Help! I'm completely baffled...

[BobbyBrandt]

I think I generally have a pretty good handle on what the stats on my stories indicate, but with this one, I am stumped.

My story, 1990, was published here on January 1st in Novels and Novellas, and has averaged only 11.68 views per day with a rating consistent at around 4.83. This is compared to my other stories in the same category that average between 40 and 50 views per day and an average rating around 4.75.

With only 479 views to-date, there have been 15 comments, and every one is positive. The low view count is confusing enough when compared to my other stories, but the number of votes per view remains completely unexplainable for me.

Recognizing that not every view equals a read, with 343 votes so far, that means that more than 70% of the readers who "view" the story have voted on it. This trend is remaining somewhat constant in that within the last week, there have been 4 views and 3 of those resulted in votes.

My first thought was that there was something wrong with the data tracking for this story within the Literotica system, but after a month and a half, I am questioning this.

Has anyone else ever experienced anything this dramatically different where one of their stories was concerned?

 

[KeithD]

It's a huge site with a huge number of variables at play from moment to moment. That the comparative results of anything would be widely variable as well should not, really, come as a surprise to anyone.

 

[Emotional]

Yeah it always confuses me

I have 1 story with 1400 votes on 49,000 views, and another with 1400 votes on 18,000

 

[BobbyBrandt]

It's a huge site with a huge number of variables at play from moment to moment. That the comparative results of anything would be widely variable as well should not, really, come as a surprise to anyone.

Believe me, I understand that aspect of things. With more than 70 stories posted, to see just this one so drastically different when compared to the others raises questions if not surprise.

 

[Djmac1031]

That's actually a pretty good ratio for a really long story. It may not draw a LOT of readers because it's long, but those who read it liked it and rated it well. You should be pleased.

 

[Voboy]

Accept it and move on to the next one.

Trying to over-parse Lit data is a fool’s errand.

 

[NotWise]

When a story gets fewer views than you expect, the title and/or short description provide the likely explanation. In this case, the title and short description probably don't hook very many new readers.

The very high voting percentage is interesting. Coupled with the low views, I'd suggest that many of the story's readers are familiar with your other work. Many may already be followers. Familiarity makes them prone to voting, and if they like the story, it makes them prone to voting high.

 

[SimonDoom]

It could be any number of things, but you'll just be headed down the rabbit hole if you spend too much time trying to figure it out. I've experienced significantly different daily view rates for stories within categories, and I couldn't tell you why. I'll note this: among my stories, there does not seem to be ANY correlation between score and views. Any number of things could make a difference: the title, the tags and tagline, whether it shows upon on toplists or similar story lists. Who knows?

 

[BobbyBrandt]

That's actually a pretty good ratio for a really long story. It may not draw a LOT of readers because it's long, but those who read it liked it and rated it well. You should be pleased.

True, but I am analyzing the comparison to similar stories and coming up short on reasons for this one to be performing differently.

For example, the two stories published a few months before this one were also posted in N/N. One was 15 Lit pages, has 31 average views per day, a rating of 4.81 and is maintaining 5% votes to views. The other was 31 Lit pages, has 53 average views per day, a rating of 4.86 and is maintaining 4% votes to views.

I'm not complaining about the numbers, just wondering if anyone has a clue as to what could be causing the significant difference compared to like stories.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

It could be any number of things, but you'll just be headed down the rabbit hole if you spend too much time trying to figure it out. I've experienced significantly different daily view rates for stories within categories, and I couldn't tell you why. I'll note this: among my stories, there does not seem to be ANY correlation between score and views. Any number of things could make a difference: the title, the tags and tagline, whether it shows upon on toplists or similar story lists. Who knows?

Hence my reason for asking others for their experience, advice, and opinions. I would prefer not to search for an answer that someone else might already have discovered.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

When a story gets fewer views than you expect, the title and/or short description provide the likely explanation. In this case, the title and short description probably don't hook very many new readers.

The very high voting percentage is interesting. Coupled with the low views, I'd suggest that many of the story's readers are familiar with your other work. Many may already be followers. Familiarity makes them prone to voting, and if they like the story, it makes them prone to voting high.

This actually makes a lot of sense. Views from followers wouldn't be dependent as much upon title, tags, top lists, or anything other than the notification on their control panel.

This theory is supported further when I look at the comments and see that even the two anonymous comments still indicate that they were familiar with my other stories.

Unless someone has a better answer, I'll lean towards this. Thanks

 

[AlexBailey]

My guess is that the title and description don’t do much to attract readership.

“1990” as the title?

“A prequel to "His Daddy's Car" set in the year 1990” as the description?

If someone is interested they’ll check “His Daddy’s Car” and find it’s 95k words!

That’s great for readers looking for long stories… nothing wrong with that, it probably limits your readers to those who are really connecting. It’s probably bad for views but good for ratings because those who get to the end to vote will only be those who were interested and stuck with it.

 

[oggbashan]

Congratualtions! I wish I had such stats on any of my stories.