How to get good story coverage?

[Eutopia]

I'm a pretty quiet lurker here, I mostly dabble with writing off and on. I thought I had quite good coverage, 30 or so favourites on a story or 20 comments seemed like a huge amount of positive feedback. Then I came across some stories that had thousands of favourites and hundreds of comments.

Tiny fish in a glass bowl has been moved to the big pond, it seems.

Does this popularity have to do with what category that stories are in? Are some favoured more than others? Is this a popularity gained over years of posting stories?Posting chapters regularly? Getting out and about in the Literotica community? Sheer luck? Or is it a combo of all of the above?

I'm not too worried, I doubt my stories will ever reach that kind of notoriety (they're a bit on the...other side. I haven't met many people that get off on a spaceship fucking a human woman.) but I am just very curious, irregardless.

 

[oggbashan]

...Does this popularity have to do with what category that stories are in? Are some favoured more than others? Is this a popularity gained over years of posting stories?Posting chapters regularly? Getting out and about in the Literotica community? Sheer luck? Or is it a combo of all of the above?

...

Incest and Loving Wives have dedicated readers who are more likely to vote and to leave comments. If you were to write an Incest story featuring close relatives it would attract more views, votes and response than another of your stories in a different category.

Popularity is obtained by writing what people want to read. The easiest way to discover what Literotica readers like is to read the Top List stories in any category. Most, but not all, are 'stroke' chapters where the sex description is more important than the storyline. But the sex description has to be arousing - writing good 'stroke' is a skill.

If an author is known then a new story will attract readers. Some authors notify their fans that a new story has been posted, but that only has impact if the author has a following. Some authors' new stories are plugged by their fans through social media.

Regular posting of chapters/stories helps to build a fan base, but only if the fans consistently get what they expect.

One of my most common responses is 'That wasn't what I expected from an oggbashan story' because I like to experiment. I don't expect anyone to like ALL my stories.

'Getting out and about in the Literotica community' is not very effective. Even if you add all the participants in all the discussion boards together they are a tiny percentage of the members/readers of Literotica. Exposure on the forums can attract the wrong sort of attention from anonymous trolls who will vote down your work or leave abusive comments.

The best way to gain more readers and more response is to enter one of the themed contests. The next one is Nude Day - for the list of contests see the last post in the sticky 'Welcome Authors! Please Read'.

Getting attention is one thing. Getting a fan base and consistent responses depends on writing good stories that are popular. It is easy to say but hard to achieve.