How many PC and Emails do you get?

[Joesephus]

I admit to response evny. When I email an author and find that they don't accept emails unless the address is verified or I see a story with 50 PCs, I wonder what they've done right.

Recently I've read several excellent stories that while rated "H" only have two or three PCs.

I have eight stories posted here my PCs range from 14 to 42. The average is 24. I've noticed that some categories get more than others. My emails are generally about equal to the PCs.

What do others see?

 

[oggbashan]

Zero to 21, with an average of less than 1.

The reasons? Most of my stories were posted before PCs were introduced, much of my work is an acquired taste and some stories are so long that most stop reading before reaching the last page.

Og

 

[rgraham666]

It depends.

Some stories of mine have over 40 PCs and about half as many e-mails.

One has three PCs and one-e-mail.

If I was to make a hypothesis, it depends on the category, how new it is, the length of the piece, whether it's entered in a contest or a story's position in the Top List.

My Erotic Couplings stories, what I call short pieces of smut, generally don't do that well. I suspect because they're a bit too well written for the people looking for masturbation material.

My Romances do OK. But I don't think a lot of people read those unless you're one of the authours that puts a chapter of a story up every day. These stories are usually fairly long, about five Lit pages on the average.

My BDSM pieces do OK. My first did very well when it went up. I kept getting the occasional comment on it for about a year. Then due to the fact that a troll sweep hadn't been done for a while it moved to #1. And I was getting new comments almost daily. This attracted the trolls as well. But the story had so many votes they had to work really hard to move it. After a week it had moved to #8. I still got comments. A troll sweep was done and although my score went up slightly almost one hundred stories are now in front of it on the list. Only received one comment and about two votes since then.

My best story to date was entered for last year's Halloween Contest. While the contest was going on and after I won the comments piled in. Very little since though.

So it depends. It sounds like you're doing very well though.

 

[Jenny_Jackson]

I get a few PC, Joe. I get a lot of feedback in emails. It seems that after the trolls get done most of my stories end up around 4.2. The notable exception was the one rape story I wrote. It ended up at 3.66, 19 PCs and 389 hate emails

 

[tanyachrs]

I love getting PCs and email feedback too. It means a lot more to me than the votes. Some stories seem to prompt people to respond more than others. It doesn't correspond to the rating for me but it does roughly correspond to the number of votes.

 

[elsol]

Your doing better than I am... should I be envious?

 

[matriarch]

There is no hard and fast rule, responses depend entirely upon the character of the person reading the story. They all have their own way of responding to what they've read.

I've given up trying to understand the mind of the readers. I'm just happy that they do read my work, and some of them take the time to vote, pc or e-mail responses.

Josephus, could you put a link to your page in your signature, I'm far too lazy to look up your page, so a link would make it easier to read your work.

 

[Liar]

I have eight stories posted here my PCs range from 14 to 42. The average is 24. I've noticed that some categories get more than others. My emails are generally about equal to the PCs.

Your lowest is better than my highest.

Serves me good though, since I don't comment as much as I should on others' stories. Bit of a karma kickback, I guess.

 

[Honey123]

I must say, I've never checked or thought about it.

I make sure I respond to all PC's, Feedbacks and any emails I get. I think that just those people taking their time to write to me, whether the comments are good or not, is worth a reply.

 

[Joesephus]

There is no hard and fast rule, responses depend entirely upon the character of the person reading the story. They all have their own way of responding to what they've read.

I've given up trying to understand the mind of the readers. I'm just happy that they do read my work, and some of them take the time to vote, pc or e-mail responses.

Josephus, could you put a link to your page in your signature, I'm far too lazy to look up your page, so a link would make it easier to read your work.

I'm a computer klutz but I'll be happy to help... being lazy myself. However, in this case I don't have a clue what you're asking me. I've just learned to PM... here the normal sites are beyond me.

 

[JustaJerk]

Joe,
Sent you a PM with step by step instructions for putting the link in your signature.
Jerk

 

[matriarch]

Joe,
Sent you a PM with step by step instructions for putting the link in your signature.
Jerk

Thanks, Jerk. I was going to offer, but I get unbelievably confused when trying to explain.



Josephus, the link is there. Well done.

 

[Joesephus]

I feel like I should...

put a gold star next to my name or say computer guru or something. Give me enought detail and I can generally screw up.

I do find it interesting that my responses are in line with what other see. I hear from some folks about getting 40 or 50 a day and apologizing for not being able to answer everyone personally, and I wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Most of my stories are in the LW category and that's supposed to be where you get the most feedback. I generally get a few telling me I'm a jerk or a wimp but most are looooong and thoughtful. I guess it's those that make crave more. Frankly, I don't see how I could ever get enough.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

put a gold star next to my name or say computer guru or something. Give me enought detail and I can generally screw up.

I do find it interesting that my responses are in line with what other see. I hear from some folks about getting 40 or 50 a day and apologizing for not being able to answer everyone personally, and I wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Most of my stories are in the LW category and that's supposed to be where you get the most feedback. I generally get a few telling me I'm a jerk or a wimp but most are looooong and thoughtful. I guess it's those that make crave more. Frankly, I don't see how I could ever get enough.

Oh, I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Feedback and comments gradually taper off for all of us the older a story gets. Though, there are some authors here who just downright have a huge readership. I'm sure a lot of them will tell you that keeping up with responses to pc's and feedback and things like email mailing lists help to build that base of readers. Personally, I've always gotten way more emails than pc's. I think this has a lot to do with my subject matter and the categories in which I write.

 

[carsonshepherd]

Oh, I don't think you're doing anything wrong. Feedback and comments gradually taper off for all of us the older a story gets. Though, there are some authors here who just downright have a huge readership. I'm sure a lot of them will tell you that keeping up with responses to pc's and feedback and things like email mailing lists help to build that base of readers. Personally, I've always gotten way more emails than pc's. I think this has a lot to do with my subject matter and the categories in which I write.

Yes, from all the guys who claim you made them have their very first homosexual thought ever.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Yes, from all the guys who claim you made them have their very first homosexual thought ever.

*snerk* Scarlett, making men gay since 1989.

 

[rgraham666]

*snerk* Scarlett, making men gay since 1989.

Strange. I have the exact opposite response to you.

But I'm weird.

 

[S-Des]

It depends.

Some stories of mine have over 40 PCs and about half as many e-mails.

One has three PCs and one-e-mail.

If I was to make a hypothesis, it depends on the category, how new it is, the length of the piece, whether it's entered in a contest or a story's position in the Top List.

My Romances do OK. But I don't think a lot of people read those unless you're one of the authours that puts a chapter of a story up every day. These stories are usually fairly long, about five Lit pages on the average.

I've found just the opposite in Romance. My story there has done really well (only 38 comments, but over 400 votes) even though it's 6 Lit pages. I think people underestimate the reader's desire for a good, thought out story. The stories I've been competing with for months are all fairly long and very interesting to read. There seems to be a movement toward really short stories (even authors releasing multiple chapters that are each under a page long) that is sad to me. Longhorn releases 15-20 page stories in one chapter and gets far in excess of 50 comments each and all of them are on the top list.

Personally I hate short stories that don't go into details because I'm not drawn into them. When they are multiple chapters that are no more than 1 - 1 1/2 pages each, I don't read them at all. I'm not sure if the authors are doing it because they're trying to have more submissions, think it will help them get a high score, or are just too impatient to wait until the story is done, but I've just given up on them. It's annoying to just get started on something, then have to wait a day or a week for the next chapter. Even when they're all out, they take up a ton of room on the story pages (one guy released chapter 46 of his story this week), making it incredibly difficult to look down the lists for specific stories.

 

[scheherazade_79]

A few, a few, too few for drums and yells...

 

[Alex De Kok]

'Way too few' is my reaction. Low of zero, high of twenty-one in PCs. I don't seem to get many, for some reason. The zeroes can easily be explained by the fact I've been posting here since 2000, when PCs weren't around. A sure-fire way to get very few is to post a 'Chain' story. Two of what I think are my best pieces are in that category and have amassed five PCs between them.

Alex

(Hint: 'Lucy McFey', in the 'Talisman' chain, and 'Long Walker', in the 'Magic in America' chain. Both period pieces - first set in the UK, the second in the American West.)

 

[AchtungNight]

All my stories thus far were in "Celebrities." I got varying numbers of emails and PCs on them, but I responded to each and every one and will do so again with any I get in the future. Thanks to all those who sent feedback once more.

A sad facet of the Celebrity category is that readers often feel they have to be familiar with the characters involved in a story in order to get it and choose which tales they read based on that. That's part of the reason I kept so many of my titles and descriptions ambiguous, then wrote about not-as-popular characters and included tons of trivia about them. I liked attracting people to uncover and confirm the mysteries. It worked in varied degrees.

Another problem is often people have an opinion on how a story should be and when a writer challenges that opinion by doing things differently they won't respond well. I saw this a lot with my X-Men story. Also, some people get too hung up on the small details of celebrity stories sometimes and end up getting confused as to their main point (Who cares if Magneto keeps his powers or not? Did the story work as written and was it good?). I got a lot of PCs and emails arguing these matters. But I also got a lot that praised me on how well written my tales were and what a good job I did. These I treasure greatly. I hope more are on the way. With all the work I put into my stories, it saddens me that none have yet made the Hot Lists. Oh well.

 

[FallingToFly]

Let's see... the highest number of comments on the 45 or so pieces I have up currently is 18, on A Far Cry From Heaven, which was an AH Challenge piece. (Purple Prose from The Cardinal Sins, mwahahaha.)

American Baby and my two other Celeb pieces have 0-7 a chapter, Serpent Heart has 3, Falling is about to be removed, and the Playlists series linger along the edges at the under 10 PC level. I actually get very little email feedback. I'd say that for every ten PCs that pop up, I get an email.

I'm still experimenting with the formula that will magically up my readership, but the only thing I could possibly think of is to cheat and bribe all my friends to RCV... and I won't. (Although I did threaten all of them with disownment and deprivation of my famous pumpkin-cheesecake muffins if they didn't at least read it and send me an email tellign me if they liked it.

 

[dirtyjoe69]

write something that will upset people...lol

if you write something that you know will stir the pot and kick people in their proverbial behinds you will get responses, maybe not the responses you like however. I been called everything under the sun and then some for my "essays". Have even recieved a couple of death threats...lol (get a life people). So try the essay category and right something on what we have been told never to discuss at work (same sex, politics, religion, ect.)

As far as emails, the incest and audio stories seem to garner the most for me from those people who are too shy to leave a comment on the story board. I find it most hillarious when I have 10-20 responses telling me how shitty my story was on the board but then my emails and total score tells me the complete opposite!

GOOD LUCK

PS remember if bad critiques hurt your feelings then careful what you wish for because a number of people like to trash someone else's work out of jealousy.