djrip
Oneirographer
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2015
- Posts
- 1,844
Everyone here agrees that views are higher than the count of actual readers. But I think they are much higher than even what I've seen people here guess. I've seen people theorize that a lot of views are people who click in and don't finish. Yes, they are. But, I also suspect that it counts as a view every time a page is loaded. If so, obviously a 10 page story will have way more views per read than a 2 page story. Also a view every time a reader closes the story and then comes back later to read further (also more likely on longer stories). Also every time they come back and read it again, or just glance at part of it again to remember something. I do all these things, I suspect others do as well. And any of these factors could lead to a later chapter having more views without necessarily picking up more readers mid-story. Of course, there can also be new readers; often, if a new mid-story chapter for something I've never read shows up, I'll click in, take a brief look, and then decide if I want to go to chapter 1.I've seen subsequent chapters in some of my series register more views than previous ones. That's a headscratcher, as I can't imagine jumping in in the middle of the series to start reading. I just see it as the unreliability of "views" as an indicator of actual readers.
I do wonder how series with like 20 chapters end up with any views at all by the end, with these dropoff rates. But the spreadsheet above looks like a fairly large dropoff from ch 1 to 2, and then not much change from 2 to 15 or whatever...