Reached my goal: 1000 followers before the end of the year.

[tomlitilia]

I know. It's a stupid goal. Number of followers doesn't warrant quality writing and ultimately means nothing. But I looked at my rate of obtaining followers at the beginning of the year, and based on some back of the envelope calculation, I concluded that I unlikely would reach 1000 followers within the year unless I pressed on and published stories. So it worked as a competition with myself to finish stories rather than start new ones. Yesterday, with 3 days to spare, I reached my goal. Just thought I'd share my meaningless success story. Perhaps it can inspire someone else to find incentivizing tricks to finish their stories.

 

[KeithD]

Congrats on reaching your goal for the year.

 

[SimonDoom]

Congratulations!

I don't think there's anything wrong about setting these kinds of goals for yourself. I do the same thing, and I find them motivating and fun. I reached a few of my own goals this year and was happy to do so. I'm in the process of setting goals for 2019.

 

[TxRad]

Congrats on the milestone.

With the new CP at least you know how many favorites you have. Before it came out, you only knew if you were on the top 250 list. Right now last place is something like, 1528. There's your next goal.

 

[tomlitilia]

There's your next goal.

That's not a bad one!

 

[gunhilltrain]

That seems to be impressive with twenty-eight submissions. I don't know if someone has calculated a statistic (an average?) of the ratio of followers to number of submissions. I have only twelve followers for twenty-three submissions so I may be at the low end of that distribution.

Actually my only aspiration for 2019 is to keep submitting whatever I have in the pipeline (which is about ten pieces at the moment).

 

[SolarRay]

Nice work and congrats! No shame in setting such challenges for yourself.

 

[jaF0]

I have 57 including 'Just Plain Bob' who submits a shitload of stories. Don't know if he follows shitloads of people though.


Long way from 1,000, I know.

 

[TxRad]

That seems to be impressive with twenty-eight submissions. I don't know if someone has calculated a statistic (an average?) of the ratio of followers to number of submissions. I have only twelve followers for twenty-three submissions so I may be at the low end of that distribution.

Actually my only aspiration for 2019 is to keep submitting whatever I have in the pipeline (which is about ten pieces at the moment).

Time on site would also have to be factored into calculations.

 

[AfterDusk]

Time on site would also have to be factored into calculations.

I would disagree, I published a handful of stories 2 years ago, then disappeared until last September. I only had 13 followers when I came back, now I have like 260 or so, so most obtained within the past four months.

I think that consistency of publishing helps, every time I have something new post I get a few more followers, then it drops off until the next new story.

I also think category has a lot to do with it—I kind of think that the I/T can have a tremendous amount of followers if you publish the right story.

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't know if someone has calculated a statistic (an average?) of the ratio of followers to number of submissions. .

I have done this, and I'm sure others have too. Keep in mind there's no real way to compare the stats of different authors unless they write the same kinds of stories in the same categories. There's no such thing as a meaningful site average because the average stats vary so much from category to category.

 

[AfterDusk]

I have done this, and I'm sure others have too. Keep in mind there's no real way to compare the stats of different authors unless they write the same kinds of stories in the same categories. There's no such thing as a meaningful site average because the average stats vary so much from category to category.

Which category would you say is the most popular?

 

[SimonDoom]

Which category would you say is the most popular?

Incest/Taboo, by a mile. It's not even close.

It has a huge following of repeat readers, who come back time and again to get their I/T fill. They're not overly picky or trollish.

I've written stories in six categories. My incest stories on average have three times more views than my non-incest stories.

 

[AfterDusk]

Incest/Taboo, by a mile. It's not even close.

It has a huge following of repeat readers, who come back time and again to get their I/T fill. They're not overly picky or trollish.

I've written stories in six categories. My incest stories on average have three times more views than my non-incest stories.

That makes sense, not many other options for them to fulfill this fantasy I suppose.

 

[SimonDoom]

That makes sense, not many other options for them to fulfill this fantasy I suppose.

Maybe. I do get a fair number of comments from readers who obviously do fantasize about this in a big way. But even though I have written 10 or so stories of this type, I don't ever have this fantasy. Ever. I just think it makes for fun stories. I'm not sure how many readers think like I do or really have this fantasy.

But for those who do have the fantasy, I think your point is a good one.

 

[Hypoxia]

I have 604 followers after 5 years 3 months since my first of 117 posted stories. Good thing I lack goals.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Maybe. I do get a fair number of comments from readers who obviously do fantasize about this in a big way. But even though I have written 10 or so stories of this type, I don't ever have this fantasy. Ever. I just think it makes for fun stories. I'm not sure how many readers think like I do or really have this fantasy.

But for those who do have the fantasy, I think your point is a good one.

I hope this isn't too much of a digression. I'm 63 and until I found Literorica I assumed that incest was a tiny niche of human fantasies. (Probably I was assuming my own preferences were the usual run of things - often a mistake.) Yes, there was some notice of it after the invention of Internet porn but it still seemed small.

Before the Internet I also assumed that BDSM was a small niche. (It was one of my interests but I knew of few other people who admitted to it.) I was surprised at how large and common it really is, but I didn't need Literotica to discover that.

In the 1980s did anyone predict we'd all find out about each other's sexual thoughts through computers?

 

[Hypoxia]

In the 1980s did anyone predict we'd all find out about each other's sexual thoughts through computers?

The French national Minitel network rolled out in the late 1970s and was always dominated by sex messaging. The USA BBS's I found in the early 1980s fixated on sex jokes and TTX nudes, Helen Keller jokes, and horny invites. It's been like this for almost a half century.

 

[gunhilltrain]

The French national Minitel network rolled out in the late 1970s and was always dominated by sex messaging. The USA BBS's I found in the early 1980s fixated on sex jokes and TTX nudes, Helen Keller jokes, and horny invites. It's been like this for almost a half century.

What are BBS and TTX? (Totally topless something for the latter?) I've been living a rather sheltered life I guess.

 

[jaF0]

BBS - Bulletin Board System aka, forerunner to forums like this.

TTX - as I recall, Telephone and TeleX (teletype) systems, but I may be off on that one.

 

[jaF0]

You connected a computer or terminal to a conventional telephone line and dialed a number to connect to a specific system or board. If you wanted to communicate with a different system or post messages on a different board (forum), you had to disconnect (hang up) and dial a different number.

 

[oggbashan]

I have 604 followers after 5 years 3 months since my first of 117 posted stories. Good thing I lack goals.

I have fewer than 1,000 followers after 16 years and over 300 posted stories. My audience is limited...

Just checked. 758 followers currently.

jeanne_d_artois has 31 followers.

 

[Hypoxia]

I would dial-up Smurf's Village or a WWIVnet BBS or the local FIDOnet node as a proud member of SCUM (Sonoma Cownty Users of Modems) at a blazing 1200 baud connect rate, swap Z80-ASM game codes and ASCII nudes (all genders) and bad jokes, and redial a lot. Them was the days.

FIDOnet changed everything. Built by a gay gun-crazy San Francisco nerd, nodes called each other when long-distance rates were low. I watched my posts travel around the world, each link revealed in the header.

A leading conspiracy-UFO-paranormal site on FIDO invited me in. That, with the multi-times-daily newsletter I pushed, gave me a subscribed audience of several hundred thousand geeks. LIT is a step down for me. But that's okay. I prefer the shadows.

 

[ChloeTzang]

BBS - Bulletin Board System aka, forerunner to forums like this.

TTX - as I recall, Telephone and TeleX (teletype) systems, but I may be off on that one.

Wow.

Didn't asstr originate as a BBS? I remember reading that somewhere.

 

[Hypoxia]

Wow.

Didn't asstr originate as a BBS? I remember reading that somewhere.

It was/is an unofficial Usenet newsgroup. Early Internet days, pre-WWWeb.