Author blogs?

[SimonDoom]

Has anyone ever raised, or have the site owners ever entertained, the idea of adding author blogs as a feature of this site? I know there are authors here who maintain blogs about their writing elsewhere. It seems to me this would be a significant value-added feature that would (a) give authors the opportunity to promote and discuss their work, (b) give readers an easy way to get to know their favorite authors better, and track the status of their favorite authors' stories, and (c) allow the site to capture blogs that otherwise would be maintained on other platforms. It seems like a win-win-win to me, unless the cost to the site would outweigh the benefit.

Any thoughts? Do others think this would be a good idea?

I fully realize that the site owners are strapped for time and that Good Site Ideas That Go Nowhere is a kind of cottage industry here, but I think it's still worth considering.

 

[jsmiam]

nice thought. And the difference with this particular suggestion, making it almost feasible, is that it could be done all through vBulletin addons ( the software underlying the forums, not the stories side of Literotica).

 

[SynSlave]

Has anyone ever raised, or have the site owners ever entertained, the idea of adding author blogs as a feature of this site? I know there are authors here who maintain blogs about their writing elsewhere. It seems to me this would be a significant value-added feature that would (a) give authors the opportunity to promote and discuss their work, (b) give readers an easy way to get to know their favorite authors better, and track the status of their favorite authors' stories, and (c) allow the site to capture blogs that otherwise would be maintained on other platforms. It seems like a win-win-win to me, unless the cost to the site would outweigh the benefit.

Any thoughts? Do others think this would be a good idea?

I fully realize that the site owners are strapped for time and that Good Site Ideas That Go Nowhere is a kind of cottage industry here, but I think it's still worth considering.

It'd simply be a robust expansion of a user's profile taken to whatever power they decide. More bells and whistles. Does it interest me personally? Not really. But people like options (bells and whistles) and it couldn't hurt (famous last words, I know).

Even some mobile games are including similar features. Played a survival game where their social hub mimicked Facebook. Other forums I use are all about clicking the like button. I personally enjoy Literotica's no BS functionality (once you get passed the main page - which is ironically all BS). But if I were designing it, I'd be catering to the mass appeal just as most of us cater to our readers.

So in short, yeah, it probably is a good idea to integrate it's own social-media proxy features (without cross platform capability). And as I understand it they've been working on a site overhal (at least the main page) and the Literotica app is a work in progress, no? (It's good for reading stories but not much else yet)

Just hope I can stomach the changes since I abhor social media platforms.

And one last thing, from my previous experience with webzine submission and rejection letters taught me -- that even incognito amateur authors have to bite the bullet and "plug in" to digital social environs to get noticed, let alone accepted -- whereas publishers expect you to travel, make appearances (signings and promote); everything online expects you to generate traffic to the site.

So if Literotica wants to keep up they'll have no choice in order to stay relevant, just as new authors have no choice. Otherwise we're all just Emily Dickinson, and the world hasn't needed another of those in well over a century.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Has anyone ever raised, or have the site owners ever entertained, the idea of adding author blogs as a feature of this site? I know there are authors here who maintain blogs about their writing elsewhere. It seems to me this would be a significant value-added feature that would (a) give authors the opportunity to promote and discuss their work, (b) give readers an easy way to get to know their favorite authors better, and track the status of their favorite authors' stories, and (c) allow the site to capture blogs that otherwise would be maintained on other platforms. It seems like a win-win-win to me, unless the cost to the site would outweigh the benefit.

Site's perspective: Ignoring the technical challenges, probably a good idea for marketing etc.

Author's perspective: that bolded bit is not very appealing to me!

Many of us here post our stories to multiple sites. Literotica restricts how much we can promote our off-Literotica endeavours, and fair enough - if they were more liberal with that, this site would be overrun by low-value accounts created to funnel traffic to pay sites. They would probably need to impose similar restrictions on author blogs, but it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to put effort into a blog promoting only my Literotica works when I could keep one that covers everything, unless they have some incentives to compensate for that.

 

[SimonDoom]

Site's perspective: Ignoring the technical challenges, probably a good idea for marketing etc.

Author's perspective: that bolded bit is not very appealing to me!

Many of us here post our stories to multiple sites. Literotica restricts how much we can promote our off-Literotica endeavours, and fair enough - if they were more liberal with that, this site would be overrun by low-value accounts created to funnel traffic to pay sites. They would probably need to impose similar restrictions on author blogs, but it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to put effort into a blog promoting only my Literotica works when I could keep one that covers everything, unless they have some incentives to compensate for that.

I wonder if it would behoove Literotica to take a more liberal attitude on this issue. While there might be a small negative to allowing authors to promote stories on other sites, I tend to think the benefit would outweigh the cost, because giving authors the freedom to do this here would make this an extremely attractive forum for authors, since this site gets more traffic than any other erotic story website. The value added, I suspect, would outweigh the value lost.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The value added, I suspect, would outweigh the value lost.

Agree. The value lost being unmeasurable, I'd have thought.

 

[Hypoxia]

I recall other discussion sites, I'm not sure if on this VB platform, with member blogs. But some LIT members start self-appreciation threads that function as blogs. Or we could merely expand our profiles with daily trivia. Naw, that would be unwieldy. Has anyone asked Manu to implement a blog feature here?