About a month ago, I posted the second Jessie Hanks story to this site. It didn't get near as many reads as the Eerie stories usually get, and the second part got a lot less than the first part did. The two parts only got a couple comments.
I'd like to know why.
It isn't that people don't like my work. As a test, I posted "Vengeance" a week ago. It got a lot more reads and a heck of a lot more comments. Even if two of those comments were about my lousy spelling of an unfamiliar word.
Chris and I keep getting comments and questions about our Eerie stories, how much people enjoy them and how much they're looking forward to the next installment. A lot of folks say that Jessie is their favorite character.
Then we post a new installment and nothing.
We're gearing up on the writing of "Eerie Saloon: Seasons of Change -- Summer." It has a bunch of new characters and new plotlines, as well as the continuation of existing plotlines. It's a lot of work, and it's going to take us a while.
But, is it worth it if we don't get any feedback?
What did we do wrong with "Cameo Murder", the second Jessie Hanks story? Why did the readership fall off after part one, and why were there so damned few comments?
I would seriously like to know.
Very Seriously.
Comments
One thing
The lowest activity on the site is usually some five-to-eight week period between May and September. It's not always the same time each year but some time between May 1 and July 5, activity will drop off. And some time between July 15 and September 15, activity will pick back up again. Your post of the Jesse Hanks story was near the very beginning of this years doldrums. Similarly, sometime between October 1 and March 31, there will be a six-to-ten week period of intense activity every year. No explanations for this occur to me.
Normally, there are between 30 to 80 people logged in on the site during the period from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. E.T. During the doldrums this hovers around the low end. During the boom time, it spends more time at or above that peak number. I've seen it go as high as 200 or more at 5:30 PM ET, Monday afternoon, which is close to the peak of the week. But not in midsummer. In midsummer, the peak is more likely to be Saturday or Sunday morning.
Not a complete explanation, of course, but one piece of data.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Keep in mind that in the US,
Keep in mind that in the US, most public schools let out in May or June. Then, they pick back up in late August to mid-September. Anyone who is associated with children in school will likely be distracted at this period of time. It's also the most common 'holiday' period for those same people.
I'm not saying that this IS the reason, but it's a possible reason why you see the doldrums and then the upsurge.
To reply to Ellie - For me, personally, I haven't been in the right mindset to re-read through the Eerie stories, so that I can read the latest ones. I get in moods where I read certain types of stories. Sometimes it's "dumb but entertaining, requiring no thought", other times it's "This makes Moby Dick look like an easy read". For fantasy historical western, that's a specialist category - and lately I've been reading standard SF/F. I certainly _like_ the series, I just haven't read it to comment, and my commenting has been down this last year anyway.
I certainly appreciate all the work you've put into it.
BW
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
love eerie saloon
love eerie saloon and read Jessie's second story while I was in the hospital for a little over 4 months, your story helped me. I rarely comment because I am not good at it. right now I am half way through re-reading eerie saloon stories. I wish the stories you have not yet written was already out. I just have to wait, poor me.
Summer is ...
the worst time of the year for me in my job, so much to do and so little time to get it done in. When I get home I am lucky to actually eat something before I pass out from exhaustion. It shows in both the amount of updates to my own stories and the amount of comments I write. This is not because I don't enjoy the stories I read here, it's due to the fact that most my reading is done on my phone in bits and pieces during my normal work hours while I wait on some program to compile or software to install.
While I don't have the time to write a lengthy comment over my phone, I do make sure to hit the kudo's button at the end of a story that I liked, and let me say that the Eerie saloon stories are some of my favorites! I hope you never tire of writing them because I will never tire of reading them!!!
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Barrow, AK?
Barrow, AK?
If not, you have nothing to complain about ;-)
Especially regarding seasonal work :-)
And yes, contemporary compilers kill all of the the 70s romantics of submitting your stack of cards for compilation before going off for your weekend :-)
Another possibility works with Erin's
The way the site is designed, it's very easy for a story to get pushed down the list if it's posted at the wrong time. If that happens, and someone has been distracted and away from the site for an extended period because of the summer holidays (even as much as a day away), a new posting can just slip down and disappear "below the fold" on the home page. If people don't know it's there, they won't look for it. I've had it happen before.
Now that you've posted this blog, I expect folks will seek out both parts and their numbers will go up. *smile*
Randa
I have noticed that stories
I have noticed that stories posted at 11 pm eastern time will usually be visible on the front page until nearly the same time the next day.
stories posted early in the day can get push off the front page on some days, though at this time of year a full week is usually displayed.
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
Woe to us....
...living 8 hours or more from any of the US times... Only on weekends there is a chnce to be more or less sure I had not missed some story....
How our resident dormouse handler (I remember post about getting official license!) copes,with daily postings even with "no bike tonight" chapters included :-)
Surely, the key issue for any
Surely, the key issue for any long running series is whether you are picking up new readers as you go, or you're reliant on the readers who started Series 1, Episode 1 sticking with you until the series finally ends.
Stuff happens to people. They get ill, they change partners and jobs, their tastes change, etc, so if you're not picking up new readers, you're gradually going to have reduced readership.
As a new reader, I'd want more help from the author to inaugurate me into the story. I didn't even know it was part of another series and couldn't understand the bit about Jessie's aim. Perhaps a "New readers read this" section or more explanation of things which have previously happened.
Certainly, you use well written English which flows well. I think you could attract more readers if you think of their needs.
Charlotte
Maybe
Maybe they didn't know it was a Erie Saloon story ? I PM you telling you if you did not know the Erie Saloon back stories you might get lost , I loved them and so did we who follow your writings . Some people just missed out on a great story . Maybe they are some of the newer readers and don't know your stories?
HUGS
Why so few comments?
It's amusing to see how a simple question of "why so few comments" gets a lot more comments than a whole 200 page story. Well, it does take a lot of time to consume 200 pages. When I see a very long story I tend to put it off and put it off, and might not get to it for a very long time. And, yes, I also find it is hard to begin reading a series several episodes into its run. But that can't be the whole story.
My stories (solo Christopher Leeson tales) also haven't been a big draw for comments in a long time. It seems not to make any difference if they are long or short. I always end up asking myself the same questions that Ellie has asked. Being a senior citzen, it may be that I am out of touch with the trending interests of younger readers. So, is it a content problem? A style problem? Does my generational persona come across incongruously with the times? I lately put up a new story at BC of only 12 pages, a quick read, and still it got only 1 comment. (I added a 2nd comment myself, answering a point raised in the first letter). And it was posted in November, not during the doldrum months of summer. It was, admittedly, a Zhor story. As a Gor fan I find the setting cool, but I suppose such a universe is not to everyone's taste. Yet Aardvark's full length Zhor novel, "The Warrior of Batuk," drew wide interest at BC during its long run. (I'm not just talking about this site; to name another, over at TFTG Show the comments [positive or negative] don't come in either.
For generating discussion, my early stories on usenet in the 90's did better than anything more recent. I'm still writing the same things I was writing then, the sort of tg stories that I'd like to read myself. The cliched, underdeveloped tg ebooks that overwhelm Amazon.com are the sort of things that don't ring my chime. (I won't bother with even a good-sounding plot if the author thinks he can develop it with a low page count. A few pages for set up, a few pages for denouement, how much is left to a 20 page story?). But there still are things out there I really like. I think that what Olga Turlovna and Cordellian are doing on Gor offer the best reading I've found at FM in years. Lots of other people like them, too, so my taste can't be too awful. (I wish more people were doing fully developed tg adventure stories. I was just thinking about a pirate plot today).
The truth is, if I didn't love writing, it wouldn't make me work too much harder even if I got a hundred comments on each story. It is some internal drive and motivation that keeps me working at this craft. Yet, like most people, I always have a happier time of it when I have tangible proof that my work is being seen and appreciated. By the way, I plan to have another story posted here by Christmas this year. (And for a while I have been wanting to do another episode in the "Dark of the Moon" universe. But impulses like those come and go. We'll see.)
For me, I have to be in the
For me, I have to be in the right mood to read your (both of your) stories. I haven't been in that mood for a year or two. No clue why, it just comes and goes. As for commenting, I think that serial stories get more comments as people wonder what's happening next, and in a few cases, the comments can lead to changes in the story. Once the story is finished, it's harder to find something really worth writing about, other than 'bravo!', which a Kudo does faster. It can be especially hard when we're told that you can't say what you didn't like about a story, only what you did like. I understand the reasons behind it, I'm just explaining.
Commenting on a blog post is easier, because it's more real-time, and there's not as much invested in the original post.
As for your writing? Things change. You could always try posting on StoriesOnLine, and see if you get any reaction there, or more readers.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.