My First Experience With I/T

[BobbyBrandt]

I decided to venture into a category that I hadn't posted to before and selected Incest and Taboo.

My first entry into this category was published this morning, and in the eleven hours since it went public, I have gained 10 new followers and the story has been 'favorited' 17 times. Only one comment so far, but it was positive.

This is a response 'straight out of the shoot' that I haven't encountered previously in other categories, so I was curious if this was typical for stories posted in I/T?

 

[NotWise]

The response you're getting looks pretty typical for a stand-alone story: a lot of views, probably quite a few votes, not a lot of comments.

Your story might pile up 10's of thousands of views in the next couple days, and maintain an elevated number of views for a month or more. There might also be cross-over readers to your other stories, but in my experience most of the cross-over readers from I/T stick to other I/T stories.

There are a lot of I/T readers. As a group they're fairly friendly, but they aren't as engaged as readers in Romance or a few other categories. That means few votes and comments per view, but with a lot of views it doesn't make much difference.

I decided to venture into a category that I hadn't posted to before and selected Incest and Taboo.

My first entry into this category was published this morning, and in the eleven hours since it went public, I have gained 10 new followers and the story has been 'favorited' 17 times. Only one comment so far, but it was positive.

This is a response 'straight out of the shoot' that I haven't encountered previously in other categories, so I was curious if this was typical for stories posted in I/T?

 

[Defluer]

Yeah, now that my writing skills have improved or the filters are catching the real grammar nazis most of my comments there are nice. Worst I get is some bleed over because I've written LW stories or somebody saying how the incest I wrote about is not the incest they are into.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

The response you're getting looks pretty typical for a stand-alone story: a lot of views, probably quite a few votes, not a lot of comments.

Your story might pile up 10's of thousands of views in the next couple days, and maintain an elevated number of views for a month or more. There might also be cross-over readers to your other stories, but in my experience most of the cross-over readers from I/T stick to other I/T stories.

There are a lot of I/T readers. As a group they're fairly friendly, but they aren't as engaged as readers in Romance or a few other categories. That means few votes and comments per view, but with a lot of views it doesn't make much difference.

Over 15,000 views in 24 hours, almost 250 votes, and now up to 8 comments. Still maintaining its H.

As you mentioned, there has been significant crossover activity to my other stories, in all categories.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I've waited a couple of weeks to evaluate the effect that my submissions to the I/T category might impact some or all of my existing stories. Here is what I have observed:

Ratings:
* On August 10th, the average rating for my stories stood at 4.75
* On October 7th, the average rating for my stories with the 2 I/T stories included remains at 4.75

Views:
* On August 10th, the total views for my 66 submissions was 1,484,794
* On October 7th, the total views for the same 66 submissions rose by 12,973. There have been 49,247 views of my I/T submissions since they posted

Votes
* On August 10th, the total number of votes for all of my submissions was 62,841
* On October 7th, the total number of votes for my previously submitted stories was 63,166, an increase of 350. The I/T submissions have received 850

Comments:
* On August 10th, there were 777 posted comments on all my submitted stories
* On October 7th, there were 779 posted comments on my previous submissions, an increase of 2. The I/T submissions have received 22 comments

Followers:
* On August 10th, I had 817 followers
* On October 7th, I had 935 followers, an increase of 118 since my I/T submissions posted

I would have to say, at this point, the I/T stories have had at least a slightly positive impact on my stories in other categories here. I'll see how things look after the next submission gets posted.

 

[Defluer]

I used to track daily, for the week the story was New. Just to see what kind of numbers came in on what days. It's interesting for sure, you make me want to get back into the nitty gritty of my numbers but I'll stick with my routine that I've landed in over the last couple of years. I pull my numbers ever week, try to do it on a Saturday. Got an Spreadsheet with the data, a sheet for every story. I keep thinking I should do a "Master" sheet that tells me all the votes and all the views for all my stories.

Now the question is, are you going to do two or three more I/T stories? To get a good range of data. Then four or five stories from different categories to see what data those bring in. It would be interesting to see which categories "cross over" to which others. Like what other category does releasing a new (let's say) Erotic Coupling story bring the most and least views too.

 

[NewOldGuy77]

There are a lot of I/T readers. As a group they're fairly friendly, but they aren't as engaged as readers in Romance or a few other categories. That means few votes and comments per view, but with a lot of views it doesn't make much difference.

Agreed, I've found they're an enthusiastic (but not generous with the stars) bunch. One of my old stories under a different pen name was also favorited more than anything else I've written.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I used to track daily, for the week the story was New. Just to see what kind of numbers came in on what days. It's interesting for sure, you make me want to get back into the nitty gritty of my numbers but I'll stick with my routine that I've landed in over the last couple of years. I pull my numbers ever week, try to do it on a Saturday. Got an Spreadsheet with the data, a sheet for every story. I keep thinking I should do a "Master" sheet that tells me all the votes and all the views for all my stories.

Now the question is, are you going to do two or three more I/T stories? To get a good range of data. Then four or five stories from different categories to see what data those bring in. It would be interesting to see which categories "cross over" to which others. Like what other category does releasing a new (let's say) Erotic Coupling story bring the most and least views too.

I have two so far, with a third in the series due to be submitted next week. I have a Novel/Novella that should be submitted in a few weeks. I'll keep an eye on things as both post.

 

[SimonDoom]

Your experience is not unusual. I/T is a very high-traffic category. I've published in many categories, and I have over 20 I/T stories, and on average my I/T stories have over 3.5 times as many views as my other stories. If you regularly publish stories in this category, you will pick up views, votes, favorites, and followers more rapidly than if you publish in other categories. You won't necessarily get astronomical scores. You won't necessarily get an excessive number of comments. But you will have many readers.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Your experience is not unusual. I/T is a very high-traffic category. I've published in many categories, and I have over 20 I/T stories, and on average my I/T stories have over 3.5 times as many views as my other stories. If you regularly publish stories in this category, you will pick up views, votes, favorites, and followers more rapidly than if you publish in other categories. You won't necessarily get astronomical scores. You won't necessarily get an excessive number of comments. But you will have many readers.

I don't have a ton of readers who follow me, but those that do are loyal, or at least they have been. I have started receiving e-mail feedback that some are not happy with me posting in I/T, claiming it is "beneath my talent". I haven't seen my follower count going down, but we'll see.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't have a ton of readers who follow me, but those that do are loyal, or at least they have been. I have started receiving e-mail feedback that some are not happy with me posting in I/T, claiming it is "beneath my talent". I haven't seen my follower count going down, but we'll see.

My feeling about that is that you do not owe it to your readers to abide by their standards of what is "acceptable" erotica. If they don't like it, too bad. As a general principle, you will pick up more fans and followers by expanding your writing horizons. You may lose some, but you'll gain more. This has been my experience. I write a lot of I/T. I'm sure there are some readers who think it's crap, or intensely distasteful. But what I've found is that as a result of the audience I've picked up my more offbeat stories in less-read categories get more readers than they probably would otherwise.

I don't accept the binary "write for others or write for yourself" choice. I think you can do both and you can write different stories with many different goals in mind, and I personally find it very satisfying and liberating to do things that way.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

I've thought about posting a story I/T, but it is a bit harder for me as my main interest is interracial. However, I can see stories with pseudo-incest, stepfather, or step-father-in-law, maybe. But I could forgo the interracial aspect for an incest outing.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I've thought about posting a story I/T, but it is a bit harder for me as my main interest is interracial. However, I can see stories with pseudo-incest, stepfather, or step-father-in-law, maybe. But I could forgo the interracial aspect for an incest outing.

My first story was a niece/uncle/aunt piece, and it was submitted in I/T. It did ok. I guess it leaned over to the taboo side of the category. Maybe a taboo IR story similar to mine would work for you?

 

[KeithD]

I don't have a ton of readers who follow me, but those that do are loyal, or at least they have been. I have started receiving e-mail feedback that some are not happy with me posting in I/T, claiming it is "beneath my talent". I haven't seen my follower count going down, but we'll see.

You can always open up a new account just for I/T or any other category that would seem contrary to your established writing base. I've got several different category-based accounts I put widely varying category stories in.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

You can always open up a new account just for I/T or any other category that would seem contrary to your established writing base. I've got several different category-based accounts I put widely varying category stories in.

I'll have to consider that. Thanks

 

[Imstillfun]

My only input would be it depends on what you’re looking for. My highest rated stories are I/T. My most viewed stories are LW. I get lots of good feedback on both. But I get lots of negative feedback on LW barely any on I/T.
my most favorited stories (over 800 favorites) are mixed. between the two.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

My only input would be it depends on what you’re looking for. My highest rated stories are I/T. My most viewed stories are LW. I get lots of good feedback on both. But I get lots of negative feedback on LW barely any on I/T.
my most favorited stories (over 800 favorites) are mixed. between the two.

I've posted the vast majority of my submissions in Novels/Novellas and all do well in ratings, favorites, and feedback. I have four in Celebrity/Fan Fiction that receive good ratings but far less feedback, as do the three in Romance. My two lowest-rated stories are in LW, but I expected that.

When I noticed the high number of followers that authors who target the IT category had, I decided to test the waters to see how posting stories there affected my overall numbers. Other than the e-mails mentioned earlier from readers of my stories in other categories, I would say the effect has been positive.

 

[Imstillfun]

M

I've posted the vast majority of my submissions in Novels/Novellas and all do well in ratings, favorites, and feedback. I have four in Celebrity/Fan Fiction that receive good ratings but far less feedback, as do the three in Romance. My two lowest-rated stories are in LW, but I expected that.

When I noticed the high number of followers that authors who target the IT category had, I decided to test the waters to see how posting stories there affected my overall numbers. Other than the e-mails mentioned earlier from readers of my stories in other categories, I would say the effect has been positive.

my experience has been that LW readership has gone down since the new format. Stories disappear from the front page too quickly. Then there is the battle between the BTB crowd and slut wife crowd.

I did a search on the tag Halloween 2022. 3 LW stories. Mine and two BTB stories. They all scored about the same. 4.1 4.14 4.21. the BTBs got twice as many reads, mine, slut wife, got twice as many favorites and was added to 25% more lists.

On average the LW AND I/T stories got 4-5 times the readership as all the other categories but Romance and Horror got the highest scores.

so depending on what metrics you care about, choose a category.

 

[lc69hunter]

As a new writer, this thread has been very educational. Thanks

 

[Amy_66]

"My First Experience With I/T"

No...

It was your first experience posting an I/T story at Literotica... an altogether different thing.

Tease.