Forum: Author Hangout

Idle musings

TheDarkKnight 🚫

I was bored this morning, so I started doing some math. (Calm down, I said math, not meth). Anyway, not sure how this compares with others, but I discovered that the average number of votes for my stories is 136. The highest is 406 and the lowest is 20, which is what prompted me to find the average.

I started posting 20 years ago, but after 10 years, I hit a bump in the road that kept me from posting for about 10 years. Came back about a year ago, and I've been very active since then. Making up for lost time, I guess.

And over all that time, I have received the grand total of 65 comments, so I don't seem to excite or annoy many readers. That seems to be in line with my scores, which always seem to hover around 7, give or take a few tenths.

Different topic, as I said, I had no activity here for ten years, yet when I came back (thanks to Lazeez for reactivating my account), I was surprised to see that some of my stories were still being viewed. That makes me wonder how readers stumble across old stories.

Replies: Switch Blayde jimq2 irvmull Paladin_HGWT tendertouch Rodeodoc

Switch Blayde 🚫
Updated:

@TheDarkKnight

That makes me wonder how readers stumble across old stories.

Random story on home page.
Results from a Category Search.
Someone finds one of your stories, likes it, and goes to your author page to find others.

Replies: AmigaClone

AmigaClone 🚫
Updated:

@Switch Blayde

Random story on home page?
Results from a Category Search?

A third source might be the "Story Recommendations" portion of this forum.
I have noticed an uptick in downloads of older stories when I have posted a new story or chapter.

Replies: Switch Blayde madnige

Switch Blayde 🚫

@AmigaClone

I have noticed an uptick in downloads of older stories when I have posted a new story or chapter.

That was my third item. In traditional publishing, there's a saying: "Novels sell novels."

madnige 🚫
Updated:

@AmigaClone

A third source might be the "Story Recommendations" portion of this forum.

Better still, the 'Lost Stories' forum - you know it's good enough in at least one person's view to read again and to go to some trouble to do so.

The general listings fall foul of Sturgeon's law:
"ninety percent of everything is crap", that's why I tend to re-re-read ones I enjoyed - I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy them again.

jimq2 🚫

@TheDarkKnight

At the top of the home page is one "Random story from the archives." I end up reading more stories from the archives than I do from the rest of the home page. Then I look at other stories by that author. Many of the random stories are from authors who are no longer posting.

irvmull 🚫

@TheDarkKnight

I find most of the good stories by reading the CRS requests here.

Paladin_HGWT 🚫

@TheDarkKnight

I often click the "Similar Stories" tab at the end of a story. Sometimes there are very old stories among the ten suggested. Sometimes I wonder what the algorithm to determine what makes a story "similar" because some seem quite different.

Replies: Switch Blayde Crumbly Writer

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Paladin_HGWT

Sometimes I wonder what the algorithm to determine what makes a story "similar"

I assumed it was similar story tags. But I have no idea.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Switch Blayde

I assumed it was similar story tags.

That is my understanding too.

AJ

Crumbly Writer 🚫

@Paladin_HGWT

Depending on the story, I have troubles with that (kink factor), as if it has ANY kink tag (ex: incest), all the "Similar Story" recommendations immediately end up the most extreme in the particular category. So now, I mostly avoid it altogether, so I'll probably only use it for non-sex stories from now on. :(

Once upon a time, you'd get a decent balance of stories that way so you could pick and choose which to pursue. Alas, life usually continues in all kinds of odd, new twists.

And yes, it's mostly based on similar tags, yet just like most modern AI searches, it's ANY single tag rather than the particular combination. Again, I'm not familiar with the algorithm or even which stories are eligible to be included in the list.

tendertouch 🚫

@TheDarkKnight

And over all that time, I have received the grand total of 65 comments, so I don't seem to excite or annoy many readers. That seems to be in line with my scores, which always seem to hover around 7, give or take a few tenths.

Does anyone know when the comment functionality was added? I just looked at Building a Better Past, which was posted in 2009, but the oldest comments are from 2018. Or maybe older comments get dropped?

Replies: madnige

madnige 🚫

@tendertouch

Does anyone know when the comment functionality was added?

Looks like it was Dec 2016

Replies: TheDarkKnight

TheDarkKnight 🚫

@madnige

I've always allowed comments, and my first one was in 2006. I seem to remember back in those days, when I was a bushy-tailed new guy, I would occasionally get an email from a reader, but that seems to have gone away.

Rodeodoc 🚫

@TheDarkKnight

During the Covid lockdown days I did random author generation. Picked a random letter from the Author Search line then scrolled and picked an author. If the story was readable, good for me. If not, I moved on to the next author. Found quite a few diamonds among the coal dust.

Reply to topic

Forum: Author Hangout

Idle musings

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...