What was your title and short description that lead to the most views?

[WeShallUnclench]

Of course nobody knows where all the views are truly coming from*. Could be that your most viewed story just got infected with bots.

But still, we can all tell that some stories genuinely seem to invite more readers the instant you post them. And the "view" is, at least theoretically, the metric of how many people were lured in by your title, tags and short description (the only things they can go by). We also all observed that view count and rating don't match up - your most viewed story may very well be your lowest rated one.

So with that said - which of your short descriptions (plus title) seems to have drawn in the most viewers?
Especially useful if you can compare that to your least clicked story.

*bonus assignment: picture in your mind's eye the magical land of eyeballs, where all the little viewlings are hatched and spread out to bring delight and voyeurism to the world of humans.

 

[StillStunned]

It's not even close.

Too Cold Not to Fuck - “It’s just a way for us both to get some sleep.” It seems to strike a chord with the I/T readership, with 160k views in just under a year.

My least-viewed work is WIWAW - Sci-Fi and Fantasy Names - Hits and misses of speculative fiction names, at 559 views (Reviews & Essays). But not including WIWAWs, it's The Dome 02: Sky Above - Raurri continues to look after Xero. (SF&F, 1088 views)

 

[BobbyBrandt]

Family Fornication Contest (Brother and Sister enter a video contest for Valentine's Day), leads with 53,000 views in its first five days with a 4.86 rating. It was published on 1/14/23 for the Valentines Day contest which likely contributed to the initial view count.

On the other end of the spectrum for me is 1990 (A prequel to "His Daddy's Car" set in the year 1990). Published two weeks previous (1/1/23), it stands today with 877 views, of which 591 readers voted, and has a rating of 4.84.

 

[SimonDoom]

https://literotica.com/s/late-night-on-the-loveseat-with-mom

Tagline: Mom and Son get under the blanket, and well . . .

By far.

Posted May 2017. Over 2 million views and 3056 favorites.

 

[MyBareTorso]

My two most viewed stories are my sole entries in the Loving Wives and Incest/Taboo categories...I don't think my titles and intros have much to do with the numbers in this case.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

No contest, it's my sole I/T effort, which seemed to do well even compared to other I/T stories published on the same day. I stuck to getting the key details into the title and tagline:

Only One Bed, Again! - Hiking trip nudges big brother and his sister into having sex.

You want siblings, you want a vaguely plausible story, there you go.

Of other categories, Gas Station Guy got more interest than a typical Fetish story, with the tagline 'Gay virgin mistakes her for a man'. I guess people browsing a list of Fetish stories thought it sounded interesting, even if not a fetish they were looking for. It also was tagged as Interracial, which seems to be why it still gets views, mostly from people who don't like the content!

 

[TheRedChamber]

Not my highest-viewed story, but Cocaine Librarian was definitely a bold-faced exploitation title that paid off in views.

 

[WeShallUnclench]

Tagline: Mom and Son get under the blanket, and well . . .

By far.

Reminds me of what @pink_silk_glove said in a previous thread:



Now I don't wanna kink shame anyone, but the combination of this concept with the phrase

"mega clicks"

Almost made me piss myself laughing.

I'm sorry, I am so sorry you guys, but my first thought was, We are such a dumb species
The mental image of an instantaneous thundering wave of thousands upon thousands of lemmings plunging into a chasm with the sign "Mommy Incest".

 

[SimonDoom]

Reminds me of what @pink_silk_glove said in a previous thread:

View attachment 2410035

Now I don't wanna kink shame anyone, but the combination of this concept with the phrase

"mega clicks"

Almost made me piss myself laughing.

I'm sorry, I am so sorry you guys, but my first thought was, We are such a dumb species
The mental image of an instantaneous thundering wave of thousands upon thousands of lemmings plunging into a chasm with the sign "Mommy Incest".

People like what they like. It's never seemed odd or worthy of criticism to me. I've always been candid that, most of the time, I look at the story as the art and the rest as marketing. So I'm usually fairly careful in the way I pick titles, taglines, tags, and categories with an eye toward maximizing exposure, and I've been reasonably successful at that. The stuff works.

 

[StillStunned]

People like what they like. It's never seemed odd or worthy of criticism to me. I've always been candid that, most of the time, I look at the story as the art and the rest as marketing. So I'm usually fairly careful in the way I pick titles, taglines, tags, and categories with an eye toward maximizing exposure, and I've been reasonably successful at that. The stuff works.

I've given up trying to guess what will attract views. Take my two most recent stories, for example, published less than three weeks apart, both in SF&F.

"Rulk the Rat and the Demon Dagger" - A thief finds a dagger that gives him power. I thought this was a catchy title, with a description that would draw in fantasy readers. You can almost imagine what powers he'll get and what he'll do with them.

"Upstream" - A hiker finds a hidden slice of paradise. I came up with the title about a hundred words into writing (which was seven months before I completed it). Even disregarding the story's subtext, it's a title that suits the story's style. But it's not a gripping title, and the description probably only appeals to hikers who dream of having spicy encounters in the wilds.

Their performances? "Rulk the Rat" (published first) has 1614 views. "Upstream" has 4337.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've given up trying to guess what will attract views. Take my two most recent stories, for example, published less than three weeks apart, both in SF&F.

"Rulk the Rat and the Demon Dagger" - A thief finds a dagger that gives him power. I thought this was a catchy title, with a description that would draw in fantasy readers. You can almost imagine what powers he'll get and what he'll do with them.

"Upstream" - A hiker finds a hidden slice of paradise. I came up with the title about a hundred words into writing (which was seven months before I completed it). Even disregarding the story's subtext, it's a title that suits the story's style. But it's not a gripping title, and the description probably only appeals to hikers who dream of having spicy encounters in the wilds.

Their performances? "Rulk the Rat" (published first) has 1614 views. "Upstream" has 4337.

I think we all have to accept that results vary widely, and they're hard to predict. There are many variables beyond our control, such as the number of other stories published on the same day that compete with ours, or where the story appears on a new story list and how quickly it gets pushed off. The unpredictability of reader response.

My most successful story, in terms of views, is more than twice as successful as my second most successful story, and I've written many stories in that category.

 

[Trionyx]

Ashley’s Sister
“You want to fuck my sister, don’t you?”
That line was also the first line in the story. An amazing number of views for an EC story in the first few weeks and still one of my highest counts.

 

[WeShallUnclench]

I've given up trying to guess what will attract views. Take my two most recent stories, for example, published less than three weeks apart, both in SF&F.

"Rulk the Rat and the Demon Dagger" - A thief finds a dagger that gives him power. I thought this was a catchy title, with a description that would draw in fantasy readers. You can almost imagine what powers he'll get and what he'll do with them.

"Upstream" - A hiker finds a hidden slice of paradise. I came up with the title about a hundred words into writing (which was seven months before I completed it). Even disregarding the story's subtext, it's a title that suits the story's style. But it's not a gripping title, and the description probably only appeals to hikers who dream of having spicy encounters in the wilds.

Their performances? "Rulk the Rat" (published first) has 1614 views. "Upstream" has 4337.

While I agree with the point about how futile it can seem to make predictions, purely in retrospect (which is the best sort of prediction!) I feel I can speculate what happened here:

"Rulk the Rat" sounds interesting but it also immediately introduces a specific character readers may not immediately know what to do with. Indeed, it might have done better if you had just left him as "The thief" in the title, because a faceless archetype can paradoxically be more accessible. It also leans heavily into the fantasy narrative right off the bat with no hint at an erotic element. There is a specificity and "niche" vibe to it, that might invite a lot of readers to ask "Why should *I* read *that* particular story?

"Upstream", on the other hand, is actually a beautiful and catchy title. There is subtle eroticism in it. It sounds mysterious, almost a bit mystical, and again, with the flowing liquid imagery, there is an erotic vibe right off the bat.
The description, I'm not sure it would have pulled me in personally, but it implies discovery, nature exploration, and "paradise" - which immediately implies a promise of naked people, or at least some sort of pleasure/sensuality.

 

[Dearelliot]

I suppose, "My Sister's Room." A story about a young submissive man and his dominant sister.

 

[yowser]

By voting (also respectable view count), one story is an order of magnitude greater (1782) than any of my others. ‘Too Good to be True’ resonated with the LW crowd (so yes, category matters when it comes to eyeballs.) My lowest viewed tale had two strikes against it, a 750 word item in the Humor category. The title probably didn’t help either (Dial SOS for a Cosmic Climax) although I did get a fond comment: ‘utterly bizarre.’

 

[WeShallUnclench]

In the spirit of sharing as well, here are two examples of mine.
Now, most of my stories are very close together in view count, but I picked those two because one of them has twice as many clicks as the other despite having been posted almost a month later.
(EDIT: I just noticed another thing that made them immediately comparable, they both obviously involve a female character "defeating" a male character implied to be at least powerful enough that it was a struggle, and the loser is then sexually exploited. Going by title and description alone, basically the same story.)

Differences in genre category may play a big role (no, none of them is in I/T), but still, try to guess which was the most clicked one:

An Ass for An Ass

She’s tasting Victory, he's tasting ANUS.


You May Now Cuff The Warlock

She caught herself a pesky warlock and puts him to good use.

Answer:

AAFAA has 9k views and YMNCTW has 5k. They were posted in january and december respectively. The second one scored considerably higher, though.

 

[Otto26]

Fucking Machine A machine built for pleasure.

I'm amused by this because I consider it my worst piece of published writing.

 

[THBGato]

Nothing especially clever for my highest:

Eve & Lucy Chapter 1: The Audition
How far will Amanda go to land the part?

I'm guessing most readers feel Amanda didn't go far enough, as view counts for Chapter 2 are half that for Chapter 1 (Weirdly, though, Chapter 5 - the final one - has more views than Chapters 2, 3 and 4... Seriously, 5k more views for Chapter 5 than Chapter 4. What's that about? People loving the ending so much they are re-reading it?)


My lowest is:

Review of the Girl with Pink Hair
It's WhiteTailDarkTip's world, we just get to visit it...

I mean, not terribly surprising. Still got 1.2k views though. Struck me as decent.

 

[NotWise]

Based on early reads, the most successful was probably: Watch Me! "Rachel needs more from her brother than a few good pics" The runner up (and my favorite) would be My Sister's Wedding "Old traditions, broken vows, and dirty little thrills"

A lot of successful titles seem to be more like headlines.

 

[WeShallUnclench]

A lot of successful titles seem to be more like headlines.

"Extra, Extra! The Moms are in heat! Read all about it, folks!"

 

[WeShallUnclench]

Weirdly, though, Chapter 5 - the final one - has more views than Chapters 2, 3 and 4... Seriously, 5k more views for Chapter 5 than Chapter 4. What's that about? People loving the ending so much they are re-reading it?

Could also be they read Ch1 and skipped straight to the end to check if they like the payoff. I often do that, myself.

 

[THBGato]

Could also be they read Ch1 and skipped straight to the end to check if they like the payoff. I often do that, myself.

Seems unlikely to me, but plausible I suppose... I think people re-reading the ending is more likely. I do that kind of thing myself sometimes (I love Chapter 5 of Wheels in Motion, for instance, and must have re-read that chapter 5 or 6 times).

 

[Lifestyle66]

My most viewed story is in Loving Wives:
"What Were You Thinking?"
Husband discovers his wife’s deception.

It has 111.9K views, but is rated at 3.38/1,431 votes, and has 96 comments.

Since that story rose so quickly in views, I've advised others here that "It's the title and description, which must scream SEX that wins the views."

 

[Pabiporffor]

Not my highest ranking but the one with the most views is described as "Maria takes it dry over a barrel in front of an audience." A short story about a visit to a painal club.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

There are two ways to approach your titles and descriptions.

If you have a stroke story be blunt. "Mom Shags Son," etc. 80-90% of the stroke crowd does not care about your plot (no matter how good it may be) and the other 10-20% don't care that much. Just tell them exactly what they're in for. Putting spoilers right into your description will actually get you more clicks, since the stroke crowd really just wants to know that the story will give them what they want ... namely their kink and to have it delivered they way that they like it.

If you have a story with plot and character development (or heaven forbid perhaps some actual theme) then it's often better to be arty or metaphoric, or hint at a setting/situation/theme - something that will pique the imagination. Often this will be a bit vague, but then you have a description to give some specifics.

Now these 'rules' aren't hard and fast at all, but they seem to get the best results. Also, different categories may have some quirks to them (sci-fi will probably necessitate some sort of hint at the setting: deep space, zombies, apocalyptic waste, etc). However, bear in mind that the stroke crowd outnumbers the story crowd here at least two-to-one, probably closer to three-to-one. So if your arty title on your plot crime novel gets less action than your cuckold stroke title, it doesn't necessarily mean that your arty title isn't working to draw its audience in. It just has a smaller audience. Category makes a huge difference and the stroke crowd will almost always win over plot.

Of course the logical argument is, what would happen if I gave my arty plot story a stroke title just to get the hits? Well, you'd probably get more hits and then you'd probably get bombed by disappointed (pissed off) readers who wanted Mom in their lap and instead got a bunch of plot and motive and theme. Misleading the readers is probably not a good idea.