What is best ...

[MillieDynamite]

Because I don't see it from the data.

Consider two of the most-viewed and most favorited stories at Literotica: Threads, and One Who Understands.

Both incest stories. Threads was published in 2011 and One was published in 2015. Threads is 42 Literotica pages long. That's enormous. That's the length of a decent novel. One is 32 pages, also the length of a decent novel. To put them in perspective, One if over twice as long as The Great Gatsby, and Thread is over three times as long.

Threads has a view:vote ratio of 143:1.

One has a view:vote ratio of 162:1.

Those ratios are higher than for the average 1 to 2 page story, but not THAT much higher. My average is around 90:1 or so, but most of my stories are fewer than 5 Lit pages.

29126 people have cast votes for Threads. 14572 people have cast votes for One. Those are huge numbers for Literotica, yet these are by Literotica standards extremely long standalone stories. My most-viewed story has just under 10,000 votes but is only 3 Lit pages long. It has a view:vote ratio of 110:1. That's better than those other two stories, but it's not THAT much better, when you consider it's less than one-tenth the length of those stories.

These stories suggest that if readers like the stories they will stick them out to the end even if they are very long.

8Letters previously has presented data in his statistics threads that standalone stories will get more views than stories designated "Chapter 1." Many people don't read chapter stories. They don't even start them. If you start a story by publishing a chapter in the form "My Story Ch. 1", right off the bat you will lose significant numbers of readers.

So if you tell a story in chapters, you have two disadvantages. One is that many readers will never start reading the story, and the other is the extremely heavy level of attrition. The attrition is somewhat set off by the continued exposure that newly published chapters bring. The long standalone story has the disadvantage that some people don't want to read long stories, but I'm inclined, based on what I can see, to believe that the long standalone story option one will yield more readers who finish the story than the multi-chapter option.

None of this is very scientific, I admit.

If only we had something like Amazon uses to determine how many pages a person reads. I can look at the ones that are Select and tell exactly if someone finished the story or not. Not that it matters, my only longer story I have published for money isn't on Amazon. But views to votes doesn't tell you how many people actually read the story.

Had one comment, "didn't like the tags, so moved to the end and voted a one without wasting my time reading it." AGH

 

[ElectricBlue]

Because I don't see it from the data.

Consider two of the most-viewed and most favorited stories at Literotica: Threads, and One Who Understands.

Threads has a view:vote ratio of 143:1.

One has a view:vote ratio of 162:1.

...

None of this is very scientific, I admit.

Arguing a case from two high-ranking incest stories, both much longer than most long stand-alone stories, has validity if every other of those author's stories, including their chaptered ones, has a View:Vote ratio in the same order. But in these two examples, you still have zero knowledge on the actual number of reads to the end.

8letters analysis for his content illustrates exactly what I've said elsewhere, that the chapter three reader count is indicative of the true number who are reading the whole thing, which in his case is a third of the Chapter One openers. You can see the steady state from Chapter three onwards.

The Chap One to Chap Three drop-off is the one where the data supports my contention that maybe 20% - 25% will read a story to the end. In 8letter's case, closer to 30%. Cudos - but not exceptional - I've got a Chapter Five tracking at 30%, followed by a Chap Six with 60% (which I attribute to nearly everyone reading it twice).

Only chaptered stories enable you to deep dive the Reader to the End data. If you only publish stand-alone stories, I don't think you have enough comparative data within your own body of work to make even half-assed guesses, let alone semi-scientific ones.

As an aside, my rule of thumb Vote per View ratio is 1:100, so that's the factor I use in my simple maths. 8letters has a much higher ratio, but then there's also category to consider (I'm across multiple, 8letters is incest only).

Somewhere in all this there's a formula that extracts a Readers estimate by factoring the total View count with the ratio, but I haven't figured it out yet - but then, I've got a stack of chaptered stories where I know exactly how many read the last chapter, so I don't need to.

 

[GinnyPPC]

To me, don't do chapters unless there is a strong reason for doing so as you're losing 25% of your audience in your first chapter, and more in later chapters.

I like your statistical work 8letters, but I think you need to factor in the board that it is appearing on. I read and post over on the Lesbian Sex board. Of the top 50 stories all time on that board, only 16% (8 out 50) are stand alone. That tells me that, at least on the LS board, longer chapter stories are the most popular (based on score).

I know readers differ on the various boards, and that should be considered in the analysis.

 

[8letters]

I like your statistical work 8letters, but I think you need to factor in the board that it is appearing on. I read and post over on the Lesbian Sex board. Of the top 50 stories all time on that board, only 16% (8 out 50) are stand alone. That tells me that, at least on the LS board, longer chapter stories are the most popular (based on score).

I know readers differ on the various boards, and that should be considered in the analysis.

GinnyPPC! Hi! A friend of mine was telling me recently about how much she likes your stories and how she would love to beta-read for you someday.

I think the top list for every category is dominated by chapter stories. For I/T, only 7 of the top 50 are stand alone, but stand alone I/T stories do much better than chapters in terms of views and comments.

Sadly, I lost all my statistically data in a hard disk crash, so I can't pull up the exact numbers for LS. All I can say is that I don't remember LS being different than the other categories. Not like SF&F, which is so dominated by chapter stories that I felt my stand alone numbers were very iffy.

 

[gordo12]

GinnyPPC! Hi! A friend of mine was telling me recently about how much she likes your stories and how she would love to beta-read for you someday.

I think the top list for every category is dominated by chapter stories. For I/T, only 7 of the top 50 are stand alone, but stand alone I/T stories do much better than chapters in terms of views and comments.

Sadly, I lost all my statistically data in a hard disk crash, so I can't pull up the exact numbers for LS. All I can say is that I don't remember LS being different than the other categories. Not like SF&F, which is so dominated by chapter stories that I felt my stand alone numbers were very iffy.

Let me say I have found your data posts on threads very useful. Thank you for being so transparent about your stories.

 

[scipioparkins]

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread.

Your thoughts and comments have been useful and I am grateful for the time you took to comment.

I m still not decided either way whether to go with one post or split the piece down into two parts.

Currently the story is 95K words, from some of the comments I am inclined to keep it as one and just ho for it. From my other works I have found the longer ones to be reasonably well liked, adkeeping it as one allows me to modify it right up to the time where it goes to publication - as opposed to publishing one part and being bound by what has gone before.

Once again, thank you for commenting.

 

[SimonDoom]

Of the top 50 stories all time on that board, only 16% (8 out 50) are stand alone. That tells me that, at least on the LS board, longer chapter stories are the most popular (based on score).

I know readers differ on the various boards, and that should be considered in the analysis.

This is true of all categories, and it does not necessarily indicate that readers in this category, or any category, prefer longer, chaptered stories. What this phenomenon reflects is reader attrition and self-selection. In long, chaptered series, the readers that don't like the story drop off. By chapter 5 or so, the only readers left are those that like the story, and they give it high scores, naturally. So story chapters take up a disproportionate chunk of toplists. But since the voters on late-chaptered stories are not representative of Lesbian Sex readers as a whole, we cannot infer that the Lesiban Sex readers as a whole prefer chaptered stories.

 

[rescatooor]

I was just randomly exploring the Literotica latest comments-page. I was curious how many comments at a quick glance were negative (maybe 3 out of 15).

One comment said that they prefer people published stories in digestible chapters. And that they would not read any story over 5 pages... but would grant them the 1 star rating.

This man scares me. And i don't even have stories that are that long.

 

[Lifestyle66]

... what are people's view on long stories - publish as a whole or publish in parts? ...
Your thoughts are welcome.

IMO, the long versus short stories have their own audiences. Some people like one long story to remain invested in the characters for hours as they read. Others want short stories, which they can read quickly then go on to another. Those short story addicts might have some Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) traits.

I prefer to keep my stories short at about 5,000 to 7,000 words, and make a series. But, I'm trying to keep the chapters relatively independent, allowing the read to go back and catch up if they like the chapter they started with.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Unless you are using the Lit reader (I don't), if you can't read the whole story in one setting, then you have to remember where you left off and when you want to continue, you have to log back into Lit, find the story, open it back up, and navigate to where you left off.

I don't know how many people use the Lit reader vs. just logging in through the web site to read stories. In my opinion, 4 - 6 Lit pages is a reasonable length for people using the website to read stories in one sitting.

 

[Qubiquitous]

Living well is best...

Dr. Frasier Craine: You know the expression, "Living well is the best revenge"?

Niles: It's a wonderful expression. I just don't know how true it is. You don't see it turning up in a lot of opera plots. "Ludwig, maddened by the poisoning of his entire family, wreaks vengeance on Gunther in the third act by living well."

Frasier: All right, Niles.

Niles: "Whereupon Woton, upon discovering his deception, wreaks vengeance on Gunther in the third act again by living even better than the Duke."

 

[LexxRuthless]

Unless you are using the Lit reader (I don't), if you can't read the whole story in one setting, then you have to remember where you left off and when you want to continue, you have to log back into Lit, find the story, open it back up, and navigate to where you left off.

I don't know how many people use the Lit reader vs. just logging in through the web site to read stories. In my opinion, 4 - 6 Lit pages is a reasonable length for people using the website to read stories in one sitting.

You could add the page of the Literotica story where you left off to your browser favorites / bookmarks so you could pick up at that page, at least. I've done that a few times when real life interrupted my enjoyment of a longer story on this site.

 

[LexxRuthless]

Back to the OP though, readers like well-written stories with memorable characters, enough plot that they find themselves mentally engaged, and since this is Literotica they generally expect some hot sex in there. Readers might be reluctant to dive into a long series at all, but if they really enjoy the first page of a long standalone story they will usually be delighted to find out it is longer than they expected.

Regardless of length, most readers will give up on a shitty story before they reach the end of that first page -- but it still counts as a "View." A clever title and the use of lots of popular tags can draw eyeballs to awful stories. That's important to keep in mind as an author, but it is the opposite of "what people like."

Oh, and people here (anonymous commenters especially, when they enjoyed the story) like to demand more chapters whenever you write a short standalone story. This seems to happen to me far more often when I have absolutely no plan for a sequel.

 

[TadOverdon]

People like stuff that gets them off.

 

[SimonDoom]

The truest thing you can say about "What Literotica readers want" is that it's a huge and diverse readership and there's a significant readership out there for both long and short stories, standalone stories and chaptered stories, stroke stories and slow-burn stories, and stories with no sex whatsoever.

The statistics show that the "sweet spot" for getting a high score is around 5-6 pages and up. But this is a mean, only. It doesn't mean all Literotica readers feel this way, or that there aren't many, many Literotica readers who prefer shorter stories. There are and they do.

Vote:view ratios decline a little bit as stories get longer, but not as much as you would guess. That suggests that readers are more apt to read long stories all the way through, relative to short stories, more than most of us probably would guess.

So if you want to write a long story and submit it as a standalone story, do so. Don't sweat it.

If you have a long story you want to break up into chapters, if you can, don't make the chapters too short. Make them at least 3 Lit pages (around 8,000 words or more).

 

[Fervid]

If you post your stories to get readers, scores and comments, don’t chapters make obvious sense because they are scored separately?

My experience is that the way to get readers is to get good scores and get onto the Top list, and the top lists are clogged with chapters because, authors here speculate, the haters stop reading, so later chapter scores skyrocket.

 

[SimonDoom]

If you post your stories to get readers, scores and comments, don’t chapters make obvious sense because they are scored separately?

My experience is that the way to get readers is to get good scores and get onto the Top list, and the top lists are clogged with chapters because, authors here speculate, the haters stop reading, so later chapter scores skyrocket.

2 reasons:

1. The statistics show that many readers don't read chaptered stories. "Sex Story" will, generally speaking, get more views than "Sex Story ch. 1."

2. There is a high attrition rate with chaptered stories. The second chapter typically gets half the views of the first, or fewer.

3. If the cause of high scores for late chapters is mostly attrition and self-selection, which, in fact, seems to be the case, then of what use are high scores for late chapters? All those scores tell you is that the dwindling cadre of hard core fans are the ones voting for you. What does that tell you in any meaningful way? Is your story overall going to benefit when chapter 1 has a 4.49 and chapter 47 has a 4.88? I am doubtful.


It is possible that the effect of posting multiple chapters and attracting more attention to the story over time will offset the effects of numbers 1 and 2, but it's not clear that they do.

My experience is different from yours. I have high view numbers but relatively few stories near the top of toplists. In my experience high scores make some difference but not as much as people think they do.

 

[scipioparkins]

So, I published the story https://literotica.com/s/rogeringham and I chose to publish all of it as one piece, all 155k of it. The problem was that it shot past the front page, and appears to have fallen foul of the notifications issue.
Still, I am happy with it.
Thank you once again, to everyone that contributed to this thread, your thoughts are appreciated.

 

[donaldelliott11]

There is a significant drop-off in views and votes from one chapter to the next. It's common for chapter 2 to have half the views and votes of chapter 1, and for the final chapter in a longer series to have no more than one quarter of the views and votes of the first chapter.

There is a big difference between 10 chapters released all at once and 10 chapters dribbled out over 18 months or more. I think if the author has only intermittent interest, why should I pay constant attention? Also, I can't remember what I read a month ago and I hate lame recaps as the opening of each new chapter.
As a reader, one reason I stop reading a multi-chapter story midway is a chapter that does nothing. No plot advancement, no character development. Just more of whatever came before.
Another reason is that the author is getting carried away, adding too many characters doing too many things.

 

[donaldelliott11]

From a thread here. I looked at how 28 days' worth of stories did statistically. Results:
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[/td][/tr][tr][td]Ch01[/td][td]

232​

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11.6K​

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18.1​

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4.14​

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4.2​

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24%​

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1.9​

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37​

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1036​

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6.1K​

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8.5​

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4.35​

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3.3​

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47%​

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2.4​

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56​

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895​

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15.4K​

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17.4​

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4.07​

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6.1​

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First chapters got 75% of the views that stand-alone stories got, and subsequent chapters got on average 40% of the views that stand-alone stories got.

To me, don't do chapters unless there is a strong reason for doing so as you're losing 25% of your audience in your first chapter, and more in later chapters.

The best reason I see for doing chapters is that you can see the response to the story before you sink all the time into finishing it. I've got a story that I've written 43K on, and I'm about half done. I could package what I've written up into 3 or 4 chapters and see how people like. If it doesn't get a good response, I'd move on to another story.

My readers might not like that idea.

I hate incomplete stories. Hesitate to start reading a serial that might not later get completed. I'll wait until it is finished. (By which time I may have forgotten about it.)
Neither will I 5-star an incomplete work, a "chapter 1". A good early chapter leaves me hanging, but if there is no follow-on soon I get angry and walk away.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Length is not always a doom-bringer. For example, Hammingbyrd7’s The Preacher Man is 162,000 words and 46 Lit pages - one tale with chapter headings. It also has earned a (deserved) rating of 4.90.