Who are the important writers on Lit?

[OmnislashXX]

Can we rephrase that as "provides customer satisfaction" and add that to the answer already provided by Green_Knight and Nezhul?

Ah ok, I get it. You're just trying to be a smartass I guess. In which case, no I'll stick by my blunt smartass answer except well, going by the reasoning provided by Tex Mex, Practical Magical, etc. If there by if Laurel is Literotica then the most important writers were the ones who made her want to *fap*.

Take that answer and do what you will with it.

 

[sr71plt]

The most important writers to the Web site should be the ones who currently generate the most response from the readership. Although it doesn't reveal the formula it uses, the Web site provides those stats on the Top Lists and the "most popular" lists on the category hubs.

 

[NicoleZ]

I guess that I would argue that the important authors here are all of them, even the sulky, bitchy, glory hounds that desecrate this forum with their bitterness.

Ahem...

The readership here ranges from low IQ wankers looking for stroke porn to college professors looking for literary genius, and God bless every one of us... we need them all.

So, we need authors who appeal to every depraved one of them.

Excellent!

 

[Hypoxia]

Important? C.f. "delusions of adequacy".

 

[rjordan]

E's only mean one person liked the story and based only on her personal opinion.

W's are popularity contests skewed by countless variables and all based on opinion.

H's are the same

E/W/H are just another stat.

Saying an author is the only one in a category you can read is nothing more than opinion. Also not relating to important, but personal taste.

Lit has 'influential' author in the annuals, but like any contest people don't stop to think about what it really means and just go by popularity.

The real answer-to me-is any author that has helped other authors grow whether on the boards or behind the scenes. That's being important.

What he said.

rj

 

[sr71plt]

What he said.

rj

The OP specifies "from the perspective of the site." (And although I responded to this seriously I do just see this thread as stirring the pot by a gamester.)

I don't see where the site has shown a great deal of interest in authors developing other authors (although I agree that's important). The only place that the question has been directly addressed on the Web site is in a category in the annual "most" voting, which attracts very little attention and is lackadaisically approached at best by the Web site.

Even the contests stress "American Idol" style popularity, not content quality. (The survivor's contest stressed solely quantity.) And my response to the thread dealt with what I thought a Web site should think was most important--what drives Web site profit and expansion, ergo user current response to authors, as shown in stats provided. That's not, of course, necessarily what the Web site owners (with the OP clueless on who owns the place) actually see as most important. It might not be the drawing power of the authors even beyond Literotica, because there was a time when they let a couple of authors go who were very popular beyond Literotica in favor of keeping an attacking gamester on the forum who can't write worth spit but who kept interest up in the forum.

There are times when I think Laurel sees the GB people as the most important writers (writing inflammatory forum posts) to the Web site, and most of them don't even know there is a story aspect to this story site, let alone contribute stories to it.

 

[rjordan]

The OP specifies "from the perspective of the site." (And although I responded to this seriously I do just see this thread as stirring the pot by a gamester.)

When I saw the OP, my first reaction was to answer the leading question. When I read further I thought it was a pointless question since there is no way to know who Laurel considers important writers. So I went ahead and answered the leading question. Well, sort of. I took the easy way out and let LC68 speak for me.

I'm sure Laurel would consider the business aspects of the question, but it's a tough way to make a living, and probably impossible if you don't love it. I doubt cultivating "important writers" is an overriding consideration for her. But there I go trying to answer the pointless question I avoided.

Eric

 

[oggbashan]

Those who don't ask impossible questions that keep being changed.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Ah ok, I get it. You're just trying to be a smartass I guess. In which case, no I'll stick by my blunt smartass answer except well, going by the reasoning provided by Tex Mex, Practical Magical, etc. If there by if Laurel is Literotica then the most important writers were the ones who made her want to *fap*.

Take that answer and do what you will with it.

TEX MEX. I like it. Could catch on.

 

[SusanJillParker]

If you look at this question from the perspective of the site; Literotica, who or what category(-ies) of writer(-s) are the really important one(-s) and why?

Important may be the wrong word choice as important cannot be define by anyone other than Laurel. Who knows who she deems as important just as who knows who she deems as unimportant.

Perhaps you should have asked who are the favorite writers and what are the favorite and most read stories and poems on Literotica. We have lists for that.

If anyone makes it to any one of those favored lists and/or most read lists, they should be proud.

Even then, no matter where we place on any lists, we are all only as good as our last story. Once we stop writing, most fans stop reading.

When readers who open our stories, whether they read it or not, vote at the rate of 1 vote for every 200 hits and comment 1 comment for every 2,000 hits, any author and/or story and poem that makes it to any favored or most read list should be proud of his or her accomplishments.

With favorite and most read lists only holding 250 authors, stories, and poems, and when there are tens of thousands (77,000 I heard), that's amazing to be listed on any one of those favored lists.

Yet, we don't write to be favored or to be the most read. We write because we must. We write for ourselves. We write because we have a story to tell and want to share it with the world and we all bleed when we write our most personal feelings and thoughts.

I'd like to thank my fans, friends, and family for making me the 20th favored author on the most favored author list. (Keep in mind though, that when I wrote as BostonFictionWriter, I was #15 on the most favored list. Yes, I know your finger is blistered from continually pushing the most favored buttons but that's why we have thimbles. Get one and no more excuses.)

Your checks are in the mail...trust me.

 

[SweetValini]

Just joined, so I do not know.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yet, we don't write to be favored or to be the most read. We write because we must. We write for ourselves. We write because we have a story to tell and want to share it with the world and we all bleed when we write our most personal feelings and thoughts.

Going to disagree with this based on how many people here ask questions along the lines of "what do readers like better" as far as short vs long, the amount of sex and everything else you can think of.

There are authors here who obsesses over every angle and base their stories not on what they want to write-or as you say driven to write-but what the readers want so they get max stats.

If that's what they want, that's fine, nothing wrong with it, but at that point they are writing for the specific scores and lists.

 

[Haulover]

...
Perhaps you should have asked who are the favorite writers and what are the favorite and most read stories and poems on Literotica. We have lists for that.
...

I'm more interested to know which author the members of AH consider to be the best writer.

It's very subjective, I know, and there's also the difference between writing well and being a good story-teller.

But I've found that a lot of the authors with high ratings, and who've been "favorited" multiple times, are actually terrible writers.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I'm more interested to know which author the members of AH consider to be the best writer.

It's very subjective, I know, and there's also the difference between writing well and being a good story-teller.

But I've found that a lot of the authors with high ratings, and who've been "favorited" multiple times, are actually terrible writers.

PILETTE is.

I guarantee he wont deny the charge if you accuse him.

 

[lovecraft68]

But I've found that a lot of the authors with high ratings, and who've been "favorited" multiple times, are actually terrible writers.

Sometimes this is true of authors and individual stories with great stats-pf course terrible, like great is subjective-other times that is just hate from those who have had no statistical success here.

Any way I don't think anyone is going to take the bait on that can of worms of who is the best writer here.

 

[Bramblethorn]

What's important on Lit? New stories – and nothing else. 80–90 per cent of all my views come while a story is in the New list and that's probably very common. Lit relies on an endless supply of new stories. The vast majority of readers have no interest in doing searches, etc, to find old stories. Much as we like to think there are gems in our back catalogues, readers couldn't care less. The only way most readers ever get to find our older stories is if they like a new one and are tempted enough to click through to the list of our other work – which, incidentally, they should be able to do in a single click, not two, as now.

The New list is certainly important, but I think you're underrating the back catalogue.

When I post a story, I get a lot of views in the first week (i.e. lifetime of the New list). After that it slows down considerably, but it doesn't stop. For instance, my most recent story picked up 2666 views in its first week, and another 2982 (i.e. more than doubling) in the next 11 months. I'm not aware of anything that would be driving readers to that story so I presume they're finding it by exploring the back catalogue. I do have another story on a toplist; it's possible they're finding that one first and then checking out what else I've written.

Some of the others are a bit slower, and it might take a couple of years to pick up as many views as they did in the first week. But they keep going, slow and steady. I still get the occasional comment or e-book sale for stuff I posted 4-5 years ago. I expect authors who post more frequently than I do would see a bit more action in their old stories, since that makes it easier for people to find them.

 

[sr71plt]

Most of the favoriting of my stories is on back catalog too. I think that having something new constantly, though, helps exploration of my back catalog.

 

[coachdb18]

I disagree. Whatever the product is, if people don't know it exists it might as well NOT exist.

Advertising can sell crap or useless products.

Ogg, before you can advertise, you really MUST have a product and without stories, Literotica would have nothing to advertise.

Gotta go with Oggs on this one, who oddly doesn't go far enough. Fact is, advertising can sell absolutely nothing, given the right pitch. In point of fact, I've always felt there were a lot of hoaxes, and found the idea of the carbon footprint to be such. It was purely for my amusement, but I actually advertised, and sold, a few 'Carbon Footprint certificates'. They had absolutely no value, but that's the point, you can sell Nikes to a horse if you make the case it needs a new pair of shoes.

 

[Green_Knight]

...I think that having something new constantly, though, helps exploration of my back catalog.

There's no doubt that's true. Views of my older stories double, treble, or more while I have a story in the New list. It also helps if one of your stories appears in the Similar Stories list at the end of someone else's new work.

I don't have any statistics on favouriting – I don't bother recording the figures because they're so heavily distorted by its use as a bookmarking mechanism – but my anecdotal observations suggest most of my favourites also come during a story's first week.

 

[Malraux]

I'm not sure how to define important.

I think there have been some very good writers here. I prefer stories with plots, usually in Romance or Loving Wives. Sexual content is not the primary focus for these writers. My favorite authors have been Oshaw, Rehnquist, Dreamcloud, Francesmacomber, and others I'll have to recall. Some are not writing here recently, unfortunately for me.

I hope someday one of my favorites will like one of my stories and comment. So far, I've had some good comments but few from other writers.

 

[Green_Knight]

I'm not sure how to define important.

I think there have been some very good writers here. I prefer stories with plots, usually in Romance or Loving Wives. Sexual content is not the primary focus for these writers. My favorite authors have been Oshaw, Rehnquist, Dreamcloud, Francesmacomber, and others I'll have to recall. Some are not writing here recently, unfortunately for me.

I hope someday one of my favorites will like one of my stories and comment. So far, I've had some good comments but few from other writers.

I very rarely comment using the name under which I write. Firstly, it looks too conceited. Secondly, it invites trolls to target my own works if, for example, I praise a story in Loving Wives.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

I researched IMPORTANT. It started life Latin as an adjective meaning SIGNIFIVANT. But you gotta know the variable the adjective colors. The OP doesn't identify the variable that's significant. Significant rightly belongs to statistics but I wonder when statistics came along.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Statistics came along in the 1500s, in Italy, when PROBABILTY science bloomed.

So IMPORTANT applies to low probability experience.

Important LIT writers are uncommon. But we don't know for what.

In statistics signifiace accounts for 95% of a variable's expression. We're talking CAUSE and EFFECT RELIABILITY.

There fore important LIT writers are uncommon causes of uncommon effects.

What effects are we talking about?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

http://www.themillions.com/2006/01/what-makes-book-good.html

CRITERIA FOR GOOD FICTION.

 

[oggbashan]

If you consider Literotica as a business with a product, then ANY author who provides new product is important to the survival of the business.

All authors, living, dead, or inactive, who have posted stories on Literotica are important to delivering the product.

But when you go further and try to define relative importance then it becomes very subjective. Most popular? Most influential? Best literary content? Best at meeting a specialist audience demand? Contest winners?

All of those contribute. Which of them contributes most? Define 'most'.

The question is impossible to answer.