Question: The amount of your stories vs. how many followers

[LAHomedog]

So I received a perplexing email from a Lit author via the Editor's program and it wasn't about editing help, this was his primary question:

"As someone who has nearly six times as many followers as you do stories, do you have any tips for how to grow the popularity of your stories? "

I'll confess this struck me as kind of strange. It is something I had never considered, but now I am curious:

Do folks think this way, or figure out strategies or formulas? I don't mean to sound elitist or conversely clueless, but gosh, I never thought about this. I thought you write stories, post your stories, and sometimes people are nice enough to follow you.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Some writers have strategies to chase readership, others don't - and write what they want to write.

It's pretty simple, though. To get more followers, write in the most popular categories and write want you think readers want to read. Keep inside the box and don't scare the kittens.

There's a market for it, you just have to decide if you want to serve it. How do you measure "success"? A multitude of different answers to that question - ask each writer and you'll get a different answer.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

If you're making stuff public for people to read, then I think it's natural to wonder how to get more people to read it (which eventually results in more followers).

I've also seen people here mention their numbers of followers or votes which seem huge - and then I realised the huge differences between categories. I/T will get you loads, and I was recommended if I couldn't bring myself to write that, try Anal.

Inspiration hit and I gave it a go to see what happened.

One Anal story later, posted last month, and it's 1/4 of my thousand-odd votes and nearly a third of my Favourites, and half my Followers have come from it. (I've only got 60-odd, so I notice when I get notifications!)

Not as many readers as Erotic Couplings, but 5x the votes. 20x as many votes as say Gay Male or BDSM.

I write what I write, but sometimes it's fun to poke the system and see what happens.

 

[TadOverdon]

What I decided early on is that thinking about this would drive me nuts. So I gave it up.

 

[KeithD]

No, posting on Literotica is the end of the line for my stories. There are ones I don't post here because of what I've seen in the rules or the reception, but I don't do any other adjusting for Literotica readers or needs.

 

[lovecraft68]

There are things each category likes-and don't like-so you can write along those lines to help get more followers.

But the thing about the readership here is there's someone for everyone, and if you write whatever you want those readers will find you.

Thinking about it too much leads to you not writing for yourself anymore, but for popularity and that kills creativity.

 

[TadOverdon]

Successful commercial writers of popular fiction write to the market and to editorial specification as a matter of course; it's de rigueur discipline for anyone who's not an established best-seller and goes double for screenwriting.

That being said, the targets you're aiming at are more clearly set out and understood. Writing to satisfy an editor's requirement is not writing to satisfy countless unidentified strangers.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I have six times as many followers as I do stories, and I'm not very popular, so that seems like a non-sequitur to me.

 

[TadOverdon]

True. I've got nine times as many followers as stories. I mean, if you pick up a handful of followers with every new post...

 

[LAHomedog]

Successful commercial writers of popular fiction write to the market and to editorial specification as a matter of course; it's de rigueur discipline for anyone who's not an established best-seller and goes double for screenwriting.

That being said, the targets you're aiming at are more clearly set out and understood. Writing to satisfy an editor's requirement is not writing to satisfy countless unidentified strangers.

Well, I am a screenwriter and earn my living writing to hopefully please an audience.

You may have misread my question. It is more about the Lit reality brought up by the email I received. Simply curious how other writers felt about this so I could answer this guy.

It seems from others experiences that category matters. I write mostly in Non-Con so maybe that's the primary factor?

 

[TadOverdon]

You may have misread my question.

No, I was just musing about a later observation that writing for popularity kills creativity. Obviously, it's not that kind of dichotomy. Not if one is earning living at it.

 

[lovecraft68]

No, I was just musing about a later observation that writing for popularity kills creativity. Obviously, it's not that kind of dichotomy. Not if one is earning living at it.

I was referring to here because the OP is talking about Lit.

Its interesting timing because I had someone turn one of my novels into a script(I can't get that style of writing down) the person is also the person who edited the book for print so they're familiar with it

They never liked the nihilistic ending where the MC is killed, thought he should live to lead to sequels. I said no, my baby, my way.

She asked if someone was interested in the script and offering money but wanted an alternate ending where the MC lives would I do it.

The answer is if it meant $$ and the chance of being scene by the right people
Hell yeah "my baby my way" has a selling point.

 

[SimonDoom]

I confess I do this, and make no bones about it, and have been very pleased with the results. There are a few other regular authors, like 8Letters, who have better follower:story ratios than I do, but not that many.

A very few authors have published "one-hit wonders" that hit the jackpot and they have extreme numbers of followers despite having published only 1 or a few stories.

For example, DiscreetNFun published The Anonymous And The Curious (a father-daughter incest story) just a little over 4 years ago and he has 587 followers, just because of that one story. It's his only published story. That's an outlier.

JammyJimmy published two stories in 2011, and that's all. One, Threads:The Island, is an incest story that's the 6th most-favorited story of all time. He has 2757 followers. That's a ratio of 1328.5 followers for every story. That's ridiculous. Of course, he's had 10 years to build those followers, so there's that. But it's still ridiculous.

I have published 36 stories since December 2016 (counting series chapters as separate stories) and I have 2961 followers. That's a ratio of about 82 followers for each story. On average I'm getting about 1.9 new followers per day when I haven't published anything recently.

When I write stories, I do so for a variety of different personal and artistic reasons. Sometimes I write stories I know will not be popular, but I want to write them anyway.

But one of my goals is to get readers. One way of doing that is to pick up favorites and followers. That way, my stories get more visibility, and more people read them. That is one of my goals. So I have written and published some stories with the clear intention of wanting to attract views, readers, favorites, and followers.

The best way to gain followers in large numbers is to write many incest stories. 19 of my 36 stories -- just over half -- are incest stories. Mom-son incest is the surest path to getting views and followers.

Views are the key. Get views, and you will get favorites, and you will get followers.

Incest isn't the only way to pick up followers. Some of the most followed authors publish stories in Gay Male, in Sci Fi, in Romance, and in other categories.

A key is to publish a blockbuster story that gets favorited by many within a certain category. Then, your story will begin to show up on "Similar Stories" Lists at the end of other popular stories in that category. That will in turn get you more eyeballs, and more favorites, and more followers. Success begets success. This is why Silkstockingslover, who is by far the most followed author at Literotica, gets over 500 new followers in a single month. Number 1, she keeps publishing, but number 2, at this point her stories are so popular that they show up all over the "Similar Stories" lists. If you read stories of the type she writes, you will keep stumbling over mention of her stories.

I wrote a blockbuster story in 2017. I wrote it with the express intention of getting as much attention to it as possible. I threw every trick into it I could think of. It worked. And as a result I probably have twice as many followers as I would otherwise and all my stories, even the weird, non-incest ones (I know what you're thinking: incest isn't weird?), get more attention than they would otherwise.

There are some other things you can do to maximize views, scores, favorites, and followers, if that's what you want. Here are a few: 1) Write decently -- decent grammar, syntax, spelling, punctuation; 2) Make your stories over 2 Literotica pages; 3) Write in popular categories; 4) Make your story a story: have characters, give them needs, and obstacles, and weave the sexual romp, whatever it is, into a satisfying dramatic arc; 5) understand the desires of the readers of the category in which you are publishing a story and satisfy those needs, and write your story with the understanding of that desire in mind.

It's all about eyeballs. There are many different strategies for getting them on your stories. If you study the Site and how it works it's not that hard to figure out strategies for gaining more views, and therefore followers.

In my opinion -- just my opinion -- a lot of Literotica authors would be happier if they stopped focusing on scores and focused more on getting views and favorites. The idea of being obsessed over having 30 people giving your story a 4.92 seems weird to me. I'd rather be reaching out to a broader readership and knowing my stories are giving pleasure to as many people as possible, regardless of the score. But that's just me.

Which is not to say, this is what you should do. The things I'm talking about may seem like a completely unimportant thing to you, and if you feel that way, you are not wrong.

I respect Lovecraft's opinion because he is a very good story-teller and has many things to say that you should listen to (my most popular story was written after reading, and following, to the best of my ability, his essay "Write Incest Like a Motherfucker"), but I don't quite agree with his post on this. I truly believe that on Literotica you can do both: you can fulfill all your artistic goals and simultaneously seek more readers. There's no reason that all of your stories have to be written with exactly the same goals and standards. You really don't have to choose.

 

[Trionyx]

Or you could just write stories that are in your head just to write them and see them on the site. If people like them, then great. If not, then it's not worth losing sleep over.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I'm noticing an uptick in followers since I got third in the AF comp, so - enter and win competitions if you want to get a lift in numbers.

This has flowed through to votes increasing on some of my other stories. My odd little SciFi story hasn't received any love though.

If I stayed in I/T I'd probably have a bigger following, but I'm still writing for my own satisfaction. People liking them is a bonus.

 

[Payne_Hall]

It seems from others experiences that category matters. I write mostly in Non-Con so maybe that's the primary factor?

I think this is a big part of it. I didn’t pay attention to any of the other categories besides what I was posting in at first, but there’s no denying that incest gets a lot more attention, from what I can tell. Non-Con and BDSM have been strange to write in, but my one Romance endeavor also had its quirks. There is definitely a formula for a lot of the categories, too. I’ve been thinking of trying an I/t story anyway to find out how big of a difference, so maybe I’ll try it.

 

[XerXesXu]

So I received a perplexing email from a Lit author via the Editor's program and it wasn't about editing help, this was his primary question:

"As someone who has nearly six times as many followers as you do stories, do you have any tips for how to grow the popularity of your stories? "

I'll confess this struck me as kind of strange. It is something I had never considered, but now I am curious:

Do folks think this way, or figure out strategies or formulas? I don't mean to sound elitist or conversely clueless, but gosh, I never thought about this. I thought you write stories, post your stories, and sometimes people are nice enough to follow you.

There was a thread, the gist of which was, what do authors find erotic to read? Responses were to the effect that when authors want something erotic, they write. Categories are broken down by kink, non-kink and Romance, each has their own dedicated following.

The answer to the query you received is probably, 'My kink is Non-Con and many Lit readers share my kink. I write it well and write it prolifically.'

 

[HeyAll]

Yes, I think this way. I approach this like a business, where I need ___ amount of stories in ___ amount of time to grow a certain amount.

That's part of the enjoyment for me. I work really hard on my stories and I like seeing them grow.

If no one read my stories I wouldn't bother writing.

But yes, you need a strategy to grow. The main thing is to write stories where people will read. Writing in Erotic Coupling will get you a small audience. Writing in Incest will get you a big audience.

Having said that, I write in Lesbian and Group Sex knowing I will get far less viewers than with Incest, because I enjoy those stories and I like getting new readers there.

I also really enjoy writing crime/erotica even though that gets a smaller audience.

So for me it's a balance of love of writing, along with getting readers.

I could get a lot readers in Incest writing a 5 page mom/son love story, but I'd be miserable. Romance isn't my thing at all. So it's not all about readers all the time.

It's about doing what you love, in places where you can get readers.

 

[LAHomedog]

Yes, I think this way. I approach this like a business, where I need ___ amount of stories in ___ amount of time to grow a certain amount.

That's part of the enjoyment for me. I work really hard on my stories and I like seeing them grow.

If no one read my stories I wouldn't bother writing.

But yes, you need a strategy to grow. The main thing is to write stories where people will read. Writing in Erotic Coupling will get you a small audience. Writing in Incest will get you a big audience.

Having said that, I write in Lesbian and Group Sex knowing I will get far less viewers than with Incest, because I enjoy those stories and I like getting new readers there.

I also really enjoy writing crime/erotica even though that gets a smaller audience.

So for me it's a balance of love of writing, along with getting readers.

I could get a lot readers in Incest writing a 5 page mom/son love story, but I'd be miserable. Romance isn't my thing at all. So it's not all about readers all the time.

It's about doing what you love, in places where you can get readers.

Thank you. Very informative. Appreciate it.

 

[LAHomedog]

...Categories are broken down by kink, non-kink and Romance, each has their own dedicated following.

The answer to the query you received is probably, 'My kink is Non-Con and many Lit readers share my kink. I write it well and write it prolifically.'

I read this answer as a compliment, and if it is I thank you. Appreciate it. And if that wasn't your intention, I'm going to read it that way anyway because it like it

I also like the "categories are broken down.." too.

 

[oggbashan]

I'm not bothered. I have over 1,000 followers to just under 500 stories, but why people follow?

I know some are trolls who only follow to drop a 1 bomb on any new story of mine...

 

[XerXesXu]

I read this answer as a compliment, and if it is I thank you. Appreciate it. And if that wasn't your intention, I'm going to read it that way anyway because it like it

I also like the "categories are broken down.." too.

Yes, it was intended as a compliment; and an honest guess at the answer to the query you received.

 

[KeithD]

I'm not bothered. I have over 1,000 followers to just under 500 stories, but why people follow?

I know some are trolls who only follow to drop a 1 bomb on any new story of mine...

This is where I am in my various accounts as well, two or three followers per story, with high story counts. I also see no reason to be bothered by this, both because of the stated purposeful troll activity and the differences in trends in categories here. This is one of the few story sites emphasizing Incest and the dynamics of extramarital affairs, so it's not a headscratcher that that is where the most expression by readers is happening here.

But writers will look for meaning wherever they can find it that bolsters their competitive needs and/or put down others.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

This post prompted me do an analysis of my own works and this is what I came up with:

I currently have 755 followers of my 14 stories. Of those 14 stories, 4 of them were submitted in multiple chapters due to the length of the novel, so my total posted submissions is currently at 62.

Based upon comments from readers and the activity I see when I submit something new, my opinion is that readers originally start following me as a means of being notified when a new chapter of a story they are reading gets published. They finish the story, and either are waiting for something new from me, or just never took the time to un-follow me.

 

[PriestOfIshtar]

So...

I see a few people approaching this very scientifically, very deliberately as if it were a business.

Given that we are not getting paid for any of this, that literotica is 100% free, and undoubtedly primarily a labor of love for the owner, I am curious as to what the motivation is for such a businesslike approach?

Does that make it more fun?

Is this a training platform for subsequent for-profit enterprises?

Are people building an audience here with the plan of transitioning that audience to paid writing elsewhere, or something similar, e.g., patreon?

I am too new to be thinking seriously along those lines, but of course it has all crossed my mind.