I write because I write. I live a life engineered to be as solitary as possible. I literally speak to not a single person (verbally) for weeks and even months. But I write like a mother-fucker. I used to do stand-up comedy and still do humor writing and found that if I think of a joke yet fail to write it out immediately? It's gone. But as well, I get very little out of writing stories and more out of writing/participating in the forums just to see the reactions. Sometimes I'm going for a positive reaction, sometimes I enjoy pissing people the fuck, off. Sometimes I want laughs, other times, shock. Sometimes I mean what I write, sometimes it's the OPPOSITE of how I truly think or feel.I've been asked about this - and about my reaction to stories with low view counts and is it worth writing when you only get a few k views, and I did put some thinking into this. I'd be interested to hear what yu all think about this one too?
For myself - some of my stories have low views for the effort I put in - my last 3 Jeong Park chapters have about 10k views each - but they score 6.5 / 4.7 / 4.7 - the readers of Jeong that are following the story love them, but I think it's down to dedicated fans now - which I don't mind at all because I'm pretty sure at this stage those are dedicated readers - and 10k ain't bad. My absolutely lowest view is a short sci-fi story that was written for an invitation-only event and again, I dn't worry about it - it was fun to write and the story was something that I wanted to write.
Well over half my stories have less than 50k views but again, a lot of them were semi-experimental and me trying out new things or a different genre so again, I don't worry about it- I treat Literotica as a learning curve and somewhere to try things out and if it doesn't work, I try and figure out why and use it as a learning experience.
It's funny because it was a lot of my earlier stories that get the 60k-100k views. The ones between 100-200k views are a bit of a mixed bag.
I only have 4 stories with more than 200k views each - and those and a couple of the 100k+ ones are the ones I am focusing on redoing to self-publish - that combo of views and ratings is how I prioritize if I am going to do anyhing else with them. The rest are just fun and to learn from. LOL
All of that said, I joined Literoticas and started posting stories here as a "learn to write and see if readers like my stories" exercise. Getting a novel published by a mainstream publisher is a diabolically hard exercise and you have to get thru the filters to even be seriously considered - and erotica is almost impossible to do that with. What Literotica was for me was a trial run - do readers like my stories? Turned out they did, but it also turned out my early writing was pretty crappy to start with - you're much better in your head than you turn out to be on the display or on paper to start woth LOL - which is why you see so many crap Kindle ebooks that are self-published. Ego overrides skills - and a lot of kindle writers just churn out crap and I didn't want to go there so instead of adding to the crap I used Literotica to develop and hone my writing - and got it to where a small erotica publisher approached me (back in 2018) and a fairly well-known published sci-fi author asked me to co-write a novel with him back a couple of years ago (I still have to write that one). So as an approach, it worked for me.
So my approach is, disregard the views and the ratings and just write for myself and to develop my writing skills - too many writers on Lit don't focus on that part of it because it doesn't interest them and it's not their priority and nothing at all wrng with that- they are writing to get the stories and fantasies in their heads out and read, without worrying about improving because they have n real interest in being published or whatever - we all have our own reasons for writing and for publishing them here on Lit
Whereas MY aim longer term is to self publish and publish and go commercial and maybe even make a livimg out of it if I can. I'd love to do that- so I have an objective, the focus, and a plan to get there - and I see Literotica as my training ground, with Laurel and Manu providing me with millions of readers to try my stuff out on and it doesn't cost me a thing except my time. From that POV, I dont worry about views - I write to learn and to entertain readers and I experiment all the time with stories, genre, subject, and I try to learn from each story I write.
To start with the big thing I had to tackle was dialog and characterization - and then hooks - those hooks are a big thing - you have 50 words to hook a reader, and then you need to keep reeling them in and jerking the hook tighter with each chapter. My aim is to make a story un put downable. When I get a comment saying I stayed up until 5am because I couldn't put it down, THAT is a winner for me. Now I'm into plot and plotting which has always been a toughie for me. My stories are very linear and not at all complex. I probably won't change that too much but understanding plot and story structure and things like that really helps - when I starrted it was sort of instinctive because I read so much and I guess I just absorbed it, but it helps to know all the theoretical underpinnings - and now I have 2 shelves in one ff my bookcases on writing. All sorts of subjects, and they're quite useful. I have 3 or 4 books on revisions LOL. Synrax. Structyure (even grammar and speling LOL). Dialog. Characterization. Plotting,
So when I started on Lit, I already had a goal and 10 years later I am waaaay closer to being there - and the only thing slowing me down is my own innate ability to procrastinate LOL. Literotica's been everything I wanted and just writing here has helped me so much along my path, as has the encouragement and help of a lot of people here on the AH as well as my readers.
So what do you want to achieve and where do you want to go and how is Literotica going to help you get there.
Myself, I love the huge #'s of readers - any story will find an audience here, and they're readers who WANT to read erotica - so unlike Amazon, for example, a lot of audience filtering has already been done for us. So even what we might think of as a paltryt 6k or 7k views translates into thousands of readers who took the time to read our story. I think the stats say the average book only sells about 1200 copies, so putting aside that Lit is free, 6-7k views is ALREADY thousands of readers ahead of where the average book is on Amazon.
Readers generally translated into followers, and what I've found myself is that for the few things I have published, a lot of Literotica readers have followed across to Amazon and THAT translates into sales. Hasn't made my fortune and I'm not retiring on it but it's paying fr the coffee. LOL
So what's your take? What are YOU using Literotica for?
Beta readers.
I've been writing my whole life, but never wrote any erotica. This was odd because I had a very active and storied sexually adventurous life. Now, at 61, that sexual life is mostly behind me and effectively over. lol Yeah, I occasionally have a few episodes, like once or twice a year, but for most of my adult life it was more like once or twice a week. Literotica does two things for me. First, it allows me to not care if my writing is perfect. Seems writing smut brings the hack writer out of me. I break every single rule of writing and I just don't give a damn. It is sooooo freaking liberating. Surprisingly, this has allowed me to create some very cool stories, full of spur of the moment writing taboos I would never dare put in one of my mainstream sci-fi, horror or fantasy novels, screenplays or short stories.I've been asked about this - and about my reaction to stories with low view counts and is it worth writing when you only get a few k views, and I did put some thinking into this. I'd be interested to hear what yu all think about this one too?
For myself - some of my stories have low views for the effort I put in - my last 3 Jeong Park chapters have about 10k views each - but they score 6.5 / 4.7 / 4.7 - the readers of Jeong that are following the story love them, but I think it's down to dedicated fans now - which I don't mind at all because I'm pretty sure at this stage those are dedicated readers - and 10k ain't bad. My absolutely lowest view is a short sci-fi story that was written for an invitation-only event and again, I dn't worry about it - it was fun to write and the story was something that I wanted to write.
Well over half my stories have less than 50k views but again, a lot of them were semi-experimental and me trying out new things or a different genre so again, I don't worry about it- I treat Literotica as a learning curve and somewhere to try things out and if it doesn't work, I try and figure out why and use it as a learning experience.
It's funny because it was a lot of my earlier stories that get the 60k-100k views. The ones between 100-200k views are a bit of a mixed bag.
I only have 4 stories with more than 200k views each - and those and a couple of the 100k+ ones are the ones I am focusing on redoing to self-publish - that combo of views and ratings is how I prioritize if I am going to do anyhing else with them. The rest are just fun and to learn from. LOL
All of that said, I joined Literoticas and started posting stories here as a "learn to write and see if readers like my stories" exercise. Getting a novel published by a mainstream publisher is a diabolically hard exercise and you have to get thru the filters to even be seriously considered - and erotica is almost impossible to do that with. What Literotica was for me was a trial run - do readers like my stories? Turned out they did, but it also turned out my early writing was pretty crappy to start with - you're much better in your head than you turn out to be on the display or on paper to start woth LOL - which is why you see so many crap Kindle ebooks that are self-published. Ego overrides skills - and a lot of kindle writers just churn out crap and I didn't want to go there so instead of adding to the crap I used Literotica to develop and hone my writing - and got it to where a small erotica publisher approached me (back in 2018) and a fairly well-known published sci-fi author asked me to co-write a novel with him back a couple of years ago (I still have to write that one). So as an approach, it worked for me.
So my approach is, disregard the views and the ratings and just write for myself and to develop my writing skills - too many writers on Lit don't focus on that part of it because it doesn't interest them and it's not their priority and nothing at all wrng with that- they are writing to get the stories and fantasies in their heads out and read, without worrying about improving because they have n real interest in being published or whatever - we all have our own reasons for writing and for publishing them here on Lit
Whereas MY aim longer term is to self publish and publish and go commercial and maybe even make a livimg out of it if I can. I'd love to do that
To start with the big thing I had to tackle was dialog and characterization - and then hooks - those hooks are a big thing - you have 50 words to hook a reader, and then you need to keep reeling them in and jerking the hook tighter with each chapter. My aim is to make a story un put downable. When I get a comment saying I stayed up until 5am because I couldn't put it down, THAT is a winner for me. Now I'm into plot and plotting which has always been a toughie for me. My stories are very linear and not at all complex. I probably won't change that too much but understanding plot and story structure and things like that really helps - when I starrted it was sort of instinctive because I read so much and I guess I just absorbed it, but it helps to know all the theoretical underpinnings - and now I have 2 shelves in one ff my bookcases on writing. All sorts of subjects, and they're quite useful. I have 3 or 4 books on revisions LOL. Synrax. Structyure (even grammar and speling LOL). Dialog. Characterization. Plotting,
So when I started on Lit, I already had a goal and 10 years later I am waaaay closer to being there - and the only thing slowing me down is my own innate ability to procrastinate LOL. Literotica's been everything I wanted and just writing here has helped me so much along my path, as has the encouragement and help of a lot of people here on the AH as well as my readers.
So what do you want to achieve and where do you want to go and how is Literotica going to help you get there.
Myself, I love the huge #'s of readers - any story will find an audience here, and they're readers who WANT to read erotica - so unlike Amazon, for example, a lot of audience filtering has already been done for us. So even what we might think of as a paltryt 6k or 7k views translates into thousands of readers who took the time to read our story. I think the stats say the average book only sells about 1200 copies, so putting aside that Lit is free, 6-7k views is ALREADY thousands of readers ahead of where the average book is on Amazon.
Readers generally translated into followers, and what I've found myself is that for the few things I have published, a lot of Literotica readers have followed across to Amazon and THAT translates into sales. Hasn't made my fortune and I'm not retiring on it but it's paying fr the coffee. LOL
So what's your take? What are YOU using Literotica for?
I do believe there is a non erotic section of stories, and there definitely is a tag, I've used that tag on chapters of a work myself, although they do not get a lot of attention, at least you can get your ideas and stories out. Give it a try.
This sums up much of what made me begin writing here as well. The absence of work thay really reflected my fantasies and interests drove me to write them down. I was/am amazed that people like my writing but am grateful thay they do.
