How do most readers access stories?

[JGittes]

I know this has been discussed before. I've unsuccessfully searched for possible threads so I'll just ask.

I believe it has been mentioned that the far and away most common entry point for the casual reader is the general New Story portal.

I can think of five ways someone could end up clicking on a story; the general New Story portal, the Category New Story section, through the Control Panel Home page when a favorite author's publishing notice is posted, through a theme contest (or author contest) page listing, and finally, through a google search that calls up a story.

Any others?

Does anyone have concrete data on how many access stories through these methods weekly or monthly?

 

[oggbashan]

Searching for specific tags, either in all stories or in a category.

 

[jsmiam]

There’s search (plain text and probably tags included) within lit at https://search.literotica.com and there’s an option there for an advanced search. (Also to search for author names too). And as ogg said, search by tags, at https://tags.literotica.com.

Over on search engines, most let you limit results to a certain website, such as typing in “Jgittes site:literotica.com“. Results only from lit. Or “Jgittes site:forum.literotica.com”, results only from the forums

I’m very partial to DuckDuckGo.com. I’d never use google or bing for sordid searches myself, but bing if I remember correctly has a way to sort by age, which is nice.

 

[SimonDoom]

I never use the general new story list. I never visit it.

I move through this Site cafeteria-style, and if a story looks interesting to me I'll add it to my "to read" list to read later.

Sometimes I check out stories on "Similar Stories" lists at the end of stories I've written or at the end of stories I've liked.

I follow over 100 authors, so when they publish new stories they show up on my "My Home" page. Sometimes I click on them and read them or tag them to be read later.

Sometimes I use the "search" page to look for stories on topics I'm interested in. I'm particularly inclined to do this if I'm writing a story on a particular topic or in a particular erotic category and I'm curious how other authors have done things.

Sometimes I use category toplists, if I'm interested in reading a story in a particular category, and my eye is caught by a story that seems to have done especially well or sounds interesting.

 

[JGittes]

Sorry about that, I wasn't clear.

I do know all those methods for searching and finding stories I'd be interested in.

I'm asking about a general reader of Literotica. Where does the general reader access stories? I believe I've read in one thread or another that most hits on the site are through the general new story portal.

 

[HeyAll]

IMO most readers now use the Hubs to find new stories. It gets straight to the point and I think most readers know what they want.

My evidence of that is that new stories get posted on the Hubs at 10 pm (west coast) but don't get posted on the New List until a few hours after.

If it's a big incest story (mom/son) then it could get upwards of 2-3 thousand views that late into the night. Keep in mind, much of these readers could be from overseas.

So right there it shows that there are lots of people reading even without being on the New List, at that late an hour.

 

[KeithD]

How is it knowable how "most readers" access stories here?

 

[oggbashan]

How is it knowable how "most readers" access stories here?

It isn't. There are statistics on how many people access Literotica, from which countries, but nothing about where they go once on Lit. The numbers who do not have accounts seem to outnumber those that do.

 

[windar]

Sorry about that, I wasn't clear.

I do know all those methods for searching and finding stories I'd be interested in.

I'm asking about a general reader of Literotica. Where does the general reader access stories? I believe I've read in one thread or another that most hits on the site are through the general new story portal.

I would assume that the management has some stats on where people first land on the site, but I don't think they have shared those publicly. I don't read much here but when I have, I mostly used search engines, sometimes with Lit as the specified site, often not.

Without blurbs, I find that tags are really the most useful way to look for something specific, but I have no idea how many people use them.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think the best data for this would be a Site that revealed the traffic by page. I don't know if that's available.

My guess -- guess only -- is that the newest readers look to the general new story page but gravitate eventually toward category hub pages once they've familiarized themselves with the place. My reason for saying that is that erotic taste among readers appears to be highly divided, and readers are going to go where they can get what they want and avoid what they don't.

For instance, if you like Anal stories, then the Anal hub page is the place to go. You can find new stories, lists of top Anal authors, lists of the most popular Anal stories, etc.

But that's just a semi-educated guess.

 

[gordo12]

I believe I've read in one thread or another that most hits on the site are through the general new story portal.

So we've been told. but my experience with my stories is they come through the particular hub. Then disappear like snow in July when they drop below the blue bar there.

 

[Voboy]

Sorry about that, I wasn't clear.

I do know all those methods for searching and finding stories I'd be interested in.

I'm asking about a general reader of Literotica. Where does the general reader access stories? I believe I've read in one thread or another that most hits on the site are through the general new story portal.

How on earth would we know? Everyone has their own way and nobody but Laurel and Manu know the stats, if even them.

When I read, I used to start with New and then go search by Tags if I didn’t find anything, which was frequent. Nowadays, I just look at people who have favorited me and dig through the other things they’ve favorited.

I’m not sure why knowing the answer to this would even matter, honestly.

 

[LexxRuthless]

The vast majority of readers on the site don't have an account and read anonymously. Most of them never (or almost never) vote, don't leave comments, and don't use the new user interface. They tend to have one or two favorite categories, and they will check the frontpages there to see what is new. If they see something that catches their eye atop that day's new stories, they'll read it -- or they will read enough of it to either get off or decide they don't like it. Depending on the time of day, some of them will narrow their selections to stories that have already earned a red "H," or are at least close to some threshold they've set in their minds.

If they like a story they've finished, the next thing they usually look at is the author's other stories. Then they may search tags that have yielded enjoyable reading experiences for them in the past, but that's usually after they've looked at what's new in their favorite categories, and only if they still have time to read that day.

Everything I've laid out here was based on my experience and e-mails I've received from hundreds of readers -- but it is based on folks who access the site primarily through a desktop PC or laptop. There are likely to be substantial differences between those folks, and new readers who primarily access the site through their phones, tablets, and other devices.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The vast majority of readers on the site don't have an account and read anonymously. Most of them never (or almost never) vote, don't leave comments, and don't use the new user interface. They tend to have one or two favorite categories, and they will check the frontpages there to see what is new. If they see something that catches their eye atop that day's new stories, they'll read it -- or they will read enough of it to either get off or decide they don't like it. Depending on the time of day, some of them will narrow their selections to stories that have already earned a red "H," or are at least close to some threshold they've set in their minds.

If they like a story they've finished, the next thing they usually look at is the author's other stories. Then they may search tags that have yielded enjoyable reading experiences for them in the past, but that's usually after they've looked at what's new in their favorite categories, and only if they still have time to read that day.

Hard to know for sure without access to the site's internal data, but this rings true for me.

For example, when I post a new story in Lesbian, I see a small but noticeable bump in views for my other stories in that category. But I also have a lesbian romance in SF/F, and even though the readers who like my romances in Lesbian would probably like that too, it doesn't get the same bump unless I put an "if you liked this story, you might try ..." notice on the new ones.

So it seems like even when they're doing the "other stories by this author" bit they're often reluctant to go outside their favourite categories.

 

[HeyAll]

IMO most readers now use the Hubs to find new stories. It gets straight to the point and I think most readers know what they want.

My evidence of that is that new stories get posted on the Hubs at 10 pm (west coast) but don't get posted on the New List until a few hours after.

If it's a big incest story (mom/son) then it could get upwards of 2-3 thousand views that late into the night. Keep in mind, much of these readers could be from overseas.

So right there it shows that there are lots of people reading even without being on the New List, at that late an hour.

Another thing:

I remember the days pre-Hubs, each story got a lot more views. A mom/son contest story usually got between 50-60 thousand views easy on the first day. That's because everyone was on the New List.

Same with group sex and lesbian. Everyone was at the same place, now they're spread out.

 

[JGittes]

IMO most readers now use the Hubs to find new stories. It gets straight to the point and I think most readers know what they want.

My evidence of that is that new stories get posted on the Hubs at 10 pm (west coast) but don't get posted on the New List until a few hours after.

If it's a big incest story (mom/son) then it could get upwards of 2-3 thousand views that late into the night. Keep in mind, much of these readers could be from overseas.

So right there it shows that there are lots of people reading even without being on the New List, at that late an hour.

Thank you for your reply, you pointed to a way to test my hypothesis that the general reader first hits Literotica through the New Stroy Portal.

I'm in England so the new stories post to the category hubs at 6 am, which would be the day after you see the new postings at 10 pm. Same time (1 am Eastern) just different time zones. I entered a story in the Valentine's Day contest and have followed it and all the other entries closely from 14 Jan.

The first view for my story hit at 6:01 am and in the first hour, it received 60 views, followed by 75 views in the second hour. The story was posted to the New Story Portal at 8:02 am and the next six-hourly votes were 288, 292, 429, 469, 623, and 731. They stabilized thereafter.

The category I posted in, Anal, is a low view category, and the views the story received the first two hours are in line with what I would expect from viewers seeing the story in the new story section of the Anal Category page. The order of magnitude increase once the story hits the New Story Portal (NSP) is compelling evidence, to me, that the NSP is indeed the main point of entry for the general reader on Literotica searching for new stories.

The second most important variable in views a story receives (Category is first) is the number of followers an author has. You are one of the most followed authors on Literotica and the large number of views you receive at one of your story's posting to I/T is a combination of the category popularity and your popularity.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I was going to say on their phone using the Lit App but I guess with the title of this thread you could go either way.

 

[Voboy]

The first view for my story hit at 6:01 am and in the first hour, it received 60 views, followed by 75 views in the second hour. The story was posted to the New Story Portal at 8:02 am and the next six-hourly votes were 288, 292, 429, 469, 623, and 731. They stabilized thereafter.

...I think you care about all this a WHOLE lot more than I do.

 

[RejectReality]

Another thing:

I remember the days pre-Hubs, each story got a lot more views. A mom/son contest story usually got between 50-60 thousand views easy on the first day. That's because everyone was on the New List.

Same with group sex and lesbian. Everyone was at the same place, now they're spread out.

I believe that was actually an improvement to the filter that removes bots and spiders from the view listing. It happened too fast to be natural migration patterns — more or less over night. From what I remember I had a mature story come out with the views number I'd expect. The very next one had views that were shockingly low for the category, but it otherwise performed as normal in every other statistic, and that became the new norm.

The views have been slowly but steadily creeping back upward in my experience as well. That's consistent with a filter that's no longer as up-to-date as it was immediately upon release. Even if my hypothesis is correct, I believe your conclusion that the hubs are the primary source of story selection is also true.

People are still using the overall new story list, because I can see the impact of top vs. middle/bottom placement on that list, but it's nowhere near as profound as it used to be. It's harder to peg, because high placement for non-contest stories is a crapshoot, but the few data points have been consistent, with those stories seeing more activity.

If I had to give an order, it would be the Hub new story lists, then Toplists, then all other listings, ( including the combined new list, similar stories, random stories on the hub, etc. ) and then search via tag/keyword.

 

[NotWise]

The second most important variable in views a story receives (Category is first) is the number of followers an author has. You are one of the most followed authors on Literotica and the large number of views you receive at one of your story's posting to I/T is a combination of the category popularity and your popularity.

When I see someone with a lot of followers comment on voting patterns, I recall that people who don't have a lot of followers are likely to see a different pattern.

 

[NotWise]

If I had to give an order, it would be the Hub new story lists, then Toplists, then all other listings, ( including the combined new list, similar stories, random stories on the hub, etc. ) and then search via tag/keyword.

So, you think your followers don't contribute?

The order is likely to vary depending on whether your story is published to a popular hub.

 

[RejectReality]

So, you think your followers don't contribute?

The order is likely to vary depending on whether your story is published to a popular hub.

I base everything on as close possible comparisons as I can. Most of the time, that's Mature vs. Mature releases, since that's the bulk of my catalog and provides the most data points. From there, I try to account for my other patterns. Older woman does better than older man. Shy Milfs do better than take charge ones. POV, length, proximity of release, etc.

Everything in this thread in particular is observations of the patterns of my own numbers, which shouldn't be affected all that much by my follower count. ( Where I've consistently ranked within about +/- 15 for years on the popular author lists now, so that's all but a static data point as well. I'm gaining followers, but not at a rate that moves me up the rankings. )

My number of followers might affect my outcome vs. someone with fewer followers, but it shouldn't have any bearing on how my own stories compare against each other.

 

[SimonDoom]

I can think of five ways someone could end up clicking on a story; the general New Story portal, the Category New Story section, through the Control Panel Home page when a favorite author's publishing notice is posted, through a theme contest (or author contest) page listing, and finally, through a google search that calls up a story.

This list overlooks three very important ways that readers find and click on stories (that I can think of--there may be others).

1. Similar story lists. This is probably the most overlooked significant way that readers find stories. At the end of every story is a list of "similar stories." 5 years ago I wrote a "mom sits on son's lap" incest story. It's a cliche, but it's popular, and the story did very well. Now it appears on the Similar Stories lists of other popular stories like it, and as a consequence it still gets a lot of views, despite the fact that its score isn't that high and it's not at the top of any other lists.

2. Toplists/favorites lists. If you track the data it's clear that some readers go to toplists and choose stories at or near the tops of lists, whether highest-rated, most-viewed, or most-favorited lists. If you can get your story to the top of a list it will give it a boost.

3. Other authors' favorites lists. It stands to reason that if a reader likes stories by a particular author the reader may check out that author's favorites list and click on authors and stories that the author has favorited. I think this helps, too.

 

[KeithD]

Opps, wrong thread.

 

[JGittes]

I base everything on as close possible comparisons as I can. Most of the time, that's Mature vs. Mature releases, since that's the bulk of my catalog and provides the most data points. From there, I try to account for my other patterns. Older woman does better than older man. Shy Milfs do better than take charge ones. POV, length, proximity of release, etc.

Everything in this thread in particular is observations of the patterns of my own numbers, which shouldn't be affected all that much by my follower count. ( Where I've consistently ranked within about +/- 15 for years on the popular author lists now, so that's all but a static data point as well. I'm gaining followers, but not at a rate that moves me up the rankings. )

My number of followers might affect my outcome vs. someone with fewer followers, but it shouldn't have any bearing on how my own stories compare against each other.

Thanks for your comments RR. You obviously have a good handle on your metrics as they support and guide what you are trying to do by building your 'brand' presence on and through Lit. What you talk about is consistent with what I see.

I've been closely following the Valentine's Day contest entries and in categories with many entries, Romance and Lesbian for example, there are definitely normal levels of views for stories in general and then there are outliers. SilkStockingsLover has nearly 40k followers and actively promotes her work on all major social media sites. There is no surprise when she'll have twice the average views of almost anyone else in submitting for the contest in the Lesbian category. It definitely helps that she usually writes good stories and that she is completely aware of the best categories in which to post.

I should also be clear that having twice the views doesn't guarantee a high score. Authors with a high number of followers, and a commensurately higher number of views, aren't guaranteed a high score.