Are Lit ratings a good guide of success!

[sr71plt]

Well, I've got to find something to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. If I spent all my time just reading every story, I'd never do anything but read stuff on Literotica. There has to be some quality control. The score may not be a perfect system, but it's the one I tend to use.

Agreed, but the red H was made redundant a couple of years ago when the system added the actual rating to the author's list that the reader can see. The difference between 4.49 and 4.50 quite likely could be the result of malicious voting just to keep a red H going on a perfectly fine story.

 

[DemiAngora]

The fact that you are writing for others tell me that you are not a serious writer. Who cares about what others think? People are weird and come with different taste. Some like papaya, other find it oppresively sweet....Your job as a writer is not to please, but to write what you are passionate about...to write a story, because it is worth being told. Everything else does not matter. It is just a background noise.

I have friends who are all known published authors and the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning is to check up their ratings on Amazon. In my mind this is kind of sick. Distracting really. Who wants to be a slave for the masses? Do you?

I finished an amazing novel last year in November and although I have a solid agent asking me about it, I've decided I'm too selfish to publish it. Because I love reading it for myself...Every time I read it, I feel great about myself and I could care less if anybody likes it or not.

I will publish it eventually, but right now it is for my own pleasing

 

[Bramblethorn]

The fact that you are writing for others tell me that you are not a serious writer.

Shakespeare, Ovid, Sappho: all hacks. You heard it here first.

Don't get me wrong; I think "write for yourself" is an excellent mindset for Literotica, and I've encouraged authors in that direction previously. But it's a wee bit silly to claim it's the only way to be a "serious writer", when so many of the big names of literature were driven by the hope of getting laid and/or getting paid.

 

[DemiAngora]

Well, sure back in those ages, writing was totally different.

Nowadays, when everybody tries to be a writer, you have to be a fool to write to please others or make money.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Well, sure back in those ages, writing was totally different.

Nowadays, when everybody tries to be a writer, you have to be a fool to write to please others or make money.

Erm... there are several people in this forum who make significant amounts of money through their writing. Not sure why you'd think that makes them "fools".

Writing for a living has always been a tough gig. The reason so many people are trying it these days is that it's become slightly easier: e-publishing hugely reduces the cost of entry and expands the available market, even if the resulting influx of writers creates new challenges in making your work stand out from the crowd.

Likewise, not sure why you'd think somebody's a "fool" for writing to woo a lover or entertain them.

 

[Hypoxia]

Well, sure back in those ages, writing was totally different.

Nowadays, when everybody tries to be a writer, you have to be a fool to write to please others or make money.

Dr Johnson said, "Only a fool writes, if not for money." We thus have many fools here. I am one of them -- now. Back when I was a tech writer, I did it to please others and make money. Did pretty good, too. Retired very young. As for an over-abundance of would-be writers, Pliny the Elder said, "These be perilous times. Children no longer respect their elders, and everybody is writing a book." Sound familiar?

 

[NotWise]

Nowadays, when everybody tries to be a writer, you have to be a fool to write to please others or make money.

Gosh, if folks here weren't constantly questioning other's motivation or the interests they cater to, then what would we have to argue about?

 

[ChloeTzang]

..................

 

[TxRad]

Writing for money is a J.O.B and should be treated that way. Writing for fun should be treated as fun. If you can sell what you write for fun then more power to ya. Just don't expect as much money from a hobby as you do a job.

The fool is the person who bitches about writers but doesn't write themselves.

 

[sr71plt]

I don't think that being a writer or not--or even being a good writer or not--has any ipso facto connection with making money from writing or not--so I wouldn't strain to make a clever-sounding statement either way.

 

[oggbashan]

Add to Heinlein's Rules:

Rule Six: Making Money

Of the two or three writers who have succeeded with Rules One to Five, only one in ten thousand will make more money than if they had spent all that time and effort on slinging burgers.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I spent a career writing for state government. It paid well and I got a pension, tho the tons of writing I did was 99% legal, and can never matter as much as the 900 LIT stories PILOT posted for free.

 

[sr71plt]

I spent a career writing for state government. It paid well and I got a pension, tho the tons of writing I did was 99% legal, and can never matter as much as the 900 LIT stories PILOT posted for free.

The salient point is that most of my stories aren't posted here (yes, for free. Can I hear the objections of having stories available to folks here to read for free?) until after they've had a run in the paying market. But, yes, JBJ, what you wrote (or claimed to have written) for the state government doesn't matter to me as much as the stories I've written for enjoyment, sold in the marketplace, and eventually made available here for free read. Bet what you claimed to have written for the state government doesn't matter all that much to readers coming to this erotica story site to read erotica either. So, what again is your point?

 

[lovecraft68]

When I look for a story its a simple process.

What category am I in the mood for?

Then I go there and if a title and tag catch my eye, I read it. I don't go by score or author name or how many comments, etc..

If the story does not grab me within the first page I give up and move on.

Writing, and I think more so in erotica, is so subjective that there is no way to find a story based on the opinions of others,

 

[DemiAngora]

I write legal opinions, so in a way, yes, I make plenty of money, but with my fiction novels, I try to keep my expectations low as I see my best friends, all best-sellers in Amazon in he past, are struggling now to make ends meet. It is becoming a habit to pay for lunch every time we meet, but I don't mind supporting writers, who are writing, because it is their passion.

 

[hadruprider]

I would say no. When I eventually get round to posting my stories, I don't think they will get very good ratings, and I won't care.

IMHO The kind of stories that get high ratings here often tend to be the ones with lots of repetitive non-stop fucking and very little plot structure and no real eroticism. There are some really terrible stories here with ratings of 4.7 or so.