The Author's Hangout Valentine's Day 2012 Support Thread

[TxRad]

Kind of bummed that my possible story won't work, although my beta reader gave me an idea, so maybe. Major factor is always time...

Don't you just hate it when they rain on your parade.

My problem with it is they are usually right. In my case anyway.

 

[TxRad]

Welcome to the one and only "The Author's Hangout Valentine's Day 2012 Support Thread"

Please come on in and enjoy.

Any other Contest thread you might see is a fake so don't be fooled.

 

[ScouriesWorld]

I see he's still hard at work bumping this old thread...

...what else can we expect from a tired old has been racist?

[SIZE="+5"]Dumb Texan Alert[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+4]Welcome to yet another part of the Dumb TexansFantasyWorld[/SIZE]

This Part is the I’m Dumber than Rick Perry Contest And Award thread

Brought to you by LITEROTICA’S DUMBEST TEXAN, a LIAR AND FRAUD and his New Propaganda ALTS lovergirl and lamsace

Where redneck, right wing ignorance and racial intolerance are the only things that count.


Yes, I guess that now that his hero and boss Rick Perry has dropped out of the race that we at LITEROTICA will have to put up with more of his mindless, right wing, racist ravings. Mind you maybe that’s a small price to pay to get that idiot off the national stage. He was an embarrassment to all thinking Americans… And the guy wanted to be President?

So we’ll all suffer a bit for the countries good.

Meanwhile this clown has already started to clog up the contest with his pitiful scratching. Mind you we at A.I.R. will only accept one of his stories – it’s one of our rules!​

 

[Darkniciad]

If you haven't done so yet, I think the above over-sized font idiocy should be sufficient to demonstrate why the sock-puppet and its master should be on your ignore list.

It has the added benefit of making all his fake, ghost town contest threads, fraudulent lists, and other egotistical ranting vanish completely from the forum.

With any luck, his latest alt will be banned for coughing up spam such as this far more quickly than the last.

We now return you to the contest thread, already in progress.

I'll start the spreadsheet for the contest tonight, although there won't really be any data to gather. Votes and scores won't be available until tomorrow, which is when the real tracking will begin.

For anyone who doesn't know what my tracks are, you can find links to previous tracks ( as well as my own pen name stats ) here:

http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink_pics/lit_stats_home.htm

I track the stats of the stories in the contest, providing as much data as possible in order for viewers to see how stories perform by a wide range of criteria.

While there's no such thing as a no-fail winning strategy, there are things you can see to avoid, and things to try -- if actually winning the contest is a primary goal.

If you're just in it for the exposure to new readers, then the only thing you need to know is to post stories to the contest. Getting top billing on the New list makes you a winner in that department from the moment your story goes live.

 

[TxRad]

16 hours in for this one- The Name of the Game 7950+ views 65 votes and 2 comments. Not bad for a group sex story.

22 hours in for this one- What Bears See Almost 5600 views 96 votes and 5 comments. An excellent turn out for an E&V story.

I'll have to wait on the scores until the sweeps since my trolls have been out in force.

Both stories were in the low, 4.6 range until they showed up. But it's the same with every story I post so I'm used to it.

 

[nicecthulhu]

my story is up

http://www.literotica.com/s/alexandras-valentines-day

Being a guy, just watching the stats on all the stories is going to be fun.

 

[estragon]

Dark, I'm really looking forward to your analyses. I try to handicap the contests, and you are publishing the formbook, for which I'm grateful.

 

[Darkniciad]

Ugh... I may wait if the site keeps running this slow this evening. Every story requires about five clicks on the first day it posts to enter it. With the wait for pages to load up, it would take all bloody day at present.

The whole site seems to be functional, but it's slow as hell.

 

[sr71plt]

Sort of glad to hear that it's the website's clunkiness. I was afraid my laptop was acting up.

 

[estragon]

I Love this Site

but oh, those servers! I know we get what we pay for, so there's no use griping--but I do it anyway.

 

[Darkniciad]

Seems everything is back up to ( at least normal ) speed now.

Guess I'll finish what I'm doing and then get the track started.

Good luck to everyone

 

[Darkniciad]

And, here we go.

Starting out, we have 15 stories in 13 categories.

The average score is 4.50 and the median is 4.47

The average number of votes is 127 with a median of 92 and a total of 1527

I'll start tracking the other stats ( views, comments, favorites ) later in the contest whenever I have spare time, and for sure at the end of the contest for final totals.

For anyone new, who doesn't know about my tracks, I summarize the daily results here on the forum, while tracking them on my computer. After the winner's announcement, I'll post links to the full day-by-day track for anyone to review.

I don't do it during the contest because it would be an easy target list for people to 1-bomb the current leaders.

 

[estragon]

Dark, IIRC we discussed the guidebook-for-trolls aspect of your analyses before in the context of a recent contest. Unhappily, the trolls have enough brains (barely) to figure out how to approximate scores and then, bombs away! If only there were a better, faster Hoover....

 

[Darkniciad]

I can at least force the 1-bombers to do the legwork for themselves.

The contests used to be swept from day-1. It's not really any different than the end of contest sweeps we have now, other than not riding a roller-coaster of your votes/score going up and down several times a day.

As always, it's an internet poll. There's virtually no way to prevent people from manipulating it, and no way to ensure that you've removed all the manipulation after the fact.

 

[Dual_Triode]

My V-Day entry is cruising along, holding down the median spot.

What I find most surprising is the collateral voting on my other submissions. Since the contest began, I have collected many votes on these older stories; almost all of them too generous. This is my first themed contest adventure, so this effect is quite unexpected. Pleasant, to be sure, but surprising.

 

[Darkniciad]

My V-Day entry is cruising along, holding down the median spot.

What I find most surprising is the collateral voting on my other submissions. Since the contest began, I have collected many votes on these older stories; almost all of them too generous. This is my first themed contest adventure, so this effect is quite unexpected. Pleasant, to be sure, but surprising.

This is the most healthy goal when entering themed contests.

Your odds of placing are slim -- even slimmer in some categories -- but the exposure you gain from the top billing on the New List is good regardless of what categories you write in, and whether you're a n00b or a vet.

You'll almost always have a nice bump in new readers exploring your list whenever you post a contest story.

 

[nicecthulhu]

I'm seeing the same thing

My V-Day entry is cruising along, holding down the median spot.

What I find most surprising is the collateral voting on my other submissions. Since the contest began, I have collected many votes on these older stories; almost all of them too generous. This is my first themed contest adventure, so this effect is quite unexpected. Pleasant, to be sure, but surprising.

But I suspect you're a better writer because I'm getting a little constructive criticism, as well. Finally! God knows I need it.

Hopefully the new readers stick around long enough to see me improve. Well, if I improve...

 

[Darkniciad]

Crap! Guess I'd better get off my ass and do the track for tonight. I've been busy converting ancient text documents into database entries for my website. Sticking some of my ancient juvenile wank stories up there as a comparison to my edited work that doesn't suck *laugh* Also part of demonstrating how my writing evolved from role-playing backstories into actual fiction.

Still have about 6 to go.

Didn't feel like writing today, so I decided to do something productive.

I'll go take care of the track now, and if nobody else has posted ( and the troll hasn't bumped his thread with something that could confuse newcomers ) I'll just edit this post with the nightly overview.

EDIT:

And here's the nightly track.

No new stories posted today.

The average score is now 4.37 with a median of 4.38.

The average number of votes is now 166 with a median of 122 and a total of 2491.

 

[estragon]

Does anyone else think that this contest has attracted fewer entries at this point than is usual for most other contests? I count 15 entries so far (12:45 a.m., EST, 1/23/12). I admit I hadn't kept careful count in other contests, but I thought there were more stories entered three days after the official starting date in the most recent Summer Lovin', Nude Day and Winter Holidays contests.

 

[sr71plt]

Does anyone else think that this contest has attracted fewer entries at this point than is usual for most other contests? I count 15 entries so far (12:45 a.m., EST, 1/23/12). I admit I hadn't kept careful count in other contests, but I thought there were more stories entered three days after the official starting date in the most recent Summer Lovin', Nude Day and Winter Holidays contests.

I thought the last Winter Holidays contest got a slow start too.

I've looked through some of what has posted, and I'm not agreeing with literary (and writer proficiency) tastes of the readers so far. (But what else is new?)

 

[Darkniciad]

It's starting off slow, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Valentine's is typically one of the more popular contests - part of the big three that also include Halloween and Winter Holiday.

 

[DG Hear]

It's starting off slow, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Valentine's is typically one of the more popular contests - part of the big three that also include Halloween and Winter Holiday.

I've submitted two stories so far. One is posted. The second I submitted late Saturday night, not getting the quick overnight post that we usually have. Maybe it will get the afternoon post like my first story did.

More stories might be in the queue since a few authors said they were going to wait a few days befoe submitting. In the end it will probably pick up. We'll just wait and see.

 

[PennLady]

Hope everybody who wants to write one is moving along. We're here for questions and encouragement!

(Speaking of which, I could use some. Writing time is just non-existent lately. Sigh.)

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

There were some grammatical errors on mine, so I've considered submitting an edit for those, but a big part of me says, nope, that's not right, submit the edit after the contest is over.

Kinda like a race - you can't go back and start over just because you're the guy that tripped after the gun went off.

 

[TxRad]

There were some grammatical errors on mine, so I've considered submitting an edit for those, but a big part of me says, nope, that's not right, submit the edit after the contest is over.

Kinda like a race - you can't go back and start over just because you're the guy that tripped after the gun went off.

Grammatical errors aren't like rewriting the ending or some such. Redo what you need to, there is no rule against it. Anyway, it's just one more thing that will make a certain persons head spin around and that's always fun.