This experiment is going to take time - Stay tuned

[BobbyBrandt]

Literotica has always been the only place where I ever submitted any of my stories in multiple chapters, and I only did that with four of them in N/N.

While these four have always done well with the scores, they didn't reach the level of reader enthusiasm that my single submission stories have within the same category.

I recently requested that Laurel delete the individual chapters for each of those stories and replace them with an edited single submission for each. All four went live today.

I know that by making this change that I will lose all the previous comments on the stories, but I have most of those saved. I am curious how the change will be viewed by readers who had previously saved the chapters as favorites and also if the change will attract many new readers to the stories.

As the heading of this posts indicates, the results will take some time.

 

[ElectricBlue]

It will be interesting to see the results - but won't they be skewed in that you have a large set of loyal followers who read the original multi-chapter pieces over many years; and one assumes a new set of readers drawn in by "New" stories. But you'll need the same number of years to get comparable data. How long does the experiment run, before you've got apples and apples?

 

[BobbyBrandt]

It will be interesting to see the results - but won't they be skewed in that you have a large set of loyal followers who read the original multi-chapter pieces over many years; and one assumes a new set of readers drawn in by "New" stories. But you'll need the same number of years to get comparable data. How long does the experiment run, before you've got apples and apples?

The four previous stories had been posted for 33, 41, 42, and 98 months. I could wait a comparable period of time or use an approximate number of views to gauge when the apple is ripe enough to judge.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The four previous stories had been posted for 33, 41, 42, and 98 months. I could wait a comparable period of time or use an approximate number of views to gauge when the apple is ripe enough to judge.

It's pop back in a year or two, then. Although, with four stories starting out at the same time, I guess you could divide the period by four. Or multiply by four... Fiddle with the maths, I'd say .

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I want to give a big shout-out to @Laurel for her assistance with these story modifications.

First of all, she gave me great advice to my question on how best to facilitate getting the four chapter stories each replaced with a single posted story. I submitted each of the four edits on different days, but recognizing that they were sequels to one another, Laurel waited and took them all live at the same time. I wouldn't have thought of that, so again, thanks.

Then I notified her that one of the stories still had all of the chapters posted along with the single whole story post, she quickly went in and deleted them. Unfortunately, she inadvertently deleted the whole story post as well, leaving a big gap in the sequels that readers quickly pounced on. No biggy. We messaged back and forth with her instructing me to resubmit the edited story and let her know when I had done so and she would jump on getting it reposted.

Laurel is one busy lady, but she went out of her way, to go out of her way for me.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Update:

By the end of the day, all four stories will have recovered their red H. The lost one just got reposted this morning and needs a few more votes to qualify.

Feedback has been heavier than normal, especially through e-mail, although a quarter of the messages were about the lost story. All feedback has been positive with no complaints about the change from individual chapters.

 

[LexxRuthless]

Two and a half years ago, I was collaborating with another author. He mentioned that he had been working on a total rewrite of his first series. He'd had years to regret some of the "glaring errors" as he thought of them. I had mentioned some of the issues I'd had when I submitted edit requests, and explained what I had learned in the process. We discussed some of the changes he had made, and he shared some of the updated chapters. I read those, then went into his profile to read the versions on the site, so I could see how he'd actually changed them.

That was when I noticed he had put the entire series into Novels & Novellas. I cringed.

I explained to him that category has one of the lowest readerships on the site. "If you're going to put in all this work, you should put the individual chapters into other categories," I said. Sure enough, each chapter got several times as many views in the first day or two that they'd gotten in over a decade in N&N.

I understand that category is precisely where longer stories and series are intended to go. It's also the last place most readers here will look for a story.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Two and a half years ago, I was collaborating with another author. He mentioned that he had been working on a total rewrite of his first series. He'd had years to regret some of the "glaring errors" as he thought of them. I had mentioned some of the issues I'd had when I submitted edit requests, and explained what I had learned in the process. We discussed some of the changes he had made, and he shared some of the updated chapters. I read those, then went into his profile to read the versions on the site, so I could see how he'd actually changed them.

That was when I noticed he had put the entire series into Novels & Novellas. I cringed.

I explained to him that category has one of the lowest readerships on the site. "If you're going to put in all this work, you should put the individual chapters into other categories," I said. Sure enough, each chapter got several times as many views in the first day or two that they'd gotten in over a decade in N&N.

I understand that category is precisely where longer stories and series are intended to go. It's also the last place most readers here will look for a story.

In my case, the four stories were always posted in N/N, just as chapters rather than as a single large story. When compared to my other stories in N/N, these four did not draw the same viewership, and the feedback over the years indicated that the breaking up of the stories contributed to this. These same four stories on other sites where they have always been posted as single, large stories maintain viewership numbers much closer to all my others than they did on Literotica, which is why I decided to make the change here.

I'm not saying that the stories tanked as chapter stories since they all were rated high and received positive comments. They just didn't resonate with my followers as much as they could have had they been single submissions. Part of this, I believe, is when readers see a story with a lot of chapters, they sometimes hesitate to dive in, unsure if the story is complete. The Series Manager provides a solution to this, but it wasn't available when these stories were originally posted as chapters. Posting as a single submission makes the completeness of the story more obvious to readers, or at least it should.

Finally, it's not just about the number of views. Single story submissions also provide for a more consistent and reliable reader feedback than you receive by getting comments on individual chapters. Reader feedback is on the complete body of work rather than pieces of it. As a writer, this carries much more weight IMO. I know a lot of authors like to post chapters as they write them, specifically to receive reader feedback, but I have never been that impatient.