What is more important, views, ratings, favorites or comments?

[gremlinpi]

I am new to this. I have written five stories so far, with very different topics, complexity, etc.

These are stories I wrote over many years, with no intention of ever sharing them with anyone else. I thought it would be interesting to post them here and see what people thought.

I am not sure how to interpret the feedback.

I feel like the number of views is more about how "clickbaity" the title and summary are.

The rating seems better, but I have one story that is "edgier" and more polarizing that has medium ratings.

The number of favorites seems like a better indication that the story had an emotional impact on the user.

Comments are tricky. Some comments are negative or even hostile, but that also means someone felt strongly enough to write them.

I would have thought that more favorites means more comments, but that is not always the case. My story with the most favorites also has my highest rating, but very few comments.

I feel like the stories I am most proud of have "layers" to them, always ratcheting up the emotional component. That seems to reflect the number of favorites more than any other metric.

What do you look for?

Also, what do you do with toxic comments? Delete them? Keep them? If they are left does that distract from the reader's experience?

 

[Voboy]

I value the red H, mostly because I used it as a selection tool when I was "only" a reader here. So scores, I suppose.

I also value views, especially in certain categories.

Comments are fine. I seldom get them, so they're always a treat. But I don't "write for comments," if that makes sense. I'm not looking for them. I only delete ones that are self-serving (the reader writing their own piece in my comments section) or off-topic. I'll leave negative ones right where they are.

Number of favorites, I care nothing for.

 

[SimonDoom]

These are all great topics and questions, but be prepared for many different answers.

Views: The number one factor here is the category in which you publish the story. Some categories get very high views, and some categories get very few views. Incest, Illustrated, and Loving Wives get the most. Novels and Erotic Couplings get fewer. My incest stories on average get over three times the number of views that my non-incest stories do.

I think you are correct that catchy titles and taglines help snare more views. This is why I pay careful attention to these things. I want more views.

It's also true that if people like your story, it will get more views over time. There is some correlation between having a high score and getting more views, but it's not as strong a correlation as some people think it is.

Ratings: Ratings in some categories are higher than in others. Ratings are higher if you scrupulously meet the desires of the audience for the category in which you publish your story. Ratings tend to be higher as the length of the story grows. Ratings are higher for late chapters in many-chaptered stories. These are all crude generalizations, not rules.

Favorites: I have found the view:favorite ratio for my stories to be remarkably consistent within a range across all my stories. So the key to build up favorites is to get views. Favorites and scores do NOT necessarily correlate.

Comments: These are generally few and far between. They are hard to predict. The best category for getting relatively many comments is the Loving Wives category. But many of the comments in that category can be quite negative.

My philosophy is that the text of my story is the art, and everything else is marketing. I create the title, tagline, category choice, and tags with an eye toward drawing the largest possible audience of readers who will enjoy my story. I have found that this strategy works well for me. Others may have different approaches.

Another aspect of my philosophy is to write a variety of different kinds of stories with different artistic goals in different categories. I find that doing this keeps things fresh and interesting.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I'm with Voboy. I'm always happy to see a story get the "H". It doesn't mean I've written a great story, but just that people like it. That's why I write.

I'm not fussed with views or favourites. Some categories will always get way more views than others, and some readers seem to collect dozens of stories in their favourites. To me, that's meaningless.

I appreciate a comment - good or bad, but they're all rare.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I recommend the most important thing to keep in mind with ratings, views, favorites, and comments is that you can't please everyone, and there are dysfunctional people out there (we refer to them as "trolls"). So, always remember to write and post what YOU want and like and take everything else in with some skepticism.

Take the various types of feedback (rating, views, or comments) and try to learn something from it. But put it in perspective that it's one person's view out of eight billion people on this planet.

 

[KeithD]

For me, it's views. I'm submitting them to this Web site to give them more reads than they got in the marketplace.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Views, Hs, favourites, scores - the most important thing is pleasing the reader and all of those are indicators.

Trolls are a sad fact of life, like gnats. One learns to ignore both mindless comments and one-bombs.

Welcome to the club.

 

[PennameWombat]

<snip>

What do you look for?

Also, what do you do with toxic comments? Delete them? Keep them? If they are left does that distract from the reader's experience?

The other 'stat' that gets discussed here on a semi-regular basis is Followers. I keep an eye on that because it means someone was intrigued enough by my writing to want to 'track' me. I know there are authors on this site with way, way more followers than I have, so I just accept that I've found a few readers interested enough to follow me and don't compare counts. While I pick up followers on a random basis, most seem to come during themed contests when I have an entry.

My stories get very few comments. The max on any one of my stories is nine, and a quarter of my stories have zero comments.

As to toxic comments, don't feel at all bad about deleting them. I have a story which I wrote from a female's first-person POV (I'm cis male and freely admit that on my profile). That MC's gender is obscured right at the beginning, as it's an office setting. But, there are ample hints, such as the narrator mentioning her clothing and being slightly embarrassed about accidentally exposing a bit too much cleavage to someone during a business meeting. About a third of the way in, it's obvious the narrator is a woman, and all the ensuing sex is MF. No one has commented on whether my MC's portrayal is good or bad in showing a woman's POV, but a couple of readers didn't like the fact I didn't make it absolutely obvious with flashing headlines at the beginning that the MC was a woman... I deleted the most abusive one but left the other there. I feel it says more about the commenter than it does about the story.

 

[Lifestyle66]

Trolls are a sad fact of life, like gnats. One learns to ignore both mindless comments and one-bombs.

Welcome to the club.

Gnats! That's a great comparison.

Maybe my next story will be "A Gathering of Gnats". LOL

 

[gremlinpi]

I think all of these comments make sense. Was not aware that Loving Wives was so popular and polarizing. I guess I can see why.

I have to admit. I was very nervous to post my first story here. So far, it has been fun to share.

 

[Seadog777]

It's YOUR story.
You should be writing to please yourself, not me, not joe blow from kokomo, not anybody else.
While ratings, favorites, comments, etc, are all well and good, they aren't the end all be all.
ESPECIALLY in the Loving Wives category.
You will always have the frakking, baby carrot and tuna smelling twat waffles, that 1-bomb anything that isn't a complete and total BTB.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I feel like the number of views is more about how "clickbaity" the title and summary are.

Oh, I think that's a certainty. I have two stories in the same genre, only three weeks apart in publishing date, with nearly identical ratings, but the one with Mama in the title has twice the views.

 

[Emotional]

This is my personal preference.

To me it is all about the ratings. When I was just and avid reader, I usually wouldnt even attempt to read anything under 4.75, because I knew I probably wouldnt like it.

I am a romantic though, the hard core porn stories doesnt do anything for me. I prefer the Hallmark with sex stories.

So yeah, all I care about is achieving the highest rating possible, and in the top 5 pages in the hall of fame.

 

[SimonDoom]

I have to admit. I was very nervous to post my first story here.

You and most people. I was nervous, too, and I was disappointed in the reception of my first story. It never had, and never has had, a red H (score of 4.5 or over). But I just kept writing, and I'm glad I did.

My advice is to figure out what you enjoy about it and focus on that, and don't take your cue from other people's metrics for success.

 

[TadOverdon]

It depends on what you're using the feedback for. If you're trying to grow the size of your audience, IMHO ratings are the most important metric.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Ratings and the number of followers, comments when they arrive - with my stuff, comments tend to accumulate around a story that has been a bit of a runaway success, and readers want to tell me so.

Favourites are so far down in the noise as an indicator of anything, that I tend to think, that's nice, but no more than that - especially when the person's fave list is endless (what's that all about?).

 

[RejectReality]

From purely a "get my ass read" perspective: Scores are critical. The Red H is a primary selection criteria of the readership, whether anybody likes it or not. Acquiring and maintaining it is going to dramatically boost the number of new eyes you'll get on your work. Acquiring one early on day-1 further enhances the story's potential to attract new readers. Every new reader you get is a potential regular reader. It's the regular readers who give you an early H and help maintain it, thus creating a snowball effect.

The hubs are where most readers probably make their selections. Comments have their own section on the hubs. So acquiring comments provides an additional avenue for the story to gain exposure.

Beyond that, I think the rest of the numbers are all of about equal and minimal impact. The title and description are infinitely more important as selection criteria than any of the other numbers.

As to the value of statistics to you otherwise? That varies by category and what you want to get out of the site. You have to weigh your numbers by the category they're in, not compare things across categories. The readerships are too tribal and different to make any sort of meaningful comparison of statistics for stories in two different categories for the most part. You can even have tribes within categories, and the response to two different themes can be substantially different within the same category. Once you take that into account, it's a personal matter as much as anything. What's meaningful to you?

Nasty commentary as often as not tends to attract positive commentary from people who might not have otherwise spoken up. I leave them unless it's pure spam.

 

[KeithD]

The title and description are infinitely more important as selection criteria than any of the other numbers.

I see that mentioned in a few of the responses. Apples and kumquats, though. The OP question is about reader actions--views, ratings, favorites, comments--not author actions--headline and description writing; categorization.

 

[TxRad]

Write the damned story you want to write and the hell with the numbers. There are so many variable that none of them actually mean anything conclusive. Pick whatever makes you happy and discard the rest or take them as a whole and move on to the next story.

 

[HordHolm]

I'm with TxRad with one caveat - getting a rating over 4.5 means that prized little red H, and as a reader as well I can vouch for the fact that, when faced with an almost limitless (it feels) choice, that red H feels like a valuable differentiation.

 

[FifthEstate]

Ratings and the number of followers, comments when they arrive - with my stuff, comments tend to accumulate around a story that has been a bit of a runaway success, and readers want to tell me so.

Favourites are so far down in the noise as an indicator of anything, that I tend to think, that's nice, but no more than that - especially when the person's fave list is endless (what's that all about?).

Completely agree with electricblue66’s point regarding comments. I’ve written only multi-chapter stories to this point and nearly all have elicited more comments the further they progress. I find that readers get an emotional attachment to the characters and will post their hopes and desires on the comment board or via email as a result. I love reading their interpretations of what I (as the author) was intending. My latest story/chapter was published in early October and has nearly 60 comments.

As for the negative ones, I let them stand if they are constructive or thoughtfully critical, but I delete them immediately if they speculate I’ve died of Covid for the umpteenth time.

As for the other metrics (clicks, favorites, scores, follows), they are all important to me. I enjoy writing and publishing stories, but those measurements drive me to keep going. I hope they will for you too! We need more good authors on Lit.

 

[Carnevil9]

For me, it's all about the comments. I couldn't give a rat's ass about views, ratings, or favorites. I want to know if my story has moved someone enough (favorably or unfavorably) to actually express their thoughts and put them into words. That's what I write for. That's a connection with a reader.

Just my own personal opinion, of course. I respect that others feel differently.

 

[ElectricBlue]

If you see yourself as an artist who puts his work first, then all the statistics around are irrelevant. Your art will not depend on audience preferences. The only thing you can influence is choosing a clickbait name and description.

On the other hand, if the art is just a means to an end, and you are able to write on demand and adjust yourself to the readers' preferences, then here are my tips:

Why do you see this only In terms of audience demand and writing to the lowest common denominator? You seem to put it all into black or white, where are your shades of grey?

I write what I choose to write, and my audience follows me, I don't follow them. But the stats still function as a reward of sorts, albeit small - my rule of thumb is one vote per hundred views, one comment per thousand (with the successful stories mentioned earlier having a higher comment per view ratio). I don't write in the high view categories such as Incest or LW, though, and each category has its quirks, so YMMV.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I am new to this. I have written five stories so far, with very different topics, complexity, etc.

These are stories I wrote over many years, with no intention of ever sharing them with anyone else. I thought it would be interesting to post them here and see what people thought.

I am not sure how to interpret the feedback.

I feel like the number of views is more about how "clickbaity" the title and summary are.

That, plus category, plus the luck of the draw in how prominently it appears in the New Stories list when it first appears, plus how long it's been around on the site.

You will get a bit of a bump to views when you post other stories in the same category, as people who liked the new story check out your other works. In my experience, the bump to stories in different categories is much less - even people who five-starred my stories in Lesbian Sex often don't go check out the lesbian story I put in SF/F without a nudge.

The rating seems better, but I have one story that is "edgier" and more polarizing that has medium ratings.

Rating: obviously affected by how well your story clicks with user preferences (which vary immensely between users and categories, and there are categories like LW where it's very difficult to please everybody) but also by things that "filter" potential readers before they vote. For a long story, it's typical that only a half to a third of the people who start reading chapter 1 will continue through to the end. Obviously the ones who stay are the ones who like it best, so long/multi-chapter stories tend to get inflated scores. A clickbaity title/summary can work against you here: you get more readers but they might not be the kind who'll like your story.

Polarising stories do tend to have lower ratings. Mostly readers are pretty generous with voting here, so a decently written story that doesn't tread on any toes will mostly get 4s and 5s (various exceptions apply). If you write something polarising, the people who are antagonised by that content will vote lower, but the people who agree with it don't have much room to go higher.

That said, what counts as "polarising" also depends on category - e.g. same-sex marriage is still a thorny topic at the ballot box, but probably not in Gay Male/Lesbian Sex.

The number of favorites seems like a better indication that the story had an emotional impact on the user.

Comments are tricky. Some comments are negative or even hostile, but that also means someone felt strongly enough to write them.

I would have thought that more favorites means more comments, but that is not always the case. My story with the most favorites also has my highest rating, but very few comments.

Yeah, they're related but not identical. Obviously some content will attract "I hated this" content, and a story that makes people think (what happens next? Should Bob have done what he did?) is likely to draw more conversation than one that's enjoyably hot but doesn't leave anything to say beyond "that was hot".

What do you look for?

Comments are what means most to me, because they can say so much more than a favourite or a five-star rating.

Also, what do you do with toxic comments? Delete them? Keep them? If they are left does that distract from the reader's experience?

You can do as you like. My personal preference is to leave comments that are genuinely about the story (even if I think they're wrong) but to delete bigotry and negative comments that aren't focussed on the story. If somebody feels I didn't make a particular relationship convincing, that's fine; if they want to rant about What's Wrong With The World These Days, they can go find their own space to do it and do the hard work of attracting people who are interested in reading their opinions, instead of leeching off me.

That said, in all my time here, I've only had a handful of comments that I thought worth deleting, and most of those were from one dude who was cranky about something on the forums (I never did figure out exactly what) and decided to go make drama in the comments of posters he had a grudge against. There are a few assholes out there, most of them focussing on some specific topic, but most of the commenters here are lovely.

I would delete homophobia/transphobia/racism/etc. in a comment, because I want my stories to feel welcoming to readers from the relevant demographics and that includes the comments sections, but I don't recall it ever being an issue on mine.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

My stories have different aims. Mostly I just tell the story I want to tell, but for example I wondered if I could write a story with a kink I have zero interest in, and convince readers to give it a red H.

Cue an incest story, despite less than zero interest in the idea, because that's where the views are.

In six days, it has nearly twice the views of any of my other stories (72k - my only other two over 40k include one which placed in a contest, and one with the 'interracial' tag which has probably only triggered a slow decline in scores over time, from disappointed readers...)

The score hovered above and below 4.5 but after 650 votes (again, 5x more than any other story) has stayed bang on 4.5.

I probably shouldn't have used the tag 'incest romance' as despite the ending being happy, it wasn't a Happy Ending with a sibling couple staying together, which seems to be what readers wanted. Still, mission accomplished.

Got half a dozen comments which was nice (and one I deleted), as they were all interesting. I've had the most comments on stories about disability or sexuality - I think people comment most when they see rare representation of themselves or people they know.

Also got 16 new followers, so now over 200. I hope they aren't just into incest stories... Also got 62 faves, but most people use those as bookmarks, often a 'to read later when I want something that isn't a quick stroker piece'. Actual bookmarks are only visible via the category hub and I think are also used more for 'to read' than 'loved this, want to read again'.