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This is an old topic but it was brought back to mind today. I once wrote something called 'The Deception of Choice' which was posted in 17 episodes plus an Epilogue. I was pleased to see that today Episode 1 achieved 6,000 hits. Not all of the 6.000 read it of course but arrived at it either by curiosity, mischance, or poor typing skills. I even went there myself several times. Nearly 4,000 have to date dropped in on the Epilogue yet only 2,000 hit on Episode 17, whereas over 4,500 landed on the shores of Episode 14.
It puzzles me. After all it is one story and without some continuity of reading it doesn't make sense. One would have thought that those who didn't like it would have gone no further than Episode 1. Those that, seized with the delusion that it might get better, would have abandoned it around Episode 3, 4, or 5. The few stalwart souls whom it interested, or who were merely curious to discover how bad it could get, would perhaps have struggled on until the end. Death or the onset of blindness would doubtless have thinned their ranks but .... Well why on earth would twice as many read an Epilogue that explains an ending that only half of them had read?
It just reinforces the fact that such statistics are interesting for their insight into the impenetrable nature of the human condition rather than any comment on literary worth.
Hugs,
Fleurie
Comments
Don't forget
Every access to the story counts as a hit. Every time someone writes a comment, every time someone else sees a new comment is available and reads it, and so on. Not to mention people who bookmark an episode so that next time they know where to continue reading from.
Episodes which generate a lot of comments can end up having a large amount of hits registered as people add to the threads and others read the threads.
I've given up trying to figure out how these numbers relate to actual readers. Since the comments are effectively tacked onto the bottom of the story page, I don't think it's possible to discriminate between story readers, comment writers and comment readers.
Penny
I know Penny but ....
.... when the difference runs into thousands? It takes a lot of explaining. Suppose of the initial 6,000 hits 1,000 actually read it. And that 50% - 500 - were beguiled into reading the tale in its entirety. There must have been such a core, however small, of readers who stuck with it and this would provide a constant base.There is still an enormous variation in the remainder of random hits for no apparent reason. I take your point about threads generating hits but surely not on that scale? Not by people who had not read it? Or who had and did not like it?
Hugs,
Hi Fleurie! Remember me? LOL...
Once a story is completed the hits climb again. We have a lot of readers who wait until a series is completed before they will read it.
If the story is good, they keep on reading long after the initial posting. :)
One of the reason I'm refraining from adding any more new stories until all of my older, unfinished stories have been completed.
Huggles Fleurie
Angel
"Be Your-Self, So Easy to Say, So Hard to Live!"
"Be Your-Self, So Easy to Say, So Hard to Live!"
Lowest Common Denominator
The first chapter and epilogue or final chapter of my stories always receive the largest number of hits primarily because of people peeking in to see if a story is to their liking, (prologue or first chapter) or to see what other people said, (last chapter or epilogue). In order to get a feel for how many people actually read a story once it's done, I look for the the chapter with the fewest number of hits and multiply that number by .9 since some people do come back to read comments or re-read the chapters once a story is done.
Other than having people sign a form listing their last name first, first name second, middle name last, their email address, home address, home, work and cell phone number, social security/National Heath Insurance number, their mother's maiden name, their father's maiden name, their favorite color, the air speed of an unladened swallow and the color or their eyes (both of them), verifying they have read the story only once in order to determine the actual number of reads in well nye impossible to determine how many individual carbon life forms have actually read a story from beginning to end.
I don't allow myself to get all wrapped around the sprocket about such things any more. People will read what they wish. As my old room mate used to say, "You can lead a horse to water, but a rolling stone gathers no moss." (I never figure it out either, but it always sounded good after a few drinks).
Any who, ya'all have a nice day, ya hear?
Nancy Cole
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
You Misunderestimate Your Drawing Power
"Deception Of Choice" was/is a great story, and regardless of how the hits happen who can fathom the method or madness of the reading public?
I can only observe that the first episode of a story usually seems to garner the most hits, with a gradual decline as the story progresses and an apparent upsurge at the final chapter (or epilogue or whatever). This is analogous to people who start a book and are either too impatient and read the end to find out what happened, or get bored and do the same thing, skipping the middle.
6000 down to 4000 sounds pretty good to me. I'm jealous, but then I don't write as well as you do. My advice, Fleurie, is to bask in the sunshine of the admiration of (average) 5000 readers and don't worry about their esoteric reading habits.
And by the way, you've been a bit slack lately!
Joanne
If you post a story in episodes over time,
new readers will often see a new episode, click on it, then use the quick select on the right to get to the last episode they read.
If a user bookmarks an episode in their browser and their browser is set to verify pages every time it starts, it will kick your hit count too, every time they get on the internet.
The possibilities are almost endless.
About the only indication you can make about readers vs. "page hitters" is when the numbers across episodes are fairly consistent. I realize this doesn't address your question. I guess you realize that I have no answers either, I just like to blather on!
Hugs
Carla Ann
I added one
When I went to the first chapter and realized that I already read your story. I think maybe that might explain some of the reads, Arecee
Hits? Might as well debate lottery numbers
I click on lots of stories first thing in the morning to see whether anything is worth reading. I come back later in the day to read the worthwhile ones. I go for a coffee break, but don't want to leave the site open. I don't have time to read it all so I come back later - several times, actually. What did the protagonist say in Chapter One? I click back and find out.
Series? Oh yeah. I remember the name but what was it about? Did I enjoy it?
All of these and more mean that hits carry very little value. Of course, getting 6000 hits is better than 1000, but not six times more.
I used to love the votes feature on this site. Now it's gone, I have a do it yourself one, by creating an extra page called "Story name - Enjoyed". I initially called it "Vote" but that got fewer responses.
Now for the meat: On my Pudding Club serial six chapters released over as many days, I got the following hits per chapter (in thousands): 3.2, 3, 2.5, 2.3, 2.3, 2.7. I put in a page of author notes, which got 1.4, and a Votes page which got 0.4 (371 to be exact).
So with 2251 as the minimum chapter hits, only 371 people voted for it. In comparison, my Witches of Eastcombe got 1643 hits and 952 said they enjoyed it. Incidentally, the highest number of votes I got for any story under the old system was about 65, so my own measurements are getting many more responses.
My conclusion? Hits are pretty meaningless. If you want to get some kind of measure of popularity, do as I do and create your own Enjoyed page. You can see how it works if you go to the Witches of Eastcombe.