"Pending" Put My Baby In A Corner.

[MillieDynamite]

Your suggestion won't happen on Lit. They have an established income stream that makes them whatever they are earning. But if you limit the stories by forcing people to pay to fund the QC department, you will have fewer stories published. Fewer stories will make it easier to find all the stories, but more than likely, for fewer readers, they will give fewer hits to the advertiser sites, and less money in their pockets. So, they fire the QC, do the work themselves, pocket the other money, it won't make up for lost advertising, and you'll still have two people doing everything and not making as much as before.

Since they aren't stupid, they won't do what you want because A. In the end, less money in their pocket. B. You don't run the site; they do. So, C. Nothing is going to change.

I respect that. In 'real-life' I've taken a similar position with academic papers, and I've managed to avoid paying to have my academic papers published so far, and in one case I even got paid for an article. However, there is also the reality that it costs money to publish within a quality-controlled process, and those costs have to be borne by somebody - the readers, the host institutions, or the authors. Nothing happens for free.

In Literotica, we have a huge surplus of authors willing to publish without being paid, and that's reflected in the quality and quantity of what is going out. If we want to change that equation, one way to do it is through market forces and impose a cost to publish.

 

[MillieDynamite]

But that's just my humble opinion, primarily based on other suggestions, people volunteering to help and not hearing back, the speed of change in the 4 years I've been back here, and the lack of change in the 3 or 4 years I wasn't here.

 

[Voboy]

I've read this same thread many times before, with the same exact posts by the same exact posters...

OP, your views probably dropped off slightly due to the Sunday publication. I'd say about 5% of the dropoff was due to that, at most. The rest? It's a chapter 2.

Source: myself and every other writer who's ever written a multi-chapter story. This is what happens. It's the typical dynamic.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'll make another post rather than edit again:

Once, when Lit was fresh and new and barely known, it made sense to be very inclusive with stories. But the times have changed. Lit is the number one erotic story site, period. And it's being drowned with submissions. The way things are being done now, I see mostly good authors being pushed away. And it makes zero sense now when Lit is big and influential. Now, if ever is the time to go elite.

You first proposed a threshold based on word count. Now your argument is going to elitism. Which is it?

How does the site set up the parameters for the elitist solution?

You're suggesting what, an editorial board?


Here's another solution - don't allow incest, don't allow non-con or mind control, don't allow fan-fic, carve off Loving Wives to a completely stand-alone web site. Think of the reduction in volume that would bring, and think of the endless ridiculous debates in this Forum that would disappear.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Here's another solution - don't allow incest, don't allow non-con or mind control, don't allow fan-fic, carve off Loving Wives to a completely stand-alone web site. Think of the reduction in volume that would bring, and think of the endless ridiculous debates in this Forum that would disappear.

Don't threaten me with a good time!

 

[YmaOHyd]

I've read this same thread many times before, with the same exact posts by the same exact posters...

OP, your views probably dropped off slightly due to the Sunday publication. I'd say about 5% of the dropoff was due to that, at most. The rest? It's a chapter 2.

Source: myself and every other writer who's ever written a multi-chapter story. This is what happens. It's the typical dynamic.

16k to 1k is quite a bit larger than the typical Pt 1 to Pt 2 dropoff. I don't know how much the Sunday publication mattered, but a supermajority of views happen on the first day of publication for almost every non-contest story that doesn't have an atypically long tail (mostly stories high up on all-time toplists). I think the issue in the OP is a combination of chapter decline and not making the first page in Category/New on publication day. Six months later, chapter 3 in my series has 25-75% fewer reads than chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5; it's also the only one to get bumped to page 2 on publication day.

 

[BlazonG]

It is really a tale of two tales. My very first submission was posted on a Saturday morning two days after it was submitted, back in October. It had a good weekend and now sits at 4.53 with 16,000 views after 46 days. So it's good enough.

Chapter 2 of the story was submitted on a Wednesday because of those long pending times I'd read about.

Yeah don’t do chaptered stories unless you already have a following.

 

[ColtonWrites]

I won't pay to publish my work.

Who would? That's a ridiculous suggestion. And it would make the site feel like a scam, like those pay-to-play anthologies companies like to put out.

 

[ColtonWrites]

16k to 1k is quite a bit larger than the typical Pt 1 to Pt 2 dropoff. I don't know how much the Sunday publication mattered, but a supermajority of views happen on the first day of publication for almost every non-contest story that doesn't have an atypically long tail (mostly stories high up on all-time toplists). I think the issue in the OP is a combination of chapter decline and not making the first page in Category/New on publication day. Six months later, chapter 3 in my series has 25-75% fewer reads than chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5; it's also the only one to get bumped to page 2 on publication day.

I just checked my stuff - I posted one VERY long (65k) story as my first, one chaptered story in 4 parts, and another one-shot work (around 11k).
The longest one (Wandering Fury) has been up since 11/7 and has 2.5k views. The shorter one-shot (The Way You Take It): 11/16, 2k views.
The four-parter (I Chose Him) - Pt 1, 11/13, 4.3k views. Pt 2 - 11/13, 1.7k views. Pt 3 - 11/14, 1.1k views. Pt 4 - 11/18, 849 Views (still on the New Stories list in the Transgender category, I expect that will increase.)

So...it's fair to say you may see a sizeable drop off after the first chapter, but also I don't see a huge difference between Pt 2 and a longer piece. I think some readers get scared off by longer works all at once.

And I imagine the ratings make a difference, if someone is planning to read Pt 1 of a story where Pt 2 just popped up? If Pt 1 has good ratings, you'll probably get more eyes on Pt 2 etc.

 

[YmaOHyd]

I just checked my stuff - I posted one VERY long (65k) story as my first, one chaptered story in 4 parts, and another one-shot work (around 11k).
The longest one (Wandering Fury) has been up since 11/7 and has 2.5k views. The shorter one-shot (The Way You Take It): 11/16, 2k views.
The four-parter (I Chose Him) - Pt 1, 11/13, 4.3k views. Pt 2 - 11/13, 1.7k views. Pt 3 - 11/14, 1.1k views. Pt 4 - 11/18, 849 Views (still on the New Stories list in the Transgender category, I expect that will increase.)

So...it's fair to say you may see a sizeable drop off after the first chapter, but also I don't see a huge difference between Pt 2 and a longer piece. I think some readers get scared off by longer works all at once.

And I imagine the ratings make a difference, if someone is planning to read Pt 1 of a story where Pt 2 just popped up? If Pt 1 has good ratings, you'll probably get more eyes on Pt 2 etc.

Not to say that publishing days don't matter at all, but another extremely consistent thing about stats on Lit is that chaptered series view rates pretty much all look like this:
View attachment 2578714

Anything titled "Chapter X" or "Part X" or whatever will inevitably get fewer views, because a random person browsing New is not likely to click on part two when they haven't read part one. The first chapter of a series will always, always have significantly more views than the rest of the series!

Penny's right -- that's basically how the views on any series look over time. Here's the 60ish parts of The OF Girl:

Home for Horny Monsters:

@Bamagan has a series that looks like this:


There's usually a big drop, like 40-75%, from part 1 to part 2, then another equivalent drop to part 3, and then it sorta levels off into an established core readership.

Length doesn't matter for reads, because reads are actually clicks, and readers can't see the length of a story until they click into it.

 

[ColtonWrites]

This does tell me one thing - I have a story in 2 parts that's been stuck in pending for a week. I think I'll delete it and re-submit as a single work.

 

[Bamagan]

Not to say that publishing days don't matter at all, but another extremely consistent thing about stats on Lit is that chaptered series view rates pretty much all look like this:
View attachment 2578714

Anything titled "Chapter X" or "Part X" or whatever will inevitably get fewer views, because a random person browsing New is not likely to click on part two when they haven't read part one. The first chapter of a series will always, always have significantly more views than the rest of the series!

Well, not always. I have a single counterexample, a two-parter in Non-human from 2/18/24 and 2/29/24. Part one has (as of this moment) 17,556 views and part two has 17,655. They have been about a hundred views apart for at least a year now. The ratings were identical when they were locked, on 58 and 34 votes respectively.
That being said, since there are only two parts it's not necessarily a significant reflection on the typical behavior of long series, of which all of mine have behaved in basically the way you described (albeit with a spike at the end).

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Pranked: Barbie is weird. The views per part:

1. 9.4K
2. 5.8K
3. 3.3K
4. 5.4K
5. 2K

I'm really puzzled by the thousands who read four parts, but have chosen not to read the ending. Was Part 4 terrible? For me as writer it was a lot of fun to write, and it's rated 4.9 stars.

--Annie

 

[YmaOHyd]

Part 4 is on the 30-day toplist and the 30-day Popular list for the category and part 5 isn't. That might explain some of it, because that's the outlier piece, not part 5. But also something as simple as -- there weren't that many stories submitted in category that one day, so it got two days in New on the category page instead of one. That could easily account for a 2k difference in views, even months later. That time in New is precious.

 

[RejectReality]

Even something that is reasonably consistent has a sharp 1-2 drop and steady fall off of views. It's just the way multi-part stories perform.

 

[HelenL]

Not to say that publishing days don't matter at all, but another extremely consistent thing about stats on Lit is that chaptered series view rates pretty much all look like this:
View attachment 2578714

Anything titled "Chapter X" or "Part X" or whatever will inevitably get fewer views, because a random person browsing New is not likely to click on part two when they haven't read part one. The first chapter of a series will always, always have significantly more views than the rest of the series!

I've always found the dropoff interesting. Chapter 1 probably gets the read count because of appearing on a new list, but when chapter 2 appears, no one's going to click it unless they have read and liked chapter 1. So subsequent chapters should be a decent way to estimate how readers enjoyed the story rather than clicked in it randomly from new.

Most of mine seem to be around 2 to 1, i.e. half of the readers came back. I don't know if that's good, but it seems a useful baseline. However, my favorite of my series is over 4 to 1. I didn't know if that's because chapter 1 sucks (it's rated about average for the series) or because I warned everyone up front that it was an 18 part series. I think if I saw that of be tempted to skip.

I have one series that defies your graph, though, which fascinates me. Chapter 1 of The Player has 7.9k views, but chapter 3 has 8.7k. Because it's tagged foursome? Because it's a more effective stroker than most of mine, so it gets repeat visits? I really don't see an explanation of why a later chapter gets more views than the first. Voting numbers decline in the normal pattern, if not quite as rapidly as most.

Stand-alone stories do seem to get more views. But I like the ability to manage the pace of a series. I haven't decided if I'm going to try to avoid them.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Well, not always. I have a single counterexample, a two-parter in Non-human from 2/18/24 and 2/29/24. Part one has (as of this moment) 17,556 views and part two has 17,655. They have been about a hundred views apart for at least a year now. The ratings were identical when they were locked, on 58 and 34 votes respectively.
That being said, since there are only two parts it's not necessarily a significant reflection on the typical behavior of long series, of which all of mine have behaved in basically the way you described (albeit with a spike at the end).

You obviously got readers by the balls in the first chapter, and got in quickly with the second. That is an unusual profile, though.

 

[RejectReality]

If it's only a 2-parter, and you know it's only going to be a 2-parter, titling it as My Title Pt. 1 of 2 will probably boost the number of people who will give it a shot. The possibility of getting into a super long series will keep people from even looking, but if they see it's only going to be 2 from the very first look, they may give it a shot. Anything under 5 parts may well be worth doing that.

The title length restricts you from doing that in a lot of situations, but when it's a possibility, it's probably worth doing.

 

[JayHawnee]

Besides the category, followership and the Pt. 1 / Pt. 2 drop, I think the title and subtitle have a very big influence on how often a story is clicked. Most people probably arrive at a story through the "New"-site and have a multitude of stories to try but may not be able to check them all. So they need a heuristic to choose, which story might be interesting to them. And in the absence of tags at the "New"-site, title and subtitle are the best markers to make that choice.

In shakespeare_i_aint's case, for example the subtitle of "You'll Have A Story To Tell, Ch 1.0" immediately catches my eye.
"A Lovely Wife And Mother Falls Into A Neighbor's Clutches." This gives me immediately expectations about the main character (a wive and mother), her relationship to a another key character (the neighbor), and it even actively foreshadows the plot ("runs into ... clutches"), which creates immediate tension. "Lovely (Loving) wive", "mother" and "neighbor" are probably also strong keywords, that appeal to specific readers interests and kinks.
The subtitle of Ch. 02: 'Jen's Scope Of Work During Henry's Office Chair "Dates."' on the other hand, feels much vaguer to me.
If I were completely new to the story, I'd be asking myself: "Who is Jen?", "Who is Henry?". The subtitle also feels rather passive, as it lacks a clear action verb. I’d need more time to make sense of it and figure out what might actually happen in the story and whether it would interest me. And since time is limited, probably fewer people end up clicking on this part of the story.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You first proposed a threshold based on word count. Now your argument is going to elitism. Which is it?

How does the site set up the parameters for the elitist solution?

You're suggesting what, an editorial board?


Here's another solution - don't allow incest, don't allow non-con or mind control, don't allow fan-fic, carve off Loving Wives to a completely stand-alone web site. Think of the reduction in volume that would bring, and think of the endless ridiculous debates in this Forum that would disappear.

It's hard to discuss these things when you so obviously don't even read my posts.

 

[ColtonWrites]

Ah, EB, my favorite fanboy. Where there's a will, there's a way. But there is no will whatsoever.

But first, let's address the "why" of it. Lit truly has no need to pad its story file. The number is now well over 600k. So really, whether there are 300 or 30 new stories every day, I'd say it doesn't make much of a change for Lit when it comes to traffic.

I suspect not many visitors browse Literotica every day. It takes time to browse the stories, and it takes time to read them. But with the numbers Lit has been putting out for a few years now, it's literally impossible to keep up.

Yet, fewer stories being published would be a good thing for most of us here. It would let our stories remain on the first page or at a reasonable position in the list for far longer. It would give them more value and appreciation.
What's the benefit for Lit? Well, if nothing else, it would reduce Laurel's workload by a significant amount.

Anyway, on to the "how" of it. That's the big question, right?

To answer it, one should be familiar with the typical Lit story. It's usually between 1-1.5k words long, pure stroke story, often badly written. In my mind, I see more than one way one can go about reducing the number of submissions, but most are complicated and would take time to properly implement.
But there's one simple way. Significantly increase the word count threshold.

It would prevent thoughtless 1k-word garbage. It would prevent the practice that many authors use, and that's to split their chaptered stories into many, many small-sized, often around 1k words, chapters, all with the intention of padding their story file, but also to keep the readers' attention in a bullshit way.

This is a quick and easy-to-implement solution. With this solution, all of the best stories would be positively affected, and the number of submissions would be cut in half at the very least. I'd say it would drop even more than that, although it does depend on the exact number of words limit.

No more 750-word slop, except maybe for one specific event during the year.
No more 100-chapter stories that get increasingly high ratings and thus abuse top lists.
No more of your stories that took months of writing, typing, and fretting over details being drowned by the 1k-word "Joe with a big cock and Sue with big tits and ass met and fucked, The End."

I'm ready to take the heat now.

Length is a really shitty indicator of story quality.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Not to say that publishing days don't matter at all, but another extremely consistent thing about stats on Lit is that chaptered series view rates pretty much all look like this:
View attachment 2578714

Anything titled "Chapter X" or "Part X" or whatever will inevitably get fewer views, because a random person browsing New is not likely to click on part two when they haven't read part one. The first chapter of a series will always, always have significantly more views than the rest of the series!

I agree with this and have evidence with my own stories as proof.

The four stories that I originally submitted as chapters or parts did okay, but are doing much better once I asked Laurel to replace them all with the single, larger version of each.

As far as attracting views for new stories, I think that having a lot of followers who get notified of the publication are what help my stories out of the gate.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Yea, Sunday is a great day for readers to hit a bunch of stories.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Ah, EB, my favorite fanboy. Where there's a will, there's a way. But there is no will whatsoever.

But first, let's address the "why" of it. Lit truly has no need to pad its story file. The number is now well over 600k. So really, whether there are 300 or 30 new stories every day, I'd say it doesn't make much of a change for Lit when it comes to traffic.

I suspect not many visitors browse Literotica every day. It takes time to browse the stories, and it takes time to read them. But with the numbers Lit has been putting out for a few years now, it's literally impossible to keep up.

Yet, fewer stories being published would be a good thing for most of us here. It would let our stories remain on the first page or at a reasonable position in the list for far longer. It would give them more value and appreciation.
What's the benefit for Lit? Well, if nothing else, it would reduce Laurel's workload by a significant amount.

Anyway, on to the "how" of it. That's the big question, right?

To answer it, one should be familiar with the typical Lit story. It's usually between 1-1.5k words long, pure stroke story, often badly written. In my mind, I see more than one way one can go about reducing the number of submissions, but most are complicated and would take time to properly implement.
But there's one simple way. Significantly increase the word count threshold.

It would prevent thoughtless 1k-word garbage. It would prevent the practice that many authors use, and that's to split their chaptered stories into many, many small-sized, often around 1k words, chapters, all with the intention of padding their story file, but also to keep the readers' attention in a bullshit way.

This is a quick and easy-to-implement solution. With this solution, all of the best stories would be positively affected, and the number of submissions would be cut in half at the very least. I'd say it would drop even more than that, although it does depend on the exact number of words limit.

No more 750-word slop, except maybe for one specific event during the year.
No more 100-chapter stories that get increasingly high ratings and thus abuse top lists.
No more of your stories that took months of writing, typing, and fretting over details being drowned by the 1k-word "Joe with a big cock and Sue with big tits and ass met and fucked, The End."

I'm ready to take the heat now.

I believe most of what you are suggesting should start with us, the writers.

Just because the site allows sloppy and amateurish content to be spread over 100 1K submissions doesn't mean that it is the right thing to do as an author.

Collectively, the more experienced writers in the AH should consider offering tips and advice that lead to a better Literotica for all of us. If you want to see change, be that change.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Which is directly contra to the purpose of the site, which is to encourage amateur smut writers to write.

Where is this "purpose" stated? Seriously.

New writers publish 1K stories here because they can, not because that is the best that they can do.

With few exceptions, they have no one here encouraging them to be patient with their stories and to avoid the quest for instant gratification.

My first published story here, which led to my professional writing career (not the other way around), was 94K words (27 Lit pages) and won an award.

If I could do it with my limited prior experience writing, why should I encourage others to do less?

Not everyone will hit a home run the first time that they step up to the plate, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't help them get on base without being hit by the pitch.