The now fully official Author’s Hangout Halloween 2025 competition support thread

[EmilyMiller]

Mine is in Romance and I have 3600 views and 97 votes after 8 days, which is more miserly than is usual, particularly since I estimate a good ten or so of these votes are "shenanigarly" LOL

That’s low for Romance, I agree. I wonder how many other stories were published the same day?

Having said that, I’ve had stories at the top of their category page and on page one of new stories and still had low views.

Something feels qualitatively different. Maybe people are worried about accessing porn in the current environment.

 

[TheDok]

That's an interesting thought. Why would people be worried about accessing porn? I assume you mean in the US?

 

[EmilyMiller]

assume you mean in the US?

I know it’s an international site, and I don’t know the actual numbers, but I would assume that we account for a big chunk of views.

 

[Eisenloewe]

More generally, my personal perspective had been that the comp effect has somewhat deteriorated over time. But I think this is a part of the general issue that writers face here. Readers have gone up by X%, numbers of stories published have gone up by Y%, Y > X, and so views per story have gone down.

It used to be possible to at least get mid-level views outside of the honeypot categories, but things like SF&F are now graveyards with respect to views. What seems to be holding up is categories like E&V, Group, Lesbian, and Anal (maybe Mature as well, but I don’t write Mature very often).

Erotic Horror - pertinent to this thread - seems quieter than SF&F.

This is interesting. I've never really thought about category effects like that before. But wouldn't an increase in published stories per active reader increase the benefit of writing for challenges and competitions, just because those will stand out a little more and at least briefly have one prominent front-page link to the compendium? Or is what you really mean that because participation in challenges and competitions has increased (the Halloween stories page certainly seems to be rocking this year), even participating in them doesn't boost your views/reviews/comments that much because even active readers don't have time to read everything submitted for a challenge or competition?

For what it's worth, the lower submission pace of less-used categories may help views just because a published story will stay on the front page of that category for longer (I see that on its second day, my Halloween submission in Fetish has only moved down to the fifth spot from the top on that category page). I don't put too much stock in that myself, though, because just personally, I almost never go to the front page of a category and just "see what's new." I read for challenges and competitions (which is plenty of reading material right there; I still haven't worked my way through all of the Crime & Punishment and Dark Fairy Tales material that I wanted to read, let alone Halloween), then read more works by authors whose stories in challenges and competitions stood out to me there. I also have found some good material based on the "Similar Stories" recommendations when I read my own works and see what the Literotica Morlocks have come up with. (I found my all-time favorite works on Literotica that latter way.)

Mine is in Romance and I have 3600 views and 97 votes after 8 days, which is more miserly than is usual, particularly since I estimate a good ten or so of these votes are "shenanigarly" LOL

This is also interesting because of the votes-per-view ratio, not just the total views. That's far higher than even my highest. I wonder if that's category-dependent, i.e., certain categories' readership is more likely (on a per-view basis) to rate and/or comment. I haven't been able to determine any pattern based on my own submissions, and my six stories actually span five different categories. (I hadn't set out to be quite so erotically ecumenical, but so it went.)

 

[EmilyMiller]

This is also interesting because of the votes-per-view ratio, not just the total views. That's far higher than even my highest. I wonder if that's category-dependent, i.e., certain categories' readership is more likely (on a per-view basis) to rate and/or comment.

Romance has a high vote to view ratio. Each category has its own characteristics.

 

[DEFCOM5]

@EmilyMiller, nice reference to the shinning in your painting post!

 

[EmilyMiller]

Or is what you really mean that because participation in challenges and competitions has increased (the Halloween stories page certainly seems to be rocking this year), even participating in them doesn't boost your views/reviews/comments that much because even active readers don't have time to read everything submitted for a challenge or competition?

Views in aggregate are apparently up, based on some site announcements. Ignoring the recent submission black hole, the number of stories published is also up, again based on both observation and site announcements.

My hypothesis is that the increase in stories exceeds the growth in readers, and so views per story decreases. That would apply to all stories, including comp ones.

But - as you say - the number of comp submissions also relentlessly increases, leaving less eyeballs for each one.

There may also be a dip in views relating to some U.S. states requiring ID to access adult content. But I don’t have any data on that.

 

[EmilyMiller]

@EmilyMiller, nice reference to the shinning in your painting post!

Thanks - watch out for other movie references in coming days

 

[Eisenloewe]

Something feels qualitatively different. Maybe people are worried about accessing porn in the current environment.

I was shadowbanned on reddit because I exclusively use Tor browser for NSFW content, and I didn't know I was stepping on a landmine there (reddit presumes that all accounts created through Tor are spam/scam and immediately shadowbanned, with an appeals process that makes a black hole seem transparent). I give Literotica serious props for remaining Tor-friendly.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I was shadowbanned on reddit because I exclusively use Tor browser for NSFW content, and I didn't know I was stepping on a landmine there (reddit presumes that all accounts created through Tor are spam/scam and immediately shadowbanned, with an appeals process that makes a black hole seem transparent). I give Literotica serious props for remaining Tor-friendly.

We live in interesting times.

 

[TheDok]

That’s low for Romance, I agree. I wonder how many other stories were published the same day?

Having said that, I’ve had stories at the top of their category page and on page one of new stories and still had low views.

Something feels qualitatively different. Maybe people are worried about accessing porn in the current environment.

Another thought. The announcement for the Halloween contest, quite apart from being hidden, implies and promises erotic horror stories. Why would someone wanting to read Romance look there? Unless the competition entry list is a highly visible list showing the genre of entrants, this will always be a problem, and in the future I will devote my time to April Fool or Winter holidays, where there are no such preconceptions. My bad, I guess. Never mind/

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Interesting, given all the recent concern here. I submitted my tale late yesterday and it is now shown as going up tomorrow.

 

[DEFCOM5]

I just submitted my first ever contest entry, Gypsy Lake.
It will not be in contention. That was not my goal
It is in the SF/F category so I am hoping for 2-3K views which would be in competition for my lowest read story ever.
Now I am hoping it does not get caught in the "pending" bug!

 

[EmilyMiller]

Interesting, given all the recent concern here. I submitted my tale late yesterday and it is now shown as going up tomorrow.

Yay!

Most stories have been processed as normal. It just seems a higher percentage have got stuck and stayed stuck.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I just submitted my first ever contest entry, Gypsy Lake.
It will not be in contention. That was not my goal
It is in the SF/F category so I am hoping for 2-3K views which would be in competition for my lowest read story ever.
Now I am hoping it does not get caught in the "pending" bug!

Good luck

 

[MelissaBaby]

Interesting, given all the recent concern here. I submitted my tale late yesterday and it is now shown as going up tomorrow.

Same here. Of course, my Crime and Punishment story is still in limbo.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Yay!

Most stories have been processed as normal. It just seems a higher percentage have got stuck and stayed stuck.

I assume stories are being scanned for the Halloween notification and given some degree of priority.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Same here. Of course, my Crime and Punishment story is still in limbo.

Really? That sucks

 

[EmilyMiller]

I assume stories are being scanned for the Halloween notification and given some degree of priority.

You would assume

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

My entry has been submitted as of a few minutes ago. I was so excited a few days ago to have my first draft completed, but then I found a section was missing and a couple others had to be reworked. Still, it's the earliest I've been able to submit in a while.

 

[EmilyMiller]

My entry has been submitted as of a few minutes ago. I was so excited a few days ago to have my first draft completed, but then I found a section was missing and a couple others had to be reworked. Still, it's the earliest I've been able to submit in a while.

Yay

 

[Eisenloewe]

Same here. Of course, my Crime and Punishment story is still in limbo.

I finally gave up on mine and pulled it just two days ago. I figure the challenge will be run against next year and I'll have it ready to go.

 

[Dark_Logan_]

The way it’s going around Lit at the moment the Halloween stories will be live just in time for annual Valentines Competition

 

[iwatchus]

The way it’s going around Lit at the moment the Halloween stories will be live just in time for annual Valentines Competition

Unlike Crime and Punishment, it seems like the halloween stories are actually being approved in a timely manner. There are complaints about the site's promotion of the entrants, but in at least the Nude Day contest, the major promotion of the contest was after the winners were announced. But as long as everyone gets at least 25 votes before the prizes are decided, do any of the authors really care about when that promotion is?

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Another thought. The announcement for the Halloween contest, quite apart from being hidden, implies and promises erotic horror stories. Why would someone wanting to read Romance look there? Unless the competition entry list is a highly visible list showing the genre of entrants, this will always be a problem, and in the future I will devote my time to April Fool or Winter holidays, where there are no such preconceptions. My bad, I guess. Never mind/

The contest story listing not having the category shown helps on this in a way since some readers may give a different category a chance, but I think you're right that some readers will shell out and try something else when they see non-favored categories or those that don't seem as associated with an event. While Romance stories often do well in all types of contests, sometimes including Halloween, Halloween readers generally wouldn't think Romance first or maybe even tenth with regard to category when they're looking for spooky or scary Halloween stories.

As a check, I've done one Halloween Romance story. It was a fun tale but wasn't really in contention. I've also done a Halloween Mature story that I just compared it to. The Romance was more fun and definitely had a more creative storyline, but other than score (less than 0.2 difference at contest end), the Mature story's stats are roughly twice those of the Romance story. The Mature story just missed placing.

A sample size of two is way too small to be meaningful, but I recall having these same thoughts as those two contests were running and, you guessed it, this year's story is in Mature.