Time, satisfaction and vote sabotage

[PrincessArianrhod]

So we all have one thing in common: We spend our valuable time creating erotic fictions for denizens of Literotica to enjoy (or not) for free. Our currency is attention, preferably positive, in the form of feedback. We watch with interest and a sense of intellectual satisfaction as our freshly posted stories gather momentum, wishing to capture the imagination of our readership, teasing their fantasies in the hope we'll gather votes and comments that let us deem the time taken to write them worth spending. It is our only reward.

Despite gathering a small following with my limited collection of niche lesbian stories, they don't get many views and correspondingly few comments and votes. That's fine, the feedback I receive is largely positive and thus far, it has seemed a hobby worth continuing.

Then I pushed the boat out and wrote and 37k word story that carried itself away. It received positive feedback, though even less votes and comments than my previous stories. Several of the comments requested a follow up to expand on one of the "bit-part" characters whose plight seemed to have inspired sympathy from the readers. I duly wrote one, managing another 17k words to flesh the character out and give her a happy ending.

Thus far, the follow-up had had nearly 6k views but very few votes and comments. Again, that's fine; I was writing it pretty much for the people who requested it, as well as for my own satisfaction. The votes it did have had it sitting at 4.95 average. That's my pat on the head, thank you.

Then begins the vote sabotage.... A few votes and it bombed. Yeah ok, it happens. The vote count continues to rise and the average starts to rise with it. Then a few votes disappear, a site sweep I guess, and the average shoots back to 4.97. Nice.

The bombing continues and I woke up this morning to check my dashboard to see if my last submission has been published only to see my little attempt to please a few people has once again been bombed back to 4.48. They'll stop there, no, doubt, seeing as its also lost its coveted red H.

I'm well aware there are spiteful people and I'm familiar with the concept of toxic envy but how do you guys deal with situations like this? Its clearly a campaign against that particular story since my others seem unaffected. With so few votes, this one is easy to target, of course. I can't change that, I have few followers, etc etc... but it has left me wondering what the point is and why its happening in the first place. My stories are niche and are all in the lesbian category. I'm fairly innocuous in the community, have made no enemies that I'm aware of, have no overtly negative reviews on any of my small collections of stories. So why am I a target? How do I motivate myself to ignore it?

[/short story long]

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

As I was typing that, it's dropped again to 4.41, so I guess they aren't done yet...

 

[Bamagan]

Well, I presume most of your early votes were from the dedicated fans of your other work who appreciated the continuation. Now a more generalized crowd is voting, so it's not surprising that it has more people whose particular tastes may not be as closely aligned with your work. Even people voting 3s can demolish something at 4.9+ pretty quickly, at least while the total votes are pretty low. You basically need three 5s to stay above the 'Hot' threshold for every 3 you receive, plus a 5 for every vote of 4. It takes seven 5s to offset a 1-bomb. I'm not saying people aren't bombing you, they very well could be, but even a lukewarm response can be punishing for keeping the red H alive.
My only advice, which is probably not helpful at all, is to not view the H-threshold as a line demarcating success and failure. It might indicate a high level of excellence, but you already know some people loved it, and that seems like a more valuable indication of a successful effort to me.
Best wishes!

 

[Rustyoznail]

Leave it a couple of weeks until things stabilise, then you can request a sweep.

It sucks, but not a lot we can do about it.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm guessing the vote total is low meaning it only takes a couple bombs to have a serious effect so this could just be one or tow people doing this.

As to why, if you're going up into the high 4.9's then the issue is you're being sniped by readers who don't want their fav author supplanted on the top list, or an author of another story there.

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

Appreciate the responses. I know this is a phenomenon, maybe I'm just too sensitive. My question was more about maintaining motivation in the face of low interest/negative rating and feedback. I guess there is no way to avoid being a target sometimes even if you try not to upset anyone.

 

[Altissimus]

As to why, if you're going up into the high 4.9's then the issue is you're being sniped by readers who don't want their fav author supplanted on the top list, or an author of another story there.

Hmm. I don't think a score of 4.9 hits the top list unless you also have 100 favs. No way a new story has a 100 favs - I have red-H stories on here from 14 years ago that don't have anywhere near that. It's also very category dependent, I think, in terms of numbers of reads-to-votes-to-favs ratios to hit that necessary 100 favs threshold. So, harder in Lesbian than in LW or Incest.

 

[lovecraft68]

Hmm. I don't think a score of 4.9 hits the top list unless you also have 100 favs. No way a new story has a 100 favs - I have red-H stories on here from 14 years ago that don't have anywhere near that. It's also very category dependent, I think, in terms of numbers of reads-to-votes-to-favs ratios to hit that necessary 100 favs threshold. So, harder in Lesbian than in LW or Incest.

You need a 100 votes for all time, but I don't believe the 30 day list has a minumum

 

[Altissimus]

Appreciate the responses. I know this is a phenomenon, maybe I'm just too sensitive. My question was more about maintaining motivation in the face of low interest/negative rating and feedback. I guess there is no way to avoid being a target sometimes even if you try not to upset anyone.

I have been through this too. For me it's not the 1-bombs that piss me off, it's the 4-bombs. On a piece of work that you know is well written and has been collecting 5s quite happily, a 1-bomb stands out as someone was a petty little asswipe. A 4* vote on a story with view votes drags you down below that 4.5-red-H line real damn fast. A 4* vote, if you think about it, means they are scoring you between 60-80%, because of how the star system translates to numerical scoring. Viewed like that, a 4* vote means they really think your story is very mediocre - and that's just not reflective of why people click it. They click it because they liked it but they have a perfectionist mindset, or they liked it but you didn't take the story in the direction they would've preferred, or whatever else passes for reasoning in these people's heads. "It was good, thanks, but it wasn't good enough" - and it's so damn subjective when you know it's well-written.

So, how do you stay motivated? You remember why you're writing. And yes, our 'payment' is positive praise, but don't forget that over time this story will have a couple of comments added to it like:

• Loved this story (and a couple of your other ones). Will you continue? Such an erotic setting -your newest fan
• Rarely have I enjoyed series more. Your balance of all the elements that come with consensual submissive sex are spot on. well done. more please. Thank you
• I was captivated from the start. This is indeed possibly the best example of erotica I have had the pleasure of reading. A most worthy tale.
• Really a very good series! I love the plot, the writing, as well as the sex scenes. Great character Red. Thanks for your hard work.

...and then you remember: you're not actually writing for the votes, or the page reads. You're writing for yourself, and you're writing for the three or four people who leave comments like this. Because quality is way more than quantity, and if you put that time and effort in and you're happy and a few other folk are happy enough to leave comments like this... well then, it's all been worthwhile, hasn't it? Screw everyone else. People suck, anyway.

 

[Altissimus]

...but I don't believe the 30 day list has a minumum

I didn't know that. That explains why people come along to down-vote high-scoring stories. I had wondered.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

You are suffering from some, regrettably, quite common issues of writing on Lit. All of the things you mentioned: Not enough feedback, low number of votes (this is relative, I suppose), and initial high scores that get pulled down... It happens to all of us who don't write popular tropes. And all I can tell you is that you need to find a way to accept it because it will probably never change. Also, Laurel said that there is a bombing campaign going on and I guess I am one of the targets but yeah, it will pass sooner or later.
On the other hand, the impact all these things have on your motivation to write can't really be helped. I am speaking from my own experience here. For some reason, readers don't really understand what we want from them in return for our free stories - assuming they want us to keep producing them
It seems like such a minor effort to leave a comment about the story, why the story was liked, why was it disliked, if they want to read more, and so on, and that is really what most of us writers want. We want our effort that took many days and hours and a piece of ourselves to be recognized by some small gesture from readers, yet, statistically speaking, very few among the readers make an effort of their own and leave some constructive feedback, something to fuel our future stories. I am one whose motivation to write went from the initial 11 (the scale goes from 1 to 10 ) to maybe a 2 right now, and mostly because of the lack of feedback, even though my scores have always been great.

Only you can decide how all of this influences you. Either way, you shouldn't get disheartened by the presence or the maliciousness of trolls. This is the Internet, their natural habitat

 

[AchtungNight]

The OP’s frustration sounds very familiar. Let me try to put it in perspective. I got into the adult fanfic game after becoming a fan of Hollywood swinging fanfic. Didn’t help that the A listers were mostly taken by other authors at the time and I was more a fan of other people with fewer attention from fans like me. Lots of people also didn’t like my style where I do things like give Erika Christensen from Traffic what I thought would be her personal fantasy of getting with Benicio del Toro instead of femslashing her with Catherine Zeta Jones. Never mind all my reasons why such a thing wouldn’t work based on what these characters’ spirits in my mind are telling me. Some readers expect an author to be all powerful as per their definition and it’s not easy to make them understand they don’t know your characters’ or story’s needs. You’re working up to femslash, you tell them, and by the time you get Erika there, Catherine will be gone from her life and you’re not even sure Catherine would be attracted to Erika or vice versa. Is Shiri Appleby close enough for you? What about Geena Davis if you must have an older actress? Nobody responds. Meanwhile your votes come in few and low.

This is just one crazy example of the kind of feedback I’ve dealt with. Hope it’s at least as bad as yours. I ended up turning off votes entirely for years out of score paranoia, I was so frustrated. Then I realized it was better to have it on and not care either way.

My final analysis is if you like your stories and most fans whose opinions you actually care about also like them, that’s good enough. Consider your story entertainment for those who like it, learn from your mistakes, you can’t please everyone. Low scores but high quality make it a hidden gem cult classic story, that’s cool, right? Then keep writing as long as you consider yourself up to the challenge.

Give me a title if you want me to review a specific story of yours.. I have been known to do that and give people a little score boost. If anyone wants to review my work based on what I said above- check my Lit link in my profile and check out Passion 2 for Benicio & 3 for the femslash stuff. Apologies if you dislike that I ended up using Shiri Appleby’s hot Roswell co-star for Passion 3 instead of Shiri herself. Passion 4 and Closer Than Six Degrees will give you your Shiri fantasy fix, hopefully. Maybe I’ll do the Erika-Shiri first meeting flashback one of these days too.

 

[Altissimus]

I think I mostly write to get the visuals out of my head so I can sleep.

You could also try having a little 'alone time'. That can get the visuals out of your head and help you sleep too.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Appreciate the responses. I know this is a phenomenon, maybe I'm just too sensitive. My question was more about maintaining motivation in the face of low interest/negative rating and feedback. I guess there is no way to avoid being a target sometimes even if you try not to upset anyone.

Hang in there, is all old-timer authors can say.

It sucks, yes, but the short term scores are meaningless. You need to wait 30 - 60 days for a story's true worth to settle - after it's gone through a couple of sweeps, fallen off the first page, got the readers it's going to get, after the fucktards have gone through and gone away.

The trick is to not take it personally - it's not you they've targeted, it's all stories, and the clowns doing it - well, they're clowns, with no lives, no talent. They've not written a word in their lives, they're pathetic. Shrug, and let the downer go. Embrace the positive stuff, let go the negative, all of that motivational stuff.

Hang in there .

 

[lovecraft68]

You are suffering from some, regrettably, quite common issues of writing on Lit. All of the things you mentioned: Not enough feedback, low number of votes (this is relative, I suppose), and initial high scores that get pulled down... It happens to all of us who don't write popular tropes. And all I can tell you is that you need to find a way to accept it because it will probably never change. Also, Laurel said that there is a bombing campaign going on and I guess I am one of the targets but yeah, it will pass sooner or later.
On the other hand, the impact all these things have on your motivation to write can't really be helped. I am speaking from my own experience here. For some reason, readers don't really understand what we want from them in return for our free stories - assuming they want us to keep producing them
It seems like such a minor effort to leave a comment about the story, why the story was liked, why was it disliked, if they want to read more, and so on, and that is really what most of us writers want. We want our effort that took many days and hours and a piece of ourselves to be recognized by some small gesture from readers, yet, statistically speaking, very few among the readers make an effort of their own and leave some constructive feedback, something to fuel our future stories. I am one whose motivation to write went from the initial 11 (the scale goes from 1 to 10 ) to maybe a 2 right now, and mostly because of the lack of feedback, even though my scores have always been great.

Only you can decide how all of this influences you. Either way, you shouldn't get disheartened by the presence or the maliciousness of trolls. This is the Internet, their natural habitat

I haven't said this in awhile, but on this topic. I am glad I wrote here for well over a year before I came to the boards. I was aware of scores, H's vote totals etc of course, but here its just discussed so often and threads like this can be disheartening and I have no doubt have affected how people write. Getting away from the muse and going for formula stories and categories to just chase numbers and bailing on things that have low readership and response.

I know people will say, look at your numbers, you have no idea....

But I do. My first 18 months here featured a couple of stand alone taboo stories, but was mostly a very long, very dark incest series. We all know taboo is the biggest category here with generally the biggest numbers. I knew that too as a reader of the genre. Imagine being in a category where stories like "look, sis has tits" is getting hundreds or even thousand + votes and hundred + comments while a story you're eating, sleeping, breathing, as well as purging a lot of personal pain and experience through is getting 30-50 votes and barely a half dozen comments on some chapters.

But I kept going and never backed off the story, I stayed with it because the story was more important and my focus was on learning to be a writer and catharsis, I wouldn't be daunted by the noise around me. The series has mostly very high scores, but because it had a very limited audience. Even now 12 years later many chapters barely have 300 or so votes.

After that I began writing some more traditional taboo stories and some other things and built the base that has since provided me with great numbers, but I cut my teeth here on a my baby my way zero fucks given story, and looking back, I'm grateful I did.

The story is what's most important here, and its hard to see that sometimes. Ever enjoy a nice meal by yourself? Maybe at one point you wish there was someone else there to share how good it is, but there's not. But did the food taste any different because you were alone? Take pride and joy in your work, and appreciate the number of others that do as well even if its small.

I will finish by saying when you look at the size of this site, it is a shame there's so little feedback and votes and comments....yet so much trolling, bombing and negatives. Perfect reflection on current society

 

[stickygirl]

4 point anything is still a decent score but as EB suggests, the ratings will even out in time

 

[Bamagan]

I have been through this too. For me it's not the 1-bombs that piss me off, it's the 4-bombs. On a piece of work that you know is well written and has been collecting 5s quite happily, a 1-bomb stands out as someone was a petty little asswipe. A 4* vote on a story with view votes drags you down below that 4.5-red-H line real damn fast. A 4* vote, if you think about it, means they are scoring you between 60-80%, because of how the star system translates to numerical scoring. Viewed like that, a 4* vote means they really think your story is very mediocre - and that's just not reflective of why people click it. They click it because they liked it but they have a perfectionist mindset, or they liked it but you didn't take the story in the direction they would've preferred, or whatever else passes for reasoning in these people's heads. "It was good, thanks, but it wasn't good enough" - and it's so damn subjective when you know it's well-written.

This is actually why I have almost entirely stopped voting here (although I have also been doing a lot less reading than I did in the past). In the last month or so I've seen that a lot of the authors take a vote of 4 as an insult, and it was my default setting, so to speak. I took the little blurbs at face value. If something was well written but didn't really scratch my itch, I would give it a four, because I liked it. I probably voted 5 on about ten percent of the stories I read, usually because they did scratch my itch, and I loved that. I would vote a 3 if I thought it was a good idea but not well-crafted, like they needed better editing or something. I'd reckon those made up about ten percent of my votes as well. I can't recall ever voting a 2 or a 1, because I'd just read something else before finishing if it was a mess or it didn't hold my interest.

So, I don't think I agree with your characterization of reader's reasoning, unless perhaps for the audience that is both reader and writer. I doubt many of the non-authors are thinking at all about what difference a 4 or a 5 makes to authors. I certainly didn't. It had nothing to do with perfectionism in the sense you seem to be using it, I simply didn't equate being well-written as being sufficient for a 5 unless there was something else about the characters or setting or resolution or whatever that really caught me. A 4 was for something I enjoyed reading; a 5 was for something I wanted to read again.
Anyway, I suspect at least a few of you are now looking at me like Red looked at Kitty when she confessed she went shopping with only a color in mind. Sorry!

 

[AwkwardlySet]

This is actually why I have almost entirely stopped voting here (although I have also been doing a lot less reading than I did in the past). In the last month or so I've seen that a lot of the authors take a vote of 4 as an insult, and it was my default setting, so to speak. I took the little blurbs at face value. If something was well written but didn't really scratch my itch, I would give it a four, because I liked it. I probably voted 5 on about ten percent of the stories I read, usually because they did scratch my itch, and I loved that. I would vote a 3 if I thought it was a good idea but not well-crafted, like they needed better editing or something. I'd reckon those made up about ten percent of my votes as well. I can't recall ever voting a 2 or a 1, because I'd just read something else before finishing if it was a mess or it didn't hold my interest.

So, I don't think I agree with your characterization of reader's reasoning, unless perhaps for the audience that is both reader and writer. I doubt many of the non-authors are thinking at all about what difference a 4 or a 5 makes to authors. I certainly didn't. It had nothing to do with perfectionism in the sense you seem to be using it, I simply didn't equate being well-written as being sufficient for a 5 unless there was something else about the characters or setting or resolution or whatever that really caught me. A 4 was for something I enjoyed reading; a 5 was for something I wanted to read again.
Anyway, I suspect at least a few of you are now looking at me like Red looked at Kitty when she confessed she went shopping with only a color in mind. Sorry!

This is so going to derail into another scores thread
The difference here is that with the current system and the flashy red H, every vote under 5* is taken as an insult. Your reasoning is perfectly normal, it is just Lit's score system that is completely fucked up, even if you disregard the fact that the votes are often a measure of readers' reaction to the kinks present rather than a measure of story quality.

 

[Bamagan]

This is so going to derail into another scores thread
The difference here is that with the current system and the flashy red H, every vote under 5* is taken as an insult. Your reasoning is perfectly normal, it is just Lit's score system that is completely fucked up, even if you disregard the fact that the votes are often a measure of readers' reaction to the kinks present rather than a measure of story quality.

Yeah, sorry to contribute to derailing. But maybe the obsessing over the system and lamenting its unfairness is the way most people here cope, which serves as answer to the OP at least...

 

[lovecraft68]

4 point anything is still a decent score but as EB suggests, the ratings will even out in time

It is, but the obsession with the Red H and top lists have blinded many to that fact

 

[ElectricBlue]

I doubt many of the non-authors are thinking at all about what difference a 4 or a 5 makes to authors. I certainly didn't. It had nothing to do with perfectionism in the sense you seem to be using it, I simply didn't equate being well-written as being sufficient for a 5 unless there was something else about the characters or setting or resolution or whatever that really caught me. A 4 was for something I enjoyed reading; a 5 was for something I wanted to read again.

This has always been my assumption, that the readers who score do so using their own criteria, and they're consistent with their system for all stories they score.

So in the end, if all readers are consistent (no matter what criteria they use), then the end score is a fair composite of their collective thoughts on a story.

It's only those authors who score five or nothing, who skew the system high. If all authors rated stories like readers do, then the whole debate goes away, and the score means something. But I reckon authors are only a tiny portion of those who score, so a "fives only" approach is in fact statistically meaningless. You might as well not vote, or give a 3 or a 4 if the story doesn't warrant a 5. In other words, score like a reader might.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I'm well aware there are spiteful people and I'm familiar with the concept of toxic envy but how do you guys deal with situations like this?

Stop writing for scores and accolades. Stop measuring your abilities by other people's opinions. In other words, stop disempowering yourself. Write from your heart instead of your ego. Make no mistake, although it may not seem like it to you, when you are hurt by negative feedback it's your ego that is bruised, always. That's exactly what's going on, nothing more. The moment that you let that go, you free yourself for the best inspiration and let yourself find the most satisfaction from your craft, and those who know just how good it is will like your work for what it is instead of what they hope or wish it might be.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

A notably high rating doesn't necessarily indicate value.

This could not be more true. The Spice Girls sold millions of albums. Were they any good? Like srsly?

 

[PrincessArianrhod]

Stepping into the riff-raff's temple? Set your expectations lower. A notably high rating doesn't necessarily indicate value. If it truly held worth, you wouldn't be offering it for free.

Precluding the possibility that anything free can have any worth is ridiculous; there is a lot of talent represented on this site. The fact that it's given for free says more about prevalent attitudes to writing erotica than it does about the quality of writing.

There's a thread somewhere asking how many of us share our work with people we know in real life. Unsurprisingly, most of us don't. Selling works of literature requires a degree of exposure that may not be feasible for many.

 

[Winter_Fare]

There's a huge difference between genuine negative feedback and someone creating multiple accounts to 1* a story down. There's no need to accept the second gracefully if you don't have a mind to.