One long story or multiple parts?

[TheOtherTeacher]

Hi all!
(I'm really enjoying using this forum after being a lone wolf writer for so long!)

I'm working on my next story, and it could be a long one. My stories have been getting longer and longer recently. 15K, 25k and my most recent big story was 33K words.

Do readers prefer multiple parts, or one long story?

I feel people get put off if the word count is too long. They don't even try to read it.

But they also get put off if the story stops part way and they have to wait for the next part. Worse if the story is never finished.
(*Author holds his head in shame at his unfinished Big Brother series*)

What's your opinion?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Both. There is no universal reader, so don't try accommodate everyone.

Those stories are not long by Lit standards - I'd publish those lengths as stand-alone single submissions.

The consensus, every time this comes up (it's a regular question) is that the ideal chapter length is 2 - 3 Lit pages = 8k - 11k words (a Lit page is around 3750 words).

 

[PennameWombat]

My longest stand-alone, complete stories are around 70,000 words. One is well liked and even has the H, the other not quite as highly rated. The higher-rated one is in SF&F, which seems more amenable to very long stories.

Many of my stories are 20,000-40,000 words and plenty of those are highly-rated across a number of categories.

Do some readers avoid stories that are “too long”? I guess. But if the story doesn’t give them a reason to continue, one Lit page is too long.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

If you post in parts, I think it's helpful to reassure readers that the story is complete and X number of parts will be posted every Y days. That certainly encourages me to try reading a story.

Also every part should be a chapter - basically something needs to happen to be a payoff in that chapter. Let plot rather than length be a guide. Hence I will soon inflict a story of 4-6 chapters of 25k words each onto my readers, because that's how it splits. How it will go down? No idea - it crosses too many categories and might have to go to the backwater of Novels & Novellas...

 

[gunhilltrain]

If you post in parts, I think it's helpful to reassure readers that the story is complete and X number of parts will be posted every Y days. That certainly encourages me to try reading a story.

Also every part should be a chapter - basically something needs to happen to be a payoff in that chapter. Let plot rather than length be a guide. Hence I will soon inflict a story of 4-6 chapters of 25k words exact onto my readers, because that's how it splits. How it will go down? No idea - it crosses too many categories and might have to go to the backwater of Novels & Novellas...

It's your choice but it may depend on if there are any natural breakpoints. If it covers more than one day, then that's a possible point to go to a new chapter. Anyway, I have a tendency to not plan these things very well. On one series, I posted the first chapter and then couldn't think of the next step for another six months. Maybe I was lucky, but the scores for the final seven chapters were fairly good.

 

[8letters]

Hi all!
(I'm really enjoying using this forum after being a lone wolf writer for so long!)

I'm working on my next story, and it could be a long one. My stories have been getting longer and longer recently. 15K, 25k and my most recent big story was 33K words.

Do readers prefer multiple parts, or one long story?

I feel people get put off if the word count is too long. They don't even try to read it.

But they also get put off if the story stops part way and they have to wait for the next part. Worse if the story is never finished.
(*Author holds his head in shame at his unfinished Big Brother series*)

What's your opinion?

When I ran the numbers, a story loses a third of its audience when you publish something as a series as opposed to a stand-alone story. The numbers for story improve with page length, plateauing at 6 pages (22K words). I've published a 14-page story and seen little evidence of readers turned off by the length.

 

[gunhilltrain]

When I ran the numbers, a story loses a third of its audience when you publish something as a series as opposed to a stand-alone story. The numbers for story improve with page length, plateauing at 6 pages (22K words). I've published a 14-page story and seen little evidence of readers turned off by the length.

Maybe it's me then. I would have trouble finding the patience for proofing a fourteen-page story since I usually have to do it more than once. I seem to be getting a bit better with longer stories - but that I mean 7,000 words or so as opposed to 4,000. Obviously many if not most people wouldn't have such an issue with their writing.

 

[SimonDoom]

Surprisingly (to me), Literotica readers have a high tolerance for long stories. I seldom read stories that are more than around 6 Lit pages (roughly 22,000 words), but I apparently am not typical.

If you have a 33,000 word story, and it's done, then, absolutely, publish it as one story than as a series of chapters. It is likely to do better that way. It probably will have a higher score, and it probably will have more readers. 8Letters did some good analysis of this a few years ago, and there are some readers who simply do not want to start chaptered series.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

I’m not going to disagree with the consensus above. Experienced, successful Lit authors provide information that should be valued. I’ll just state my own experience, to add another datum.

In 2020, I posted a story that’s about 37k words long. It would split very neatly into three parts, each in the range of 12k. Yet I posted the entire thing as one item. It may be my most successful story here, but I can’t help but think that many readers opened it, saw how long it is, and decided to devote their free time to something else. The story has 28.4k views, and 29 votes. I’ve always wondered if there would have been more complete readings, at least of the first part, if I had posted it in three chunks.

It can be argued that only readers who really like a long story will read it all the way to the end, and vote. Maybe this is why my story has the rating it has, and I shouldn’t complain. But my goal in writing for this site is to reach as many readers as possible.

I’ve speculated on how the reading of Literotica may have evolved over the years. When this site began, internet use was somewhat limited to computers, which a reader could use in private (rather than risking the NSFW situation). Such a reader could devote plenty of time to reading erotica, and the kind of plot and character development in long works could be rewarded.

Since then, internet access has expanded to extremely portable devices, so a reader who’s out and about could sample Lit works. I think, however, that someone using a phone in public might prefer to do this in smaller time chunks, and be less obvious about it, because of the content. I gather that the ‘flash fiction’ fad, starting around the middle of the previous decade, arose from phone use of the internet. So...maybe shorter items have been getting more readings lately?

If other folks here have taken these points into account in their analyses of reader preferences on Lit, then they should be given greater weight than my guesses. Having learned nothing, I’m about to submit a 14k-word story in a category that gets very little traffic.

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5116173&page=submissions

 

[ElectricBlue]

It is likely to do better that way. It probably will have a higher score, and it probably will have more readers. 8Letters did some good analysis of this a few years ago, and there are some readers who simply do not want to start chaptered series.

The down side of a stand-alone story is, you have zero idea how many readers actually read the whole story. Don't think Views = Reads, that's delusional.

I'd say the drop-out rate from a long stand-alone story would be the same as the drop-off rate in a chaptered story - that is, with a longer story, maybe one in five readers will finish it, just like most chaptered stories.

That's the plus side of chaptered stories for an author, you do get a much better idea how many people actually read the last chapter, where Views would equal Reads. And for readers, there's the easier navigation, since you can't bookmark within a Lit story, but you can bookmark a chapter.

 

[8letters]

I’m not going to disagree with the consensus above. Experienced, successful Lit authors provide information that should be valued. I’ll just state my own experience, to add another datum.

In 2020, I posted a story that’s about 37k words long. It would split very neatly into three parts, each in the range of 12k. Yet I posted the entire thing as one item. It may be my most successful story here, but I can’t help but think that many readers opened it, saw how long it is, and decided to devote their free time to something else. The story has 28.4k views, and 29 votes. I’ve always wondered if there would have been more complete readings, at least of the first part, if I had posted it in three chunks.

It can be argued that only readers who really like a long story will read it all the way to the end, and vote. Maybe this is why my story has the rating it has, and I shouldn’t complain. But my goal in writing for this site is to reach as many readers as possible.

I’ve speculated on how the reading of Literotica may have evolved over the years. When this site began, internet use was somewhat limited to computers, which a reader could use in private (rather than risking the NSFW situation). Such a reader could devote plenty of time to reading erotica, and the kind of plot and character development in long works could be rewarded.

Since then, internet access has expanded to extremely portable devices, so a reader who’s out and about could sample Lit works. I think, however, that someone using a phone in public might prefer to do this in smaller time chunks, and be less obvious about it, because of the content. I gather that the ‘flash fiction’ fad, starting around the middle of the previous decade, arose from phone use of the internet. So...maybe shorter items have been getting more readings lately?

If other folks here have taken these points into account in their analyses of reader preferences on Lit, then they should be given greater weight than my guesses. Having learned nothing, I’m about to submit a 14k-word story in a category that gets very little traffic.

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5116173&page=submissions

Based upon comments I've gotten, a surprisingly high number of readers read my stories at their work. They aren't looking to masturbate; they are looking to kill time in a pleasurable way. Such readers like long stories because once they get past the "I'm going to read this to the end?" decision point, they get a lot of time killed with the one story. Shorter stories means more searching for a story they want to read to the end.

 

[8letters]

From my numbers, I see no downside and all upside from writing longer stories. Here's my catalog, with chapters and my one LW story removed. It is in order of date published. It's year published - number of pages - rating title views - comments
2013 - 3 - 4.62 Cycling Weekends with Sis 371,777 - 122
2014 - 4 - 4.70 Sister Has a Plan 312,345 - 77
2015 - 9 - 4.72 Cruise Doubledate With My Sister 256,615 - 112
2015 - 3 - 4.73 My Day as a Pool Boy 267,787 - 60
2016 - 7 - 4.80 My Sister Set Me Up on a Blind Date 500,589 - 251
2016 - 9 - 4.83 My European Summer Vacation 781,544 - 171
2017 - 8 - 4.69 Comforting My Little Sister 292,634 - 126
2017 - 5 - 4.69 My Cousin Shows Me Around Campus 88,958 - 33
2017 - 10 - 4.85 My European Summer Vacation (With+) 462,805 - 113
2017 - 6 - 4.81 My Lingerie-Loving Sister Moves In 629,855 - 228
2018 - 10 - 4.76 My Cookie-Baking Sister 204,252 - 102
2019 - 1 - 4.28 Godiva for My Sister 53,052 - 21
2019 - 8 - 4.80 My Crocheting Little Sister 196,024 - 100
2020 - 3 - 4.32 The Prodigal Sister 113,668 - 34
2020 - 6 - 4.75 Carpooling With My Sister 187,550 - 71
2021 - 14 - 4.81 My Mom Competes with my Stepmom 308,348 - 123
2022 - 9 - 4.72 A Flirting Workshop with My Sister 36,295 - 41

 

[Handley_Page]

Hi all!
(I'm really enjoying using this forum after being a lone wolf writer for so long!)

I'm working on my next story, and it could be a long one. My stories have been getting longer and longer recently. 15K, 25k and my most recent big story was 33K words.

What's your opinion?

I find 3 -6 Lit pages (at about 3700 words each) to be a satisfactory length.

 

[Arking]

If you post in parts, I think it's helpful to reassure readers that the story is complete and X number of parts will be posted every Y days. That certainly encourages me to try reading a story.

Also every part should be a chapter - basically something needs to happen to be a payoff in that chapter. Let plot rather than length be a guide. Hence I will soon inflict a story of 4-6 chapters of 25k words each onto my readers, because that's how it splits. How it will go down? No idea - it crosses too many categories and might have to go to the backwater of Novels & Novellas...

I do agree with you, my frustration in posting multiple chapter stories is the time differential it takes for the current chapter to be posted. I've been waiting now since the 18th March for my latest chapter to be published. I fear my loyal readers would now be 'not so loyal'.

 

[SimonDoom]

That's the plus side of chaptered stories for an author, you do get a much better idea how many people actually read the last chapter, where Views would equal Reads. And for readers, there's the easier navigation, since you can't bookmark within a Lit story, but you can bookmark a chapter.

This sounds intuitively correct, but I don't think it is correct. I think there's good reason to believe it's NOT correct. While you are right that we have no idea what fraction of views is actual reads, we don't really know that either for later chapters, and I think your statement that in the case of later chapters "views and reads are close" is not correct.

Here's why: because while views drop off after the first chapter, view:vote ratios don't change at the same rate. Even when views drop off a lot, votes continue to drop off a lot too. View:vote ratios DO change some, and get smaller, as the story progresses, but not THAT much smaller. Not nearly as much as you'd expect. I don't know why this is. The chief explanation I can think of is that new readers hop on board late chapters in a story rather than necessarily go back to the beginning. They see it in the new story feed and decide to check it out, deciding it looks interesting in its own right. But probably a lot of those readers drop off before finishing, so they never vote.

So I conclude that view figures for late chapters don't give us much more information about how many actually read than early chapters. I tentatively conclude from THAT that view: read ratios are probably higher than we'd like to think they are, and that fewer of the viewers actually read the whole thing than we think. This is true for late chapters as well as early ones. That makes sense, too, because the typical view:vote ratio is so high--often around 100:1. It seems unlikely to me, say, that half of viewers read the whole story, but only 1 out of 50 of the finished readers actually vote. If we assume a certain consistency in consumer behavior, it makes more sense to me to think it's more like 10 views to 1 read, and 10 reads to 1 vote. That's speculative, but it seems more reasonable to me than to assume an extremely high read:vote ratio and a relatively low view:read ratio.

 

[Djmac1031]

Don't think Views = Reads, that's delusional.

I suppose my question becomes: does clicking on a story automatically register as a "view?"

If so, then the numbers can be skewed for series OR long stories. Doesn't matter.

If they clicked on it but decided not to finish because it was too long, or they just didn't like it, it still counts as a "view."

My personal experience: if I pick a story that sounds interesting, it's not the LENGTH that throws me off. It's reading and discovering the story is either not good, or just not for me.

The problem with publishing in chapters of course is new readers may automatically dismiss later chapters because they don't want to feel obligated to go back and read past chapters first.

On the plus side though, as a series progresses, you can at least tell whether you have a following by how fast a new chapter receives ratings / favorites.

 

[SimonDoom]

I suppose my question becomes: does clicking on a story automatically register as a "view?"

Yes, and I believe multiple clicks on a story by one user count as multiple views.

There's a clearly observable phenomenon that second chapters have far fewer views than first chapters. In fact, it's common for second chapters to have no more than half the views of first chapters.

That suggests that there's more selection for second chapters. Some people click on chapter 1, read a little, don't like it, and don't bother with chapter 2. Chapter 2 then has a smaller potential audience. It's logical to assume that for chapter 2 the "view" number gives you a much better idea how many actual readers there are. But the vote figures, from everything I've seen, don't quite bear this out. I think for subsequent chapters view numbers still greatly exceed reads.

 

[Djmac1031]

fact, it's common for second chapters to have no more than half the views of first chapters.

Chapter 1 of my longest series The Jenna Arrangement currently has 450 votes after 7 months.

Chapter 2 has 246 votes after 6 months.

The past several chapters (just published chapter 19) average between 60 and 80 votes.

What this tells me is the series, while having had a higher amount of readers early on, has dropped down to roughly 70 something loyal readers.

I consider that a win. Especially for a new author such as myself.

I have seen the occasional boost in the first chapters upon posting a new one, which tells me SOMETIMES a reader is curious enough to go back to the beginning.

But yeah, I don't expect to pick up a significant amount of NEW readers when posting a chapter on a long running series because most are not looking to go back and do the reading to catch up and will move on to something else.

 

[SimonDoom]

Chapter 1 of my longest series The Jenna Arrangement currently has 450 votes after 7 months.

Chapter 2 has 246 votes after 6 months.

The past several chapters (just published chapter 19) average between 60 and 80 votes.

What this tells me is the series, while having had a higher amount of readers early on, has dropped down to roughly 70 something loyal readers.

I consider that a win. Especially for a new author such as myself.

I have seen the occasional boost in the first chapters upon posting a new one, which tells me SOMETIMES a reader is curious enough to go back to the beginning.

But yeah, I don't expect to pick up a significant amount of NEW readers when posting a chapter on a long running series because most are not looking to go back and do the reading to catch up and will move on to something else.

Your results are fairly typical, but you almost certainly have more than 70 loyal readers, because you must assume that many readers do not vote.

I think many readers like to get in here as quietly and anonymously as possible, read their stories, and then get out of here without leaving a trace. I was like that in early days of my Literotica reading. I had no account and I never voted or commented. I just didn't think about it. You should assume some of your loyal readers are like that, too.

 

[Djmac1031]

Your results are fairly typical, but you almost certainly have more than 70 loyal readers, because you must assume that many readers do not vote.

8 months since my first story published, I currently have 350 followers.

I have no idea if that's "typical," but I'm pleased with it.

That said, it doesn't automatically equate to regular readers, or at least of a particular series.

They may have followed me for one story they liked but not bothered to read my others or even the sequels to the one they liked.

So the only number that means anything to me is the votes. If they at least took the time to vote, I'm assuming they finished the damn thing lol.

In the end I try not to worry about the numbers much; my stories get decent views and ratings for a guy that's still very much an amateur author.

Getting back to the series debate / question, my only real point was yes, it's obvious you lose views / votes as subsequent chapters are published. But as authors our focus should be on the readers who stick around to follow the series, not the ones who bailed on it.

At least 450 people read the first chapter of my Jenna series.

Currently, at least 70 people have read chapter 19.

I'd be thrilled if 450 people were still reading the series, but am very appreciative for the 70 I KNOW still are.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This sounds intuitively correct, but I don't think it is correct. I think there's good reason to believe it's NOT correct. While you are right that we have no idea what fraction of views is actual reads, we don't really know that either for later chapters, and I think your statement that in the case of later chapters "views and reads are close" is not correct.

My argument is based on my long chaptered stories.

A Girl on the Bus - eight chapters written over three months.
Views Ch.1 = 21k (750 Word Anthology),
subsequent chapters steady state at Ch.3 (7.6k Views) through to Ch.8 (9.9k Views).
Chapter 6, with the longer sex scene pay-off, 13k Views, which I attribute to readers reading it twice.

A Girl on the Bus was a deliberate experiment - how long can I string readers along with short (1000 - 2000 word chapters) before I gave them the longer sex pay-off chapter? Answer: one month (the last two chapters were written later, after Covid).

In the Library - 23 chapters written over six months.
Ch.1 = 36k Views
Ch.3 = 13k Views
Ch.10 = 10k Views
Ch.23 = 8k Views
That is, the story settled by chapter 3 and was pretty much steady state (ish) for twenty chapters over six months. That's readers sticking with a story.

The Dark Chronicles - 12 chapters released over two weeks (104,000 word novel), that is, released when complete.
Prologue = 11k Views
third chapter = 3k Views
last chapter = 2.6k Views. Again, that's readers sticking with the story.

That's my primary data set for my contention that yes, chaptered stories DO give you a better idea how many readers actually finish a story - about 20% - 25% of your first chapter's View count is my rule of thumb.

A Girl on the Bus was a bit higher, 30%.

In my sample set, the Vote per View ratio is fairly consistent over the voting profile, about 1:100, so your point doesn't apply in my data. Reader behaviour in my portfolio is surprisingly consistent - that's a ratio I see constantly (104 chapters/stories across seventeen categories, so it's a wide-ranged audience - I don't write in a single category).

Key point, though - writers who look at their View count based only on stand-alone stories shouldn't think, "Wow, look at all my readers."

 

[Djmac1031]

Key point, though - writers who look at their View count based only on stand-alone stories shouldn't think, "Wow, look at all my readers."

Agreed. I know how many stories I click on, read a paragraph or three then click away when I realize it's not for me, so I assume many readers do the same to mine.

That's why I tend to count votes as more important. Whether they gave me 5, 3 or even 1, at least I'm pretty sure they actually read it lol.

 

[SimonDoom]

That's my primary data set for my contention that yes, chaptered stories DO give you a better idea how many readers actually finish a story - about 20% - 25% of your first chapter's View count is my rule of thumb.

I still think you are making the unwarranted assumption that the late chapter view counts give you an approximte, or even significantly more accurate, count for "readers" than does the first chapter. Taking the data you provided, there are several reasons to doubt whether this is true:

View:vote ratios do not drop in proportion to the drop in views. IF what you say is true, then we would expect that the number of views to votes would be much smaller than in fact they turn out to be. You don't give your vote figures, but if you did I think they would bear out what I'm saying.

It doesn't make sense to think that read:vote ratios would shrink as a chaptered story progresses. If anything, they should shrink, because presumably the readers that remain with the story are happier readers and would be more inclined to vote, except for the final chapter, where, as you say, there may be a reader boost in the final chapter because of repeat views. This boost occurred with both my final chapters, and I suspect this is a reason. But if the read:vote ratio shrinks, then the view:read ratio must go up. So it appears still to be the case that by the final chapter we can say with any confidence that the view number is anywhere remotely close to the read number. I think it's unlikely.

If, as I suspect, late chapters DO get new readers, then we truly can't make any predictions about the view:reader relationtionship, because we would expect the dropoff rate for the late chapters to be approximately the same as for the first one, unless those late chapters are much more captivating or considerably shorter.

I think all we can surmise with reasonable probability is that a) reader totals are much smaller than view totals, and this is true for first chapters and late chapters, and b) the data we have don't reveal what those reader totals are, or even give us an ability to approximate with any accuracy, but c) it is likely that view:reader ratios shrink somewhat as the story progresses.

Key point, though - writers who look at their View count based only on stand-alone stories shouldn't think, "Wow, look at all my readers."

I definitely agree with this. I feel confident in saying that the number of people who finish a story is much less than those who view it. I would guess no more than 25%, and probably less. I think people probably browse through many stories without reading them through. This is what I do. I would guess that for every story I have read all the way through I have viewed at least 10 stories and decided not to finish them for whatever reason, and I never vote on a story I do not finish to the end.

 

[Djmac1031]

View numbers can be incredibly skewed as well to the point they make no sense, or at least give no true, clear indication of readership.

For instance, again using my longest series, The Jenna Arrangement:

Part 1 has the highest views of course: 28.1K

Views dropped to 15.6K for Part 2, slightly less than half.

Now let's skip ahead to my last three chapters:

Part 17: 5.7K
Part 18: 3.1K
Part 19: 4.2K

So how does a later chapter published just a few weeks ago have MORE views than the previous one posted a month earlier? I have NO idea LOL.

So all it really tells me is how many random people clicked on it when it was still new enough to be on the first few pages I guess.

My votes, on the other hand, while dropping from earlier chapters, are pretty much consistent, averaging between 60 and 80 per chapter.

That at least tells me a more realistic tale of how many regular readers the series still has.

 

[SimonDoom]

Now let's skip ahead to my last three chapters:

Part 17: 5.7K
Part 18: 3.1K
Part 19: 4.2K

So how does a later chapter published just a few weeks ago have MORE views than the previous one posted a month earlier? I have NO idea LOL.

I'm not seeing what you are seeing. As of my writing this, Part 18 has 2.3K views and Part 19 has 1.3K views, which would be very much in line with expectations. I'm getting my figures from the numbers at the top right corner for each of those two stories.