I don't want to seem like a whinner, but

[mikey2much]

Taking a beating in a bad category

A stories fate rest on many things, it is much more involved than just writing a good story. In another thread over in ‘story feedback’ an author of stroke stories, by the name of Scouries, has generated numbers that boggle the mind. Not with good writing, I have read some of his stuff, but with his promotion and with the category that he writes in, ‘Incest’.

Now a story that I am quite proud of is sent to die a slow death in Horror. I don’t agree with the category but I can’t argue with the site since the story does involve a serial killer,
Maybe it does belong in a section other than Mature, where I thought that it should go.

Have any of you had similar experiences, and if so what did you do about it? I am pretty much a new arrival here at Lit and I don’t know the ropes yet. But you can scan the category list and plainly see that while most are measured in the thousands of readers at any one time, Horror will be in the hundreds. It rivals the ‘how-to’s’ and the ‘non-erotica’ in having the lowest readership.

We all know that first week on the New List is the stories best time on the site. My story will lose that and I don’t think it will be ale to recover.

What do you guys suggest that I do.

 

[Guest]

Taking a beating in a bad category

A stories fate rest on many things, it is much more involved than just writing a good story. In another thread over in ‘story feedback’ an author of stroke stories, by the name of Scouries, has generated numbers that boggle the mind. Not with good writing, I have read some of his stuff, but with his promotion and with the category that he writes in, ‘Incest’.

Now a story that I am quite proud of is sent to die a slow death in Horror. I don’t agree with the category but I can’t argue with the site since the story does involve a serial killer,
Maybe it does belong in a section other than Mature, where I thought that it should go.

Have any of you had similar experiences, and if so what did you do about it? I am pretty much a new arrival here at Lit and I don’t know the ropes yet. But you can scan the category list and plainly see that while most are measured in the thousands of readers at any one time, Horror will be in the hundreds. It rivals the ‘how-to’s’ and the ‘non-erotica’ in having the lowest readership.

We all know that first week on the New List is the stories best time on the site. My story will lose that and I don’t think it will be ale to recover.

What do you guys suggest that I do.

First, spell whiner correctly.

(Sorry, mikey.)

I'm afraid you have to deal with it. Or remove the serial killer from the story so it won't be in the Horror category.

And no offense, but how many threads are you going to start on this same topic?

 

[angelicminx]

Sorry, Mikey, but it belongs in Erotic Horror. There's no other category that really fits.

I did read it. I liked the plot.

 

[cloudy]

People don't always expect vampires and whatnot in horror. I've had two stories that have done very well in that category, and neither one contained the typical "horror" creatures (one has since been pulled for pub.)

I haven't read it yet - will if I have time - but those that have think its in the right category.

 

[mikey2much]

First, spell whiner correctly.

(Sorry, mikey.)

I'm afraid you have to deal with it. Or remove the serial killer from the story so it won't be in the Horror category.

And no offense, but how many threads are you going to start on this same topic?

Have you read the numbers on the viewers in each category? I had thought that maybe if I could stir up a little interest it might help overcome the bad category. The story is only in the new list for a week at most, so I need to get it out there as best as I can.

If you feel that I an creating negative vibes then maybe you are right and I should stop. The next complaint that I get about making these post, will signal that the post should end. How about that, sound fair to you?

 

[mikey2much]

Sorry, Mikey, but it belongs in Erotic Horror. There's no other category that really fits.

I did read it. I liked the plot.

Thanks, and I kinda agree with you. I had word from the top that there were steps that I could take but I am going to let it stay where it is. I guess that I didn't think of it as horror, thats all.
mikey

 

[mikey2much]

People don't always expect vampires and whatnot in horror. I've had two stories that have done very well in that category, and neither one contained the typical "horror" creatures (one has since been pulled for pub.)

I haven't read it yet - will if I have time - but those that have think its in the right category.

I am not fighting it Cloudy. I kinda agree with the site as I said in the post above this. I hope that you do read it because I would like to know what you think as another person who is a writer.
thanks,
mikey

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Mikey,

Most stories can fit in more than one category. The trick is to pick the one where your story will piss off the fewest people.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[MagicaPractica]

Unfortunately, sometimes we have to take the lumps. I wrote a story with someone else and posted it under a different user name I created for collaborations. I believe it is an exceptional story in four chapters but it failed to get much attention while it was in the new category. So now it will probably languish away, read only by a few. I'm feeling your pain.

 

[MarshAlien]

I thought your story was fairly well-written, Mikey, although I questioned your identification of him as "the killer" when he didn't seem to want to kill her. I also questioned her motivation for killing him when he hadn't shown any signs of attacking her (other than what they apparently had agreed on for the thousand bucks). I thought horror was exactly where it belonged. If you'd posted it in Mature, I think it would have been crucified. Those folks expect a much different kind of story.

I had the opposite experience. I had written a story called Living Dolls that I considered a romance, because the dolls were really just a plot device that let the character grow up. So I suggested "Romance," the Powers That Be decided on "NonHuman." I figured it would just die there, but it has more comments than any other story I've posted.

Posting in the Story Feedback Forum is a fine way to get feedback, and you did that (I agree with Sarahh; once is enough, particularly when it does come across as whining). Another thing you can do to attract attention is change your somewhat pedestrian signature (some people have them turned off, but not everyone). If this is a story you want to emphasize, feature it there. Ask LadyCibelle, who is well-respected around here, if you can use her public comment in your signature. I put quotes in my signature all the time (with permission, of course), and use color and centering and different size type, as a way of getting eyeballs for my stories. As long as it doesn't get annoyingly large, people might give it a quick look.

 

[Le Jacquelope]

Taking a beating in a bad category

A stories fate rest on many things, it is much more involved than just writing a good story. In another thread over in ‘story feedback’ an author of stroke stories, by the name of Scouries, has generated numbers that boggle the mind. Not with good writing, I have read some of his stuff, but with his promotion and with the category that he writes in, ‘Incest’.

Now a story that I am quite proud of is sent to die a slow death in Horror. I don’t agree with the category but I can’t argue with the site since the story does involve a serial killer,
Maybe it does belong in a section other than Mature, where I thought that it should go.

Have any of you had similar experiences, and if so what did you do about it? I am pretty much a new arrival here at Lit and I don’t know the ropes yet. But you can scan the category list and plainly see that while most are measured in the thousands of readers at any one time, Horror will be in the hundreds. It rivals the ‘how-to’s’ and the ‘non-erotica’ in having the lowest readership.

We all know that first week on the New List is the stories best time on the site. My story will lose that and I don’t think it will be ale to recover.

What do you guys suggest that I do.

I'm utterly shocked and horrified that incest is such a popular genre.

Your issue is to get more hits, it seems. When I posted a story that got less hits, I just improved the quality. I strongly believe that a well made horror story will still get you lots of hits, and after going back to read "The Difference Between Homeless and Helpless", yours seems to be well written (by my standards). What you wrote might not appeal to 10 zillion readers

but here's what more important:

those who did read it, generally gave it enough good votes to give it an "H".

I say be more proud of the "H" than the number of readers.

 

[mikey2much]

Mikey,

Most stories can fit in more than one category. The trick is to pick the one where your story will piss off the fewest people.

Rumple Foreskin

And thats quite a trick.
mikey

 

[mikey2much]

I thought your story was fairly well-written, Mikey, although I questioned your identification of him as "the killer" when he didn't seem to want to kill her. I also questioned her motivation for killing him when he hadn't shown any signs of attacking her (other than what they apparently had agreed on for the thousand bucks). I thought horror was exactly where it belonged. If you'd posted it in Mature, I think it would have been crucified. Those folks expect a much different kind of story.

I had the opposite experience. I had written a story called Living Dolls that I considered a romance, because the dolls were really just a plot device that let the character grow up. So I suggested "Romance," the Powers That Be decided on "NonHuman." I figured it would just die there, but it has more comments than any other story I've posted.

Posting in the Story Feedback Forum is a fine way to get feedback, and you did that (I agree with Sarahh; once is enough, particularly when it does come across as whining). Another thing you can do to attract attention is change your somewhat pedestrian signature (some people have them turned off, but not everyone). If this is a story you want to emphasize, feature it there. Ask LadyCibelle, who is well-respected around here, if you can use her public comment in your signature. I put quotes in my signature all the time (with permission, of course), and use color and centering and different size type, as a way of getting eyeballs for my stories. As long as it doesn't get annoyingly large, people might give it a quick look.

Sounds like some good advice. I had never thought of jazzing up my sig other than linking my stories there. I have read your stuff both here and on other sites. I like your work. I was tying to show that they were both hunters not prey. In my mind it was the flashing of the cash that temped the old woman that and the things that the money could do for her. He was going to kill her for fun but she didn't know that. She was going to use the fact that he had beat her to justify killing and robbing him. I guess that I didn't convey that to the reader as well as I wanted to.
thanks for the advice and for reading the story.
mikey

 

[mikey2much]

I'm utterly shocked and horrified that incest is such a popular genre.

Your issue is to get more hits, it seems. When I posted a story that got less hits, I just improved the quality. I strongly believe that a well made horror story will still get you lots of hits, and after going back to read "The Difference Between Homeless and Helpless", yours seems to be well written (by my standards). What you wrote might not appeal to 10 zillion readers

but here's what more important:

those who did read it, generally gave it enough good votes to give it an "H".

I say be more proud of the "H" than the number of readers.

I am proud of the "H" I don't get them that often. You know everthing is relative and I think reading the numbers that other authors are getting makes me think that there needs to be some pomotion also. The sad thing is that I am not a promoter like many of the other authors who seem to do very well here.

Then again it could be the writing, I am just starting to write and I still have a lot to learn.
thanks for reading the story .
mikey

 

[Alfie Higgins]

Literotica has distanced itself from other erotic sites by using this story classification system. Most sites have classifications, but those classes are mostly used by the search engines. All of the stories go into one big pile, otherwise.

Literotica has established this system of story segregation that immediately insures that many or even most stories WILL NOT be read by significant numbers of readers. SciFi fans first look at those stories. Bitter brooding mysoginists read only Loving Wives. Sick motherfuckers stick to Fetish and Transsexua and Cross Dressingl stories. Maybe they read anal, too. I don't know.

My point is, I suppose, that where the story is originally placed is a primary determinent of amount and kind of viewership, if nothing else. Pity the poor fool who posts a cuckolding without consequences story to Loving Wives. If he isn't dickless already, the LW Nazis will certainly try to cut his balls off.

When I first started posting stories to Lit several years ago under a different pen name, I chose to put them in Romance, even though they would have fit just as well under ScFi, Erotic Couplings, and eventually Loving Wives. My bad. I was lulled into complacency because each chapter I posted got better and better scores. What I didn't realize was that unless a story REALLY sucks, it gets a good score under Romance. It just doesn't get much readership.

There are a lot of sick motherfuckers reading Lit (present company excepted) and therefore if one posts to Incest/Taboo one will get the most views. Most categories are backlot ghettos that are limited to a few like-minded fetishists.

Literotica should do away with the categories, except for the purposes of generic searches. A lot of good stories are lost to the average readers since they aren't part of their normal catagories.

 

[Guest]

Chuckling over your post.

One correction. Stories in the Anal Category get many views, too.

 

[angela146]

I happen to agree.

The category system is one of the three big weaknesses in Literotica (the other two being the hard and fast 18 year rule and the two-week delay in posting stories).

The categories have the effect of shaping stories. If you write good erotica, you will tend to cross multiple categories. If you write for Literotica, you have to fit your story into a slot so that it will be read.

For this reason, you may wish to vote with your feet and post your stories in one of the other places that host them.

In the old days, Literotica was the best story sites on the web. However, others have caught up and some of them do not have the obstacles that make Literotica unfriendly to authors.

Here's the thing: no one site will have everything you want. Some will have fewer viewers. Some will have different restrictions. Some will not have a forum. You have to look out there and find the mixture of goods and bads that you can live with.

I'm really sorry to have to say this, but Literotica is no longer "the" site for quality erotica. It is now one of several good sites.

Do some shopping.

 

[CharleyH]

Taking a beating in a bad category

A stories fate rest on many things, it is much more involved than just writing a good story. In another thread over in ‘story feedback’ an author of stroke stories, by the name of Scouries, has generated numbers that boggle the mind. Not with good writing, I have read some of his stuff, but with his promotion and with the category that he writes in, ‘Incest’.

Now a story that I am quite proud of is sent to die a slow death in Horror. I don’t agree with the category but I can’t argue with the site since the story does involve a serial killer,
Maybe it does belong in a section other than Mature, where I thought that it should go.

Have any of you had similar experiences, and if so what did you do about it? I am pretty much a new arrival here at Lit and I don’t know the ropes yet. But you can scan the category list and plainly see that while most are measured in the thousands of readers at any one time, Horror will be in the hundreds. It rivals the ‘how-to’s’ and the ‘non-erotica’ in having the lowest readership.

We all know that first week on the New List is the stories best time on the site. My story will lose that and I don’t think it will be ale to recover.

What do you guys suggest that I do.

A story with a serial killer? It belongs in horror, in my op. Laurel put one of my stories in a cat. that I did not agree with once. I simply wrote her a nice email explaining why the story should go in another cat. and she was happy to switch it. I suggest the same tactic.

 

[mikey2much]

A story with a serial killer? It belongs in horror, in my op. Laurel put one of my stories in a cat. that I did not agree with once. I simply wrote her a nice email explaining why the story should go in another cat. and she was happy to switch it. I suggest the same tactic.

Laurel PM'ed me today and explained what had happened and why the story is where it is. She was very nice and helpful, so I confessed that the object of these posts were to let people know about the story. People who maybe would never read a horror selection.
I am not trying to make waves, only trying to give the story an even chance.
I am going to stop making post now but I will answer any that do post on these threads.
I do want to thank you for your helpful advice,
mikey

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I had hoped that my soulful epic, "Lesbian Teen's Mom-Lust," would end up in the "lesbian sex" category, given that only around 20,000 of it's 45,000 words were explicitly- and lovingly-described sexual acts between a mother and daughter, but no-oooo - Lit's mavens unaccountably placed it in incest. There's no justice here, I tell ya . . .



Seiously, I've never had cat trouble, but was pained by the relatively hard knocks the what I thought was my most poignant story took in a contest, so I feel your pain. It can be hard to keep these things in perspective - yes it's just porn and there's no money involved - but they're our babies!

 

[drksideofthemoon]

I happen to agree.

The category system is one of the three big weaknesses in Literotica (the other two being the hard and fast 18 year rule and the two-week delay in posting stories).

The categories have the effect of shaping stories. If you write good erotica, you will tend to cross multiple categories. If you write for Literotica, you have to fit your story into a slot so that it will be read.

For this reason, you may wish to vote with your feet and post your stories in one of the other places that host them.

In the old days, Literotica was the best story sites on the web. However, others have caught up and some of them do not have the obstacles that make Literotica unfriendly to authors.

Here's the thing: no one site will have everything you want. Some will have fewer viewers. Some will have different restrictions. Some will not have a forum. You have to look out there and find the mixture of goods and bads that you can live with.

I'm really sorry to have to say this, but Literotica is no longer "the" site for quality erotica. It is now one of several good sites.

Do some shopping.

As I neither read nor write underage stories, that really doesn't affect me.

I like the categories, it means that I don't have to root through stuff that has no interest for me. That being said, I think being able to put a story in multiple categories could be helpful for some writers.

As far as the delay in getting stories posted, yeah, we'd all like them up in one day, but there are a lot of stories going up every day. Who knows, with all the upgrades that they are planning on making to the site, maybe the delay in getting stories approved will improve.

 

[mikey2much]

I had hoped that my soulful epic, "Lesbian Teen's Mom-Lust," would end up in the "lesbian sex" category, given that only around 20,000 of it's 45,000 words were explicitly- and lovingly-described sexual acts between a mother and daughter, but no-oooo - Lit's mavens unaccountably placed it in incest. There's no justice here, I tell ya . . .



Seiously, I've never had cat trouble, but was pained by the relatively hard knocks the what I thought was my most poignant story took in a contest, so I feel your pain. It can be hard to keep these things in perspective - yes it's just porn and there's no money involved - but they're our babies!

I know and it just drives me crazy to see them get bombed or worst ignored.

 

[mikey2much]

As I neither read nor write underage stories, that really doesn't affect me.

I like the categories, it means that I don't have to root through stuff that has no interest for me. That being said, I think being able to put a story in multiple categories could be helpful for some writers.

As far as the delay in getting stories posted, yeah, we'd all like them up in one day, but there are a lot of stories going up every day. Who knows, with all the upgrades that they are planning on making to the site, maybe the delay in getting stories approved will improve.

This story only took six days to post, I guess that isn't that bad.

 

[LadynStFreknBed]

Well, I posted an incest story, partly for the Survivor contest and partly due to Scouries' outrageous view counts. My story posted Aug. 1st. It aready has 37,691 views & 150 votes with a rating just shy of an H. Not bad for my first incest story. Obviously, it's no great fete to match Scouries' numbers as long as you write incest.

My point is that if your goal is to get views, incest is the category to write for. If your goal is to tell a story you can be proud of and it falls in another category, accept the views and votes as they are. Don't write for one category and compare them with the views typical for another category.

 

[starrkers]

I haven't read your story yet, Mikey, but I will sometime over the next couple of days.
Just an observation - I think you've made life extra hard for your story. If you hadn't pointed it out, there is absolutely nothing about the title that would've interested me enough to read it.