Where did I go wrong?

[Biker_Faerie]

Hi

Over the past couple of years I’ve written a few stories on here and, while I don’t seem to get a huge number of readers for them, they seem to have generally been well received.

I’ve struggled to find a character I want to write about but found one and have been trying to turn her adventures into a series (A Fresh Start)

The first three episodes went well but the fourth bombed and I don’t really know why. I get that not everyone likes the same thing but if you liked the first three then I’d assumed you’d like this one.

I know I got a couple of one star reviews but that’s lit for you. The thing is that even though I got 2k readers in a week (which is good for me) I got very few people giving me a rating (good or bad), which suggests that maybe a lot just gave up before the end

Any insights gratefully received

BF

https://www.literotica.com/s/a-fresh-start-while-the-cats-away

 

[Red_Herring4]

I've not read the stories in question, but a quick glance at your tags reveals a possible culprit. Your latest entry is tagged with mfm and sharing. There is a very vocal contingent of readers on Literotica who absolutely loathe stories in which a wife/girlfriend is willingly shared with another man.

Unless the story spells out severe consequences for the woman and her lover (known as a BTB or "burn-the-bitch"/"burn-the-bastard" story), this contingent of readers will one-bomb the story and leave negative comments.

These readers typically read the Loving Wives category and bomb stories posted there, but they will also hit stories in other categories that involve consensual sharing and bomb those too. Just search "Loving Wives" or "BTB" in the forums and you'll see scads of threads devoted to this phenomenon.

At any rate, I suspect that some of these readers found your latest story and downvoted it for that reason. That prevented this entry from getting the red H, which in turn suppressed views and votes.

Regardless of whether that is what actually happened in this case, my advice is to continue writing whatever you enjoy writing and let the story and your characters take you wherever they take you. Good luck!

 

[debaucher]

After reading the story, I think I'd have to agree with what Red Herring said above. It's definitely a good story and doesn't deserve the negative reviews.

 

[Areala-chan]

There's almost zero way to make sense of a given story's rating when it's not even been up for a week. I wouldn't worry too much about ratings until at least a few weeks or a full month has gone by. That gives time for sweeps to chop out the drive-by ratings and for your followers to find and read it.

That said, I also think @Red_Herring4 is on to something with the tag hurting your initial reception. Time, ultimately, will tell, I think.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I know I got a couple of one star reviews but that’s lit for you. The thing is that even though I got 2k readers in a week (which is good for me) I got very few people giving me a rating (good or bad), which suggests that maybe a lot just gave up before the end

Any insights gratefully received.

I've found Group Sex the least responsive category in terms of Votes per View and Comments. It's a tumbleweeds category for reader response - I've never got much of a clue how my stories have gone in that category. I won't bother posting there again.

 

[RBeemer]

It is my humble opinion that ratings (and number of favorites) is nearly irrelevant on this site. Even getting eyeballs on your story is a crap shoot at best. I have a story with thousands of views but it's sequel only got a few hundred. No idea why. And how can you have tens of thousands of readers, only a dozen ratings and no comments? And then you get comments from people that have no idea what they are talking about.

I just think the signal-to-noise ratio here is so small it's very hard for new writers to get any traction.

My solution? Try not to care. I write what I like and if I get a positive comment I just consider it gravy.

 

[feel_the_beast]

Regarding Lit readers issuing one-star reviews; is it possible there are some doing so purely to troll people, for stories they may not have even read? Watching the score trend on my recent new stories, I'm pretty sure I got a few like that. I'd like to think most folks here are above that sort of petty vandalism, but this is the internet, after all.

 

[THBGato]

Regarding Lit readers issuing one-star reviews; is it possible there are some doing so purely to troll people, for stories they may not have even read?

Authors who have been around a LONG time assure me that this is the case. It's particularly prevalent in Loving Wives, but apparently there are also trolls who go and 1* any stories on the top list.

Speaking from personal experience, my story Thirty was at 4.97 after 105 votes, which was just... wow! Went straight in to Number 1 on the Lesbian Sex top list. I took a screen shot as I knew it wouldn't last.



Sure enough, after 130 votes it had dropped to 4.84. Trolls. Pure and simple. It has since recovered a bit (4.87 after 235 votes). Oh well.

 

[feel_the_beast]

Authors who have been around a LONG time assure me that this is the case. It's particularly prevalent in Loving Wives, but apparently there are also trolls who go and 1* any stories on the top list.

Speaking from personal experience, my story Thirty was at 4.97 after 105 votes, which was just... wow! Went straight in to Number 1 on the Lesbian Sex top list. I took a screen shot as I knew it wouldn't last.

View attachment 2354624

Sure enough, after 130 votes it had dropped to 4.84. Trolls. Pure and simple. It has since recovered a bit (4.87 after 235 votes). Oh well.

Thanks for the input, Gato, I suspected as much. How sad and empty some peoples' lives must be. 'I can't have nice things, so neither can anyone else...'

 

[feel_the_beast]

I wonder if it would at least curtail the practice to require you to browse a story for some minimum time, five minutes, say, before you can leave a rating?

 

[Areala-chan]

I wonder if it would at least curtail the practice to require you to browse a story for some minimum time, five minutes, say, before you can leave a rating?

I believe there is a method the site uses to detect whether or not a vote is "legitimate". The amount of time spent browsing the story is likely a part of this algorithm, which is what allows votes to be swept on occasion. In a way, not knowing the specifics is better in the long run, since if the methodology is known, the griefers are just going to adjust their tactics to compensate.

 

[NickAxel]

Welp, I was about to start my own thread about why one of my stories exploded, and the next story of the same type bombed. At the same time though, I ask, what if it just wasn’t any good?

3.56 on 18 votes. 3.8K views

So everything I’ve read here, indicates that trolls who don’t like MFM stories have bombed that one. Would that be a correct assumption?

https://www.literotica.com/s/afternoon-heat

 

[filthytrancendence]

Welp, I was about to start my own thread about why one of my stories exploded, and the next story of the same type bombed. At the same time though, I ask, what if it just wasn’t any good?

3.56 on 18 votes. 3.8K views

So everything I’ve read here, indicates that trolls who don’t like MFM stories have bombed that one. Would that be a correct assumption?

https://www.literotica.com/s/afternoon-heat

Just the math is rough on that one. that's a .47% vote rate. I have one that's all the way down at .22% but typical is 1-2%.

Anyways, since it's EC my guess is it didn't get a front page debut to begin with, and with only 18 votes each one will swing your rating a lot. Only takes a handful of 1's to get it that low with so few votes.

(Didn't read it yet, just pointing out what I see in the numbers)

 

[Areala-chan]

Welp, I was about to start my own thread about why one of my stories exploded, and the next story of the same type bombed. At the same time though, I ask, what if it just wasn’t any good?

3.56 on 18 votes. 3.8K views

So everything I’ve read here, indicates that trolls who don’t like MFM stories have bombed that one. Would that be a correct assumption?

https://www.literotica.com/s/afternoon-heat

My guess is that it's just a pretty vanilla type of story in a pretty vanilla category. That's not a bad thing, but if you want a story to stand out in Erotic Couplings, you need to really make it pop, and at less than one full Lit page, there isn't any time for that. "Afternoon Heat" is a fine title, but it doesn't tell a potential reader anything about the story. The description, likewise, is fine but doesn't give any details other than somebody planned to drink beer and either purchase a dish, or smoke up some weed, and a woman wanted something else. What else? From whom? Don't know, no idea, and no indication it's a MMF situation so people who want that can find it, and people who want to avoid it won't bomb it.

3.56 hovers between "Average" and "Like It" in the scoring system, which means the bulk of the people reading it thought it was fine. From my perspective, there's just not anything to push it up into that 4.00+ territory. It's not a story so much as it is a scene. That's fine, it's a competently executed scene, and it's clear you understand the fundamentals of how to build a scene, but that's still all it is. Architects are judged by the final construction, not how well the blueprints came out.

Despite having just read it, I can't even remember the names of the people involved. That might be because I'm tired after a long day at work, it might be because blowjob stories don't do anything for me, or it could be because there's nothing really memorable about any of them. I didn't leave a vote, because I don't vote on stories that aren't going to do it for me, but if I had, it would have been a 3. It was good, there was nothing wrong with it, I didn't dislike it, but it's too short a scene to get me invested enough to push it up to a 4. It's nothing personal.

By contrast, your other story that I presume you're talking about was posted to Group Sex, has a title that explains exactly what's about to happen ("A Foursome in the Night" is pretty clear), and your description points out there are couples involved. People who love the concept of couples trading partners are going to know exactly what they're getting into, will be more likely to click on the story, and thus more likely to give it 4 or 5-star rating once it satisfies them.

I don't know if that helps or not, but that's my semi-educated and probably wildly inaccurate guess as to what happened here.

 

[NickAxel]

My guess is that it's just a pretty vanilla type of story in a pretty vanilla category. That's not a bad thing, but if you want a story to stand out in Erotic Couplings, you need to really make it pop, and at less than one full Lit page, there isn't any time for that. "Afternoon Heat" is a fine title, but it doesn't tell a potential reader anything about the story. The description, likewise, is fine but doesn't give any details other than somebody planned to drink beer and either purchase a dish, or smoke up some weed, and a woman wanted something else. What else? From whom? Don't know, no idea, and no indication it's a MMF situation so people who want that can find it, and people who want to avoid it won't bomb it.

3.56 hovers between "Average" and "Like It" in the scoring system, which means the bulk of the people reading it thought it was fine. From my perspective, there's just not anything to push it up into that 4.00+ territory. It's not a story so much as it is a scene. That's fine, it's a competently executed scene, and it's clear you understand the fundamentals of how to build a scene, but that's still all it is. Architects are judged by the final construction, not how well the blueprints came out.

Despite having just read it, I can't even remember the names of the people involved. That might be because I'm tired after a long day at work, it might be because blowjob stories don't do anything for me, or it could be because there's nothing really memorable about any of them. I didn't leave a vote, because I don't vote on stories that aren't going to do it for me, but if I had, it would have been a 3. It was good, there was nothing wrong with it, I didn't dislike it, but it's too short a scene to get me invested enough to push it up to a 4. It's nothing personal.

By contrast, your other story that I presume you're talking about was posted to Group Sex, has a title that explains exactly what's about to happen ("A Foursome in the Night" is pretty clear), and your description points out there are couples involved. People who love the concept of couples trading partners are going to know exactly what they're getting into, will be more likely to click on the story, and thus more likely to give it 4 or 5-star rating once it satisfies them.

I don't know if that helps or not, but that's my semi-educated and probably wildly inaccurate guess as to what happened here.

Thank you for the honest feedback. I’m still pretty new at this. I’ve only been writing for about two years now and that was one of my early attempts. The main takeaway from your reply is to be careful with titles and descriptions. I also haven’t gotten the hang of tags. I also hadn’t considered the length of the story before, so I’ll take that into consideration. I have another in the works for that same series, a friends with benefits story. Now I just need to find a good title and description, other than what I’ve been considering, before releasing that one.

 

[Statius]

Lit needs to eliminate the star ratings due to the fact too many people lie vote for stupid reasons, such as an author they are just hostile to, or the subject matter itself. Hit status should be based solely on the # of hearts a story receives, say 10 to 15. It takes 10 votes to hit hit status anyway. That would eliminate the troll problem. Then a reader can decide to read or not based on hearts and # of reads. If any writers have influence with the admin it should be brought up.

 

[Statius]

To clarify my point above. Every writer knows that readers will favorite a story, even follow an author, but never vote, however haters will down vote a story without even reading the whole thing, if at all. One single star vote does far more damage than a single 5 star review does good. Even if a writer has a 1000 followers, how many are active? Readers come and go, haters stay forever and keep coming back.

 

[NickAxel]

Lit needs to eliminate the star ratings due to the fact too many people lie vote for stupid reasons, such as an author they are just hostile to, or the subject matter itself. Hit status should be based solely on the # of hearts a story receives, say 10 to 15. It takes 10 votes to hit hit status anyway. That would eliminate the troll problem. Then a reader can decide to read or not based on hearts and # of reads. If any writers have influence with the admin it should be brought up.

Or have the ability to toss out, say the bottom ten votes per hundred.

 

[NickAxel]

My story Opportunity published this morning, and initially it had a 4.57 rating, but by lunch, it had dropped to 3.7. Oh well, time to move on to my other works. Hell, mostly I’m just glad some people are reading them.

 

[NickAxel]

3.56 hovers between "Average" and "Like It" in the scoring system, which means the bulk of the people reading it thought it was fine. From my perspective, there's just not anything to push it up into that 4.00+ territory. It's not a story so much as it is a scene. That's fine, it's a competently executed scene, and it's clear you understand the fundamentals of how to build a scene, but that's still all it is. Architects are judged by the final construction, not how well the blueprints came out

The word scene, keeps coming back to me and I believe I understand what you’re saying there. It would have been better, had it been part of a longer story.

 

[Areala-chan]

The word scene, keeps coming back to me and I believe I understand what you’re saying there. It would have been better, had it been part of a longer story.

Please understand that you can take literally everything I wrote with a grain of salt. My opinion on a review is worth no more than anyone else's here, it's merely an observation on what might have contributed to a lower score. Not only have I never written to the category, I also rarely read the category, so I've no idea if what I've said is accurate or just a feeling. I have stories I felt were worthy of higher scores, and stories where I struggle to understand how they scored as highly as they did. Readers are a fickle lot, and ultimately time will tell.

You can do a lot with really compact stories, which is why I think the 750-word challenge is so much fun, and because you're good at executing a scene, I think you could have a blast with trying it. The scores won't be high (my own submission is the lowest-scoring among my own output), but I think it could play into your strengths as a writer! They happen every February, and if nothing else, writing for the contests and challenges is a way to get more eyes on you.

 

[NickAxel]

Just the math is rough on that one. that's a .47% vote rate. I have one that's all the way down at .22% but typical is 1-2%.

Anyways, since it's EC my guess is it didn't get a front page debut to begin with, and with only 18 votes each one will swing your rating a lot. Only takes a handful of 1's to get it that low with so few votes.

(Didn't read it yet, just pointing out what I see in the numbers)

I gave up dissecting numbers years ago, at the end of my career at Dish, really long story, but if you’d be so kind to explain your math please? I’m sure somewhere in the back of my mind, a door will open and I will comprehend what you’re telling me. Then I can analyze my own failures.

 

[NickAxel]

Please understand that you can take literally everything I wrote with a grain of salt. My opinion on a review is worth no more than anyone else's here, it's merely an observation on what might have contributed to a lower score. Not only have I never written to the category, I also rarely read the category, so I've no idea if what I've said is accurate or just a feeling. I have stories I felt were worthy of higher scores, and stories where I struggle to understand how they scored as highly as they did. Readers are a fickle lot, and ultimately time will tell.

You can do a lot with really compact stories, which is why I think the 750-word challenge is so much fun, and because you're good at executing a scene, I think you could have a blast with trying it. The scores won't be high (my own submission is the lowest-scoring among my own output), but I think it could play into your strengths as a writer! They happen every February, and if nothing else, writing for the contests and challenges is a way to get more eyes on you.

Whoa there, Cowboy, one story at a time. But thanks for the heads up. I should probably set a reminder now, so I’ll be ready then. I always knew my stories would live in obscurity, I just chose this platform for that to happen on. You know, like a comet in the night.

 

[filthytrancendence]

I gave up dissecting numbers years ago, at the end of my career at Dish, really long story, but if you’d be so kind to explain your math please? I’m sure somewhere in the back of my mind, a door will open and I will comprehend what you’re telling me. Then I can analyze my own failures.

There were 2 parts to what I was trying to say (probably badly):

1. Your stats are on the low end of what I'm calling vote percentage. That's the number of votes you're getting in relation to views. .47% of your views resulted in votes. The average from my own stories is 1.48%.
   1. I've heard some folks make a convincing case that this stat is as close as we can get to measuring roughly how many people who clicked on your story actually finished it. A low vote % is likely a sign a high portion of people clicked off before finishing.
2. Your absolute number of ratings (18) is very low. Which means the rating is very volatile. Because of how the rating math works out, a handful of 1 star ratings have a very large impact when you have that few votes.

 

[NickAxel]

There were 2 parts to what I was trying to say (probably badly):

1. Your stats are on the low end of what I'm calling vote percentage. That's the number of votes you're getting in relation to views. .47% of your views resulted in votes. The average from my own stories is 1.48%.
   1. I've heard some folks make a convincing case that this stat is as close as we can get to measuring roughly how many people who clicked on your story actually finished it. A low vote % is likely a sign a high portion of people clicked off before finishing.
2. Your absolute number of ratings (18) is very low. Which means the rating is very volatile. Because of how the rating math works out, a handful of 1 star ratings have a very large impact when you have that few votes.

Thank you for that information. Will I use it in the future to assess my work. I just won’t dwell on it to much. I have more in the works, and of course this knowledge can be incorporated in the future. Hopefully, someday, I’ll produce a work equal to yours.