Why The Low Views?

[tnbnb]

I wrote my first story in a number of years.

I thought it was a good unique story. I have been disappointed at the number of views. In the past my Exhibitionist and Voyeur stories got at least 25,000 views.

I broke this story into four parts. Part one has been up for a week and only has 2,000 views. Part two has just a 1,000 views and part three which went up today does not even have 500 views.

I am thinking that breaking it up into four parts was a mistake. I believe the scoring on part one is a bit lower because the story was incomplete and a lot of people ignore the other parts if they did not read the first part.

I also think the title could have been more catchy.

Any other feedback to get more views?

https://literotica.com/s/a-gift-of-a-special-website-pt-01
https://literotica.com/s/a-gift-of-a-special-website-pt-02
https://literotica.com/s/a-gift-of-a-special-website-pt-03

Part four has been submitted.

 

[KeithD]

The views almost always go down during the progress of a chaptered series. And the size and variability of the readership brings simple happenstance into play on the views of any entry. It happens because chance and variety happen--and the readership tapers off during the unrolling of a series. Readers of former parts lose interest, especially if a lot of time ensues between the posting of parts, and few new readers will start reading in the middle of the story.

 

[Bramblethorn]

The views almost always go down during the progress of a chaptered series. And the size and variability of the readership brings simple happenstance into play on the views of any entry. It happens because chance and variety happen--and the readership tapers off during the unrolling of a series. Readers of former parts lose interest, especially if a lot of time ensues between the posting of parts, and few new readers will start reading in the middle of the story.

Agree with most of this, though three chapters in a week doesn't seem like a long gap between updates.

One of the big chance factors is where the story appears in the New Stories view when it's first posted. If you're lucky it might sit right at the top of the page for hours, if you're unlucky it gets pushed to the second page right away by a ton of other stories. In my experience that makes a big difference to views.

Title/blurb might play a part too. OP's first chapters in that category:

What Happens Here, Stays Here: Four students with little in common room together.
It Is Always the Quiet One: Good girl becomes an exhibitionist while on vacation.
A Gift of a Special Website Pt. 01: A mysterious website changes friendships.

Of those, I think the third one gives a lot less of an indication of what they're going to get from the story. Sometimes curiosity can be a hook, but maybe it didn't work out in this case.

 

[lovecraft68]

Honestly, this seems on par with EV its not a big category. The 25k views the OP said they had on their prior story seems like the anomaly, but maybe the readership was bigger there then?

 

[Bazzle]

In my humble opinion, there was no hook to the next chapter?

Just a quick more regarding your style, you repeat your characters name several times in the same sentence. There is potentially more character development within the paragraphs?

Rather than

Matt left his office in downtown Sydney around 6PM. On the crowded street he passed an old beggar who was being ignored by everyone. For some reason, Matt locked eyes with the man and the intensity and sadness caused Matt to stop and open his wallet. He did not have anything less than a $100 dollar note. Matt hesitated a second and gave the old man the $100 note.

You could write

Matt left his modern high rise office in downtown Sydney just before 6PM. The automatic doors slid open and he stepped from the air conditioned building onto the hot, busy crowded street of people rushing and bustling home, and as he made his way to the station he for some reason, clocked with the corner of eyes an old beggar man who was being ignored by everyone, his face wrinkled and weathered by years on the street, his grey hair twisted, almost matted, and the sight of his penetrating blue eyes with a bright blue intensity but lagged in sadness caused him to stop in his tracks and instantly open his jacket to get his wallet, however within a thick wedge of power receipts it was obvious that he did not have anything less than a $100 dollar note. Matt slid one out between his manicured fingers hesitated a second as he looked at the eyes once more and then with the world still rushing around him, he bent down, smiled kindly and gave the old man the note.

You could try to grab the reader to the situation?

Just my thoughts.

B

 

[Bramblethorn]

Honestly, this seems on par with EV its not a big category. The 25k views the OP said they had on their prior story seems like the anomaly, but maybe the readership was bigger there then?

Also - I wonder if OP is comparing to the view counts those stories have now, or to the view counts they got in their first few weeks. Their other E/V stories were posted in 2013 and 2015, so could be that they started out with similar views and the higher view count now is just that they've had a long time to pick up more.

 

[tnbnb]

Thanks for the feedback.

In hindsight, it was a mistake to break it down in chapters.

Bazzle, while I think I have good ideas for stories, definitely not that skilled of a writer.

Bramblethorm, I don't have the exact numbers of view counts after a few days but it was significantly lower than my past stories. Possibly ten times as low.

 

[NotWise]

Potential readers don't have a lot to go on before they decide to click on your story or move on. Low views may mean that your title and short description didn't catch their attention. Another possibility is that traffic in EV was low at the time.

I looked down the list at the other stories posted on the same day, and they're generally low on views. It looks like traffic may be a problem.

To me, the story's title and short description weren't very appealing. If the readers felt the same way, then that would account for the rest of it.

 

[Bazzle]

Thanks for the feedback.

Bazzle, while I think I have good ideas for stories, definitely not that skilled of a writer.

/QUOTE]

When writing a story, you have to paint a picture in a thousand words, as you don't have the picture to show the reader.

Write what your characters are seeing, what they are smelling, and what they are touching. Bring you reader along with your protagonists. Do they catch their face in the window of the shop, you can then describe what they look like? Does the wind blow their hair? Do they need to scratch their beard?

If you bring the reader with you, they might go on to the next chapters?

I think you should have mentioned the app, before the end of Chapter 1?

B

 

[Agiel]

I wrote a story of 15k+ words and then decided to submit it to Erotic Couplings as 4 chapters. I was disappointed when the best scoring chapter was around 4.20. I deleted everything and submitted it as one complete story as I’d originally intended. It’s on 4.87 at the moment. Just something you might like to consider.

 

[Bazzle]

To be fair I think view counts must be luck.

I have got 5 stories on here. 1 has had over 3k viewers and 2 have had over 2k whilst the final 2 have less than 1k readers.

They have all been published within a few days of each other.

I think it must really matter how long they hang around on the front page before being lost.

We shall see what happens with my latest story, which will be published tomorrow, it being a Friday will more or fewer people read it!

Interesting!

B

 

[sdsioux]

I think

Each part should have something to get the reader to go to the next part.

 

[NicolasBelvoir]

"A Gift of a Special Website Pt. 01" "A mysterious website changes friendships."

Neither the title nor the description make me want to read your story.

 

[AahhWhattheHell]

After reading chapter one I have 4 observations.
1. Chapter 1 is all setup. While the writing style is very good, and I'm sure all this is building to something great, leaving it hang on it's own I'm sure left a lot of readers bored. I.E. not raving about your story. Definitely should have done it in less installments.
2. Tags. You totally left out catchy tags like 'Swinging' 'ffm' 'mmf' 'party' and 'orgy'. Tags like 'Masturbation' and 'couples' IMHO don't grab interest and aren't the focus of chapter one.
3. Title and description. Draw the reader in a title of "Magical Webpage" and a description of "Group finds more that titillation on voyeuristic website." Would have helped immensely.
4. I largely agree with the previous posts, esp. Notwise and Bazzle. Imagination grabbing desgriptions go a long way toward pulling the reader in. (easier said than done)

 

[LdyHoneybee]

I really appreciate this info. There is a last part still to the 5 parter i put up, separated from the others by rl travel. I was very puzzled about the 1000+ readers of the first segment falling off to about 350 of the most recent, the one with the most graphic “activity.” The scores were not bad, I guess. I finally figured out that the low scorer might have been because I turned off the numbers at first but then turned them back on because, since nobody commented on anything, the numbers were the only way I had of knowing if everyone thought everything was just incredibly STUPID and unsuitable.

i do think that, while i intend to finish this one in a final segment, the next story I do will be complete in one. Not that I care about numbers except for the guidance they provide someone who is very new at all this.

 

[April602]

I agree with what was said above and have experienced the same thing. Also now that nice weather is here and covid is over people are spending less time reading. Also depends on day of the week it comes out. Less reads on a week end I find.

 

[EarlyDawn1973]

Thanks for the feedback.

In hindsight, it was a mistake to break it down in chapters.

Bazzle, while I think I have good ideas for stories, definitely not that skilled of a writer.

Bramblethorm, I don't have the exact numbers of view counts after a few days but it was significantly lower than my past stories. Possibly ten times as low.

I was wondering the same thing with view drop off. I released my story in chapters as well and the first chapter was viewed much more and dropped off as the story went on. I did take a bit of time between chapters though. I was considering making my next submission one long story just to see how views go. I liked doing chapters because I thought it would keep readers hanging on and anxious for the next.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

This is how I like to think of it. The first chapter gets viewed the most times. Makes sense, right? Every next chapter gets significantly less compared to the first, but there are still ups and downs. Basically, it is inevitable that some people won't like your story that much, or at all. Some will just read up for a quick erotic fix. But the ones that stick with you, that keep reading the next chapters, are those that your story impacted the most, and those are the readers you should most care about. If you get 500, or 100, or even 20 people that really liked your story, and want to read more, then you truly accomplished something. You should see it as quality over quantity in a sense

 

[SexySandy52]

I was wondering the same thing with view drop off. I released my story in chapters as well and the first chapter was viewed much more and dropped off as the story went on. I did take a bit of time between chapters though. I was considering making my next submission one long story just to see how views go. I liked doing chapters because I thought it would keep readers hanging on and anxious for the next.

In my humble opinion, it needs to be broken down to male/female. I myself loved your story. Even told in chapters. Men, I believe are looking for sex. They look for the sexy parts of the story. Your story was a build up to chapter 4. Men want the bang right away. The farther they have to go, they will drop out. With your story, for me, as Dawn was getting excited so was I.
I'm looking forward to your next submission.

 

[EarlyDawn1973]

Thank you so much for the kind review!!

 

[SexySandy52]

Oh

Thank you so much for the kind review!!

Oh no. Thank you for the beautiful and sexy story. It made my day in a lot of different ways

 

[SimonDoom]

A few specific suggestions, if you want to attract more readers:

1. Get rid of all the introductory stuff. The character list, etc. Nobody wants to read that. Just plunge into the story and hook people with your first paragraph. You don't do that.

2. I think the way you switch from one character to the next might be offputting. it breaks up the flow of the narrative and leaves the reader wondering, "Why?" Exhibitionism stories are best told from one perspective, IMO--that of the voyeur, or that of the exhibitionist. You keep switching it around with a bunch of different characters.

3. Your first chapter doesn't have a sufficient exhibitionist payoff. Readers want that. There's not enough. Chances are many readers gave up by the end of the story and that's why you don't have bigger numbers for this chapter or subsequent chapters.

 

[Truncated_elf]

Depends on if it is strictly views that you are after. If so, it's a question of converting eyeballs into clicks, which has nothing to do with your writing. The metrics for views would be

1.Visibility: How a potential reader will find the story.

2. Title + blurb: This is where your potential reader will decide if they want to spend five to ten minutes of their life reading your story.

For visibility, the only reliable option at the moment I can see is to get to the top of the relevant tags page. Or a collection of tags that people will search for. If you're doing a multi chapter story, I would advise to space uploading them apart so that if a potential reader misses part 1 of 2 or 3, they will find the story through tags for the part 4 and assuming they enjoyed it, seek out the first part. I had accidentally uploaded a story without any tags but uploading the part 2 of it with tags got me an uptick of reads in a couple of weeks.

As for the title and blurbs, try different combinations to see what works. Think of it as the packaging of your story- it has to be either eye-catching to get them curious or informative to let them know exactly what they're getting. A lot of kinks are specific so try to read it in isolation and see if it is something you would be interested in clicking if you are the reader. Odds are if it appeals to you, it appeals to those who share the same kinks as you.

Note: This does not have much to do with the quality of your work. The each successive always will have 30-60 percent less views. That is normal. If your work is good, you should hopefully see close to 30 perfect drop-off.