Hits, Reads and Kudos
"Oh no! Not again," I hear you saying. But I do have some fresh data I would like to present which, I feel, is worthy of comment.
Like most writers on this site, I publish because I like others to read and enjoy my work - the more, the better.
But quantifying how many readers do that is always difficult. Clearly, the comments are never going to give you that kind of information, no matter how hard they are promoted. Personally, I find the warm buzz I get from reading the positive comments is more than outweighed by the discouragement I feel at reading the occasional negative ones, so much so that I now publish my stories with comments turned off.
Clearly, hits do not equate to reads. I reckon I probably only read about 5% of the stories I hit upon, usually giving up within a few paragraphs of starting, so in the past as a rough measure I have divided the number of hits by 20 to approximate the number of reads.
With my recent story republication of a Decade of Big Busts, I have been monitoring a few figures on a daily basis, and found some interesting facts. Following publication of Decade, the hits for the already published story which alphabetically followed it went from typically 0 or 1 hits per day up to 30% of Decade's hits, and a link I'd inserted to another file (Big Busts - A Review) received 15%.
From that, I surmise that 30-45% of people who click on Decade are reading it to the end, enjoying it so much that they want to read more and clicking on one (or both) of the links at the bottom. Clearly, there will also be people who enjoy the story but do not choose to read another of my stories at that moment (after all, Decade is 18k words). So, it seems a reasonable guess that about half the people who clicked on Decade, read it to the end and enjoyed it.
Now, here's the rub. The number of Kudos I'm getting for Decades is 1.5% of hits! So for every 100 people who appear to enjoy the story, 97 of them can't be arsed to click on the "Good Story" button.
I'm intrigued to know why and I suspect that some of you reading this blog fall into that category, so please tell me. I'm not out to draw blood, or even get readers to click on the Kudos button in retrospect, but I'm trying to understand how I can get a reasonable measure of the number of satisfied readers.
Comments
you can't
Unfortunately you can't get a gauge unless you ask Erin to give you a list of how many unique IP addressees clicked your story... that will give you at least an idea of individual hits as opposed to people who reloaded the story, came back to it at a later time, or commented (because you load the story again). This however doesn't let you know how many people liked your story, and yes, Kudos only give you a fraction of the total. My rule is I multiply my Kudos by 10 (or if I'm ego maniacal 100). I also gauge by quality of comments (and i've gotten some real good ones). Also, and I know this annoys some people, I don't respond to every comment, because that is a way to inflate the comment number and I don't want to do that just to say "Thank you for enjoying my story." I think the thanks is implied.
Now... as for your concept that people like your work so much that they load the next story alphabetically... sorry. I actually spent some time to figure this out. What happens is some browsers automatically load and cache links from a page so when you click on them they load faster. When that happens the software registers a hit and marks it. Thereby inflating the number. If you look at my stories, you will see God Bless the Child (title page) has almost 11k 'reads' but the first real chapter has 4400. I know the 4k is more accurate because the title page offsets the skewed number. I don't know how many people read the story, but i know how many times it was accessed. On a related note though A Christmas Diary (title page) has 8800 hits and chapter one has 8600 and the final chapter has 3200, which is how a lot of my stuff goes as people lose steam from the story and I know people also go back and read the earlier chapters to refresh their memory.
Now a little confession... Though I named my last story It's a fluffy pink Christmas little Katie, I purposely titled it "Fluffy pink Christmas" to inflate the God Bless the Child title page hits because i was 200 away from 10k and I thought that would look cool.
I still think comments are the best way to tell how successful you are doing though. I get nasty comments, but sometimes I am expecting them from content. Sometimes i am surprised at the lack of reaction I get when I am expecting some. Case in point... In Finding Jenny I have the good pastor make some comments that are anti-homosexuality and i was expected to be called out on it, it never happened. Go figure. I also get my share of private messages telling me how wonderful my stuff is (and maybe one or two that tell me to go hell for harming gatorade bottles). It helps to know i'm appreciated and rarely do I get upset (except when Stanman told me my grammar was horrendous and someone else told me I got off on abusive situations)
K.T. Leone
My fiction feels more real than reality
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
Comments
Having people ding me because of my spelling, which is not what it should be is one thing. I know I am guilty of some real howlers when it comes to that. What does get my Irish, (and Welsh and Dutch and German), up is;
- Being accused of being a racist because of the way a character response in the midst of a story or the use of the word 'niggardly,' which means to be stingy, miserly.
- Being accused of being an anti-semite. (Oye vey! You've got to be kidding!)
- Being accused of being ant-muslem.
- Having people use comments to promote some looney political agenda that has nothing at all to do with the story.
- People who use comments as a means to demonstrate they're smarter than me and everyone else, especially when dealing with history.
While most people use comments to actually discuss the story, the characters and the subject being addressed, or tell how the story relates to their own experiences, a handful of people with little thought or regard for either the author or the reader seem to enjoy, I say again, enjoy, sticking a sharp stick in everyones' eyes in an effort to raise a stink or satisfy some need to be a royal pain in the land down under.
And then people wonder why so many authors have dropped out of sight. Oh well.
Okay, I'll step off my soapbox and allow you to continue enjoying TS/BC.
Nancy Cole
I agree
Nancy, although I've had nothing like these kinds of criticisms, this is the very reason why I turn off comments.
People are still free to PM me, and I do get some nice comments by PM, but I guess the type of people who give negative criticism are much more inclined to write on a public notice board than have the honesty and courage to send a message directly to you.
In any case, it's the public criticisms which are with a story for ever more which I find so objectionable. Yes I know Erin will remove them if I ask, but I hate burdening her with yet more work.
When people take issue with
When people take issue with what I say or write I laugh at them and challenge them to an argument. It's more fun to pick them apart rather than let them think they won.
Browsers caching links
In those cases where browser caching does happen, you would expect that all the links on a page are equally hit, so the link with the lowest number of hits - in this case, the title page with 113 hits - will tell us the maximum number of times this has occurred. That still leaves an additional 24% of hits going to the next story , and an additional 11% of hits to the additional file.
Whilst those figures are reduced from my initial hypothesis (previously 30% and 15% respectively), if we include the people who enjoy but don't click on another link (including some of those where browser caching has redundantly taken place), it's still many times more than the 1.5% of people who give a Kudos.
Hits or reads and comments
Please remember that simply clicking on "Add new comment" -- or even "Reply" to comment -- adds one extra read (or hit), while previewing and then posting will add at least another one. So for each comment you should substract at least 2 hits. And it seems that editing a comment will also add to the read counter.
Though I will stand to be corrected by Erin or others who have the knowledge of the inner workings of the web framework that BCTS is built on. These are just my observations of the counter behaviour as a simple user/reader of this site.
Jessica
Comments turned off
In this case, I have comments turned off, but I fully accept that some readers will take a break from reading and then return and re-click on the story.
Kudos
Regretfully I sometimes get so wrapped up in stories that I forget the kudos. Getting better though...
Kudos
Of course, sometimes the simplest explanation is the correct one: the button just doesn't work.
I've read a nmuber of stories where I've reached the end and the button has been greyed out. No rhyme or reason to it at all, may be one story in several I've read in the same session, maybe more.
Sometimes the button is available, and I click it, and it depresses... and absolutely nothing happens.
I think Erin will tell you this is an on-going bug somewhere in the software. Anyhows, that's why not all the stories I read end up with a Kudos, unfortunately.
Penny
I guess I don't write for the comments or kudos
It always amazes me that people like my stories! I write because I can't stop, and because it's fun! Yeah, it's a huge ego boost to read people's comments. Even those that are a little negative, because I figure they must have a least READ the story!
I do try to take suggestions (as in this last week, when people made some interesting comments and PMs, which has thrown me into a real mess trying to continue along the course I had kind of planned-but I'll get it, honest!). I love Katie's idea of multiplying kudos times 10-but is it anywheree near accurate? Nah, but it's still fun to think!
If anything, my way to judge the reaction is to look at my old stories. When I post a good one, the hits on my old stories goes up. I'm guessing people liked my new stuff, and want to check out what else I've done (which is cool!).
Some people will get a lot of hits from me. Little Katie must have seen that God Bless the Child got quite a few when I helped out a little on it, because I kept going back and forth, reading points I might have missed. It's the same for the sequels, as I work on those (although I confess, I haven't done a whole lot this last week. Wild Magic just got me too frazzled!)
Write because you love it, or because it makes you happy to see that you made someone smile (although with comments off, you won't know that!). Inaccurate numbers don't mean anything, so don't judge yourself by that. As I said, it makes me feel good just to know I made someone feel something. That's when I know I did good!
Wren
I write because I love it...
I write because I love it...
...but I publish because I want others to enjoy what I write - the more, the better. It's getting some objective measure of that which I'm interested in.
Not objective
There really is nothing in any of these feedback systems that was even designed to be an objective measurement. When you are dealing with people's emotions and opinions I don't think it can be done, short of lie detectors and truth serum. It would be like polling the people leaving one of those old porn theaters. If they liked and enjoyed what they saw they still wouldn't say so in public.
BTW, I'm not comparing your stories to porn! I read what I like, based on checking the keywords posted. If I find out the author has deceived the readers then I get annoyed. Play it straight with the readers (as you do) and if I like something I'll try and say so. If I don't like it, then I'll just be one of those anonymous mouse clicks. (I'm trying to be a good girl these days and post less critical comments.)
Karen J.
* * *
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. - Winston Churchill
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Remember
only members can vote, those who are just browsing the site or not signed in, can't vote. As a lot of readers don't bother to register or sign in, could explain disparities between reads and kudos.
Angharad
Angharad
And there are many more...
...guests than users, usually
An unscientific assessment takenover a few hours suggests that the ratio, of those unable to award Kudos to those who can award them, rarely drops below 3:1 and at worst gets up to about 6:1.
Thus (and very simplistically), at best only about 25% of your hits can result in Kudos even if the story is very well received - and the overall ratio is probably in the region 15% - 20%
Xi
Sometimes I forget to add a kudos ...
... when I've also commented but that's a failing in me. There was some research published recently that brains start to deteriorate from the age of 45 and I'm well beyond that :) I try to push 'Good Story' every time I enjoy a story - and that's about all I actually finish.
I usually try to IM Charlotte about a story to offset the lack of commenting because I like her stories. She writes about my youth looking at McGill (look him up and you'll see what I mean) postcards on the racks in Skegness. East coast Skeggy is very different from SW coast Seacombe topographically but has essentially the same elements of a post-war English (not British) slightly saucy holiday resort. I suspect relatively few here will have similar backgrounds. I think she should enable comments. Any nasty negative ones could only come from nasty people; that's not to say comments should only be complimentary, just that they should be constructive.
There never will be a better way of assessing stories. Hits are just that and may not relate to reads. Kudos are perhaps a better estimate but comments are the best of all. Even then, they may not measure the quality of the tale nor the writing but merely the most popular preferences of the readership. For example I never even open a story which has 'superheroes', 'Whately Academy' or 'Comic Retcon' as one of its features. That#s not because they aren't well-written, imaginative stories; it's just that they don't suit my personal prejudices.
I'm looking forward to new stories from Charlotte but I'll reread the older ones if there's no other option :)
Robi
Turning off comments
Hi Robi
and thanks for your continual support.
Something I would add for others' benefit is that turning off comments does not prevent anyone from commenting. They only have to click the Write to Author link to do just that (as you invariably do). The only difference is that their comments are not public material permanently associated with the story.
I was remiss in my latest story in not pointing that out in an author's endnote, but I will rectify that in future.
As regards new work, I am up against a continual drain on my time from real life. A few years ago, I had little to do except write, but now I have been volunteered into lots of other things. My writing has to be squeezed in amongst lots of other jobs and consequently suffers.
No offense intended
No offense intended Charlotte, but as a part of an explanation, my read time is limited. I will browse the titles, and if none of them grab me or if the posting is a story I started and rejected (and I will not open subsequent chapters since I didn't care for the first) I move on to author/titles I find interesting, stories I have started and found to be worth my time, or exit the site.
It's just like browsing in a book store. I buy far fewer books than I open and read a few pages of, then return to the shelf if it doesn't seem like I will care for it. And authors of books I like I will check/go to first. In the case of your Decades story, the title turned me off big time sounding more like some contribution to a girlie mag at the soft core porn shelf in a convenience store than a story I wanted to read. The content might be totally different to the title, but I passed it up, so did not form any part of the statistics you are looking for other than the number of hits in the negative since I did not open it.
I have read a few stories of yours that I liked and clicked Kudos on them, so it is not about your talent so much as it is about me and my preferences. I likely miss good stories that way, but as I said, my read time is limited.
Thanks for your efforts in any event.
CaroL
CaroL
I use a different formula
When I see comments I'm really pleased, but at times what is being said can become a pain in the ass. I realize that when I post a story. Not everyone is going to like it, but I write what I do because I like what I write about. A case in point, Assassin is well received, but not with a bunch of reads. I look at the total of the last one or two chapters to tell me how well a story is being read. The first part might have five thousand reads, but the last one or two have only around fifteen hundred, which tells me around a thousand readers have taken the time to read the whole story. I don't mind, because as I stated on FM if you were looking for another TG novel this wasn't the story to read. Several comments mentioned that the story could have been done with a woman, but I thought the TG angle helped the story line. Now as I mentioned, the formula for comments. I take the number of hits divided by the comments to tell me what I want to know. How well is the story being received? The ratio is what I look at. I'll be Home For Christmas garnered around one comment for every eighty hits, but has changed since the last comment was made. Other stories have had one hit per thousand and others per hundred, so what this says is that a particular story had resinated with the readers. I personally think Assassin is a hell of a novel, but as stated earlier, maybe it doesn't belong here. Ones such as Show me the Princess does. Yes I know I placed two titles up as one, but both stories are much alike and were very well received. Oh well time to get off my high horse and take down the Christmas decorations and hopefully I'll receive kudos from my wife, Arecee
Short answer: you can't.
Hits and reads are not the same thing. If you click a story it'll say you've "read it" in the figures but you could have clicked it by mistake, quit after the first sentence, went back to the page because you wanted to check comments, etc. Hits are very misleading and I don't think they're much to be looked at. If you want to count hits then I think a good method is to assume a lot of them are double clicks, stopped reads, etc. Subtract 50% and use that number as your base.
Furthermore, if someone re-reads a story but they've already given it a "kudo" then they cannot give it another kudo. This means that the ratio between kudos to hits will widen. You'll have more hits than kudos.
Kudos is a good button but some people forget to hit it. I known I've been so engrossed in a story that I've left it thinking about the characters and what could happen next. Not bothering to read the comments, just lost in my own little world. Only later do I sometimes realise I never hit that button and go back to click it. I wonder how many great stories I've read on here where I forgot to click it? Probably quite a few. People can get distracted easily on the computer.
Last, and probably most depressingly of all, lack of kudos could mean people actually legitimately didn't like the story for some reason. They may have read it through and said "that ending was disappointing" or "this didn't go where I wanted it to" or "I've been misled" and refuse to click the button on those grounds. Whether or not they're baseless accusations is beyond the point.
It's not really a 'laziness' thing. There really are many factors that account for hits and kudos. None of those are good indicators over an enjoyment of the story or even a lack of enjoyment. Comments are the best indication, I should think. Honest, un-censored, feedback. If you want feedback you need to encourage people to PM you or comment on your stories. Turning them off won't help. If all you want is happy "I love your work so much" comments then you will be sorely disappointed. People can be harsh, harsher still when anonymous, and harsher sounding when text is read without emotion. Things sound ruder in writing than they do in the mind of whoever is writing it.
If you want an indication of enjoyment you need to do several things: keep comments on, encourage PMs, and either ignore the harsher criticisms (if you think they're groundless, as many are) OR try and learn from them. Pause and consider if they're groundless or not. Some people troll; some people legitimately wish to offer advice.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
not possible
i find it hard to believe that anyone could not like my stories. the fact that i know i am on several people's avoid at all cost; including the owner/operator of the site means nothing to me. But i am usually not on the do not read list because of bad writing but because I write too well and people don't want to go through the emotional ringer. Problem with that is that not everything i do is a tear jerker and some really sweet stories that people would enjoy get overlooked and passed by. I would suggest a new rating system... S- Sad, A-Anger inducing, F-Fluffy, V-Violent, GBI= Gator Bottle injuries. This would help people decipher what i write.
K.T. Leone
My fiction feels more real than reality
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
It is possible.
Well, I dislike stories with a huge emphasis on religion. It makes me uncomfortable to read about little children going through heavy religious indoctrination. Because of that I do like some of your stuff and not others. Like and dislike, though, are not indicative of writing ability.
Hits, Reads and Kudos
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May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Truth to be told I can't
Truth to be told I can't really understand your problem with negative comments... I guess you mean "I didn't like it, because" and other critic with "negative". I guess first would show me what people think about it and why they think like it about it and the second might actually help my style.
None the less, kudos for your decision to deactivate comments. It's not like people can really bash stories here and if you don't like what people write in comments it's only fair to prevent them from writing. I guess few people really intent to insult or hurt someone with comments and it totally sucks for everyone if it happens.
I don't know, but it would be nice if people who are really sensitive about it could warn or something.
Kudos??? Who knows!!!
I'm a little fuzzy on the entire kudo thing. I have read stories that deserve a kudo because, whether I like, or enjoy, the story or not, they are well written and well delivered pieces of literature. Inversely, I have seen more kudos on stories that are obviously the work of writers with a severely curtailed lower school education then on other works. Indeed I have seen more kudos on one of these 'interesting' pieces than on several well written works. Are these awards simply a popularity contest? I am a newbee and wish to be 'enlightened'. I do find this site to contain a higher level of literary accomplishment than most of the others offering TG/TV/CD/Whatever writings. :)
Becca
You can't measure comments by weighing them
...nor by counting.
Comments may be positive, negative, non-committal, and sometimes go off into conversations almost unconnected with the story. At best, they represent the views of the vocal few rather than the silent majority. Yet so often, we see authors on these blogs bewailing the lack of comments for their latest story, as though none of the hundreds or thousands of hits recorded have actually gone on to read and possibly enjoy their story.
In this blog, I wanted to find an objective way of measuring the silent majority, but I've been surprised how many respondents have told me to ignore the majority and listen solely to the vocal few. Indeed, some have said it's impossible to measure the majority.
I beg to differ; it's simply a matter of finding the best way.
I thank all those who have given me food for thought, particularly those who have explained some of the technical issues involved.
Reasons to be cheerful, part n
This is a discussion that seems to come up very regularly, so all I will do here is restate my own position.
I appreciate the press of the 'kudos' button, but it gives no information. Comments are personal. I do not get huge numbers of readers, but said numbers are consistent. There is a small hard core of people who like my stuff, and that gratifies me. They leave comments, and I see their names, and I smile. Now and again, however, somebody I haven't seen before comments, and that lets me know that it isn't just a select fanbase of addicts, delightful as they are, but a wider group, many of whom haven't felt the need to pass comments before.
That is a real reward: that I have managed to stir a Silent Reader enough to pass comment in public.
Okay....
Counting Confessing
When I'm worried, maybe restless too?
I count my comments...wouldn't you?
And then I find myself
obsessing on comments!!!
When my hit count starts growing small
I think of when I had no hits at all
and keep things in perspective
while looking at kudos
I try to write for fun and sometimes
I think that I succeed
but then I look at hits and such
and forget just what I need
So if you're worried and upset too
you'll find a lot of us think like you
and you'll know you're not alone
counting those comments!!!!!
Dio vi benedica tutti
Con grande amore e di affetto
Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
Numbers
OK, there are stories I start but never finish. Sometimes I go back and give a second chance, but not often.
Then there are the stories that I finish but am left feeling cold. The worst of this batch are the ones that leave me feeling worse than when I started, I read to help break my depression. I will not click Kudos nor will I leave a comment. Actually I will occasionally leave a comment if it can be positive and try to help the author to improve
Then there are the stories I like. They get clicked. If they don't it is because I am human and forgot. I tend to bookmark them so I can find the author again.
Then there are the stories I really, really like. They get both a comment, a click, and a first time bookmark.
The two latter categories leave me feeling better than when I started. I do not like brainwashing stories, forced fem where the protagonist is left a TG, identity death (it feels like death to me), or the protagonist becomes a monster who happens to resemble female.
I read to escape my life, I place myself in the protagonists place. If a MAU dropped into my reach there is very little doubt who I would use it.