View counts down?

[SimonDoom]

I have assiduously tracked my story numbers since April 2017. One of the stats I follow is daily views of all my stories. I download the story stats at around the same time in the morning, usually at least once a week and sometimes more often, and calculate the daily averages. I haven't published a story in nearly a year, so for the last six months or so my daily views have been very stable and have not reflected the influence of newly published stories on views.

In the last month, I've noticed the daily average views have dropped significantly, around 25-30%. This morning, the 24-hour views were less than 50% of what they normally are.

Has anyone else noticed something like this?

 

[lovecraft68]

I don't pay any attention to this but if its recent I wonder if the upcoming holiday has something to do with it? People focused on making plans to travel. have people coming to stay over, shopping, etc?

 

[SimonDoom]

I don't pay any attention to this but if its recent I wonder if the upcoming holiday has something to do with it? People focused on making plans to travel. have people coming to stay over, shopping, etc?

Good point. I hadn't considered that. I've been following the numbers for a long time and haven't noticed that effect before but it seems plausible.

 

[iwatchus]

I have assiduously tracked my story numbers since April 2017. One of the stats I follow is daily views of all my stories. I download the story stats at around the same time in the morning, usually at least once a week and sometimes more often, and calculate the daily averages. I haven't published a story in nearly a year, so for the last six months or so my daily views have been very stable and have not reflected the influence of newly published stories on views.

In the last month, I've noticed the daily average views have dropped significantly, around 25-30%. This morning, the 24-hour views were less than 50% of what they normally are.

Has anyone else noticed something like this?

My views seem to track what I am publishing more than anything else. Even for older (for me) stories. I got a spike in reading my original series when I got the W in July. I seemed to reach a critical mass in Romance stories more recently, which got me a read of my older stories, starting with Romance, but other things as well.

Is it possible you finally fell of people's radar without a new story for so long?

 

[AwkwardMD]

I ised to track my views maniacally, from 2015 to 2019, and my views would get strange bumps I couldn't account for. I theorized that these were coming from stories being posted where, periodically, one of mine was recommended at the end as a "if you liked that try this"

I tried to see through that, to what my views normally were when no one was posting anything like what I'm posting, but it was impossible to untangle.

 

[Bazzle]

I've been *advertising* my stories a bit on Bluesky and Reddit. So in some cases my numbers have jumped a little.

But I am getting roughly 1000-2000 views a week. But I do have 95 stories out there that might stumble into peoples searches?

 

[Statius]

Mine have actually gone up in the last month or so

 

[SimonDoom]

Is it possible you finally fell of people's radar without a new story for so long?

It's a reasonable question, but I don't think that's it. I have a story that is still on the 12 month toplist. It will drop off in 20 days but it's still there. There's nothing I can see that indicates a sudden drop off in visibility. I've been doing this for a long time and have been struck by the stability of the numbers from day to day, so this drop off was very noticeable. But if others aren't noticing the same thing then it's something peculiar to me, whatever it is.

 

[Bazzle]

It's a reasonable question, but I don't think that's it. I have a story that is still on the 12 month toplist. It will drop off in 20 days but it's still there. There's nothing I can see that indicates a sudden drop off in visibility. I've been doing this for a long time and have been struck by the stability of the numbers from day to day, so this drop off was very noticeable. But if others aren't noticing the same thing then it's something peculiar to me, whatever it is.

We don't know if the "wobble" in August affected things?

Have some authors taken their readership elsewhere and reduced viewer numbers at Lit.

I do know that my latest story didn't get half as many views as my previous stories in EV. But I put that down to a few 1 bombs meaning it spent it's first week at 4.25.

 

[Statius]

It's a reasonable question, but I don't think that's it. I have a story that is still on the 12 month toplist. It will drop off in 20 days but it's still there. There's nothing I can see that indicates a sudden drop off in visibility. I've been doing this for a long time and have been struck by the stability of the numbers from day to day, so this drop off was very noticeable. But if others aren't noticing the same thing then it's something peculiar to me, whatever it is.

I always wondered, does Lit sometimes change the 'similar stories' thing at the end of a story you read? Maybe that has something to do with it? Like currently your stories have dropped off that part? I have no proof of anything as I don't keep track of that, just wondering I guess.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

I don't pay any attention to this but if its recent I wonder if the upcoming holiday has something to do with it? People focused on making plans to travel. have people coming to stay over, shopping, etc?

I may be wrong about this, but anecdotally speaking, I tended to see an uptick when the holiday season spins up.
But I'm seeing what Simon is seeing. Definitely a downturn in views and comments. I also found it strange that I received zero anonymous comments in my latest story. I normally see at least one or two, even when comments are sparse. Again, anecdotal, but a data point.

 

[redgarters]

I don't track my views, but for the past weeks I've noticed a drop in the activities log at the same time some of my stories have been more visible than usual in the top lists. I don't have any stats, but usually when that happens I get more comments and favourites. Thats not happening now, feels like the opposite. Roughly, my latest story has only gotten half the views the one before got in a similar amount of time.

Oh, but I just did get 'Stacnashed', so yay me

 

[lovecraft68]

I may be wrong about this, but anecdotally speaking, I tended to see an uptick when the holiday season spins up.
But I'm seeing what Simon is seeing. Definitely a downturn in views and comments. I also found it strange that I received zero anonymous comments in my latest story. I normally see at least one or two, even when comments are sparse. Again, anecdotal, but a data point.

I could be totally wrong, just a thought.

Hopefully this doesn't end up morphing into more glitch conjecture.

 

[lovecraft68]

Oh, but I just did get 'Stacnashed', so yay me

Congratulations on that coveted achievement.

 

[Bazzle]

I don't track my views, but for the past weeks I've noticed a drop in the activities log at the same time some of my stories have been more visible than usual in the top lists. I don't have any stats, but usually when that happens I get more comments and favourites. Thats not happening now, feels like the opposite. Roughly, my latest story has only gotten half the views the one before got in a similar amount of time.

Oh, but I just did get 'Stacnashed', so yay me

Ooooh what did the "lovely" Stacnash say?

 

[redgarters]

Ooooh what did the "lovely" Stacnash say?

I admit to opening the comment with trembling fingers.
It started off strong with

From a technical perspective, you are an absolutely terrible writer.

but really it's an incredibly positive review, giving four stars in the end. And it was for my transgender story too, not the lesbian slow burn romances that have gotten me most love on Lit (but it seems Stacnash hates, so maybe I dodged a bullet there).

 

[Bazzle]

I admit to opening the comment with trembling fingers.
It started off strong with

but really it's an incredibly positive review, giving four stars in the end. And it was for my transgender story too, not the lesbian slow burn romances that have gotten me most love on Lit (but it seems Stacnash hates, so maybe I dodged a bullet there).

Oooh well done

I was told to stop writing because I wouldn't be able to listen to anyone on how to write properly.

So well done

 

[alohadave]

I have assiduously tracked my story numbers since April 2017. One of the stats I follow is daily views of all my stories. I download the story stats at around the same time in the morning, usually at least once a week and sometimes more often, and calculate the daily averages. I haven't published a story in nearly a year, so for the last six months or so my daily views have been very stable and have not reflected the influence of newly published stories on views.

In the last month, I've noticed the daily average views have dropped significantly, around 25-30%. This morning, the 24-hour views were less than 50% of what they normally are.

Has anyone else noticed something like this?

I've seen similar. I download stats on Fridays and saw a drop in views of 30-50% on many, but not all stories about two weeks ago. I haven't processed this Friday's stats yet to see if it was a blip or a trend.

 

[SimonDoom]

I always wondered, does Lit sometimes change the 'similar stories' thing at the end of a story you read? Maybe that has something to do with it? Like currently your stories have dropped off that part? I have no proof of anything as I don't keep track of that, just wondering I guess.

I think you are correct that "similar stories" lists at the end of stories are more important than many people realize. But I can't see how it's negatively affected my stories. In general, my stories are appearing MORE on these lists over time rather than less, as far as I can tell.

 

[Writer61]

I haven't been keeping stats long enough to see a pattern like that. The biggest impact on mine is when new stories are published. I had 4500 views over the last week, and >18k the one before, when I had five stories go live.

 

[Writer61]

Oh, but I just did get 'Stacnashed', so yay me

Does he/she comment on stories directly or somewhere on the forum?

 

[YmaOHyd]

Does he/she comment on stories directly or somewhere on the forum?

On stories directly.

 

[Djmac1031]

Oh, but I just did get 'Stacnashed', so yay me

Oh, what story? Positive or negative? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[redgarters]

@Djmac1031 It was on my xdressing/nonbinary effort in the transgender category, Uncovering Jamie, the 2nd story I published here. The verdict is in short "terrible writer technically, simmering heat, 4 stars." I'm quite happy with that

 

[Djmac1031]

@Djmac1031 It was on my xdressing/nonbinary effort in transgender category, Uncovering Jamie, the 2nd story I published here. The verdict is in short "terrible writer technically, simmering heat, 4 stars." I'm quite happy with that

I suppose that's at least better than my "I thought this was pretty average, which is perfectly fine" review.