The results are in!

And technically would have been up like 2 days ago if I hadn't had to debate with myself on one particular issue (we'll get into that later.)

For now, let's focus on how things went down.

This contest got some phenomenal response, peeps. Thank you all SO MUCH for both writing stories, and for reading and voting for them. A big thanks goes out to all the authors who completed entries for the contest especially:

Bobbie C
Maeryn Lamonte
Casey Brooke
Angela Rasch
Melanie Brown
Cheryl Bishop
Nuuan
My5InchFMHeels (not a fan of the name, though :P)
Jennifer Sue
Sigh
Jessica C
Dorothy Colleen
Donna T
Aylesea

A special shout-out also goes to both Rachel M. Moore and Enemyoffun, who began posting tales for the contest but didn't complete in time to qualify. I hope I didn't miss anyone!

Now, for the results. We had some impressive totals overall: it seems like the dropoff in response on most stories tended to be between 1/3 to 1/2 less Kudos on the last part versus the first part of every tale, with the hits roughly lining up with that as well. Due to popular suggestion all we're worried about is average Kudos overall, though, and our top winner there was . . . .

Melanie Brown, with her tale The Texas Belles! There was a lot of controversy over this one, but in the end it still managed to pull an average of 266 Kudos per part.

Congratulations Melanie!

We didn't have one, but TWO major prizes for this contest, so who managed to pull our runner-up prize? None other than . . . .

Casey Brooke's "Doorway to Amaru Meru!" I saw a lot of people recommending this story off-site, so congrats to you Casey on catching people's attention! At 233 average Kudos the race was closer than it probably seems on these.

Congratulations Casey!

Now, for the third "prize" I'd initially offered, namely the Hatbox subscription for the story that lost the lowest percentage of readers from the first part to the last part.

This one is probably the most interesting run of all, and I'm curious what the results of this challenge, both in terms of Kudos and hits, says about site metrics regarding readership, re-readership, and Kudos, though I can't say I'm entirely surprised by the results. On average, reader retention sat at a mean value of 50 percent regardless of story length. What this means for authors is mutable, but can probably be summed up as meaning that a serial or series' readership isn't significantly affected by the length of the tale itself per se, especially given that there was no such consistency found in regards to readership for stories with more parts versus those with less parts.

What surprised me the least, though, is who won. It did give me a conundrum, however, since I could hardly give her the Hatbox sub prize since she is already one of the site's biggest contributors.

Our author with the least amount of reader dropoff is . . . .

Angela Rasch, and "The Womb of the Unknown Cheerleader." At a 67 percent reader retention rate her story managed to beat the odds in more ways than one, both being one of our shortest entries overall and from the author least likely to write a serial/series story in the first place :)

Angie, I know you already have a Hatbox sub, so I'm giving you an option: you can either gift the sub to another entrant you think is deserving or simply leave it as a donation to the site. PM me with your choice, and I'll do whichever you want.

Thank you again everyone who entered our little contest! We saw a lot of creativity this time around, both in the stories and in people's pushes to market themselves to everyone else. I want to give a special mention on that front to both Dorothy Colleen and Bobbie C., who both gave the contest more face time than it might otherwise have had with their efforts to promote votes for their work.

*hugs*

I'll send Erin a PM tonight informing her of the results, and either her or another member of the site's administrative staff should contact our victors in a couple of days about prize delivery. Be prepared, Melanie and Casey: you're both gonna have a few choices to make!

Melanie E.