Recent reads:votes

[Altissimus]

My average across all my stories is 120:1 reads:votes.

My latest story racked up over 100 votes in the first 24 hours and is currently on a 17:1 ratio.

This is seven times more reads:votes than I've had on any story.

Hey, I'm not complaining

I realise there could be a confluence of various factors affecting this, but I'm not aware of anything obvious - most of my catalogue has been published this year so it's all relatively recent; I haven't recently tripled my follower numbers or added my Lit profile to my LinkedIn account - but those things would only affect reads anyway, not reads:votes.

This story is also in a category I have published in before, and it's still tracking many multiples vs other stories in that category that I've posted.

So... any ideas? Has anyone else seen dramatic increases in votes in recent days?

 

[Willpkirk]

I thought I was the only one who did this?

My first 2 stories have a read/vote avg of 98:1

my third story has just went up and so far is sitting with 520 reads to votes (its only been 4 hrs so {not panicking at all})

{as i am panicking massively}

 

[Altissimus]

I thought I was the only one who did this?

I think I speak for all of us here when I say:

Bwahahahahahahhahahahahahaha no.

Most Lit authors hold several degrees in advanced analytics, Excel mastery, statistics and data profiling.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

My story is significantly longer than usual so my voting ratio experience on it is much different. Most of my stories have one vote per about 15 views up to about 80 views but this one takes more reads to make it through and I’m currently sitting at about 1 vote per 150-something views. I’m hoping that will trend down as more people finish the story but I’m not counting on it.

As Altissimus suggested, with a couple of stem degrees, I’m quite well versed in sweating the analytical aspects of my story offerings.

 

[Bamagan]

My average across all my stories is 120:1 reads:votes.

My latest story racked up over 100 votes in the first 24 hours and is currently on a 17:1 ratio.

This is seven times more reads:votes than I've had on any story.

Hey, I'm not complaining

I realise there could be a confluence of various factors affecting this, but I'm not aware of anything obvious - most of my catalogue has been published this year so it's all relatively recent; I haven't recently tripled my follower numbers or added my Lit profile to my LinkedIn account - but those things would only affect reads anyway, not reads:votes.

This story is also in a category I have published in before, and it's still tracking many multiples vs other stories in that category that I've posted.

So... any ideas? Has anyone else seen dramatic increases in votes in recent days?

The story in question was not a contest entry? That's about the only thing I can think of, although I'd honestly be surprised if any contest generated that much extra electioneering.

 

[SimonDoom]

Keep in mind it's views, not reads. We have no idea how many views turn into actual story reads, although we can be confident that it lies somewhere between total views and total votes.

My view:vote ratio historically has been around 90:1, and most stories do not fall too far from that ratio.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think I speak for all of us here when I say:

Bwahahahahahahhahahahahahaha no.

Most Lit authors hold several degrees in advanced analytics, Excel mastery, statistics and data profiling.

Not this liberal arts major, although I have learned to use, if not master, Excel, and I did take a statistics class once, long ago. Other than that I've taken no math classes since high school.

 

[Altissimus]

The story in question was not a contest entry? That's about the only thing I can think of, although I'd honestly be surprised if any contest generated that much extra electioneering.

Not a contest entry.

 

[Altissimus]

Keep in mind it's views, not reads. We have no idea how many views turn into actual story reads, although we can be confident that it lies somewhere between total views and total votes.

Yah yah, views not reads. My bad.

My view:vote ratio historically has been around 90:1, and most stories do not fall too far from that ratio.

Yeah, my point exactly - nearly all my stories 'do not fall far from that ratio' - except this one, for some reason.

 

[Willpkirk]

I think I speak for all of us here when I say:

Bwahahahahahahhahahahahahaha no.

Most Lit authors hold several degrees in advanced analytics, Excel mastery, statistics and data profiling.

I have found my people

 

[Lifestyle66]

It might be the category for your latest standalone story. That, and a good title & description.

I have two stories posted to Romance which are short standalone stories with low ratios at 25:1 and 33:1. My only other Romance story was chapter 10 in a series and only got 110:1.

Just my guess: The Romance category readers don't pick up stories in a series unless the entire series starts and remains in Romance. But standalone stories there, particularly lengthy ones, might be what those readers prefer.

 

[Altissimus]

It might be the category for your latest standalone story. That, and a good title & description.

I have two stories posted to Romance which are short standalone stories with low ratios at 25:1 and 33:1. My only other Romance story was chapter 10 in a series and only got 110:1.

Just my guess: The Romance category readers don't pick up stories in a series unless the entire series starts and remains in Romance. But standalone stories there, particularly lengthy ones, might be what those readers prefer.

This was what I was thinking coz, as you say, my other Romances were later-series entries.

Just surprised the ratio is so much higher than the other categories I have experience of.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Views are much more important to me, but as Simon said, they are misleading. I think someone said in some other thread that every time you refresh the first page of your story, it counts as a new view. I wish some other method of collecting data was used, like cookies or something that would give more accurate numbers about how many people actually read your story. I can assume that many readers return to the stories they liked and reread them and every time, it counts as a new view, but more than that, everyone who clicks on the story just to see the tags or to read the foreword only to conclude that the story isn't for him also counts as a new view. I believe many of us would be very disappointed if we knew the true number of people who are reading our stories.

 

[Altissimus]

Views are much more important to me, but as Simon said, they are misleading. I think someone said in some other thread that every time you refresh the first page of your story, it counts as a new view. I wish some other method of collecting data was used, like cookies or something that would give more accurate numbers about how many people actually read your story. I can assume that many readers return to the stories they liked and reread them and every time, it counts as a new view, but more than that, everyone who clicks on the story just to see the tags or to read the foreword only to conclude that the story isn't for him also counts as a new view. I believe many of us would be very disappointed if we knew the true number of people who are reading our stories.

Yep, get that, and while I acknowledge I said 'reads' when I meant 'views' (and was duly chastised for my grievous error - thank you for correcting me, @SimonDoom, Sir) I am actually only talking about a ratio in this thread, and thus the number of reads/views doesn't actually matter.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I take it one step further and break mine down by category:

Novels/Novellas (10 stories) - 28:1 View to Vote average
Celebrity/Fan (5 stories) - 85:1 View to Vote average
Incest/Taboo (4 stories) - 83:1 View to Vote average
Romance (3 stories) - 38:1 View to Vote average
Loving Wives (2 stories) - 73:1 View to Vote average
Erotic Couplings (1 story) - 49:1 View to Vote

Overall average is 59:1 but that includes the one story (N/N) from earlier this year that still is holding strong with a 1.63:1 Vote to View ratio. (I still don't know how it gets more votes than views)

My oldest story is maintaining a 48:1 ratio and my newest story is at 17:1.

* Of course with the ambiguity of what constitutes an actual reading of a story versus someone just viewing it, these numbers are unreliable from an true statistical perspective.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I believe many of us would be very disappointed if we knew the true number of people who are reading our stories.

My assumption, based on my longer chaptered stories and a couple of deliberate experiments, is that maybe 15% - 20% of folk who click into a first chapter will see a story through to the end. One in five, on a good day.

 

[SimonDoom]

I believe many of us would be very disappointed if we knew the true number of people who are reading our stories.

I'm not sure. I think, human beings being the way they are, we would find a way to be disappointed whatever the system was.

The numbers have no objective meaning. Do you enjoy knowing that your story has been viewed 1,000 times? If you've never published a story before, that sounds great, and you probably would. And then you find out the other guy got 2,000 views, and you don't feel as good. It would be exactly the same if you had 1 million views and somebody else had 2 million. Or if your story has a 4.6 and then you find out somebody else has a 4.7. It's why it's amusing to me when people take numbers and things like red Hs so seriously, because the numbers have no objective meaning, and red Hs have no objective meaning. 4.5 doesn't mean anything. I have fun with the stats, but I don't take them too seriously. They never upset me. No matter what your numbers are, there's a way to look at them positively and there's a way to look at them negatively. I try to look at the bright side.

That said, I think you are correct in the sense that the read:view ratio is much smaller than many of us probably think it is. Since the view:vote ratio is 90:1 (in my case), what can we surmise is the view:read ratio? If it's 4:1, that means that only one of out 22.5 readers is bothering to vote. Does that seem reasonable? It seems low to me. But if the read:vote ratio is better than that, let's say 10:1, then it means only one out of nine views are actual reads. Which means that story you wrote that got 20,000 views actually only had 2200 reads. But it's all just relative. The numbers have whatever meaning you choose to give them.

 

[LexxRuthless]

Let's see: Overall views / votes ratio is 79.5:1.

Anal (8 stories) - 115:1
Erotic Couplings (4 stories) 47:1
Incest/Taboo (56 stories) 76.7:1
Mature (2 stories) 71:1
Non-con (2 stories) 141:1
Romance (2 stories) 36:1

HOWEVER, in 2020 something weird happened with the site. A lot of us noticed that we were losing a significant amount of votes every day, and this went on for weeks. It was happening to stories that had been on the site for a decade or more. Eventually the "vote hemorrhage" stopped, but it skewed the ratio of views to votes for any stories that had been on the site prior to that time. I could only estimate the number of votes lost, something like 11,500 on my 59 stories at that time, and the average score of those dropped .03.

 

[ronde]

I've never analyzed my results this way, but I just did.

Overall average for 126 stories is 51:1 which includes a how-to story (643:1) and a BDSM story that apparently wasn't BDSM enough (89:1)


Romance (59 stories) - 32:1
Mature (20 stories) - 49:1
Humor & Satire (15 stories) - 32:1
Sci-Fi & Fantasy (12 stories) - 27:1
Erotic Couplings (6 stories) - 99:1
Non-Human (5 stories ) - 227:1
Exhibitionist ( 3 stories) - 58:1
Interracial (2 stories) - 25:1
Non-erotic (1 story) - 11:1

I agree that these numbers are probably pretty shady, they do tell me I probably should stay away from Non-human and BDSM stories.

 

[Altissimus]

I agree with most of this except this bit:

It's why it's amusing to me when people take numbers and things like red Hs so seriously, because the numbers have no objective meaning, and red Hs have no objective meaning. 4.5 doesn't mean anything.

Ahh, but it does. While I agree it's not a definitive measure of how well a story is written, it is reflective of some arbitrary measurement of popularity. The key point, however, is that it's a binary filter. People will filter out stories that don't have it, and that significantly reduces the number of reads you get for your work. Assuming most authors on here want their work read, the little red H becomes significant.

 

[LexxRuthless]

I agree with most of this except this bit:

Ahh, but it does. While I agree it's not a definitive measure of how well a story is written, it is reflective of some arbitrary measurement of popularity. The key point, however, is that it's a binary filter. People will filter out stories that don't have it, and that significantly reduces the number of reads you get for your work. Assuming most authors on here want their work read, the little red H becomes significant.

I can verify this. At least 5 times, readers have mentioned it in emails they've sent me. "I don't have as much time to read stories on Lit as I used to, so I usually won't bother to read them unless they have that red H."

 

[RejectReality]

Anyone who's been here for a long time needs to keep in mind that older stories were functioning under a different, less sophisticated view filter. Can't remember when exactly, but it feels like a decade is about right.

Anything older than that is going to skew your numbers pretty hard, especially in high traffic categories like Incest, LW, Mature, etc. Those are packed with a lot more spiders and bots than the view count of more recent stories.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I'm not sure. I think, human beings being the way they are, we would find a way to be disappointed whatever the system was.

The numbers have no objective meaning. Do you enjoy knowing that your story has been viewed 1,000 times? If you've never published a story before, that sounds great, and you probably would. And then you find out the other guy got 2,000 views, and you don't feel as good. It would be exactly the same if you had 1 million views and somebody else had 2 million. Or if your story has a 4.6 and then you find out somebody else has a 4.7. It's why it's amusing to me when people take numbers and things like red Hs so seriously, because the numbers have no objective meaning, and red Hs have no objective meaning. 4.5 doesn't mean anything. I have fun with the stats, but I don't take them too seriously. They never upset me. No matter what your numbers are, there's a way to look at them positively and there's a way to look at them negatively. I try to look at the bright side.

That said, I think you are correct in the sense that the read:view ratio is much smaller than many of us probably think it is. Since the view:vote ratio is 90:1 (in my case), what can we surmise is the view:read ratio? If it's 4:1, that means that only one of out 22.5 readers is bothering to vote. Does that seem reasonable? It seems low to me. But if the read:vote ratio is better than that, let's say 10:1, then it means only one out of nine views are actual reads. Which means that story you wrote that got 20,000 views actually only had 2200 reads. But it's all just relative. The numbers have whatever meaning you choose to give them.

There was a particular reason I had in mind when I said that most of us would likely be disappointed if we knew the real numbers. Look at it this way. You get notified that you won 50k dollars in some lottery you participated in. You are so excited and happy to win such a hefty sum. Now look at it this way. You get notified you won 1 million in said lottery. You are so over the moon when you find out. Then, after some time, you get notified that due to legal issues, taxes, and similar bullshit, you only get 50k dollars from your 1 million prize. You would be pissed off, cursing the lottery and the day you participated. The monetary gain is the same in both cases, it is just your perception that changed.

Now, we see the views as some arbitrary number of how many people read our stories. Before I took down my stories, I think the most views I had on a single story was 28k or so. Now, I KNOW that's not the number of people who read my story. We all have our own projections (and illusions) of how many readers we actually have. EB put his estimate at 15-20%. Maybe that is a good guess. Maybe he is still being overly generous, who knows. I can bet that most people put their estimates at half or maybe a third of the number of views and they are happy with that. But what if we found out that the true number of actual, individual readers is somewhere between 1/10 and 1/20 of the number of views? I believe that would disappoint most authors, not because those numbers are low, but because their initial projections and expectations were much higher. It is just human psychology. Personally, I do believe that the actual number of individual readers on a stand-alone story or a first chapter of the story is not more than 1/10. It is my own estimate based on... something But yeah, I would really love it if the website changed its view-counting mechanics so the numbers we get were more accurate.

 

[RejectReality]

Going by the same stories posted on a site that only records a download by registered members vs. here, EB's estimates are about right — at least for non-human activity. No way of knowing the criteria either site uses for multiple clicks by the same user, etc. You can only go so far into the weeds with code like that before it becomes overly complicated and the value of filtering out some kind of activity is less than the effort required to do it.

 

[alohadave]

No way of knowing the criteria either site uses for multiple clicks by the same user, etc.

The site counts every single page load as a read. It's easy to check. Open one of your stories, and press F5 100 times. Your read count will go up by 100.