How many responses to a story would you consider "good?"

[izenrann]

I know good is highly subjective, and responses to a story is not the only metric to measure audience engagement (views, downloads etc)...but the curious writer part of me would like to know.

I do get emails and messages for stories I post - anywhere from 2 to 4 sometimes. And yes it usually does make my day!

What are your own experiences with reader feedback?

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[SimonDoom]

A lot of it depends on the category in which you publish a story. You will get the most views, and probably comments, if you post stories in the incest/taboo category -- the numbers can dwarf the numbers in other categories. By far the most viewed story I've published here is the last one I published, only 12 days ago; I published it in the I/T category.

If you post in Loving Wives, you are likely to get lots of responses, but there is a much higher chance they will be vicious and hostile.

I have come to appreciate reader feedback more as I've written and published more. Some of it is weird and some of it is off-base, but it's a useful reminder that when you release your story to the world it actually affects people.

 

[Harryasaboy]

Any attention is nice.

I know good is highly subjective, and responses to a story is not the only metric to measure audience engagement (views, downloads etc)...but the curious writer part of me would like to know.

I do get emails and messages for stories I post - anywhere from 2 to 4 sometimes. And yes it usually does make my day!

What are your own experiences with reader feedback?

I usually get 0-1 responses to my stories. I had one with about 10 once. I feel like the Maytag repairman sometimes.

 

[NotWise]

I know good is highly subjective, and responses to a story is not the only metric to measure audience engagement (views, downloads etc)...but the curious writer part of me would like to know.

I do get emails and messages for stories I post - anywhere from 2 to 4 sometimes. And yes it usually does make my day!

What are your own experiences with reader feedback?

I don't think there are any "downloads" on Lit. You get views, favorites, comments, votes, and followers.

I'm not sure what you mean by "responses," is that comments? You can get very few comments on a successful story. You can get a mountain of comments on a story that most readers walk away from. I'm not sure what makes the difference.

Otherwise, the more the better, depending on the nature of the feedback. "Good" is as many as you can get. Less than that is not as good.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I find the Score to View ratio is typically around 1%, the Comment to View ratio maybe around 0.1% Folk rarely comment, unless it's "outside the norm" (whatever that is), I've found.

I don't write LW and only have two incest stories, so I'm not in the most popular categories. A couple of stories ended up with a dozen or so comments, which is kinda nice. There's no predicting it.

 

[SamScribble]

As Simon says, it depends very much on the category. In the categories in which I tend to post, six or seven comments seems to be about normal. But what is interesting is that, in the first few days, the average vote tends to be quite low. As time goes by, the score tends to rise. I suspect that the one-bombers get bored.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

How many comments do I consider good? Sometimes zero - sometimes I'm writing more or less for me and put them here to make a point of my own, not solicit feedback. But usually if I get a couple in the first month, I'm very happy. If I don't get any, eh, I barely ever comment on anyone else's anyway, so I don't expect much.

 

[sr71plt]

This is pretty much my take about reader comments on a free-use erotica site like Literotica:

"The writer writes for satisfaction . . . He would write if nobody read it, even if he had to pay for the privilege, or if it were burned. He really is not interested in communication; he is trying to make something that was not here yesterday. He is not doing it for the money. When he passes through the wall of oblivion, he will still write, even if it's just to stop and writer 'Kilroy was here' on the wall." -- William Faulkner, in 1958, in his last address as UVA writer-in-residence.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I don't waste time looking. None have ever left anything worth reading and the flattery/insults are equally worthless.

 

[lovecraft68]

Its more than just category. Like many here I have multiple stories in one category and even they can vary big time. Why? Maybe title, tag, day you put it out, one thing someone doesn't like....

Too many variables and the answer is to not worry about it and just write. One way to increase comments is to post a lot and build a steady following. But in general there is no rhyme or reason to how many you get and why.

 

[SimonDoom]

This is pretty much my take about reader comments on a free-use erotica site like Literotica:

"The writer writes for satisfaction . . . He would write if nobody read it, even if he had to pay for the privilege, or if it were burned. He really is not interested in communication; he is trying to make something that was not here yesterday. He is not doing it for the money. When he passes through the wall of oblivion, he will still write, even if it's just to stop and writer 'Kilroy was here' on the wall." -- William Faulkner, in 1958, in his last address as UVA writer-in-residence.

I understand that attitude and admire it, but I do like the communicative aspect of this site and enjoy getting comment feedback. Even negative feedback can be useful. It may be that I'm still a somewhat new writer here, but I find myself mulling over comments I get and considering them when I sit down to write more. It's an aspect of the site I appreciate.

 

[LeandraNyx]

Deleted

 

[lovecraft68]

If people really only wrote for themselves their stuff would never be seen anywhere, but their own computer so...that whole thing is a load of crap.

If you're posting it publicly its because you want to share it with people and hope they get some enjoyment out of it.

 

[sr71plt]

I understand that attitude and admire it, but I do like the communicative aspect of this site and enjoy getting comment feedback. Even negative feedback can be useful. It may be that I'm still a somewhat new writer here, but I find myself mulling over comments I get and considering them when I sit down to write more. It's an aspect of the site I appreciate.

I understand that and I enjoy getting favorable comments--and not getting unfavorable comments. I get fewer unfavorable comments than I expected.

But I don't consider the standard of readership on this site to be literary brilliance. I'm not denigrating it. I just don't expect readers to be reading here for more than sexual entertainment. There's always the possibility that a comment here will give me an "oh yeah" jolt, but I don't count on it and I haven't experienced it more than a couple of times. Mostly the comments, even the favorable ones, are shallow and not helpful, in a writing way. They'd go immediately down short dead ends if I followed them.

I'm more happy with view numbers (whatever they represent) than comments and votes. I post to broaden the readership beyond those who were willing to pay for it months ago, and giving them the opportunity to be turned on by my writing is good enough. It's their issue whether or not they are; I was or I wouldn't have posted it. At least in the major category I write in in this account name, readers tend to remain quite anonymous. They read and leave purposely without leaving fingerprints. That's reality. And if I can have the feeling that appreciably more are reading it here in addition to the ones I sold it to months ago, I'm satisfied with that. (And I don't think that fawning after comments and votes and writing to get them is literary brilliance either.)

 

[sr71plt]

If people really only wrote for themselves their stuff would never be seen anywhere, but their own computer so...that whole thing is a load of crap.

If you're posting it publicly its because you want to share it with people and hope they get some enjoyment out of it.

Good old negative/sour/attack dog LC. The two aren't mutually exclusive and "getting enjoyment out of it" doesn't require a reader to either vote or comment on it. That's not an entitlement that an author gets.

 

[jaF0]

If a story is any good, one hand is busy scrolling the mouse down the page and the other hand is busy ... well ... you know. Meaning you may not get any comments at all.

 

[AwkwardMD]

If people really only wrote for themselves their stuff would never be seen anywhere, but their own computer so...that whole thing is a load of crap.

If you're posting it publicly its because you want to share it with people and hope they get some enjoyment out of it.

Bullshit.

 

[lovecraft68]

Good old negative/sour/attack dog LC. The two aren't mutually exclusive and "getting enjoyment out of it" doesn't require a reader to either vote or comment on it. That's not an entitlement that an author gets.

I didn't say anything about comments or votes or acknowledgment. My point is if you publicly post your writing you are looking to share it with people and that's the reward in itself.

So the whole I'd write if no one ever saw it deal is self righteous shmaltz.

If you literally only write for you, you'd never post a story here or try to sell an e-book.

 

[litfan10]

I write because I can't not write. When it's done it's like my child - I'm proud of it and want to share it. At that point I'm flattered with even one reader reacting.

 

[izenrann]

Lots of interesting and cool comments here! I'm glad I posted.

I guess my own views on the subject are a mishmash of most that I've seen. I would like comments and feedback, but I won't go gaga looking for them. I agree that it seems to be a crapshoot most of the time.

 

[lovecraft68]

I write because I can't not write. When it's done it's like my child - I'm proud of it and want to share it. At that point I'm flattered with even one reader reacting.

I feel the same way, especially when my stories and characters misbehave

 

[AwkwardMD]

I didn't say anything about comments or votes or acknowledgment. My point is if you publicly post your writing you are looking to share it with people and that's the reward in itself.

So the whole I'd write if no one ever saw it deal is self righteous shmaltz.

If you literally only write for you, you'd never post a story here or try to sell an e-book.

I am 36. I've been writing since I was 16, so that's 20 years. Only in the last 4 years have I done anything with my writing beyond the writing of it. Before the last four years, I probably wrote about 100k to 200k words. A hefty chunk of that was handwritten and the digital documents I wrote I no longer have, so that word count is a hazy guess at best.

In the last 4 years, I have written and posted ~528k words to Literotica and elsewhere. I have also written 400,369 words for stories that will not be posted, because they're just for me. I've got a 40k word story, fully completed, that isn't posted anywhere at all yet while I sort out what, if anything, I want to do with it. I've also written about 100k words in chapters I've deleted because I was scrapping the existing work to start over.

The line between what gets posted and what does not get posted has several important factors; Is it a story? Is it good? Does it conform to Lit standards? Does it have my real name in it? Does it have the real names of anyone I know? Is there any reason I shouldn't post this? Was it purely therapeutic, and ultimately not something other people should read?

In some cases, I just really want to write a specific kind of scene with no other purpose. Like "I know I'm working on this lesbian story but fuck me running I want to write a DP scene right now!" So I do. And it goes into the vault.

Yes, you're half right that the reason I post work is because I'm proud of it and I want to share, but the sharing is no part of the writing. The writing takes place anyway. I write as therapy, and I write for me.

Is my situation common? No. Rare? Extremely. Unique? Possibly, but I would never rule out that others write for the same reasons I do, and neither should you. Just because you can't fathom doing work without reward doesn't mean I can't and don't.

EDIT: Just so it's clear, I don't journal. None of that word count is fluff Dear Diary nonsense. I write stories.

 

[AwkwardMD]

It would be dishonest of me to omit, however, that I RELIGIOUSLY track the viewcounts for my posted stories. I don't like using votes, rating, or comments as a metric for interest. I track views, and I've been gathering viewcount data in a massive spreadsheet for years. I love being able to break down which stories have good reader retention and which don't, and watching how posting a new story causes reader overflow into the first chapters of which similar other stories of mine.

I know some people think that the viewcount data Lit provides is unreliable, but there's truth buried in it.

 

[AnonymousPerv]

AwkwardMD, you sound like me. My first attempt at writing anything was a non-erotic, 105K-word novel. The writing is cringe-inducing, but the plot was a lot of fun. Should have started with short stories, because even though my writing is weak, it's way better than it used to be just by hammering stuff out. Should have started with the short stories.

Anyway, like you, I've been parsing feedback data and the other guy is absolutely write about the Incest/Taboo category. Readership dwarfs the other categories, it appears, so one is likely to get a lot more feedback writing in that genre.

I really like constructive criticism, but it's hard to find in the comments. From my experience, it's either praise, asking for another part to the story or someone venting. Probably the best and most constructive feedback has come from private emails after someone reads a story, and that happens maybe once out of every two or three stories for me.