the same info, but includes the dynamic link to click on so we can reach your story. You just need to add some spaces to the number string after the word "PUBLISHED"

A Band of Sisters and Brothers
To we few, we happy few, we Band of Brothers!
07/12/2025 in Loving Wives Stories

PUBLISHED 3.09 / 192 9 13.2k 10

 

[BobbyBrandt]

When you copy and paste your story links, highlight the links on your author page to copy (Ctrl-C) and paste (Ctrl-V) it here, instead of the PNG snapshot. It provides the same info, but includes the dynamic link to click on so we can reach your story. You just need to add some spaces to the number string after the word "PUBLISHED"

A Band of Sisters and Brothers
To we few, we happy few, we Band of Brothers!
07/12/2025 in Loving Wives Stories

PUBLISHED 3.09 / 192 9 13.2k 10

I understand, and purposely didn't link to the stories.

I didn't want people to think that I wanted them to read the stories, just for them to see the stats. I also don't link to my stories in my signature.

 

[CalBishForNow]

This thread prompted me to go back and look at the stats for the two stories that I have posted in Loving Wives.

[snip]

In the grand scheme of things, both are successful, even if their scores are among my lowest.

I'm not surprised The Voice in my Head was popular. It's not a traditional BTB story where the cheater is unrepentant until she gets punished by her husband's deliberate actions, but it still very consistent with the general BTB tropes and themes.

More generally, I find it interesting that those are your lowest when they're still solidly over 4.0 out of 5. Maybe LW is logical and the rest of the has oddly inflated ratings? The star system says that 3 stars is "average," so shouldn't the average be 3.0?

Not exactly. There obviously is a site-wide norm that LW is out of step with, and I certainly don't like the "cuck shit" type of comments. It's just that while LW has obvious problems, I also think it's interesting how easy it is to get a high score in most other categories. Looking at the 23 stories in the "new" section of Group Sex that have ratings right now, I see only 8 rated below 4.0, and only one of those is below 2.0. Sorry if this makes me sound like a crotchety old man, but if only 8 kids in a class got a B or worse, we'd complain about grade inflation. I know that's just a snapshot of just one category, I'm sure someone has done a more rigorous look than that at what the average is (maybe it's already in this thread, I'm not going to reread it now), but I think the trend holds. LW, love it or hate it, is the place where "average" seems closer to what's actually average.

Five of my first nine stories have the red "HOT" box by them, and none of my first 12 are below 4.0. (None of them were in LW.) I don't have extensive writing experience elsewhere and didn't do anything to game the scores, that's just what I got by writing the kind of stories I enjoyed. Until I started in LW, that is, where popularity takes a lot more than good grammar and lots of sex.

 

[FrancesScott]

I'm not surprised The Voice in my Head was popular. It's not a traditional BTB story where the cheater is unrepentant until she gets punished by her husband's deliberate actions, but it still very consistent with the general BTB tropes and themes.

More generally, I find it interesting that those are your lowest when they're still solidly over 4.0 out of 5. Maybe LW is logical and the rest of the has oddly inflated ratings? The star system says that 3 stars is "average," so shouldn't the average be 3.0?

Not exactly. There obviously is a site-wide norm that LW is out of step with, and I certainly don't like the "cuck shit" type of comments. It's just that while LW has obvious problems, I also think it's interesting how easy it is to get a high score in most other categories. Looking at the 23 stories in the "new" section of Group Sex that have ratings right now, I see only 8 rated below 4.0, and only one of those is below 2.0. Sorry if this makes me sound like a crotchety old man, but if only 8 kids in a class got a B or worse, we'd complain about grade inflation. I know that's just a snapshot of just one category, I'm sure someone has done a more rigorous look than that at what the average is (maybe it's already in this thread, I'm not going to reread it now), but I think the trend holds. LW, love it or hate it, is the place where "average" seems closer to what's actually average.

Five of my first nine stories have the red "HOT" box by them, and none of my first 12 are below 4.0. (None of them were in LW.) I don't have extensive writing experience elsewhere and didn't do anything to game the scores, that's just what I got by writing the kind of stories I enjoyed. Until I started in LW, that is, where popularity takes a lot more than good grammar and lots of sex.

You are misinterpreting what 3.0 means. It’s not an average score. It never is when there is a five star rating system. I guess that a par score is probably something like 4.25. A top decile score is probably 4.65 - 4.70.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

More generally, I find it interesting that those are your lowest when they're still solidly over 4.0 out of 5. Maybe LW is logical and the rest of the has oddly inflated ratings? The star system says that 3 stars is "average," so shouldn't the average be 3.0?

These two stories were clear departures from what I typically publish here, mostly in Novels/Novellas.

I mention the complexity of these two as what I feel is the major contributing factor to them scoring lower than most of my other stories. The LW reader feedback tends to corroborate this. Those readers who caught the nuances and were able to navigate the twists and turns were quite positive, while those who couldn't were pretty expressive in their displeasure. I take pride in the wife from "The Voice in my Head" being considered "the most evil character on Literotica" by so many readers. That indicates that I nailed her character perfectly.

I've never been one to track votes as either 1's or 5's, but considering how many commenters claimed to have given the story a 1, there has to be a boatload of 5's being voted for the story to consistently remain at a 4.19.

 

[iwatchus]

You are misinterpreting what 3.0 means. It’s not an average score. It never is when there is a five star rating system. I guess that a par score is probably something like 4.25. A top decile score is probably 4.65 - 4.70.

Varies pretty widely by category. I think the median score in a category like Romance is closer to 4.5, while more like 4 in LW. I don't know if @Actingup has more precise medians. He could calculate other percentiles with his approach pretty easily as well. Of course, he is asleep at the moment (or should be), given the time in his corner of the planet.

 

[Gamblnluck]

Not exactly. There obviously is a site-wide norm that LW is out of step with, and I certainly don't like the "cuck shit" type of comments. It's just that while LW has obvious problems, I also think it's interesting how easy it is to get a high score in most other categories. Looking at the 23 stories in the "new" section of Group Sex that have ratings right now, I see only 8 rated below 4.0, and only one of those is below 2.0. Sorry if this makes me sound like a crotchety old man, but if only 8 kids in a class got a B or worse, we'd complain about grade inflation. I know that's just a snapshot of just one category, I'm sure someone has done a more rigorous look than that at what the average is (maybe it's already in this thread, I'm not going to reread it now), but I think the trend holds. LW, love it or hate it, is the place where "average" seems closer to what's actually average.

I totally agree. I do not believe that everything (like grades) should be on a bell curve, but when you see virtually every story in a category getting above a 4 you know they are NOT all that good.
One thing that LW comments cover are 1. over the top responses 2. Plot holes the size of Grand Canyon. 3 ridiculous legal activities (part of a number of the BTB stories).
I often tell people that if you add a little logic to a story, you will get a better response. Logic does NOT mean reality. It means it conforms with human nature to some degree.
A lot of my stories deal with humiliation. One of my most common comment is why in the world would that MC submit, so I have to go to extra lengths to show a reason. Just saying 'he did and that's how I left it' is not good enough for most of my readers. Answering the question of why in the world would a person NOT rebel makes for the rest of the story.

 

[Gamblnluck]

You are misinterpreting what 3.0 means. It’s not an average score. It never is when there is a five star rating system. I guess that a par score is probably something like 4.25. A top decile score is probably 4.65 - 4.70.

You are talking the difference of what average should mean as opposed to scoring. When I read a story and my thoughts are, it was okay, it gets a 3. If I enjoy it and think I'd really shake the author's hand and tell him 'well done!', it gets a 4 or a 5. (But ONLY then).
i overlook grammar mistakes and misspellings unless they interfere with the reading. I look for the story telling. But then I guess I am a picky reader.

 

[Lifestyle66]

These two stories were clear departures from what I typically publish here, mostly in Novels/Novellas.

I mention the complexity of these two as what I feel is the major contributing factor to them scoring lower than most of my other stories. The LW reader feedback tends to corroborate this. Those readers who caught the nuances and were able to navigate the twists and turns were quite positive, while those who couldn't were pretty expressive in their displeasure. I take pride in the wife from "The Voice in my Head" being considered "the most evil character on Literotica" by so many readers. That indicates that I nailed her character perfectly.

I've never been one to track votes as either 1's or 5's, but considering how many commenters claimed to have given the story a 1, there has to be a boatload of 5's being voted for the story to consistently remain at a 4.19.

I just read "The Voice in My Head".

The only negative thing I saw was you tended to spend too much time explaining the telepathy connection. Excessive explanations can come across as talking down to the audience. And I didn't pick up on her as being evil, merely selfish.

I gave it a 5. But I can see why many others in the LW audience did the same, since she suffered the consequences of losing her husband just for a quick, unsatisfying affair.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I just read "The Voice in My Head".

The only negative thing I saw was you tended to spend too much time explaining the telepathy connection. Excessive explanations can come across as talking down to the audience. And I didn't pick up on her as being evil, merely selfish.

I gave it a 5. But I can see why many others in the LW audience did the same, since she suffered the consequences of losing her husband just for a quick, unsatisfying affair.

Thanks for your feedback. It does add another possible contributing factor.

 

[Actingup]

Varies pretty widely by category. I think the median score in a category like Romance is closer to 4.5, while more like 4 in LW. I don't know if @Actingup has more precise medians. He could calculate other percentiles with his approach pretty easily as well. Of course, he is asleep at the moment (or should be), given the time in his corner of the planet.

Right, let's do this as a worked example. The query:
https://search.literotica.com/?query= &categories=15&period=1 year&sort=vote&page=1
give us 40 pages of results, 50 results per page and a total of 1982 Stories in Romance for the past 12 months.

A very small handful of stories are unrated. If we ignore those, the median ranked story is around the 1982/2 mark, or around the 991th story, and is scored 4.52. If we remove the unrated stories, it's 4.53.

Repeating the exercise for all years gives us 26143 stories, 25993 of which are rated. The median score is exactly the same: 4.53.

I did the other percentiles for all Literotica stories last time (graph below) - I'm going to suggest that Romance probably sits a little above the teal dotted line in the graph given that the median is slightly higher. If anybody has time to go through the process, feel free!

 

[sirhugs]

Right, let's do this as a worked example. The query:
https://search.literotica.com/?query= &categories=15&period=1 year&sort=vote&page=1
give us 40 pages of results, 50 results per page and a total of 1982 Stories in Romance for the past 12 months.

A very small handful of stories are unrated. If we ignore those, the median ranked story is around the 1982/2 mark, or around the 991th story, and is scored 4.52. If we remove the unrated stories, it's 4.53.

Repeating the exercise for all years gives us 26143 stories, 25993 of which are rated. The median score is exactly the same: 4.53.

I did the other percentiles for all Literotica stories last time (graph below) - I'm going to suggest that Romance probably sits a little above the teal dotted line in the graph given that the median is slightly higher. If anybody has time to go through the process, feel free!

View attachment 2563859

Fascinating

 

[sirhugs]

I began posting stories because I had an LW fantasy that I could not get out of my brain. That turned into a series of stories. I did not pay attention to scores, just enjoyed the experience. Over time, I diversified into other categories, and took a long hiatus from LW. No longer being married might have a lot to do with it.

So long in fact, that I decided to write Not Another Loving Wives Tale! in 2022. Sort of a "20th Lit anniversary" present to myself. It actually got better scores than I expected (though not great compared to my other stories), but it has become my most commented upon story. Not all are positive, but I have broad shoulders and can take the knocks with a grain of salt. The positive ones make it worthwhile.

Haven't returned to LW since, but that is because my muse hasn't offered up suitable ideas. I would post there again.