Mind Control

[Altissimus]

Posted my first story to Mind Control yesterday. It's already had more votes and comments than stories I've had out for far longer in other genres.

I hadn't realised it was such an active category; who knew?

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Mind control has a super dedicated group of followers. I dabble in it, and my most passionate fans are hugely invested in my ongoing mind control story

 

[nice90sguy]

Mind Control Stories are catered for by another site (zero guesses as to its name), which I used to post in exclusively. But its total readership is lower than just the Mind Control category here, I think. But there are lots of very good stories there, and the site has a very dilligent (and overworked) curator.

Its my category of choice for most of my stories, dealing as they do with psychological domination of one sort or another.

 

[oneagainst]

I've put a few in there too - my first kinda didn't get much lift (Kayla's New Furniture), but the MMC was being controlled by the FMC so i think that goes against the grain a little.

Then Voice Assistant took off like a bushfire, but FMC + Domme theme. It seems pretty specific.

 

[John_Vandermeer]

I've put a few in there too - my first kinda didn't get much lift (Kayla's New Furniture), but the MMC was being controlled by the FMC so i think that goes against the grain a little.

Then Voice Assistant took off like a bushfire, but FMC + Domme theme. It seems pretty specific.

Just clicked it. is it.... the same Alena?

 

[RejectReality]

Mind control has always been popular since back in the erotica BBS days, and that's why it has a separate category instead of being lumped in with Sci-Fi&Fantasy. It had a sufficiently large readership to demand it's own category.

 

[Priscilla_June]

Mind control has a super dedicated group of followers. I dabble in it, and my most passionate fans are hugely invested in my ongoing mind control story

Are there other categories with such a following?

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Are there other categories with such a following?

Hmmm... I'm probably not the one to ask, as I've only written in noncon and mind control. I seem to get more followers with noncon, but more passionate followers with mind control.

 

[Seadog777]

I've thought about doing a Mind Control story.
I have an idea for one in my head.

 

[oneagainst]

Just clicked it. is it.... the same Alena?

No. Different universe. The name is the same to emphasise the sliding doors moment where in one particular universe she married a lawyer, and in the other a workshy manchild.

Uh, or I stuffed up. I have a lot going on.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I've thought about doing a Mind Control story.
I have an idea for one in my head.

All mind control is in the head... Duh.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Are there other categories with such a following?

Based on the current story counts, the top category ranking is as follows:

Erotic Couplings 72k
Incest & Taboo 63k
BDSM 45k
Loving Wives 42k
Non Con. 35k
Group. 30k
Gay Male. 30k
Exhibitionist & Voyeur. 29k
Sci-Fi & Fantasy. 28k
Fetish. 25k
Romance. 23k
Lesbian. 22k

Mind Control, by comparison is only 10k

 

[MetaBob]

Most of my stories have MC aspects even if they aren't explicitly in the Mind Control category. How the MC is accomplished differs, but is usually lovingly (or for some other perceived Purpose For Good) administered through hypnosis or sexual means (or both) by women. Usually but not always over men. In my stories that feature magic, the baddie might use it for MC. The Female Ascendant subtext bothers some readers, of course. Not that I care what that lot thinks.

I have never gotten the sense that Mind Control is a particularly popular category here.

 

[SimonDoom]

Based on the current story counts, the top category ranking is as follows:

Erotic Couplings 72k
Incest & Taboo 63k
BDSM 45k
Loving Wives 42k
Non Con. 35k
Group. 30k
Gay Male. 30k
Exhibitionist & Voyeur. 29k
Sci-Fi & Fantasy. 28k
Fetish. 25k
Romance. 23k
Lesbian. 22k

Mind Control, by comparison is only 10k

EB, come on. You've done this before. There is NO correlation between the number of stories published in a category and the "following" that those stories have. It's misinformation to suggest otherwise. "Following" is determined by how many people read stories within a particular category, and that's COMPLETELY different from the number of stories published in a category.

For instance, there are relatively few Illustrated stories, but if you check the toplists, Illustrated stories are the most-viewed stories along with Incest stories.

Erotic Couplings has more stories than any other, because it's the default grab-bag category, not because its stories are especially popular.

 

[Bramblethorn]

EB, come on. You've done this before. There is NO correlation between the number of stories published in a category and the "following" that those stories have. It's misinformation to suggest otherwise. "Following" is determined by how many people read stories within a particular category, and that's COMPLETELY different from the number of stories published in a category.

For instance, there are relatively few Illustrated stories, but if you check the toplists, Illustrated stories are the most-viewed stories along with Incest stories.

I think you two may be comparing apples and oranges to some extent. I think EB's talking more about the total number of people viewing a given category. Count of stories doesn't measure that directly, but it does at least give some indication of overall interest in the category.

If you look at specific stories in toplists, you might find very high counts for Illustrated, but when you multiply by the total number of stories in that category, it might not be a lot of eyeballs on that category altogether.

Erotic Couplings has more stories than any other, because it's the default grab-bag category, not because its stories are especially popular.

My pet theory, untainted by any particular examination of evidence, is that the number of people who want to write about a topic will usually be roughly proportional to the number who want to read about it. If I'm right in that, then it doesn't much matter whether you're the lone author writing for a thousand-person kink, or one out of a million authors writing for a billion-person fetish, you'll end up with about the same number of views either way.

The most likely exceptions to that are where a particular kind of story is harder to produce. Illustrated requires people to take original photos (or at least something they can pass off as such) and find a model who doesn't mind sharing their tits with Literotica, which might be a barrier to some folk who have no difficulty just writing text. So that category would end up with a smaller percentage of aficionados contributing, which means larger audience share for those who do.

Incest is a bit harder to account for. The fact that a lot of Lit's competitors would explain why a lot of potential readers show up here, but I could just as easily argue that the same effect should drive more potential writers here; seems like the former might be a stronger effect than the latter, but I couldn't say why. I wonder if maybe the topic makes would-be writers shyer about sharing that much of themselves?

 

[ElectricBlue]

EB, come on. You've done this before. There is NO correlation between the number of stories published in a category and the "following" that those stories have. It's misinformation to suggest otherwise. "Following" is determined by how many people read stories within a particular category, and that's COMPLETELY different from the number of stories published in a category.

For instance, there are relatively few Illustrated stories, but if you check the toplists, Illustrated stories are the most-viewed stories along with Incest stories.

Erotic Couplings has more stories than any other, because it's the default grab-bag category, not because its stories are especially popular.

Basic maths - the more stories, the odds are, more followers, more views, more vote (when all is combined)

Setting aside EC as grab-bag category (which we all know it is), are you going to tell me the next four categories aren't the most popular on the site? It's the penguin principle. Writers write where readers read - except those in the smaller categories, obviously. You've heard of supply and demand?

Someone needs to load in Views, I guess, but when it comes down to it, big numbers dominate small ones, surely?

EDIT: this is all shorthand for, I couldn't be bothered with the detail - but I don't recall any of 8L's data analytics showing too much of a skew away from the story dense categories, in terms of the other basic measures.

 

[Altissimus]

Basic maths - the more stories, the odds are, more followers, more views, more vote (when all is combined)

Undeniably, but this thread is more about 'reader activity'. Like every author here, I would much prefer 20 votes, 6 favs and 2 comments per 1k views than 10 votes 3 favs and 1 comment. Now, if you had stats on votes/comments/favs per view per category, that would be interesting. But I still wouldn't read/write in LW, even if it came top by a massive margin.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Undeniably, but this thread is more about 'reader activity'. Like every author here, I would much prefer 20 votes, 6 favs and 2 comments per 1k views than 10 votes 3 favs and 1 comment. Now, if you had stats on votes/comments/favs per view per category, that would be interesting. But I still wouldn't read/write in LW, even if it came top by a massive margin.

There are some analytics in the AH thread history done by 8letters. Not his recent ones, but I recall two or three several years ago. He went deeper into the data and did some category comparisons. Search on "data analysis" or "category comparison", that kind of thing, you might find them

In terms of reader reactions, LW wins, hands down, but as you say...