When Writing a Series . . .

[driphoney]

Do number of readers and/or votes for each consecutive chapter go up, down, or stay the same? Has this general pattern changed over the years?

I know this has been talked about before (probably ad nauseum,) but I'm hopeless at using the search to find threads.

 

[sr71plt]

my "views" tend to go down and the votes dip in the middle of the series. Sometimes the most votes are on the last one (as well as the highest rating), though, as if the readers following the series wait for the end to vote.

 

[driphoney]

my "views" tend to go down and the votes dip in the middle of the series. Sometimes the most votes are on the last one (as well as the highest rating), though, as if the readers following the series wait for the end to vote.

So you haven't seen the vote numbers on your chapters climb with each subsequent posting?

If I were more math inclined, as a huge housework avoidance exercise, it would be a fun project to take lots of top stories here and plot them out, graph them and see what conclusions could be made. Might be interesting and give insight. We all like to think that the writing is key, and we all have a healthy perspective to votes and feedback, but I've heard too many comment on feedback and how important it is to them. Wouldn't it nice to know the stats? To see where you really fit in and not just where you feel you do?

I guess if I had actually learned Excel when I was supposed to, it would just be a matter of data entry, the spreadsheet would do the hard work.

 

[TE999]

My one series started out slowly and kept building votes and scores...interestingly enough, the first chapter has the lowest score...go figure.

 

[Austin8]

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=406995

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=414564

These may prove informative they did for me...

 

[JackLuis]

I only have one series and by my (limited) experience the number of "reads" varies I have over 16K "reads" of my first chapter and the numbers vary from 7K to 1800 reads for the other 34 chapters.

I have noticed that since the title is always the same (Spreading Seeds Chapter X) but the tag line is different that when the tag line reads "Josh gets fucked silly", or some other key word that the readership changes. Don't know if every body reads my stuff all that much though. I get 20-30 votes per chapter, except for one where I put a footnote that I might just drop the whole thing and I got 104!

I laughed my ass off that day.

 

[Weird Harold]

Do number of readers and/or votes for each consecutive chapter go up, down, or stay the same? Has this general pattern changed over the years?

You're dealing with several dynamics and they change with the number of chapters posted and whether the series is complete or not. How well you have the series structured has a big effect, too.

One dynamic you're dealing withis people like me who don't bother reading anything flagged "Chapter 1" until there is a "Chapter 2" or more -- so from people like me you'll see a jump in the first chapter views when the second or third chapter is posted; and for any intevening chapters to where we jumped in.

Another dynamic you're dealing with is people who give up on your series after a chapter or two so that you'll see a decrease in readership for each sucessive chapter.

When you finally post "My Story: Epilogue" you'll almost alway see some attention on all chapters from the people who don't read unfinished series and download the whole thing as soon as it is finished.

I don't think how much readership you gain from the late-comers vs how many you lose to the quitters is something that you can calculate or anticipate because it depends on how well constructed/written the series is.

A well constructed and well written series should pick up additional readers with each new chapter as more people are exposed to it on the new stories list and word-of-mouth/favorites selcetions spread the word.

The opposite is likely to happen if the story isn't well-constructed -- both as a coherent story and as "episodic fiction," (which has some different conventions and requirements for "well-constructed.")

 

[jomar]

I don't have that much, but

my seven chapter story (each chapter submitted a week apart) dropped "views" and votes as it went and the scores were pretty much the same. Though I just noticed someone bombed me without comment on chapter 6.

My four chapter 'Bet" story also dropped votes and views, but the score increased on the last two stories.

The final two chapters of my White Trash story were written a year later.

 

[driphoney]

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=406995

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=414564

These may prove informative they did for me...

This is absolutely fascinating! I had to favorite them. Thanks!

 

[Boxlicker101]

I have a couple of series going, and readership depends on several factors. One of them is Angel Jones, in the TS & CD category. The first in the series has over 33,000 views; the second has just over half that and the third has one fourth that. After that, views are consistent with the third, except for one of them that was a contest entry and has more. Although they are referred to as chapters, they are not, although they do feature the same central character and some others who figure in several of them, and there are references to previous stories.

Another one, Marian and Ryan, is also broken down by chapters, but not all the stories in the series are in the same category. These attract views by the type of story, with an Anal story and a First Time story getting high views, while a Group Sex has fewr. The title characters appear in all of them, and the plot, such as it is, is the same in all of them, but they are categorized by the type of sexual activity.

Neither of these two groups is actually a continuing story. They are listed as chapters, because that was how Management wanted to list them.