First story posted, now what?

[DoodlyDo]

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[SecondCircle]

Congrats on the story and welcome!

As far as votes, views, and favorites, I could clear up a few things. When a reader scrolls to the end of the final page of your story, there is an entire section at the bottom for voting, favoriting, and commenting. They can click a vote of 1 to 5 stars, and the best place to view your actual vote average is the way you've already done, from your submissions page. People can favorite you as an author or the story from that same area on the last page of your story, and there's a section where they can type a comment to leave you some feedback on what they thought of your tale. That can be a good thing or bad thing, as we do have trolls lurking in the darkness.

You're on the right track about starting a thread. You can do that in Story Feedback, or even Story Discussion. Just drop us a link just like you've done here, and ask for any specific type help or feedback you want. Someone usually will wander in and give you some helpful constructive feedback.

As far as editing your story with that little note, I think the way to edit something is to resubmit it with a note to the editor of the site in the Notes section letting them know it's an edit. Keep in mind if you submit an edit, I think you lose all votes and views that you've accrued.

And views, basically, means someone clicked on your story and opened it up.

 

[SecondCircle]

I'm not entirely sure if the link you want to include in your "author's note" would be permitted or not, but you can PM Laurel (that's like the only way to reach her, she's the one who goes through all of the submissions and approves them, the Lit queen) and ask her, or if you do resubmit an edit, just give her a little snippet about it in the Notes section.

But honestly? I would just leave your story as it is and just post your link over in the Feedback Forum. You'll get plenty of responses without putting a link in the story. You're in good shape.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

LC alt.

 

[DoodlyDo]

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[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Thanks for the info, SecondCircle.

I think you are right, I'll just let it be. I'll probably just go over and put up a Story Discussion w/o trying to hassle the editor.




^Sorry, I don't understand this.

I smell an LC in the woodpile.

 

[SecondCircle]

I smell an LC in the woodpile.

I can't comment on one's ability to differentiate between the smells of wood, even as it is piled.

 

[TxRad]

Hi!

Ok, so it took a few days to get my first submission accepted and placed on the site. Now that it is up, I have a bunch of questions about the numbers and an editorial question.

++++ Numbers Questions ++++
My submission viewer gives the following stats:
Rating: 4.53
Votes: 270
Views: 27,372

RATING:
Woah! Ok, I just figured out that 4.53 is out of 5. Ok, that's pretty cool! So that means that of the people who rated me, I got a 4.5. Cool beans, how exciting. How do I figure how many people rated the story?

You should have gotten a red H with the 4.5 and 10 votes. read it this way, 90.6% like the story.

VOTES:
I can't even figure out how people are voting, I don't see a button for it. I have noticed the site runs contests, I 'allowed' voting when I submitted, but I didn't submit to any specific contest (no way I'd win anyway!). But if people are voting, how do you figure out what the contest is and where you stand?

Ten votes per hundred is pretty damned good as the average is like one in a hundred.

VIEWS:
I was expecting maybe two or three people to read my little tale. The number above seems mind-blowingly high to me! I'm guessing that means page hits, but still that seems high. Does that mean some fraction of that number has actually read the story?

Views are not reads. Views are someone or something (Bot, ect) clicking the link to the story.

FAVORITES:
Looks like 22 have 'Favorited This Story'. I also saw in my 'Recent Activity' that some had favorited 'the author', some 'the story'. Is that number (22) a summary of both?

With that many favorites on one story for a new author, you are doing something right.

Are the results above typical? The 4.5 rating seems pretty good to me, so I feel encouraged. But if 27,000 people read the story and only a few people actually rated it, maybe I'm doing terrible... only a few liked the story, the rest just ignored it?


++++ Editorial Question ++++
The comments left on my story were fun. But I would love a way to respond to it. The only way I can think to do that would require editing the original story. In particular, give the reader a way to make story suggestions for me.

My thought was that I could go to the Story Discussion Circle or Story Ideas section and start a thread for the story. Then go back to the Submission, edit my story to add the following at the top.



Can that be done? Can I edit a story that is already live? Or should I just let it go, do that ('note from the author')with the next story?
++++++++++++++++++++

Any advice, thoughts, or feedback would be appreciated!

Thanks!




BTW, here is the link to my story:
http://www.literotica.com/s/sleeping-arrangements
^ So you don't waste your time if the subject matter is not your thing, this story is about a husband and wife, her mom comes to visit for the weekend. And, as you all know, anytime a mom and daughter spend time together they end up having lesbian sex. Right? lol

Ok, see above.

Editing a story does not erase your views, votes, comments. Put edit next to the title when you resubmit it and in the note field.

As for comments and answering them. If they leave a Member name, click on it and you can reply on the far left tab. Copy the comment and paste it in when you do so as not to confuse the reader. Anonymous comments are anonymous for a reason. They don't want a reply although some might sound like it.

Links within Lit are allowed and speaking of Links, add one for your story and then stories to your sig line for us lazy folks.

 

[StrangeLife]

RATING:
Woah! Ok, I just figured out that 4.53 is out of 5...

...but I didn't submit to any specific contest (no way I'd win anyway!). But if people are voting, how do you figure out what the contest is and where you stand?

Actually you just might win. My submission to the current contest isn't anywhere near 4.

 

[A_Little_Show]

[deleted]

 

[SecondCircle]

So no views or votes or anything is lost when submitting an edit. Thanks Tx I learned something here too.

 

[lovecraft68]

For a first story that's pretty good!

The fact its mother/daughter makes it more impressive because that "pairing" isn't as popular as mother/son or siblings.

If you continue to add stories you'll see all of those numbers rise as people will keep faving you and you'll get a following and a "name for yourself"

 

[lovecraft68]

LC alt.

^Sorry, I don't understand this.

An "alt" is another identity. JB is off his meds today and thinks you're me starting a new ID.

Don't pay any attention to him he's jealous of your numbers already

 

[DoodlyDo]

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[DoodlyDo]

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[CeasarBoobage]

According to my Submission View, I now have 293 votes with an avg of 4.52 (slipping! lol). Will I get an email about this H business or something?

+++

Thanks everybody for all the input! Now if I could only figure out what LC stands for...

It's up to 4.53 now!

No you won't get any email about the RedH, but if you want to see more info about the icons, check here. If you look at another author's submission page (like mine in my sig, click it!) you can see a few of those elusive H icons.

 

[lovecraft68]

LoveCraft, thanks for clearing up the LC business for me. I guess I was too busy writing under my DoodlyDo alt to notice that I had already posted the explanation to that.

*Sigh*

I can't believe I got busted that fast. Thanks a lot, JAMESBJOHNSON.




Actually, LC, that's pretty much the reason I wrote it. A few years ago, my wife was visiting her parents in another city, I was lonely and asked her to text me a picture of her butt. As a joke, she sent me a closeup of her mom's butt in a bathing suite!

This kind of developed (in my sad imagination) over the years and become a favorite reading pursuit. On this site (and other erotic lit sites), most of the stories that touch on such a pairing... well, they don't scratch my itch.

Most everybody seem to rush to the down and dirty, usually male oriented with about as much depth as a grainy preview of a run-of-the-mill porn movie. And most of them assume that things are already ongoing and treat the 'how did it come to pass' as a given. And that's where 90% of my joy is! Anyway, snore.

So I decided to write my own. And, like you say, there really is not much focus on the area, so I thought I'd help the next searcher who passes thru by submitting it to Literotica.

I figured maybe two or three folks would read it over the coming months, maybe it would make somebody's day. So I'm totally shocked that, as has been pointed out, it seems to have received a nice response!

Thanks for you input. You can switch back your LC alt now and reply in some witty way.

Thanks me, I'll take it from here.

Amazing you share my exact take on incest, all my stories are 5/6 pages because "wow mom's hot, why not" is not my thing and I do what I can to try to add some reality to an unrealistic situation.

But, hey, we already knew that right?

The doctors always said one day I would start answering the voices.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

An "alt" is another identity. JB is off his meds today and thinks you're me starting a new ID.

Don't pay any attention to him he's jealous of your numbers already

My FIRST ALERT GAYDAR is at full power and sensitive enough to detect every genital wart on your hairy palms.

 

[patientlee]

An "alt" is another identity. JB is off his meds today and thinks you're me starting a new ID.

Don't pay any attention to him he's jealous of your numbers already

I reduced my meds last week. Has anyone noticed?

 

[carlieplum]

That's an impressive start. Welcome to the AH and the flip side of Lit!

 

[sr71plt]

I reduced my meds last week. Has anyone noticed?

Meaning that you had a much greater supply of them last week than this?

 

[lovecraft68]

I reduced my meds last week. Has anyone noticed?

I don't know, who are you supposed to be? Are you Penn lady?

 

[drteetho]

I don't think I'm in that contest, though. My story does not have a holiday theme. If I was in the contest, would I get some kind of 'hey you are in a contest' notice?

At the top of this board Laurel has posted a thread for the current contest. She will do this when each of the themed contests is about to start. In that thread she lists the instructions on how to submit a story to ensure it gets included into the contest. Generally speaking you have to ensure you write a stand-alone story that fits into the theme, and post the exact phrase Laurel provides in her thread into the Notes section in order for a story to be included in a contest.

There is usually also another general thread started in this board for each contest which people will post to and discuss if they are entering, status of their story, etc.

Hope this helps!

 

[StrangeLife]

What the what? Haha, no way. I followed your link, my story isn't even up there.

You still have time to enter a story - the last day is December 7th. Mother in-law could drop by for Christmas for instance. Who knows what might happen when the couple next door is forced to crash on the couch on Christmas eve because their heater is broken...

BTW, I read your story... loved it! The twist totally caught me off guard. Very clever and well written. Who the heck wouldn't give you a 5????

Oh that's entirely my own fault. In my chosen category Loving Wives you're judged as much on the way the story goes as the quality of your writing.

One cardinal rule - which I always do my very best to break - is that many people hate surprises when it comes to erotica. They want to know exactly what they're getting before they start reading, and woe betide the author if he or she should twist the plot or genre halfway through. You have a much easier road to success if you play it straight with the readers, but hey - where's the fun in that?

 

[DoodlyDo]

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