Today marks one year since I posted my first story on BCTS.
A week or so ago Jill warned against analyzing responses to stories, but I have to say that I could not help myself.
I love the kudos feature. I have looked at popularity by these and I see that the lowest is "Big" with 44 and the highest "New Plumbing" with 240.
I confess that I am a little surprised. These are both "voluntary" stories which I don't write too many of, but maybe the more popular one is more romantic?
I have also done my own hits to kudos ratio as perhaps a more accurate assessment. I average 5% across all my stories with the lowest ratio (1.5%) being "All Grown Out" (a personal favorite) and the highest being "Searching".
Today I posted story number 226. I know that I am overly prolific - it is just that my imagination outstrips my concentration.
I know that people want me to write longer stories but for now they roll where they roll, and end where they finish. But with Erin I am working on some things, so who knows.
But the real reason for writing this is to thank all my readers for their attention and their kind comments. I really feel part of a special community of writers and readers, so thank you to all.
Please keep reading and commenting, and if you like my latest perhaps consider going through some of my back catalog for your pleasure? Be sure to comment if you.
With love to you all
Maryanne
First Anniversary
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Stories
Love your stories; some more than others.
Portia
Any Outliers?
You can't be overly prolific unless you're writing the same story over and over again, with insufficient individuation.
Do you have any extreme outliers in your stories stats? Anything like my "John's Living Nightmare" with over 13000 hits? That story is over 5000 hits ahead of the next, "A Bikini Beach Summer" 1-4, itself far ahead of the pack with over 8000 hits. "John's Living Nightmare" is well ahead in my second tier of kudos, but the ratio is only 0.95%. I can think of several things that might be happening:
i kept thinking of words like "explanations" and "reasons", but those explanations require explanation, which I don't have. Even if one in particular is happening, I still don't know why.
I normally dislike putting the hut number in the denominator, as it implies that hits are a negative quantity. However, I have one story with pack hits but low kudos, and a couple stories with low kudos and low hits. The former probably has a large dislikage while the latter probably have low kudos due to low readership.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
We can drive ourselves crazy
when trying to understand the stats from this site.
Just remember that old saying 'There's Nowt as Queer as Folk'.
Queer as in strange.
Sometimes it takes a while for a story to get a following then... suddenly both the hit count, kudos and comments take off.
Take one of mine that was posted in 2012. It has had over 25,000 hits, 25 comments and over 350 kudos points. Yet, it was something that I penned in a bit of a rush and is far from my best piece. Yet... {see above saying}. It also took over a year to get to 100 kudos points.
The moral is, don't fret and worry about the stats. Post what pleases you. YES, YOU! You are the author. If it doesn't work then take note and move on to something else. My current novel is getting very few reads in comparison to most other stories I've penned. That's ok. I know it is different in that it really isn't the mainstream subject matter for this site. i.e. it is more of a traditional love story and it the main character it 60 years old and is not TG.
I really enjoyed writing it and from the comments, I get it does resonate with a number of readers. That is more than enough to carry on posting.
Carry on and keep posting.
You never know what will really be a hit with readers until you try. Keep trying different things. After all, how many cheerleaders, bet/dare/ stories do we need (only joking)?
Samantha
Thanks Daphne and Samantha
I appreciate all encouragement, and generally I accept the readership that get as just that.
Erin tells me that hits may have a lot to do with tags (categories and key words) and I admit that I am hopeless there.
She has the details on the "click triggers" such as words like "reluctant" which I rarely use.
But I am not seeking readers who will be disappointed so I hope that by now the key tag is my name.
I do write for me, but also for the enjoyment of others, so I just like to know that is the effect.
Maryanne