I've just inched across another milestone: my first story to reach 10,000 hits, "John's Living Nightmare", just inched across today. It's the story with by far the most views, although very low (0.72%) kudoage.
2nd: The first four parts to "A Bikini Beach Summer" with over 5000 hits.
3rd: "BB: A Boy's Visit" with over 4000 hits.
4th: "The Family Council" inched over 3000 hits two or three weeks ago, IIRC.
5th: "Our Daughter's Prom Date" might reach 3000 hits in a few weeks.
Just a bit of trivia for y'all.
Comments
Hits vs kudos
I don't give much value to hits, but I've just checked and out of the 14 stories I have with over 10,000 hits, only 2 of them exceed 100 kudos.
I think the reason is simple. The older the story, the more hits it will get, but readers don't tend to give kudos to old stories.
My most popular stories in kudos are not in the over 10,000 list.
But these are all personal comparisons. I'm sure many authors measure their hits in the 100,000s, whilst others are ecstatic at reaching 1,000. Every hit and every kudos is a success we wouldn't have if we didn't publish on this site.
Old Story
On the one hand, "John's Living Nightmare" is an old story. On the other hand, it's not old on BCTS -- it was posted after "A Bikini Beach Summer". It just kept getting many more hits than the others. The story was originally posted on ASSM.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
I just wish...
There was some measure of how much of the story gets read. A click may mean someone reads the first 20 words and says, "That's rubbish," before clicking the Back button, or they read the story all the way through. I know some sites react when you try to leave a page. Would it be possible to measure how long the page is open before the reader leaves it?
Now that would be an interesting statistic.
Agreed but...
An 18 part story of mine that was published here more than 5 years ago recently had the last remaining part reach 100kp's. Things do edge up over time.
How do readers find them? find you for that matter?
Much of my work is single story pieces. These do appear in the 'Random Solo' choice on the L.H. side of the screen. This may get you a new reader who will then look at your back catalogue etc.
Is this reasoning true? I don't know but I'd like to think it is.
Samantha
Congratulations
First of all congratulations!
My impression is that the most efficient way of getting more hits on old stories is to publish more stories. There will always be readers who are interested in reading more by the same author. From what I've noticed the Random Solo has also had an effect (I usually write solos so I benefit from this). When it comes to Kudos and comments that's a completely different matter. Comments usually come within the first 24 hours (though lately I've had the occasional comment on my old stories as well. Thank you!).
Keep writing and may you be showered by Kudos!