Idea for new Forum: individual author forums

[AwkwardMD]

Bruh, chill. Bring it down to, like, a 6.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

Alas, for my 13 published stories, I've never gotten a DM about one of them. So this does not scratch my itch for more dynamic conversations.

Given the state of DMs and the number I've had to outright ignore, I don't know if getting more of them is a worthwhile goal, at least for some. Maybe it's the nature of my stories (VERY likely) but legit the only DMs I've ever gotten that I felt comfortable answering came from these forums from folks who publicly stated they'd drop me a DM about something.

The rest have me wondering if I leave that conversation, if the other person sees it and if it leaves *all* of my conversations - so then I just end up ignoring them and hoping they go away on their own. One new author to another - that sort of dynamic conversation might not be all its cracked up to be when opened up to just about anyone who wants a parasocial relationship with you.

 

[MelissaBaby]

This reminds me of previous proposals to enable author blogs, a proposal that if recall correctly, was greeted with about as much enthusiasm as a Christmas fruitcake.

 

[PennyThompson]

This reminds me of previous proposals to enable author blogs, a proposal that if recall correctly, was greeted with about as much enthusiasm as a Christmas fruitcake.

I kind of like fruitcake...

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

I kind of like fruitcake...

I've never had a real fruitcake. What's it taste like?

 

[NuclearFairy]

I've never had a real fruitcake. What's it taste like?

Like a fruity treacle turned into superglue for the mouth.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

Like a fruity treacle turned into superglue for the mouth.

No wonder people give it as a gift at some family gatherings...

 

[SimonDoom]

I'd like to see the site, eventually, add the ability for authors to have interactive blog pages. Authors could use them to discuss their writing and to interact with fans. It's probably not going to happen in the short run but I think it would add considerable value to the site.

 

[PennyThompson]

I've never had a real fruitcake. What's it taste like?

Like a snickers bar made of maraschino cherries.
I'm probably not selling it very well.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

Like a snickers bar made of maraschino cherries.
I'm probably not selling it very well.

Actually, that sounded like a good sales pitch to me

 

[AwkwardMD]

Now that we're chill, let's do some numbers stuff.

At time of posting, you've got 144 followers. Of those, I suspect that the number who are even aware of Lit's forum is less than 10. There is a disconnect between the story side and the forum side. This is a thing that is, and must be accepted. Most of your readers are not here for you, they are here to get off and that's okay. We love that. Good for them, and good for you for getting them there.

Second, I see that you've dipped into both Loving Wives and Incest. Those are big categories with above average engagement. For most of this site, you will attract 1 comment per 1000 views. Now, view metrics can get a little fuzzy, so its not exactly 1 view = 1 reader, but its close enough to be able to start to wrap our heads around some of the realities of posting here. 10 readers who even know the forum exists, and 1 in a thousand will bother to leave a comment. That's sad math right there. Not a reflection on you, just a part of the bargain when it comes to posting here.

Engagement is tricky, spotty, and unreliable in ways that are hampered by the site (which I'll get to) and ways which have nothing to do with the site. A non-zero number of your readers are gonna close the tab once they finish. They're not sticking around to see how it ends, they're not voting, and they're definitely not commenting, AND YET you still got them to do the thing. You did that, and that's awesome. Boo, but also yay?

In your OP, you mentioned about moderation preventing conversation, but that's not the problem. The problem is that Lit's comment sections were never designed to allow interaction. They're designed to allow each comment to reflect back on the story in isolation, not to each other. Now, that doesn’t stop us from attempting to respond to each other, but there is no system on the story side to ping users aside from profile updates and story/content publication (which pings all followers, not just one).

There is some good news. Despite recent hiccups, the site is definitely making some behind-the-scenes improvements. We've seen the framework for (but not an implementation of) a feed system that  seems like it might work like tweets. Who knows if/when. I suspect there's more coming after that in terms of planned updates, but the site administration is generally pretty quiet about that shit until they're ready to roll it out.

The Story Feedback Forum is currently your best bet for the thing you are asking for, but you cannot rush interactions with readers and really there's never quite enough feedback from anyone. Lit suffers from a dearth of positive reinforcement about the craft, our content, etc.

Hone your skills. Keep putting out work. Enjoy the ride.

 

[IWroteThis]

The problem is that Lit's comment sections were never designed to allow interaction.

While you might be right about the design intentions, I remember when the implementation allowed it. You could keep refreshing the page and have conversations in nearly real time.

 

[MythicMind]

One challenge I can see with this is the delay in publications. In order for me to link to a forum topic about a story I write, I would have to create the topic *before* I submit the story. So there would be a gap between the post and the story publication. That's why having a dedicated writers page might eliminate this gap.

 

[AwkwardMD]

While you might be right about the design intentions, I remember when the implementation allowed it. You could keep refreshing the page and have conversations in nearly real time.

Never forget what the spam bots stole from us.

 

[MythicMind]

Bruh, chill. Bring it down to, like, a 6.

Chill is my middle name. Ice has to wear a jacket around me. Just wondering about ways to communicate with people. Can you explain why *everyone else* is being weirdly unchill about this idea?

The problem is that Lit's comment sections were never designed to allow interaction. They're designed to allow each comment to reflect back on the story in isolation, not to each other.

Well, yeah, thus my suggestion. I understand that I'm still building a readership, my suggestion had nothing to do with that. It is entirely about the ability to have something closer to a real time conversation rather than waiting days for a response to get through moderation. I am still not seeing the downsides that everyone else seems to be seeing.

 

[AwkwardMD]

One challenge I can see with this is the delay in publications. In order for me to link to a forum topic about a story I write, I would have to create the topic *before* I submit the story. So there would be a gap between the post and the story publication. That's why having a dedicated writers page might eliminate this gap.

If you really want to get super techy, you can usually sort out what the link for a story title is going to be. They follow a pattern of using the title with hyphens between words, followed by a serialized number to account for similarly named stories. One of my recent ones is https://www.literotica.com/s/out-3 and from this we can infer that there were 2 stories on the site prior to publication with the title of "Out"

So, you've got your story. You're ready to hit submit. Take your title, punch it into the site, and see what comes up. Then start adding numbers until you reach the end of the line. You want to title your story "Moms Tits." Turns out there's currently 27 stories titled "Mom's Tits", meaning yours will be number 28. We can reasonably predict your stories address will be https://www.literotica.com/s/moms-tits-28

 

[MythicMind]

This reminds me of previous proposals to enable author blogs, a proposal that if recall correctly, was greeted with about as much enthusiasm as a Christmas fruitcake.

Okay...but why? I would like a place to discuss things with my readers, and as a reader to other writers. It just seems like people on this site don't like to communicate much, at least not without a lot of barriers. I'm trying to figure that out.

 

[EmilyMiller]

There's nothing preventing an author from making their own sort of blog thread, and then linking to it on their signature and profile, I think PSG does this?

I tried this. It didn’t work.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Okay...but why? I would like a place to discuss things with my readers, and as a reader to other writers. It just seems like people on this site don't like to communicate much, at least not without a lot of barriers. I'm trying to figure that out.

The site wasn't designed to do that because it largely predates the modern concepts and understood implementations of social media. Until *very* recently, this place was not much more complex than a Geocities site.

 

[MythicMind]

If you really want to get super techy, you can usually sort out what the link for a story title is going to be.

The problem is the other way...knowing the link of the forum post to put in the story.

 

[AwkwardMD]

Well, yeah, thus my suggestion. I understand that I'm still building a readership, my suggestion had nothing to do with that. It is entirely about the ability to have something closer to a real time conversation rather than waiting days for a response to get through moderation. I am still not seeing the downsides that everyone else seems to be seeing.

It seems like you might not be aware that, as far as anyone knows, Lit is a literal mom and pop shop. There are 2 people (publically, anyway) who run this place, and one of them spends their time moderating the 150-250 stories that get published each day (every day, since 1998).

 

[MythicMind]

The site wasn't designed to do that because it largely predates the modern concepts and understood implementations of social media. Until *very* recently, this place was not much more complex than a Geocities site.

Yeah, I can certainly see that. The exploit, tho, seems to be the forum platform. That's a place where real time conversations can happen...like right now between you and me. Why it is bad that this happen in the context of a story?

 

[MythicMind]

It seems like you might not be aware that, as far as anyone knows, Lit is a literal mom and pop shop. There are 2 people (publically, anyway) who run this place, and one of them spends their time moderating the 150-250 stories that get published each day (every day, since 1998).

Sure, but that seems to be a strong argument FOR my suggestion.

 

[MythicMind]

I tried this. It didn’t work.

I'm curious, when you say "it didn't work", do you mean technically it didn't work or it didn't get the response you were expecting or wanting?

 

[AwkwardMD]

Yeah, I can certainly see that. The exploit, tho, seems to be the forum platform. That's a place where real time conversations can happen...like right now between you and me. Why it is bad that this happen in the context of a story?

Other authors are telling you that they've tried that with limited to little success.

Literotica's strength, as a platform to put your stories on, is the size of the audience who comes here to read. Soak in that for a while. There are other sites that have more wingdings (and lots of us crosspost), but most of us just post here because the reader count is larger than everywhere else by orders of magnitude. Larger than everywhere else combined.

This is the tradeoff (and it is a tradeoff, not a problem you can fix with suggestions that have been made before).