Readership Chart - is this normal?

[Ophelia_Coque]

I am puzzled, yet again.
My first story got a much larger readership, even though the second two got higher ratings.
Obviously some people who read Part 3 went back to read 1 and 2, but Pt 1 still got more initial readers.
Is that par for the course?

 

[MelissaBaby]

That’s pretty much standard. You are doing well if half of the readers return for the second chapter. The upside of the decline in readership in chaptered stories is that as your most loyal readers stay with the series, your scores will most likely rise.

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

That chart gave me a boner. It's so -- fucking -- scientific

 

[alohadave]

It's normal. Not just here, but on many sites. A downward progression of views happens pretty much any time something is posted in multiple parts.

 

[ElectricBlue]

That's typical. I fairly consistently see a 50% drop between Ch.1 and Ch.2, a similar drop to Ch.3, and then steady state(ish) through to the end. I figure maybe one in five Views translates to a complete Read of your story.

 

[ofbuttons]

I've found this to be the case too. My first part has 17k views, second has 10.6k, then 4.1k, and then peculiarly my fourth/final part has 5.2k, lol. But yeah, huge drop off rate. Obviously time is a factor and my last three parts still get some faves/likes where the first does not but by now it's evening out.

Still, multipart stories are fun to write for pacing/serotonin/attention span reasons, so I'll keep doing them as long as I think of ideas for them.

 

[Duleigh]

Very typical. I've had more luck writing separate stories rather than chapters, not much luck, but some.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I think part of the problem is that some readers have been burnt investing time in a series that the author never finished.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've experienced the same thing, and honestly, it's put me off writing any more multi-part submissions. I know that sounds like I'm just chasing likes, or comments, or whatever. It's a bit disheartening to invest the effort into something that will see lower and lower stats, particularly when those later submissions might be considerably better than the earlier ones.

I've started cheating, I'm writing stories now that stand on their own, but are actually part of a much larger situation. So no more 'Part 2' or 'Chapter 16' etc.. I reference the previous submission at the top of the story, and mention something about this being a continuation of story _____ and will make more sense if you read that first, but it'll stand on its own as well.
I understand that's not possible in many situations, but that's how I'll be writing now.

Something to consider, which might provide some comfort, is that while the views drop a lot for later chapters the actual reads probably don't drop as fast. Return readers are fewer, but they are more likely to be predisposed to like and stick with your story. So what appears to be a dramatic drop off is not, as far as readers are concerned, as dramatic as it seems.

 

[jaykaythree]

In my multipart ...

Part 1 -- 4690.
Part 2 -- 3809.
Part 3 -- 1992.

Of course, a category change (from First Time to Romance) could account for that big drop between 2 and 3.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I think part of the problem is that some readers have been burnt investing time in a series that the author never finished.

I'm guilty of that. One of my to do's - finish of my unfinished series.

I thinkwe all see the same thing with the views - now I generally just write the whole story and push it out in one hit. Might be 120k words, but readers get to read the entire story in one hit too.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm writing stories now that stand on their own, but are actually part of a much larger situation.

Don't fall for thinking your Views on a stand-alone story equate to Reads, though. You've got no way of knowing how many people actually finish a story - it's just that with a single submission, you don't see them leave.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've started cheating, I'm writing stories now that stand on their own, but are actually part of a much larger situation. So no more 'Part 2' or 'Chapter 16' etc.. I reference the previous submission at the top of the story, and mention something about this being a continuation of story _____ and will make more sense if you read that first, but it'll stand on its own as well.
I understand that's not possible in many situations, but that's how I'll be writing now.

I've done this, too, and it didn't work. I saw exactly the same pattern play out: the first story got a lot more "views" than the later stories.

More fundamentally, you are fooling yourself if you think you are avoiding the problem doing it this way, and here's why.

First of all, it's crucial to understand that there is no "problem." The phenomenon we're all observing is completely obvious, if you think about it.

People who click on chapter 1 are less selective. They are less likely to know you or your story. They are more likely to click out of it and not read it once they view it.

A "view" is just a click, not a read. Remember that. It doesn't have anything to do with how many people actually read your story all the way through. It means they clicked on the story and opened it, and that's it.

Those who click on chapter 2 are not likely to include those who clicked on chapter 1 and clicked out. It's a smaller and more selective group, more predisposed to read your story all the way through AND to like it. That's why later chapters have higher ratings, generally: attrition.

Let's suppose you try to beat this phenomenon by doing what you propose. People click on your second story. Then they see your prologue that says it's a continuation of another story. At that point you're going to get some people clicking OUT of your story, either because they don't want to read a sequel or because they didn't like the first chapter.

So there's no point, IF your goal is preserving readers. Method 2 may get you more views, but probably not more reads, and reads are what matters. The reality is that you have no idea how many readers you really have just by looking at the view numbers.

 

[ofbuttons]

A "view" is just a click, not a read. Remember that. It doesn't have anything to do with how many people actually read your story all the way through. It means they clicked on the story and opened it, and that's it.

Those who click on chapter 2 are not likely to include those who clicked on chapter 1 and clicked out. It's a smaller and more selective group, more predisposed to read your story all the way through AND to like it. That's why later chapters have higher ratings, generally: attrition.

This is very true - my chapter one is my lowest rated, lol, because it got a wider audience that didn't care for my story. The subsequent chapters have far fewer but much stronger (and improving) ratings.

A good reason not to see it as a loss. Just a slightly clearer view of your actual readership.

 

[PennameWombat]

This is very true - my chapter one is my lowest rated, lol, because it got a wider audience that didn't care for my story. The subsequent chapters have far fewer but much stronger (and improving) ratings.

A good reason not to see it as a loss. Just a slightly clearer view of your actual readership.

For the young’uns here (to the Forum , no statement on how many calendar pages any of us have turned over) this is why there are regular breakouts of complaining around the various “Top Lists” for each Category - these are the 30 day, 12 month and All Time ‘most popular’ lists - so highest rated stories (with various minimal numbers of votes) in each Category.

The complaint is that because the only people who stick with a chaptered story are the ‘hard core fans,’ as it goes along, the ratings go up. Thus, the current 30 Day top story in Anal is a chapter 6, and a few slots down there is a chapter 134… But many of the Top Lists are dominated by later chapters in long, sometimes possibly never-ending, stories. The Group top lists are almost nothing but later chapters…

Along with the carping is mention that the site’s owners are aware of all this and somewhere ‘in the works’ are modifications to the Top Lists to average out chaptered stories, or put a single, highest-rated chapter, or something. Not to be cynical, but, well, it happens when it happens.

 

[Northstar4695]

I've experienced the same thing, and honestly, it's put me off writing any more multi-part submissions. I know that sounds like I'm just chasing likes, or comments, or whatever. It's a bit disheartening to invest the effort into something that will see lower and lower stats, particularly when those later submissions might be considerably better than the earlier ones.

I've started cheating, I'm writing stories now that stand on their own, but are actually part of a much larger situation. So no more 'Part 2' or 'Chapter 16' etc.. I reference the previous submission at the top of the story, and mention something about this being a continuation of story _____ and will make more sense if you read that first, but it'll stand on its own as well.
I understand that's not possible in many situations, but that's how I'll be writing now.

Have you ever felt like readers didn’t appreciate being drawn into a series unaware? I think this is the route I would take in the future, but I would appreciate your perspective on how it’s gone.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Have you ever felt like readers didn’t appreciate being drawn into a series unaware? I think this is the route I would take in the future, but I would appreciate your perspective on how it’s gone.

If each story stood on its own, that would be like someone going to a James Bond movie, and then getting pissed off to learn that there were a bunch of other James Bond movies.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Have you ever felt like readers didn’t appreciate being drawn into a series unaware? I think this is the route I would take in the future, but I would appreciate your perspective on how it’s gone.

Some readers will never open a chaptered story, others will never read more than two or three pages. You can't satisfy all readers, so the best thing to do is satisfy yourself as a writer; and if you are releasing chaptered stories, use the Series function, accessible from your Control Panel, to tell people if a long story is finished or not.

There are pros and cons of chaptered stories versus stand-alones, and endless threads on the subject. Trawl through the AH thread lists, you'll find them.

 

[Greyarea2234]

I think part of the problem is that some readers have been burnt investing time in a series that the author never finished.

This is true for me as a reader. It’s so frustrating to invest the time, follow the author and have nothing new posted.
Not that I’m criticizing, I can’t imagine the amount of time and creativity that goes into some of these stories.
Life is an ever changing and busy mistress.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Finally, I understand 'views' don't directly translate into 'reads' but I'm not seeing anything in my control panels that provides a 'reads' stat, so I'll just go with what I can see.

There is no Read data, only Views, which means a click into the first page, but that's it.

One advantage of chaptered stories, I believe, is that they give you a rough idea how many readers stay through to the last chapter - the data from my chaptered stories suggests that Ch.3 is when readers will stick around, then it's pretty much a steady state to the end. My rule of thumb is that one person might finish a long story, for every five who open it.