Ignored favorites

[Rob_Royale]

I'm intending that this thread to not be a discussion of why our stories flopped, just a place to commiserate with each other.

Post up a link to the story that you put heart and soul into and you are proud of, that the readers just didn't get.

For me it's From Avalon With Love, a re-imagining of the origin of Sir Lancelot and his mortal and immortal mothers. Yes, it is T/I and it takes place in the mortal world and in the Faerylands. I pulled heavily from legend and literature and really wanted to weave a solid story. I think I did. I know I did. I just think it's too far from what the average reader of that category expects.

Though rated well, in six months it's only had 35 votes, 5200 views and two comments. For the T/I category that's pretty close to being ignored entirely. It's a shame. I think it may be my best work.

Feel free to post up your ignored favorites and maybe we can all support each other in our disappointment.

 

[THBGato]

On a wing and a prayer: despite part 1 going to number 1 in category (eventually - took over a year!) this is my least read Lesbian story. I mean I have non-erotic stories and essays with more views!

Yet, I think it's some of my most imaginative writing and, in the aerial battle at the end of part 2, some of my most exciting. Perhaps it's the sci fi setting that puts off readers, though at its heart it is a friends-to-lovers tale (like most of mine) so you'd think more of my readers would give it a go.

 

[StillStunned]

I write mostly in SF&F, so "ignored" is relative. Of my 79 stories, only 25 have more than 10k views.

But I always thought that The Countesses of Tannensdal deserved more attention than it got. I tried to write a Gothic/Ruritanian romance, and I'm very pleased with how it came out. But after 3 years it still only has 4.4k views.

 

[Imstillfun]

My latest. ‘Inappropriate’. It’s only got a 3.9 and 17k views. That’s my first under 4.0 story. Usually they’re in the H category and then get voted down by the 1* bombers. My lowest stories usually get 50k views or more by now. It’s only 60 favorites. I’m usually in the 100+ by now. I’m not sure why. It’s very odd. It’s a pretty formulaic story for my fans, lots of good feedback, 70+ new followers.

 

[SmilingLez]

Interesting possible side effect - will posting those stories in this thread result in one bombing and troll/jealous behavior on the writers' catalog? Only time will tell.

 

[Stanfield2025]

Interesting possible side effect - will posting those stories in this thread result in one bombing and troll/jealous behavior on the writers' catalog? Only time will tell.

It could also result in people giving the stories more support. I'm considering reading On a Wing and a Prayer because of how it was brought up here.

Edit: aaand I couldn't help but click on it.

 

[SmilingLez]

It could also result in people giving the stories more support. I'm considering reading On a Wing and a Prayer because of how it was brought up here.

Edit: aaand I couldn't help but click on it.

Very true. There are 3 possible metric outcomes from this post. It would be cool if the writers who leave a link to their stories let us know if the metrics change in a week or so.

1. Lower ratings
2. No changes
3. Higher ratings

 

[bmeyem8]

The good news:
https://literotica.com/s/first-and-best-incest-story-ever

This retelling of OEDIPUS REX was published in T/I and it had to be altered as not to offend pro-incest readers; i.e., id est, how to tell the most famous incest story of all time, one which was meant to be abhorrent to the original classical Greek viewers, yet not offend today's Literotica pro-incest group.
The story withs its incest did very well in T/I.

The flop: When I rewrote it but in a plot twist took the incest out (I had to do it with no incest for publication on Amazon), and published it in Literotica, it barely got any readers in LW.
https://literotica.com/s/famous-classical-king-queen-love.

As @Rob_Royale bemoans regarding his work/effort, I consider both of my versions to be excellent works yet one is totally overlooked.

 

[old_prof]

I have two that I'm particularly disappointed in the views they've gotten.

One is Mistress Natasha, my lone foray into BDSM. It was pushing the bounds of my writing at the time (almost a year ago.) It was an attempt by me to start a second series with my original characters. It got less than half the views of a typical story in the first series, despite being much better written (in my opinion).

The other is Friendly Advice, my third novel. When I published it 8.5 months ago, I felt like it was the best thing I've written. (I think the rewrite of bookstore is better, but that got reasonable attention in the original, even if almost no one as read the revision -- that's on me). I originally tried to post it in Lesbian Sex (90% of the story is a lesbian love story), but there is a discussion of a blowjob in the first chapter and several people (who as far as I could tell had not read past the first 5% of the story) took it upon themselves to harangue it mercilessly. I moved it to N&N, where it sits getting almost no views. Somewhat that's tech nature of N&N. I also tried publishing all 61K words as a single posting, which may have scared off readers.

 

[PennyThompson]

Almost all of my stories have been shockingly consistent in their ratings, comments, and engagement. Literally every full-length story I've published sits between 4.6 and 4.8, and every 750-word story is between 4.55 and 4.45.

(Some categories get more views than others, my Scifi & Fantasy stories tend to get a lot fewer views than my EC or Lesbian stories, for example, but that comes with the territory)

I'm blessed with pretty active comments, both from people that read my stuff consistently, and people who find individual stories for whatever reason...

Except for one story, Jeremy, Mon Amour, which has a 4.4 rating, and noticeably fewer comments than my other stories

I have a few guesses about why it might underperform... I think one contributing factor is that I (and @Actingup, who cowrote it with me) decided to put it in the Romance category, and I think that was probably a mistake.

The story is about two characters who are in love, it takes place in Paris, and it ends with a proposal.

But it's also not a standard Hallmark romance. It's got some gender bending and cross dressing stuff in it, one of the two primary characters is non-binary, and there's foursome with a set of twins in it. I suspect that those all serve to not make Romance readers love it

Buuuuttt it also received fewer comments from readers who had previously been big fans of the Scout & Jeremy stories. I worry that a lot of them didn't like how the story concluded, but were too nice to say anything negative about it

 

[NotWise]

A Little Dirty, a Little Bit Salty is mine. I worked on it for six months with the intent of putting it into the Pink Orchid event. O panned the story when she beta read it. I dropped my plan of putting it into Romance and Pink Orchid and put it in EC instead.

In nearly four years it's had 8.4K views, 50 votes and two comments--not much for six month's work. The title is probably the main reason it was ignored. No-one could know what it meant until after they read half the story. I have a pattern of shooting myself in the foot that way.

The few people who've read it seemed to like it--despite a kinda slow scene about 2/3 of the way through.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This one disappeared into a curious black hole - bad list placement in the day, maybe.

It's fairly typical EB, but didn't get the initial Views for some reason, and as a consequence, not much reaction.

Is That You, Cassandra?

 

[LetsMisBehave]

My unloved work is Dedication is What You Need. It has 8 votes, 1 comment, and 1.6K reads, but I think it's one of my 3 best stories. The few people who voted seem to agree, but I can also see that the description and title weren't interesting enough to capture casual readers.
I think I put a mix of time and culturally specific references into the story, something enjoyable for those who shared them and intriguing for those who didn't.
i also tried to portray the main female and male characters as trying to play the game honestly.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Last Christmas has 8k views after nearly a year. I probably shouldn't have put it in BDSM as there isn't really any such action in the story, but it didn't fit Erotic Couplings really, and Non-Erotic would have likely meant even fewer readers. It took a few years before I figured out how to structure it - there's a key phrase in the middle of the story I'd wanted at the beginning, but it just didn't work that way - so I'm pleased I solved the problem.

Homesick Halloween is a well-structured story that hugely benefited from my beta-reader and Yank-picker. It's a nice romance and scored well, so more people would probably enjoy it if they found it.

Londoner Calling has only 6k views after a few years, because it's in Erotic Horror. An immortal hellbeing snarks about modern London and looks for entertainment. Short but fairly effective, I think.

 

[ClintonBrooks]

I have two...

Recently, I posted Throat Goat: Let's Make a Deal in the Erotic Coupling category. It has only 1.7k views and is rated at 4.27. The biggest problem as I see it is that its short at 3.3k words. I submitted it once to Lit and it was rejected because I had real world names in it. So I edited it, changing the names and dates, though I imagine even the most casual reader will figure out who I'm referring to in the story. There are a few humorous aspects to the story.

It's about the wheelings and dealings in Washington DC's presidential politics...well...one deal in particular. I did receive some nice comments for it.


A Serial Killer Romance may be the larger disappointment for me. I put a lot into it. Granted, its an Erotic Horror, so the views are low, but the rating is low for me too. (4.17) It has 11.1K words about a police detective investigating a serieal killer. Granted, I'm biased, but it has an interesting concept, hot sex and a little humor in it.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I have a couple that definitely underperform compared to others I've done. Some with 1:200 or 1:300 vote/view ratio. I have one that only has a little over 100 views, but it's in non-erotic poetry and it's a metal song I wrote for the fictional band that pops up on occasion in my main universe. A Tongue-Tied Valentine in particular I feel like it's underappreciated, but I think a lot of people noped out because it's an FMC POV anthro story about an autistic tamandua fretting about Valentine's Day, and most people who read anthro tend to like human male or omniscient POV; the human male on female anthro from the guy's POV tend to be the ones that have more views and engagement for me.

 

[MelissaBaby]

My story for the Music Challenge, Yankee Bayonet was well received by those who read it, but there were only about 5,600 of them. And I get it. They left comments like "heartachingly sad" and "Beautifully written story of loss and grief." Definitely not for everybody.

But I'm quite proud of it, I really think it's some of my best writing. So, if you don't mind some melancholy, give it a read.

 

[latent_heat]

I have a short trilogy that I was very proud of writing, and I thought it had an enjoyable arc, sticking to reasonably popular kinks, but I made the mistake of putting the second chapter in the LW category (my first and only there, at least for a while...), so that one got 1-bombed to hell and back, and then nobody seemed to continue on to the third chapter, which I published in Group Sex.

Many of my stories have accrued >20k views, including several published after this series. So that only the LW chapter has broken 15k has me feeling just a little bit miffed.

Two Birders, One Stoner (E&V) Couple spies lass toking; hubby grants pass if he can watch!

Cuckoo Doodle Done (LW) Hannah and her boyfriend turn the tables on Tracy.

Two plus Two is Six (GS) Andy joins in the debauchery!

Here's where they're at now:

 

[PennyThompson]

I have a short trilogy that I was very proud of writing, and I thought it had an enjoyable arc, sticking to reasonably popular kinks, but I made the mistake of putting the second chapter in the LW category (my first and only there, at least for a while...), so that one got 1-bombed to hell and back, and then nobody seemed to continue on to the third chapter, which I published in Group Sex.

Many of my stories have accrued >20k views, including several published after this series. So that only the LW chapter has broken 15k has me feeling just a little bit miffed.

Two Birders, One Stoner (E&V) Couple spies lass toking; hubby grants pass if he can watch!

Cuckoo Doodle Done (LW) Hannah and her boyfriend turn the tables on Tracy.

Two plus Two is Six (GS) Andy joins in the debauchery!

Here's where they're at now:
View attachment 2696015

Oof that is definitely a tough one! LW stories can get eye-watering engagement, some of it quite good and some of it just awful... But dipping a series briefly into LW is probably a net negative

 

[anthrodisiac]

I have a short trilogy that I was very proud of writing, and I thought it had an enjoyable arc, sticking to reasonably popular kinks, but I made the mistake of putting the second chapter in the LW category (my first and only there, at least for a while...), so that one got 1-bombed to hell and back, and then nobody seemed to continue on to the third chapter, which I published in Group Sex.

Many of my stories have accrued >20k views, including several published after this series. So that only the LW chapter has broken 15k has me feeling just a little bit miffed.

Two Birders, One Stoner (E&V) Couple spies lass toking; hubby grants pass if he can watch!

Cuckoo Doodle Done (LW) Hannah and her boyfriend turn the tables on Tracy.

Two plus Two is Six (GS) Andy joins in the debauchery!

Here's where they're at now:
View attachment 2696015

Chaptered works usually see a decline in views after the first one or two chapters, about 80% less, so I think it says a lot about the strength of your story that you handily beat that metric and kept a pretty good chunk of readers even with the foray into LW.

But it does suck that you have to put up with the trolls, wish you didn't have to deal with that.

 

[latent_heat]

Chaptered works usually see a decline in views after the first one or two chapters, about 80% less, so I think it says a lot about the strength of your story that you handily beat that metric and kept a pretty good chunk of readers even with the foray into LW.

But it does suck that you have to put up with the trolls, wish you didn't have to deal with that.

Oof that is definitely a tough one! LW stories can get eye-watering engagement, some of it quite good and some of it just awful... But dipping a series briefly into LW is probably a net negative

Live and learn