Is Literotica still the place to get maximum views on your erotica?

[FrancesScott]

That’s what I had heard about the site. That there were some frustrations with the publishing process and in other areas, but that it was worth putting up with these in return for eyeball counts that you couldn’t get anywhere else.

I know I’m just starting out and have few followers, and I know I’m not publishing in the honeypot categories (I published one NC/R story, but it was a critique of the genre). But my experience has been that views are very low and that not much is going on.

Most of the time it’s just tumbleweed. I think some of the problem is my last few stories have all been #8 or #9 on the new in category lists. But - with a few exceptions (maybe established authors?) - even #1 - #3 seem to be getting low views. It often seems hard to break even a thousand views on day one. One thousand views isn’t many views, when maybe 90-95% click away immediately (based on how most sites work).

Have people stopped reading erotica, or is the site awash with too many new stories (possibly AI-generated based on some I have seen) and so it’s close to impossible to stand out?

I guess I’m asking people who have been here a while if things have changed. It really doesn’t seem like the there is much of an audience here. Is that a new thing?

 

[filthytrancendence]

I honestly haven't tried a lot of the alternatives.

But my newer stories tend to get a lot more views than my ones from 2021 did. And it's not like I have a huge following, so it's not down to that.

There's a huge audience here. Seems to have grown, not shrunk.

 

[iwatchus]

I am fairly new as a writer and I have no awareness of any other sites, other than a vague sense they exist. I was amazed (in the positive sense) by how many views I was getting when I started. I have relatively few followers, at least when compared to the number of views I get, but my most read story got over 20K views in the first week. When I first published, I would have been amazed with a thousand views.

Maybe a few thousand views is crickets to you. Maybe you have been unlucky with placement, maybe you need better titles/descriptions or maybe you think you will be competing with Stephen King (or whoever) right out of the gate.

It is true that a small percentage of readers will vote and even fewer will leave comments, but that is human nature.

 

[StillStunned]

I suspect people are doing more doomscrolling and less smutscrolling.

 

[FrancesScott]

but my most read story got over 20K views in the first week

That’s in Loving Wives, I was talking about non-honeypot categories. I know that publishing I/T and LW stories are the way to get views; both on those stories and your whole portfolio. But I have no desire to write in either. I’m talking about other categories, in which the views seem very low, and the number of new stories every day very high.

 

[NotWise]

I guess I’m asking people who have been here a while if things have changed. It really doesn’t seem like the there is much of an audience here. Is that a new thing?

I think the number of stories/day hit a peak following the pandemic, and it's since dropped off. That's the only trend I see. I haven't notice a change in views, votes, or readers' attitudes, but there are so many variables that influence those things that it would be hard to see a change.

I can't compare to other sites.

In short, if you want more views, you need to do something to earn them.

A thousand views isn't many views, but my last story (in Romance, not in a contest) had twice that when I woke up the morning after it posted.

I took a look at your catalog, and I'd say you're doing nothing to get many views. Your most recent story came out with the first chapter in non-erotic, then it switched to Romance, and then to Fetish. Non-erotic is slow, Romance gets a lot of reads for contest but it's otherwise a small category. I'm not that familiar with Fetish, but I understand it's also a small category.

And then, the title and short descriptions are doing you no good. Those, and your name, are a big part of generating views.

Your experience may be consistent with your choice of categories, titles and short descriptions.

Ice Cream and Open Wide seemed to have drawn fairly well for you, but a 750-word story is never likely to do well, Reviews and Essay doesn't get many views. NC/R as a category is barely tolerated by the site; the stories are usually at the bottom of the new list, and that gets few views. I understand the Lesbian Sex is a friendly category, but not a busy one, and that story doesn't have a title or short description that draws attention.

Your title and short description need to convey something about the erotic content of the story, and they generally don't.

 

[FrancesScott]

There's a huge audience here. Seems to have grown, not shrunk.

Your highest views are - unsurprisingly - in I/T. But you have some decent numbers in other categories as well. I guess we all have different experiences. Mine is that it’s a graveyard here. Pehaps you are just a much better writer.

 

[alohadave]

Write incest. You'll get plenty of views.

There are lots of people here and it can take time for your stories to find readers. Your stories will be here for a long time and readers will find them eventually. Maybe not a lot on any particular story, but they are there.

You've been posting for 3 weeks, not nearly long enough to collect an audience for your work. Come back in a year and tell us how your numbers are.

 

[FrancesScott]

@NotWise thank you for a measured response. It’s hard to know how to approach things here. There seems to be unwritten rules and oral history guidance. I guess that’s part of why I asked.

 

[FrancesScott]

Write incest. You'll get plenty of views.

I will never write incest. I’d rather have low views.

 

[FrancesScott]

NC/R as a category is barely tolerated by the site

Again to clarify, my NC/R story is basically a satire (it has satire as a tag), I wasn’t expecting a positive response to it. In fact it’s done much better than I anticipated.

 

[StillStunned]

SF&F is a category to avoid if you want more than a few thousand views per story. But my most recent non-SF&F stories (one in Exhibitionist & Voyeur, one in Erotic Couplings and one in Lesbian) have managed 30k views between them.

 

[FrancesScott]

750-word story is never likely to do well

The 750 word story consists entirely of monosyllables and was a frankly very petty response to people commenting that I used too many hard to understand words in Ice Cream (which was itself a pastiche of a famous author’s style).

 

[NotWise]

That’s in Loving Wives, I was talking about non-honeypot categories. I know that publishing I/T and LW stories are the way to get views; both on those stories and your whole portfolio. But I have no desire to write in either. I’m talking about other categories, in which the views seem very low, and the number of new stories every day very high.

You can get a lot of traffic in Erotic Coupling, but you need to fix your titles and descriptions to get attention there. First Time and Mature can produce good traffic. Romance can produce moderate view, but again fix the title and short description or you might be ignored. Reader engagement is what Romance is really good for, but that backfires if you put something there that doesn't belong there. They have a large cadre of category police.

Entering your stories in Lit's themed contests will get you big bangs, even from slow categories. Entering in the author-sponsored events doesn't do much for views, but it gets you feedback from other participants.

 

[FrancesScott]

SF&F is a category to avoid if you want more than a few thousand views per story. But my most recent non-SF&F stories (one in Exhibitionist & Voyeur, one in Erotic Couplings and one in Lesbian) have managed 30k views between them.

I guess I’m writing what I want to write and then finding a category after. Maybe that’s not a recipe for success. But I’m not sure that I want to be constrained by the expectations of a audience. Maybe with that attitude, I just need to accept low views. I’ve got no desire to write clickbait stories. I suppose that I have to accept the consequences of that choice. I’m not looking for 50,000 views, but 5,000 might be nice.

 

[NotWise]

The 750 word story consists entirely of monosyllables and was a frankly very petty response to people commenting that I used too many hard to understand words in Ice Cream (which was itself a pastiche of a famous author’s style).

You're intentionally offending readers and complaining about being ignored?

 

[FrancesScott]

You can get a lot of traffic in Erotic Coupling, but you need to fix your titles and descriptions to get attention there. First Time and Mature can produce good traffic. Romance can produce moderate view, but again fix the title and short description or you might be ignored. Reader engagement is what Romance is really good for, but that backfires if you put something there that doesn't belong there. They have a large cadre of category police.

Entering your stories in Lit's themed contests will get you big bangs, even from slow categories. Entering in the author-sponsored events doesn't do much for views, but it gets you feedback from other participants.

That’s very helpful advice, thank you!

 

[FrancesScott]

You're intentionally offending readers and complaining about being ignored?

Yes, that’s an accurate summary of those two stories.

 

[iwatchus]

That’s in Loving Wives, I was talking about non-honeypot categories. I know that publishing I/T and LW stories are the way to get views; both on those stories and your whole portfolio. But I have no desire to write in either. I’m talking about other categories, in which the views seem very low, and the number of new stories every day very high.

I am at 17K for my most read story in E&V. Yes LW will give you more views and even more interaction. But I am in the thousands of views pretty much across the board. That is not crickets to me. As @StillStunned said, SF&F is pretty light on its readership. But it is still in the thousands.

 

[filthytrancendence]

Your highest views are - unsurprisingly - in I/T. But you have some decent numbers in other categories as well. I guess we all have different experiences. Mine is that it’s a graveyard here. Pehaps you are just a much better writer.

That's an interesting combination of unnecessary shade and dubious compliment.

So I'll give myself license to be a pedant for once. My most viewed story is in Lesbian. It's also what I consider to be my silliest and least serious story.

Of course we all have different experiences. But you didn't need me to point it out to you to see the readers are there. Go take a look at the front page of any of the categories.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've been publishing since Dec. 2016, and I don't think much has changed, except more stories are being published every day, which makes it a bit harder for any one story to snare an unusual amount of views relative to others.

According to one web traffic ranking site, Lit had over 31 million views in May, putting it at number 15 among erotic content sites. It's number 1 for story sites.

I've been trafficking my own stories' views since 2017, and views seem to be holding up pretty well.

I don't frequent other story sites like I did 15 years ago or so, but my impression is that this site receives far more traffic than the others.

If you look at the toplists, the number of views for most-viewed stories are comparable to what they were 8 years ago.

So, I think this is still your best bet for getting a large readership for your stories.

 

[FrancesScott]

That's an interesting combination of unnecessary shade and dubious compliment.

My bad, and not my intent at all. But apologies that I caused offense.

 

[NotWise]

Yes, that’s an accurate summary of those two stories.

It sounds like your offering in NC/R fits the same description. You probably shouldn't satirize a genre and post it to the category that serves the genre.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I guess I’m asking people who have been here a while if things have changed. It really doesn’t seem like the there is much of an audience here. Is that a new thing?

Nothing's really changed that much in the decade I've been writing here. The volume of stories is higher, for sure, but the dynamics of the categories is much the same, overall. The thing I've noticed most of all is that cuckolding seems to be a bigger thing in Loving Wives, judging by the commentary that spills out. I don't read or write in LW, but that's the sense I get from threads here in the AH. Especially over the last four or five years.
There's more transgender content too, I reckon.

As others have said, though, you've only got a months worth of content, so it's far too early to judge your audience, or even to get one. Come back in a year, thing's will be different, I'm sure.

 

[FrancesScott]

@SimonDoom thank you.