average "Lit career length"

[NotWise]

How did you select the list of authors you looked at? If it was random then you can assume it's somewhat representative of the whole population.

I realized with the thread about the Pixiehoff user that we can't get data about users who delete their accounts without someone like Manu or Laurel's help.

Ever visit the Author's hub? One of the options is "Random Authors," and it lists ten at a time. I would have gone for more than 25 points, but that was f'n tedious.

 

[StillStunned]

Mine's about 12" so far.

 

[NotWise]

Not sure where you're getting 10.7 as the longest. Myself, Silk, Heyall, @SimonDoom and EB66 right off the top of my head have exceeded that, and I think Melissa as well and Reject reality, those are just folks who are here on a regular basis, there's many other non AH authors who have done it as well.

None of you appeared in the random grab of 25 accounts. I know there are quite a few AH'ers with longer careers. I think TxRad's was more than 20 years without a break. The small sample I used suggests that long careers are not representative of the whole Lit crowd.

 

[TheRedLantern]

One of the options is "Random Authors," and it lists ten at a time. I would have gone for more than 25 points, but that was f'n tedious.

That seems pretty random, then.

Not sure where you're getting 10.7 as the longest. Myself, Silk, Heyall, @SimonDoom and EB66 right off the top of my head have exceeded that, and I think Melissa as well and Reject reality, those are just folks who are here on a regular basis, there's many other non AH authors who have done it as well.

Now that I see how @NotWise got their data, that 10.7 year metric was probably just the longest streak in the sample. We can draw some conclusions about the average and the spread of the data from 25 samples, but I don't think they're trying to say that "10.7 years is the longest streak on Lit" since it would barely crack the top 5 in this thread. (But this thread isn't a random sample)

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I reviewed the winners lists because I figured they were longer tenured members.

 

[TheRedLantern]

Not sure where you're getting 10.7 as the longest. Myself, Silk, Heyall, @SimonDoom and EB66 right off the top of my head have exceeded that, and I think Melissa as well and Reject reality, those are just folks who are here on a regular basis, there's many other non AH authors who have done it as well.

Maybe a good question to ask you, Silk, Heyall, SimonDoom, and ElectricBlue would be:

Does that 2.5 years as the average seem right to you? We know there are some long-tenured authors to the right of (above) that average like you guys, but does 2.5 years as the average for the rest of Lit "feel right?"

 

[lovecraft68]

None of you appeared in the random grab of 25 accounts. I know there are quite a few AH'ers with longer careers. I think TxRad's was more than 20 years without a break. The small sample I used suggests that long careers are not representative of the whole Lit crowd.

Okay, I missed the part about the sample size.

Odds are people here would be more prone to stick around, mostly because we have no lives I'm thinking.

 

[lovecraft68]

Maybe a good question to ask you, Silk, Heyall, SimonDoom, and ElectricBlue would be:

Does that 2.5 years as the average seem right to you? We know there are some long-tenured authors to the right of (above) that average like you guys, but does 2.5 years as the average for the rest of Lit "feel right?"

That would be hard to say because so many people post stories here and we haven't heard of a fraction of them.

But thinking on it, I would say the 2.5 could be about right. For every person that lasts a decade or more, how many are there who write 1-3 stories and are never heard from again? So, yeah, the average is probably on the lower side. Top lists can be misleading as well. For example there is an author here who is well up there on the all time fav list and has an all time favorite story...and has two stories to their credit and hasn't been seen here in years.

 

[NotWise]

Maybe a good question to ask you, Silk, Heyall, SimonDoom, and ElectricBlue would be:

Does that 2.5 years as the average seem right to you? We know there are some long-tenured authors to the right of (above) that average like you guys, but does 2.5 years as the average for the rest of Lit "feel right?"

We see writers come and go all the time, so I thought two-and-a-half years was probably a little long.

The average of that sample is skewed high by a few people like us who've been posting for a long time. The median in that sample was less than a year and a half.

 

[SimonDoom]

Maybe a good question to ask you, Silk, Heyall, SimonDoom, and ElectricBlue would be:

Does that 2.5 years as the average seem right to you? We know there are some long-tenured authors to the right of (above) that average like you guys, but does 2.5 years as the average for the rest of Lit "feel right?"

I have no clue whatsoever. I'm actually at about 8 1/2 years. My profile says I've been around since 2015 but I didn't publish my first story until December 2016. I expect to keep going for the indefinite future.

I think this might be a forum where it is not especially meaningful to talk about an average. A few old timers passed away in the last few years who had been here, IIRC, 20 years or more. If you search the story toplists and then check out the authors you can see that some of those authors have been around for a long time.

The AH forum probably gives us all a skewed view of longevity. Many authors publish just a few stories and then quit.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

For 'average tenure' do you only count current authors under current IDs?


How do you count the ones who have left permanently, or left and come back under different IDs?

 

[SimonDoom]

One other thing: it's weird for me to see my name mentioned as an example of an old-timer. I've never thought of myself that way. Time goes fast, though.

 

[TheRedLantern]

mostly because we have no lives I'm thinking.

It's friday night and I'm talking about statistics. So ... yeah

But thinking on it, I would say the 2.5 could be about right. For every person that lasts a decade or more, how many are there who write 1-3 stories and are never heard from again? So, yeah, the average is probably on the lower side

That's encouraging for what @NotWise did. Usually when I finish some some data analysis, my immediate next step is to show it to an expert and see if they laugh. If they say "that feels right" then I know that I'm not in crazytown with my analysis.

The average of that sample is skewed high by a few people like us who've been posting for a long time. The median in that sample was less than a year and a half.

That's probably what that means. When the mean (average) is higher than the median that means you have a really big cluster to the left (close to zero, so left if you think about it on a number line) and a long tail to the right. So your numbers are telling you that a lot of people show up, post for less than a year, and disappear (sometimes to return). While a small number make this place a home and make publishing part of their habits.

 

[TheRedLantern]

The AH forum probably gives us all a skewed view of longevity.

But it's a perfect place to check whether the numbers we can see are telling us anything useful!

 

[NotWise]

For 'average tenure' do you only count current authors under current IDs?


How do you count the ones who have left permanently, or left and come back under different IDs?

Only six of the 25 authors in the sample were "current" (posted in the last five years). The other 19 were inactive, given my five-year standard.

The hub gives me no way to tell if someone changed names. In a large sample, they would come through as two different careers.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Of six authors I just checked at random by clicking on their IDs on a category page, five of them had been posting for at least 10 years, some going back to '03. Some had long gaps between published dates.

If you're randomly selecting authors by clicking on a category page, the more prolific ones will have a higher chance of being selected, so that's going to overestimate author longevity.

 

[NotWise]

One other thing: it's weird for me to see my name mentioned as an example of an old-timer. I've never thought of myself that way. Time goes fast, though.

And I've been here longer than you. And @ChloeTzang has been here longer than both of us.

It's scary.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Maybe a good question to ask you, Silk, Heyall, SimonDoom, and ElectricBlue would be:

Does that 2.5 years as the average seem right to you? We know there are some long-tenured authors to the right of (above) that average like you guys, but does 2.5 years as the average for the rest of Lit "feel right?"

With no science, data, or measurement, the 80/20 rule might suggest 80% of the stories would be from authors with very short careers, half a dozen stories maybe, scratching an itch. Probably more like 90%.

My gut feel? One or two years, maybe. If you're still writing stories after two and a half years, I reckon you'd be around until your next major life change.

Since I've been active in the AH, I've seen maybe three or four churns, but we're not representative of the wider mix, not by a long shot. We're a tiny subset; and keep in mind there's another sizeable subset of LW writers who seem to have their own community, with no overlap with the AH.

 

[Comshaw]

While typing a message to someone, I found myself wondering how long the "average" Lit writer posts stories for. In other words, what's the average length of time between the first and last published dates for authors around here?

I assume some will attrite because they get bored, some will take their careers to the next level and sell their work, some will change account/pen names (although it would be SUPER fascinating to be able to match these back to their original accounts to get a full picture of how many years they spend posting stories here), etc.

I know the site doesn't make that data available, and scraping all that with Python & BeautifulSoup would be straightforward albeit tedious, and in the age of unstructured data-hungry AI I'm sure they're guarding against large scale data scraping. Although it would be a fascinating data set to explore (at what point is an author likely to be here for 10+ years? do ratings matter to attrition? is the frequency of posting in the first six months predictive of how long an author will publish? are views predictive of author attrition?)

There's no real question here. It was just an idle thought I had while waiting for my own data crunching scripts to finish.

As far as I know, Lit went into operation in 1999. The earliest join date I remember was a guy called Lasher. He joined in (October I think) 1999. I found it and joined in November 2000. I posted my first story the next month. Then I didn't publish anything again until 2004. Starting in January 2004 I posted 1 stand-alone and 5 parts of a yet-to-be-finished multi-part story. I know, I catch hell from time to time from readers who are pissed about that unfinished series. I do have plans to finish it...eventually.

Between that 2004 story and the next one I published here was 16 years. I was posting stories on another site but not here. During those years I spent a lot of time on the GB until the PB was established, then spent time there. That was until the PB turned into a toxic shit hole and the GB slid into being a playground wannabe.

When I say "a lot of time" I mean a lot of time from my perspective. If you check my post total you'll find it's a bit over 11,000. Yeah 11,000 posts in almost 25 years! I think I've posted more here in the short time I've been part of this board than I did any place else on Lit.

Since 2020 I've posted a number of my stories. That's for a couple of reasons. I retired in 2016 so I have more time now. And I switched from posting on that other site to Lit for a simple reason: Eyeballs on my work. Over there a highly rated story of mine has a bit over 12,000 views since it was published in 2005. Here, one of the stories I posted in Loving Wives in 2004 has over 191,000 views.

Between 2000 and 2016 (when I retired) I had other things to attend to, a polyamorous relationship. Writng about sex is fun. Actually having it is a lot more fun.

Any who that's my story here, one that spans close to 1/4 century.

Comshaw

 

[Voboy]

Yeah, this isn't a question that's ever going to have an answer more accurate than a gut feeling. I'm sure a number of writers here have alts, for example, and there's no way anyone will know how long those alts have been writing.

Next April will mark ten years for me. I don't think of myself as being particularly "experienced" in any way.

 

[Britva415]

How would you count the duration of a one-and-doner's career?

Zero?

That seems to be the right answer.

This discussion also calls for the "average versus median" distinction. The more variation there is in the data, the more the average is artificially inflated compared to the median, which is more representative of more of the data points.

And that's an effect which is present in complete independence/separate from the kind of selection bias we've talked about, where a sample of stories gives excessive weight to prolific authors, because they published more of them.

So, it seems to me that every estimate which has been made in this thread is likely to be an over-estimate, probably by quite a bit.

 

[NotWise]

How would you count the duration of a one-and-doner's career?

Zero?

That seems to be the right answer.

This discussion also calls for the "average versus median" distinction. The more variation there is in the data, the more the average is artificially inflated compared to the median, which is more representative of more of the data points.

And that's an effect which is present in complete independence/separate from the kind of selection bias we've talked about, where a sample of stories gives excessive weight to prolific authors, because they published more of them.

So, it seems to me that every estimate which has been made in this thread is likely to be an over-estimate, probably by quite a bit.

My result came from a random selection of authors provided by the Authors hub. It had nothing to do published stories. Only six of the 25 authors I checked were active in the last five years. I gave the average and the median.

 

[TiberiusPrime]

Average? Maybe longer than you think.

Many are at 20 years. Some have been here since the beginning of the site in the late 1990s, though maybe not under their original IDs.


Duleigh, for one has a sign up date of 2004 and is still active.

I've been a member for 21 years, but I didn't post my first story until 2007. Then 13 years later...