Is Literotica still the place to get maximum views on your erotica?

[ElectricBlue]

I might be new here, but I’m not new to either writing, or to erotica.

I wasn't referring to you specifically, because I have no idea of your history.

It was a general comment, more in response to your comment that many of us might have forgotten how we started. I don't think that's the case, is all I was saying.

 

[SimonDoom]

I’m going to be accused of casting shade of being bitchy, I just know, but:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gravid

I concur with 8Letters on this point, as well as on most of the others.

This is the way I look at it: Your story is your art. The rest is marketing. Write the story the way you want, sticking to your artistic guns, but be practical about everything else: category choice, title, tagline, tags, etc.

The issue is not whether "gravid" is in the dictionary. The issue is whether the term "gravid" does the BEST job of conveying what the story is about to attract the readership you want. The obvious answer is "no." Be simple and practical and make it "The Pregnant Games." Not everybody agrees with me about this, but you obviously are interested in view numbers, and if that's what you are interested in keep it relatively simple and clear. You have to make an impression on a potential reader in just an instant.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I wasn't referring to you specifically, because I have no idea of your history.

It was a general comment, more in response to your comment that many of us might have forgotten how we started. I don't think that's the case, is all I was saying.

Too true, Blue. I remember my start as if it was yesterday. LOL.

The issue is not whether "gravid" is in the dictionary. The issue is whether the term "gravid" does the BEST job of conveying what the story is about to attract the readership you want. The obvious answer is "no." Be simple and practical and make it "The Pregnant Games." Not everybody agrees with me about this, but you obviously are interested in view numbers, and if that's what you are interested in keep it relatively simple and clear. You have to make an impression on a potential reader in just an instant.

Yup! The story I'm working on now has a Latin title, but the secondary title make the meaning of the Latin clear - I might jave to swap it because of length, but either way it's clear to the reader - the moment you make them have to think, you throw them out of the story - and if you do that with the title, it's worse imho

Footnotes and explanations are for textbooks, not fiction. If you throw in something like that, you have to work somethimg into the story to allow instant comprehension without conscious thought. The moment someone stops to think, they're out of it and you'bve lost them.

I always use that Heinlein example. "The door dilated." No fancy explanations. No technology. Just a simple three word statement that conveys something very different but without any thiyght on the readers part needed.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

It never occurred to me that people wouldn't know "gravid." I've known of it's technical use since I was a kid, because I'm a long-time aquarium keeper and the term is used in fish breeding. I've known it's non-technical use for about as long.

Ditto, and I also kept fish since I was a preteen. I first heard it applied to guppies.

--Annie

 

[SimonDoom]

Too true, Blue. I remember my start as if it was yesterday. LOL.

Me, too. Now if I could only remember what actually DID happen yesterday . . .

 

[ElectricBlue]

Me, too. Now if I could only remember what actually DID happen yesterday . . .

I'm not in my dotage yet, despite the occasional bemused look from my daughter.

 

[alohadave]

It’s that like Omertà?

I meant like you've figured out how many threads work here.

 

[alohadave]

Be simple and practical and make it "The Pregnant Games." Not everybody agrees with me about this, but you obviously are interested in view numbers, and if that's what you are interested in keep it relatively simple and clear. You have to make an impression on a potential reader in just an instant.

I'm totally on board. There are many stories that you have no idea what they are about going on the title and description. If I can't figure out from a glance what the story is about, I pass on it.

 

[NotWise]

I am the king of uninformative titles and short descriptions. There are worse things to be good at.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm not in my dotage yet, despite the occasional bemused look from my daughter.

Me either, but I run with the joke because of remarks from my kids as well.

 

[caleb35]

I honestly haven't tried a lot of the alternatives.

But my newer stories tend to get a lot more views than my ones from 2021 did. And it's not like I have a huge following, so it's not down to that.

There's a huge audience here. Seems to have grown, not shrunk.

I'd like to ask about this. I do think Literotica likely remains the best place to get the most views. However, in terms of audience growth, I've actually received fewer views, fewer ratings, and fewer favorites over the last few years. That's PARTICULARLY been the case since 2020. Meanwhile I think my story quality has improved and the scores have gone up as well on average (if only marginally). Is the readership on Literotica actually growing or not?

 

[TheRedLantern]

I'd like to ask about this. I do think Literotica likely remains the best place to get the most views

I had asked this question several months ago when I was first thinking that I was ready to try sharing my work in an uncontrolled manner. My main source was the eroticauthors subreddit, which is a pretty diverse group of authors, most of whom publish their work professionally. This subject comes up from time to time and they don't seem to have any particular horse in this race, unlike most of us who are here on Lit and so may be biased. I just did some quick searches of that forum to see if the opinion had shifted, but it's pretty consistent.

AO3 is the king in all respects, even when posting OC as opposed to fan fiction. More views. More types of stories allowed. Less hassle.

Lit is second, but a very distant one. There were more threads asking whether it was smarter to pull their content from Lit than threads asking if it was a good idea to put content here.

Lit also allows more ways to drive readers to your paid content, if that's your goal (and on that subreddit, this is always the goal). But the viewership of AO3 seems to be a behemoth that you can't fight.

There are intangibles to Lit that don't get factored in (like the reputation for quality), but the original question was "Is Literotica still the place to get maximum views on your erotica?" and I'm pretty convinced that the answer is "no" and has been for a little while.

Before I get pummeled, I'll disclaim everything above by saying that I did this research and then intentionally chose to publish here on Lit, and I'm not thinking of cheating on you guys (I may republish my stories over there just to see what happens). But page views are not a metric that I consider for any reason other than "it's a number and I'm a math nerd."

 

[Kumquatqueen]

AO3 is the king in all respects, even when posting OC as opposed to fan fiction. More views. More types of stories allowed. Less hassle.

Lit is second, but a very distant one. There were more threads asking whether it was smarter to pull their content from Lit than threads asking if it was a good idea to put content here.

Lit also allows more ways to drive readers to your paid content, if that's your goal (and on that subreddit, this is always the goal). But the viewership of AO3 seems to be a behemoth that you can't fight.

AO3 audiences vary hugely. OC gets very few views unless you're already a known fanfic author, IME. Some fandoms get thousands of views - Supernatural, HP, and nowadays K-Pop. Others have much smaller followings and often only for certain pairings of characters. Let's just say one reason I post on Lit is even my most well-received AO3 stories get about 300 views and 100 kudos over a year. Stick anything here and there's thousands of clicks in a week.

The AO3 readers are nicer and more likely to engage, but there aren't that many of them unless you're writing in a fandom that appeals to teenage girls. In which case reading a few stories will make you incredibly grateful for the editing standards required here - it's not just that it's My First Porn Story, but the number of streams of consciousness for a couple hundred words... filtering out everything under 700 words helps a lot.

 

[caleb35]

I had asked this question several months ago when I was first thinking that I was ready to try sharing my work in an uncontrolled manner. My main source was the eroticauthors subreddit, which is a pretty diverse group of authors, most of whom publish their work professionally. This subject comes up from time to time and they don't seem to have any particular horse in this race, unlike most of us who are here on Lit and so may be biased. I just did some quick searches of that forum to see if the opinion had shifted, but it's pretty consistent.

AO3 is the king in all respects, even when posting OC as opposed to fan fiction. More views. More types of stories allowed. Less hassle.

Lit is second, but a very distant one. There were more threads asking whether it was smarter to pull their content from Lit than threads asking if it was a good idea to put content here.

Lit also allows more ways to drive readers to your paid content, if that's your goal (and on that subreddit, this is always the goal). But the viewership of AO3 seems to be a behemoth that you can't fight.

There are intangibles to Lit that don't get factored in (like the reputation for quality), but the original question was "Is Literotica still the place to get maximum views on your erotica?" and I'm pretty convinced that the answer is "no" and has been for a little while.

Before I get pummeled, I'll disclaim everything above by saying that I did this research and then intentionally chose to publish here on Lit, and I'm not thinking of cheating on you guys (I may republish my stories over there just to see what happens). But page views are not a metric that I consider for any reason other than "it's a number and I'm a math nerd."

I have to second what Kumquatqueen said above regarding AO3 audiences varying widely. In the last year I've tried cross-posting my more recent Literotica stories to AO3 and I've only gotten a small fraction of the views there that I do on Literotica. Again, though, I'm posting original works, not fanfic, so that's likely the biggest factor (and as it should be, as AO3 is a fanfic site first and foremost). I agree with just about all your other comments, though, and I do think that AO3 (or a closely aligned site that focuses on OC instead of fanfic) is likely going to be the top site in future for posting free erotica. Thank you for your comment and insights.

 

[caleb35]

Thanks for the call out.

Hopefully this is what @FrancesScott wants. I pulled story statistics in 2018 and in 2023, and this is for all stories:
View attachment 2548074
Looking at the statistics for all stories is both informative and not very informative. Chapters have much lower views than stand-alone stories. When looking at all stories, Incest/Taboo doesn't have average all that much more than Loving Wives. But I/T has far percentage of its stories that are chapter stories than LW. If you look at just stand-alone stories, I/T averages far more views than any other category. This is 2018 data:
View attachment 2548075

This is a fascinating examination of readership changes from 2018 to 2023; thank you, @8letters . While I have a few comments and questions, I'll start with just one -- what the HELL caused the jump in readership in Illustrated category??

 

[iwatchus]

This is a fascinating examination of readership changes from 2018 to 2023; thank you, @8letters . While I have a few comments and questions, I'll start with just one -- what the HELL caused the jump in readership in Illustrated category??

Reply -- statistics of small numbers. There are just too few stories per month to smooth out the noise.

 

[nice90sguy]

what the HELL caused the jump in readership in Illustrated category??

You wait till he pulls the stats for 2025. Readership of that category will drop to almost zero. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot

 

[LunaJupiter]

Titles are such a huge part of the game. My two series are called "loves last chapter" and "the naked hiking club." The naked hiking club is doing gangbusters by my standards even though I felt loves last chapter was much better writing (so far - I hope the next chapter of TNHC to be my best work yet). Why is it doing better? The title. The Naked Hiking Club gives the potential reader a very clear idea what vibe to expect.

 

[JayHawnee]

Titles are such a huge part of the game. My two series are called "loves last chapter" and "the naked hiking club." The naked hiking club is doing gangbusters by my standards even though I felt loves last chapter was much better writing (so far - I hope the next chapter of TNHC to be my best work yet). Why is it doing better? The title. The Naked Hiking Club gives the potential reader a very clear idea what vibe to expect.

Yeah, I think the same. Most people find stories probably through the "New erotic Stories"-List, where title and subtitle are the most prominent features to determine whether one may be interested in a story or not. And clicking on every story is just unfeasible given the huge amount of stories, that are published here every day.

 

[NaughteeDragon]

Frances, based strictly on this thread and your comments, my guess is that you aren’t interested in viewership and writing what people want to read. You seem to be interested in being literary, and hoping that by throwing some sex in that people will appreciate your genius.

It’s a pastiche of a famous author’s style.

It’s a satire of the genre.

There are lots of authors here taking great care with the work and using a lot of literary themes like foreshadowing, theme adherence, character development, literary irony, etc. The difference is that they are writing what the audience wants, but making sure it is good enough that those with appreciation of good writing will still enjoy it.

I think you might be better served by finding a website where authors sit around congratulating themselves on how much smarter they are than all of the other plebes on the internet.

 

[StillStunned]

Frances, based strictly on this thread and your comments, my guess is that you aren’t interested in viewership and writing what people want to read. You seem to be interested in being literary, and hoping that by throwing some sex in that people will appreciate your genius.


There are lots of authors here taking great care with the work and using a lot of literary themes like foreshadowing, theme adherence, character development, literary irony, etc. The difference is that they are writing what the audience wants, but making sure it is good enough that those with appreciation of good writing will still enjoy it.

I think you might be better served by finding a website where authors sit around congratulating themselves on how much smarter they are than all of the other plebes on the internet.

This feels very harsh. There's room on Lit for all kinds of stories.

Particularly where you say:

The difference is that they are writing what the audience wants, but making sure it is good enough that those with appreciation of good writing will still enjoy it.

For some writers, the first goal is to pursue good writing, or using different styles or techniques. Writing what the audience wants comes second. If it's good, there will be readers who appreciate it.

There's no need to imply that @FrancesScott doesn't belong on Lit because she wants to try different things. And definitely no need for any sneering - don't we all grumble when the readers don't rate our stories as highly as we think they should? How many of us complain when we've poured our heart and soul into a story, only for the comments to be "Hur hur, I likes a a bush!"

 

[AwkwardMD]

Frances, based strictly on this thread and your comments, my guess is that you aren’t interested in viewership and writing what people want to read. You seem to be interested in being literary, and hoping that by throwing some sex in that people will appreciate your genius.


There are lots of authors here taking great care with the work and using a lot of literary themes like foreshadowing, theme adherence, character development, literary irony, etc. The difference is that they are writing what the audience wants, but making sure it is good enough that those with appreciation of good writing will still enjoy it.

I think you might be better served by finding a website where authors sit around congratulating themselves on how much smarter they are than all of the other plebes on the internet.

I, 100%, am trying to do the things you are talking about, and I have found some measure of success. I do not think I have unlocked the secret formula to winning Literotica, but my results speak for themselves.

EDIT: as with most things, you get out of Lit what you put into it.

 

[FrancesScott]

I think you might be better served by finding a website where authors sit around congratulating themselves on how much smarter they are than all of the other plebes on the internet.

I’ll let my ratings, comments, and editors awards speak for themselves. Really no need to reply beyond that. You are obviously entitled to your opinion.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Frances, based strictly on this thread and your comments, my guess is that you aren’t interested in viewership and writing what people want to read. You seem to be interested in being literary, and hoping that by throwing some sex in that people will appreciate your genius.


There are lots of authors here taking great care with the work and using a lot of literary themes like foreshadowing, theme adherence, character development, literary irony, etc. The difference is that they are writing what the audience wants, but making sure it is good enough that those with appreciation of good writing will still enjoy it.

I think you might be better served by finding a website where authors sit around congratulating themselves on how much smarter they are than all of the other plebes on the internet.

"The audience?"

There is no "Lit audience." There are multiple, sometimes overlapping, sometimes distinct, audiences for a very wide range of erotica. It's all welcome here.

 

[NaughteeDragon]

I will admit that what I said was probably over the top, and probably uncalled for. Most well written stories will find their audience in time, as will most authors who stick with it. Frances, it sounds like you’ve found your audience. I’m happy for you.

I will also admit I am more than a little disappointed that a story I recently wrote, that I think is an excellent story with great structure and storytelling, has failed to catch a wider readership. However, I’m not going to come in here and say, “how dare people not be awed by my craft and my skill.” I took my shot and missed. On to the next story where I will use the things I learned to craft a better story.

I recently made the mistake of going back to listening to Janet Burroway’s “Writing Fiction.” It is full of great tradecraft, but her pomposity and denigration of genre fiction irritates me to no end. The early posts reminded me a great deal of Burroway’s attitude.