One long story or multiple parts?

[ElectricBlue]

View:vote ratios do not drop in proportion to the drop in views. IF what you say is true, then we would expect that the number of views to votes would be much smaller than in fact they turn out to be. You don't give your vote figures, but if you did I think they would bear out what I'm saying.

My Vote per View ratio for those stories is pretty consistent across the duration of the story, it follows almost exactly the same curve (especially for the two longer stories).

Which again is why I feel the View count for the last chapter is something closer to the actual number of Reads, that is, the number who have read the whole thing. What else would be In the numbers for the last chapter, two or five years later? These aren't new stories, they're being read from my back catalogue, people aren't finding them on the New Lists (which is the basis of your counter-argument with its random drop ins).

Also, I know which chapters have the hotter sex - I can easily see the anomaly blips where the View count jumps up for that chapter, then goes back to the steady state. I can only attribute that to some readers reading it twice, which also correlates with the higher score for that chapter.

That's the only explanation for Chapter 6 of A Girl on the Bus - that chapter is the money shot, and is pure EB, one of my best. Its View count is 60% higher than the previous chapter.

A Girl on the Bus Pt. 04
Flash Fiction - I'm not going home by myself.
02/27/2020 in Mature Stories
5 faves (which is too low to mean anything at all)
8.2k Views, 4.49 / 146, 9 comments

A Girl on the Bus Pt. 05
Flash Fiction - in Delilah's House.
02/28/2020 in Mature Stories
4 faves, 7.8k, 4.43 / 145, 6 comments

A Girl on the Bus Pt. 06
In Delilah's room.
03/08/2020 in Mature Stories
HOT 6 faves, 13k, 4.78 / 153, 10 comments

 

[Djmac1031]

I'm getting my figures from the numbers at the top right corner for each of those two stories.

Weird. My home page gives me the numbers I posted. But yes, you're correct, the numbers differ on the story itself.

Just another reason not to trust Views, I guess

 

[SimonDoom]

My Vote per View ratio for those stories is pretty consistent across the duration of the story, it follows almost exactly the same curve (especially for the two longer stories).

Which again is why I feel the View count for the last chapter is something closer to the actual number of Reads, that is, the number who have read the whole thing.

These are mathematically inconsistent statements. If what you are saying is true, then votes keep going down just as fast as views do over the progression of the story. And if that's true, it's logical to believe that reads are going down at something like the same rate. You have no data that suggests otherwise. If your first factual description is correct, then unless for unexplained reason unsupported by evidence the read rate is different, we should expect that views are just as uncertain an indicator of reads for late stories as for early stories.

It's true that as the numbers decline the gap will lower in an arithmetic sense, but not in a proportionate sense. Meaning, if the view:read ratio for Chapter 1 is 10:1, and the views total 1000, then reads are 100, and the difference between views and reads is 900. If by Chapter 10 the views are 250 and the ratio is the same, reads will be 25. The gap between the two is 225. But is this meaningful? I don't think so. You're still only getting 1 read for every 10 views. If your view:vote ratio remains the same throughout all the chapters, it seems logical to believe this is more or less true. And the conclusion from this is that views in late chapters give you no more meaningful information about how many reads you than early chapters do, except in the obvious and unmeaningful sense that if the views are a lot less then the reads will be a lot less.

 

[ElectricBlue]

These are mathematically inconsistent statements. If what you are saying is true, then votes keep going down just as fast as views do over the progression of the story. And if that's true, it's logical to believe that reads are going down at something like the same rate. You have no data that suggests otherwise. If your first factual description is correct, then unless for unexplained reason unsupported by evidence the read rate is different, we should expect that views are just as uncertain an indicator of reads for late stories as for early stories.

For my two longest stories, the Views settled by chapter 3, and were much the same count per chapter through to the last chapter, with some perturbations (the hotter chapters have clear upwards blips, especially relative to the chapter immediately before).

The Vote counts per chapter, from chapter three to the end, are also pretty much identical - one vote per hundred views. What can I say? That's the data in my story file. Steady state Views at chapter three, through to the last chapter; similar number of Votes from chapter three to the end.

My conclusion, therefore, is that those readers who open up chapter three are going to be the same readers who open up chapter 13 or 23. Ergo, they're reading the whole story if they've read the last chapter. Therefore, last chapter stats approximate true Reads.

The one per hundred ratio is also consistent across my whole catalogue - it's one of my basic measures, how am I going? Some stories far better, some worse (I find the worse ratios are category specific - Group in particular).

My point in this has always been, chaptered stories do give you an idea of the true Reads, stand-alone stories, none at all. For me, the Girl on the Bus stats are the anomalies, but proved my point (to me, at least), that readers will stick by a story despite no sex until chapter six - provided they get to chapter three.

You seem to be missing my expression, "steady state" - and granted, my sample size is only two long stories (both about 100,000 words). But why else would someone open a last chapter, five years on, if they're not going to read it? These aren't new stories, yet the growth data has been consistent over the years.

 

[SimonDoom]

The Vote counts per chapter, from chapter three to the end, are also pretty much identical - one vote per hundred views. What can I say? That's the data in my story file. Steady state Views at chapter three, through to the last chapter; similar number of Votes from chapter three to the end.

My conclusion, therefore, is that those readers who open up chapter three are going to be the same readers who open up chapter 13 or 23. Ergo, they're reading the whole story if they've read the last chapter. Therefore, last chapter stats approximate true Reads.

You are still not explaining why you think this. Your conclusion does not follow from your observations and your data. My theory is different. I think it's very likely that view:read ratios are much smaller than we would like to believe they are, across the board. What that means is that for chapters after chapter 1 and down the line, the influx of new readers, though much smaller than for chapter 1, is relatively higher compared to the number of ongoing readers, and gets higher and higher as the story progresses. The loss of some ongoing readers makes this even more true. So there's no reason especially to believe the view:read ratio changes, and if that's true then we cannot say that views are more reflective of reads for chapter 10 than for chapter 1.

Imagine this example, to illustrate my point:

Chapter 1 has 10,000 views, and you know it has 100 votes. A 100:1 ratio. You don't know how many reads there are from this data. Let's suppose you believe there are 2500 actual reads. That seems optimistic to me, but let's assume that. That makes the read:vote ratio 25:1.

Chapter 5 has 2500 views, and it has 25 votes. The same ratio. If you are saying that you believe that 2500 is "closer" to the real number of reads -- say you believe reads are 2000-- then you are saying the read:vote ratio has exploded from 25:1 to 80:1. That makes no sense whatsoever to me. I don't see how one can suppose that. But that's what you are saying. I think it's much more probable that the read:vote ratio is fairly stable, and if I'm right then the number of reads would be 625, and the view:read ratio would be no different than for chapter 1. The data you present don't argue against what seems to me a more logical assumption, based on the numbers.

 

[ElectricBlue]

You are still not explaining why you think this. Your conclusion does not follow from your observations and your data. My theory is different. I think it's very likely that view:read ratios are much smaller than we would like to believe they are, across the board. What that means is that for chapters after chapter 1 and down the line, the influx of new readers, though much smaller than for chapter 1, is relatively higher compared to the number of ongoing readers, and gets higher and higher as the story progresses. The loss of some ongoing readers makes this even more true. So there's no reason especially to believe the view:read ratio changes, and if that's true then we cannot say that views are more reflective of reads for chapter 10 than for chapter 1.

Your argument assumes drop-in readers from a New List.

My argument ignores the New List input, because these are years old stories, with most of their Views coming long after they first appeared. These are stories being read by people visiting my back catalogue, not coming into a new story from a New List.

But I'll keep it really simple - why would anyone open the last chapter of a long story if they weren't going to read it? For that matter, why would anyone open a chapter three or a chapter four of a story if they weren't already reading that story? That part of your argument makes no sense to me at all - why would you open a late order chapter if you weren't reading that story? I don't think readers are that dumb.

That's my fundamental assumption - if someone opens a chapter 13 or a chapter 23, it means they are reading that story, have followed it from the beginning. Ergo, last chapter View numbers = roughly the number of readers who finished that story (setting aside those who read it twice, but I contend I can see that number too, on these stories, for certain chapters).

There is no other reason why anyone would open a last chapter - surely they do so with the intent of reading it? Remember, these stories haven't been on a New List for years.

The votes ratio has nothing to do with the logic of "who opens a last chapter." Anyway, in my case, that ratio is consistent across my story file (chaptered and stand-alone stories) - but I have never constructed a "number of readers" argument from that data. You have, because you don't have chaptered stories, but I see no reason for your logic, because they are measuring different things.

My argument is from the fundamental assumption that someone who opens the last chapter of a long story does so because they intend to read it, because they've read every other chapter before it.

It's therefore logical that last chapter Views approximates Reads.

 

[Djmac1031]

Been reading the back and forth on this and see valid points on both sides.

Here's how I see it personally.

My latest Jenna story just posted a few weeks ago is part 19.

That's a LOT of chapters.

While I'd love to believe the over one thousand views it currently has is continuous readers, it currently only has 70 votes.

So I either have a thousand readers but only 70 who bothered to rate it, or 70 regular readers and 930 others who clicked on it randomly but didn't necessarily read the thing.

Why would they click on a Part 19 if they weren't already reading the series?

Maybe curiosity? To see what it's about? Or just a quick scan for the sex scenes to see if it got them going? I dunno.

I try not to dwell on it too much either way.

As a pretty new author, 70 regular readers of my series sounds like a pretty good and reasonable number.

A thousand readers sounds way more awesome of course, but I don't have enough evidence to support that conclusion.

I've always been a realist, so to me, the low number is probably the more accurate one lol.

 

[sandyparker272]

If you post in parts, I think it's helpful to reassure readers that the story is complete and X number of parts will be posted every Y days. That certainly encourages me to try reading a story.

Also every part should be a chapter - basically something needs to happen to be a payoff in that chapter. Let plot rather than length be a guide. Hence I will soon inflict a story of 4-6 chapters of 25k words each onto my readers, because that's how it splits. How it will go down? No idea - it crosses too many categories and might have to go to the backwater of Novels & Novellas...

sounds correct

 

[ElectricBlue]

So I either have a thousand readers but only 70 who bothered to rate it, or 70 regular readers and 930 others who clicked on it randomly but didn't necessarily read the thing.

Why would they click on a Part 19 if they weren't already reading the series?

70 Votes for a thousand Views is a strong response - that's 7 per hundred, so by my rule of thumb, that's a chapter with a very high reader response.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the score is either very high because your readers really like it, or really low, because they think it's really bad.

And your observation is my fundamental assumption in this to and fro with Simon - of course someone clicking in on a nineteenth chapter is reading the whole story - that is Logic 101 in my world.

 

[SimonDoom]

70 Votes for a thousand Views is a strong response - that's 7 per hundred, so by my rule of thumb, that's a chapter with a very high reader response.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the score is either very high because your readers really like it, or really low, because they think it's really bad.

And your observation is my fundamental assumption in this to and fro with Simon - of course someone clicking in on a nineteenth chapter is reading the whole story - that is Logic 101 in my world.

You are excluding the possibility -- indeed what I think is the high likelihood-- that there are plenty of readers who see "Mom Goes Wild Chapter 19" on the new story feed and click on it without going to Chapter 1. Maybe not you, but I think that's typical Internet consumer behavior--people go for the easiest, fastest-to-reach thing.

Also, you still cannot explain, if you are right, why the read:vote ratio would soar for late chapters, which is what it mathematically MUST do if the view:vote ratio remains the same and the view number approximates the read number. I think your logic is just your subjective feeling. It's what I initially intuited as well, but I came around to the view it just doesn't fit with the numbers.

I like noodling over this stuff but even I'm starting to get a headache over it. Time to get back to writing my story.

 

[ElectricBlue]

You are excluding the possibility -- indeed what I think is the high likelihood-- that there are plenty of readers who see "Mom Goes Wild Chapter 19" on the new story feed and click on it without going to Chapter 1. Maybe not you, but I think that's typical Internet consumer behavior--people go for the easiest, fastest-to-reach thing.

Also, you still cannot explain, if you are right, why the read:vote ratio would soar for late chapters, which is what it mathematically MUST do if the view:vote ratio remains the same and the view number approximates the read number. I think your logic is just your subjective feeling. It's what I initially intuited as well, but I came around to the view it just doesn't fit with the numbers.

I like noodling over this stuff but even I'm starting to get a headache over it. Time to get back to writing my story.

My data is way past any New List "click in on any latest" short attention span factor.

One of the long stories was published in 2014, and its View numbers have easily doubled since then. The other is my Arthurian novel, published over a month in 2018, and again, the View numbers have just about doubled. So your "high likelihood" of click-ins from a New List died in the bum 4 - 6 years ago. It's simply not a factor. These stories are now being read by folk who have found my back catalogue, not New List readers.

The Vote per View factor remains constant over the chapter count of those stories, regardless of the View count. It doesn't soar, and I've never said it does. Just because some one is reading it, doesn't mean they're voting for it - they're still lazy fuckers in that regard. BUT, they do settle in to read around chapter three, because that's where the big drop offs stop.

Sure, there's a bit of a decline right through to the last chapter, maybe ten per cent from the chapter three counts - but individual chapter perturbations mask the line - it's more a ripple. It would appear that my even number chapters have better sex than my odd number chapters. Odd.

Even odder, the highest rated chapter in the first yarn has no sex, it's a pause in the story; and one of the higher rated chapters in the Arthurian thang is gay male, so go figure. That story is clearly not being read by the Real Men of Lit, because if they were, that chapter would be pounded. I am pleased to report, though, that my lowest scored chapter/story - and even then it's a 4.0 - was in the first yarn, when I sprung GM incest on my readers - ooo, that upset a few!

It still comes back to Reader Logic 101: why would someone click in on later chapters if they're not reading those chapters?

That seems to be the bit you're not seeing - there's no New List factor from internet clowns going on here - if someone is finding these stories in my back catalogue, and they don't like them, they're gone by chapter two, and dust over the horizon by chapter three. And note bene, there is no Mom in the title. Not a single once. So your fave category factors don't apply, either.

There is brother sister and father daughter incest, though. You can't do the classic Arthur - Morgaine thing without bro-sis, but it was my artistic licence giving Arthur a daughter - definitely not in the myth.

But still, at the end of the day, you've not explained why someone would click into the last chapter if they're not reading the story. Remember, these are NOT on any New List.

 

[yowser]

But still, at the end of the day, you've not explained why someone would click into the last chapter if they're not reading the story. Remember, these are NOT on any New List.

I suspect the debate is not going to be settled without data that is currently unavailable. How do readers actually make their way through the stories here?

To speculate on this last point, I could imagine a reader clicking on the last chapter of a long story to see the comments. These might give a reader some reason to go back to the first part and take the plunge for a long effort (ie. find out if the reading/time investment is worth it.)

There might be other reasons, and I may be granting more foresight to readers than warranted, but we really just don't know, and won't be able to answer this without a real survey or better mechanism for understanding Lit reading behavior.

 

[SimonDoom]

But still, at the end of the day, you've not explained why someone would click into the last chapter if they're not reading the story. Remember, these are NOT on any New List.

I don't have an explanation for it, because it's impossible to intuit exactly why readers choose stories and to know exactly how they do so. There might be a high random factor at work--people just somehow find stories and click on chapters in the middle. Remember that there are random story lists on various hubs. I recall 20 years ago when the Site was less structured I would choose stories to read in a much more random way than I do now. I don't think we know.

I think (but I'm speculating) there's a possibility that someone might click on Chapter 19 to get a better sense of what it's about before taking the time to hunt for Chapter 1, and if that's so (and I think it certainly could be) then there will continue to be a high view:read ratio.

But in any event, your objection is far less compelling than mine: which is that you cannot offer any explanation for the necessary implication that under your theory the read:vote ratio must soar beyond the levels of the first chapter. Just as a matter of math, that doesn't make sense. That strikes me as a more significant objection than speculating about reader behavior.

Both of us are speculating somewhat, because it's possible, and likely, that there are factors at work that we haven't even considered.

 

[Djmac1031]

But still, at the end of the day, you've not explained why someone would click into the last chapter if they're not reading the story.

Occasionally, more like rarely, after I've posted a new chapter in my series, I'll see a jump in activity on chapter 1, maybe several of the older chapters.

Bit out of the "thousands" of views on that new chapter, I'll be lucky to see one, maybe two new hits on chapter 1. And thats not EVERY time.

So yeah, sometimes a reader will click a later chapter to check it out, see if they're interested.

But that doesn't mean they read the whole thing, or found enough interest to start at the beginning.

 

[SimonDoom]

Occasionally, more like rarely, after I've posted a new chapter in my series, I'll see a jump in activity on chapter 1, maybe several of the older chapters.

Bit out of the "thousands" of views on that new chapter, I'll be lucky to see one, maybe two new hits on chapter 1. And thats not EVERY time.

So yeah, sometimes a reader will click a later chapter to check it out, see if they're interested.

But that doesn't mean they read the whole thing, or found enough interest to start at the beginning.

Deleted. Have to give this some more thought!

 

[Djmac1031]

Deleted. Have to give this some more thought!

I'm honestly not trying to "argue" either side. There are simply way too many variables and no real way to truly measure what's happening on any given story.

We also have to take into account the "Similiar Stories" recommendations at the end of any story that could cause a view, trolls who like to Uni Bomb without reading anything, Top Lists, etc.

There are tons of reasons why views can be high on a story and none of them mean someone actually READ it. Or ALL of it.

So again, for me, the only numbers I take seriously at all are rated votes. Yes, there are probably those One Bombs by someone who didn't read it, but that certainly only accounts for a few votes at most.

Just the way I see it.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Ahh, now I understand the basis of your argument, from those numbers. I couldn't understand your maths approach before.

All I've ever used was the simple logic that people back out over the first three chapters - we agree on that - and those that were left at that point, were readers to the end, pretty much. Sure, there's a New List factor if you publish over a long period, but it's only there while the story is being released.

Once it's off the New List, the reader behaviour must be different, because they're arriving at your story file in some other way.

The Dark Chronicles took a year to gather a thousand readers for its last chapter, and another three years to triple that number (not even).

And the eight year old story has an almost identical pattern, and a similar growth factor over time - it's been read far more from the back catalogue than it was on first release.

So the bulk of my readers to these stories have come later, so the New List factor is irrelevant - and that's the basis of my belief that the last chapter count is fairly representative - for my story catalogue, for my reader dynamic, over time.

The rapid drop-off to chapter three is still obvious after four and eight years - readers open the story, think they won't like it, back out. Those still there at chapter three are obviously still reading, thus, the last chapter is indicative of those who have read through to the end. There's no New List impact in the 2022 numbers, no drop-ins, no go backs, no millennials acting without thought. Clever readers, is what's left.

The basis for my argument, my belief, is that set of clever readers reading from chapter 1 to chapter 23 in that order (not starting in the middle, not starting at the end); there's a quick attrition, which is to be expected, but surely Logic 101 is working by chapter three, and certainly at the end?

If you take away any New List factor (and afer 4 - 8 years, how can that ever be significant? not once the raw Views have doubled ) all you have left is the Views curve. Votes are irrelevant, Scores are irrelevant (1% is down in the noise, so any mathematical argument was irrelevant anyway).

So at the end of the day, after half a decade or more, and after a 100,000 words in each of those stories, I still think it's reasonable to say that maybe 80% of the last chapter Views are actual Reads - kicking in the Pareto factor just for laughs, to take out those early on effects (because with human behaviour, old Pareto Is more right than wrong, eighty percent of the time).

Which means, compared to the first chapter Views count, your actual Read is about 20% - 25% by the end. Which is all I've been saying all along, and thus, chaptered stories reveal this, whereas stand-alone stories never do.

Which is what I've said, right from the start (I blame Simon for bringing in incomprehensible maths ). And I think Simon arrived at the same conclusion, using his circuitous maths. Ironic, innit?

Carry on .

 

[Djmac1031]

I'm still just trying to figure out why the view counter on the story page shows a significantly less amount of views than the view counter on my home page.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm still just trying to figure out why the view counter on the story page shows a significantly less amount of views than the view counter on my home page.

Because different parts of the site refresh data on different timetables. Your home page is the latest data, and it updates in real time (proven by experiment by clicking into one of my stories).

 

[Djmac1031]

Because different parts of the site refresh data on different timetables. Your home page is the latest data, and it updates in real time (proven by experiment by clicking into one of my stories).

That makes sense. And going through some of my older stories, the numbers do match up.

Thanks.

 

[SimonDoom]

Because different parts of the site refresh data on different timetables. Your home page is the latest data, and it updates in real time (proven by experiment by clicking into one of my stories).

It isn't just this, though. I've had permanent discrepancies for stories on different lists -- for example, the numbers that show up on my home page and numbers that show up on lists. There's something about how the site counts views for different lists differently that's a bit screwy at times. That discrepancy doesn't show up for all stories, but for a few.

 

[peterheer51]

As a long time reader I never read chaptered stories.

As a recent author I hesitate to make stories too long but I prefer that format.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Yes, and I believe multiple clicks on a story by one user count as multiple views.

There's a clearly observable phenomenon that second chapters have far fewer views than first chapters. In fact, it's common for second chapters to have no more than half the views of first chapters.

That suggests that there's more selection for second chapters. Some people click on chapter 1, read a little, don't like it, and don't bother with chapter 2. Chapter 2 then has a smaller potential audience. It's logical to assume that for chapter 2 the "view" number gives you a much better idea how many actual readers there are. But the vote figures, from everything I've seen, don't quite bear this out. I think for subsequent chapters view numbers still greatly exceed reads.

I noticed that on FFNet, since you can break down views and reads by chapter in the analytics. I noticed each chapter had a significant drop, other than a spike here and there. Like say the first chapter has 600 views, the next will have 498, then 230, 80, 115, 67, 49. I guess you can see this here if you post each chapter stand alone, but othet than updating what I have like that, I stopped doing that, for the most part. What I wonder is how do they determin views versus engagement(reads).

You hafta consider the drop-offs are probably people who just gave up on the story, probably went a displeasing direction.

 

[Publius68]

I think the real takeaway from all this analysis (and thank you for the time and thought that went into it all) is that Literotica could significantly improve the quality, or at least popularity, of offerings in the future by providing authors (and perhaps even readers) with better metrics.
I doubt this is the place to post this, or that the administration has the wherewithal to address it, but here is what I think we all need to improve our understanding of what format readers want.

• View counts for all pages of a story, or failing that, view counts of first and last pages. This would give us both an idea of how engaging our material is, and whether we should be producing more chaptered content or more long, single episodes.
• Public statistics on views, vote counts, and ratings for stories by category. It feels as if half the content on Litt is Incest. Is this because it is what half the readers want, or half the authors want to write? That category aside, this would also give those of use who are fairly new to this platform a better idea of which categories of any kind readers are seeking.
• Information on exit clicks. How many pages (especially middle pages) are simply closed? How many are departed for other content by the same author, whether that be the next page, or their catalog of works/profile? How many clicks are there leading to related stories? This last piece of info would be especially valuable for understanding the real popularity of a story. If readers want more like it, that's a hell of a vote.
• This would be hardest of all, but it would sure be informative to have some graphs of stats over time. This would be useful to us to gauge what makes for enduring content, rather than just click-bait descriptions.

Like I said, probably not going to happen, but those'er my desires after reading this thread. Thanks folks~

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

My own experience shows that there can be increased interest in the later chapters of a series. In a nine-part series I posted almost a year ago, Parts 5, 7, and 9 have essentially the same number of views, which I'll treat as a baseline. Part 6's views are about 78 percent more than the baseline. Part 8's views are about 85 percent more than the baseline. The only difference in how the parts are presented, where a prospective reader might see them, is in the short description, so I gather that 6 and 8 must have had better click-bait than 5, 7, and 9. No, I'm not giving more detail or adding my story list, because this isn't about flogging my stuff. If you're really interested, please PM me.