Two pressing questions...

[christo]

Two issues to raise. First, in another thread Laurel posted a comment to an author that although he received around 130 votes on his story, probably around 15-20000 people actually read it. My question is, Is there any way to find out how many people actually click the link for your stories? The BB shows how many people responded to each thread AND shows how many people just read it, so is there a way to get that info on stories? Just curious, but it would be cool to know how many people are reading my stuff.

Which leads me to my second question. Lately there have been so many more stories posted each day, it seems like a story only stays on the "New" story listing for one day before it gets swept aside by the next day's tales. More stories means more people get to find something they like, but it also makes it harder for a story to find an audience before it gets lost in the crowd. For example, I have a series of stories, "Mrs. Reid Ch. 1,2 and 3. Chapter 1 got 286 votes. Chapter 3 had received 76. This of course may be because fewer people felt strongly enough about the third installment to vote (God, no!), or it may be that folks just missed it.

And there are other ways to find stories, of course. The Top Lists seem to be a popular way to find stuff. Do most folks out there check the New story listings more than any other way? Any info or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Laurel]

Two issues to raise. First, in another thread Laurel posted a comment to an author that although he received around 130 votes on his story, probably around 15-20000 people actually read it. My question is, Is there any way to find out how many people actually click the link for your stories?

That's in the works. We have a book-length list of improvements and add-ons to the script, and the guy who helps us with the programming is chipping away at that list.

Which leads me to my second question. Lately there have been so many more stories posted each day, it seems like a story only stays on the "New" story listing for one day before it gets swept aside by the next day's tales. More stories means more people get to find something they like, but it also makes it harder for a story to find an audience before it gets lost in the crowd.

I agree. There's two sides to the issue...Readers don't want to be bombarded with more submissions than they can read, and writers want their stories posted as soon as possible. We get between 25-60 story submissions a day. If I limit the number of stories I post, that means that we'll slowly fall behind and authors will (once again) have to wait days or even weeks for their work to be posted. It's a dilemma that I have no solution for at present. Any input is appreciated.

 

[christo]

Catch-22

So either you only post 15 stories a day and authors have to wait 2 weeks to get published, or 50 get published a day and maybe it slips through the cracks. That's a condundrum. Now how we go about solving the problem...ugh...

One thing that may help would be a listing of dates, going back maybe a week, where you could click on a link for that date and see all the stories published that day. So if you've been keeping up you can just see what is brand new on the site, but if you missed a day you can click on the date and see what posted that day. Just an idea.

I think it would be really cool to know how many people actually looked at your story. If tens of thousands of people are reading these stories, that's just phenomenal. I mean, if you're a short-story writer publishing in small quarterly magazines, you might only get a few thousand people who read your stuff. And I mean big-name, famous writers publishing at highly-respected magazines. The power of the 'Net shows itself again.

Thanks for the (very) quick reply, Laurel!

 

[Bigdog]

Christo, the New Stories section does show the last 7 days of stories. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, there are additional page numbers to click on that take you back chronologically to the previous days. I do agree that it can be tough to keep up if you miss several days of new stories.

Laurel, is there a way to toggle the New Stories section similar to the BB where you can narrow the display of stories to last day, last seven days, last 30 days, etc.? I don't know if it is even an option, but it would be helpful finding a story over 7 days old without searching through hundreds of stories.

Success is a demanding mistress, isn't it?

 

[Laurel]

Laurel, is there a way to toggle the New Stories section similar to the BB where you can narrow the display of stories to last day, last seven days, last 30 days, etc.? I don't know if it is even an option, but it would be helpful finding a story over 7 days old without searching through hundreds of stories.

Actually, there is - though it's not in the new story section per se. Go here:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/story_search.php
You can pull up stories added in the last week, the last month, etc. You can also pull them up by category within a time frame. This option is more server-intensive than the New Stories list, but it does work. Check it out and gimme your thoughts.

Success is a demanding mistress, isn't it?

LOL! It's hard for me to complain with the site growing like it is, but I'll find a way!

So either you only post 15 stories a day and authors have to wait 2 weeks to get published, or 50 get published a day and maybe it slips through the cracks. That's a condundrum. Now how we go about solving the problem...ugh...

Ah, that's the tough part. I don't think posting fewer stories is an option, so the next best thing we can do is work towards organizing them better. We added the category listing next to the story title in the New section, hoping to make it easier for people to find something that interests them. The Search is another way to help people more easily locate what they want to read. I'm also planning on adding a couple more categories in the near future to help shrink down the rather large and vague Erotic Couplings category. I'm against randomly adding new categories, but as our story archive grows I think it's more helpful to the reader to have it broken down by subject matter as much as possible.

 

[KillerMuffin]

You could consider a few of the following things? Maybe?

Making the story acceptance policy slightly more stringent?
Breaking down the new story list into category as opposed to by date?
Sending Dexter to start his greatest invention ever, the slow machine to some of your more prolific writers?

Personally, I like the Dexter idea the best.

 

[Laurel]

You could consider a few of the following things? Maybe?

Give it to me. I'm all ears.

Making the story acceptance policy slightly more stringent?

Nope. Next...

Breaking down the new story list into category as opposed to by date?

That's an option...maybe a way for readers to easily break down the new stories by category or categories...you could save the settings you want in your profile. Say you like Incest, BDSM, and Romance. You could set your new page to show only those stories. It has its drawbacks, as you end up missing out on awesome stories that you may have enjoyed but weren't in your category. However, many readers already do this to some degree, so who knows...I'll run it by Manu and the wacky programmer guy.

Sending Dexter to start his greatest invention ever, the slow machine to some of your more prolific writers?

Personally, I like the Dexter idea the best.

LOL!

 

[Mark Singer]

Hey! I don't know who this 'Dexter' guy is, but he's been dancing in my barn long enough! And tell him to get that dang, infernal machine off my lawn! It's tough enough squeezin' out steamers at the rate I do!

-M-

 

[Madame Pandora]

Breaking down the new story list into category as opposed to by date?

For what it's worth, I think this is a good idea. I basically do this anyway. When I look at new stories, my eyes focus on the category and scroll down, so it would be easier to just click on "New" by category...maybe have it follow the same method as the Top Lists do. Although I like the “subscription” idea as well. I do see what you mean about missing some good ones in other categories, though. How about if you had one “category” called “Editor’s Choice” that you could click on or subscribe to or something? I mean, really, if something is outside my genre preference, I don’t read it, but an “E” will usually at least compel me to scan the first few paragraphs.

Hey Laurel, doncha just love the way we keep assigning ya new work? Just shuffle that into the in-box, Madam while we brainstorm some more for ya ;-)

ROFL

MP

 

[Laurel]

Hey Laurel, doncha just love the way we keep assigning ya new work? Just shuffle that into the in-box, Madam while we brainstorm some more for ya ;-)

It's what I live for. That, and editing & formatting stories for other sites to use...lol...

Kidding, of course.

 

[Laurel]

Hey Laurel, doncha just love the way we keep assigning ya new work? Just shuffle that into the in-box, Madam while we brainstorm some more for ya ;-)

It's what I live for. That, and editing & formatting stories for other sites to use...lol...

 

[genderbender]

Lots of New Stories

I'm afraid I'm one of the people flooding the site with new stories. I discovered this site only a short while ago much to my delight. Most of what I'm submitting has been accumulating on my computer over the last few years. I've been busily reformatting and amending where necessary, then passing each story along to you as its ready. I wonder whether other new authors aren't in similar circumstances. I can imagine for those who've been with the site for a long while, who've known it when it was smaller, perhaps more intimate, that the changes feel unwelcome. I'm just learning my way around so I'm not even adept at using the existing features of the site, yet I like this place. I have to admit its a bit seductive receiving all the positive feedback I've been getting, both high scores from readers and lots of emails. Honestly, it makes me want to write more, not less.

Laurel, thanks for all your good work! I've no doubt you'll continue to make improvements to the site.

 

[CAT~~]

changes in the site

I love the improvements that have been made to the site, but I must admit that I REALLY miss having the stories listed by groups (before they were listed A-J, J-M M-Z).
It made it so much faster to find a story that you wanted to read instead of going by page numbers.

Now I have to guess where the story will be, if I had the good sense to remember the name...lol! It seems to take forever to find the stories now. And I tried remembering the authors name so I can use the author index but I'm afraid that I'm just as bad at remembering authors names as I am titles of stories. The bad thing is when it a first time author and you really have a hard time tracking it down.

Is there anyway to go back to the alphabetized groups??
Just curious...grin...comes with the territory.