Forum: Author Hangout

I don't believe any author writes his stories for readers' scores.

Given the machinations that some authors undertake to boost their scores, plus the howls of anguish when an author's precious story attracts a mere 5, I think more authors care about scores than you give credit. Some of them even post to the forum: "I don't care about scores but ..."

AJ

purposely string a story out to get more ratings

If an author has a completed story, perhaps already available on Amazon, why do they string it out, one or two chapters per week, on SOL?

Obviously they want to attract buyers who can't wait for the whole story on SOL, but IMO a secondary consideration for posting a story a chapter at a time over a protracted period is that it attracts more downloads and higher ratings.

Isn't it fun to have a discussion on scores after all the recent political threads ;)

AJ

If an author has a completed story, perhaps already available on Amazon, why do they string it out, one or two chapters per week, on SOL?

I use that process for three reasons:

1. It encourages those who can afford to spend the few dollars and are impatient to buy the book from Lulu.

2. It reduces the number of emails I get from fans about sitting up all night reading the longer stories in one sitting. If I do that with a new story many of my regular fans read the story in one sitting, then email me about how tired they are the next day. With this method it's only the new fans that get sleepless nights from reading the long stories.

Please note: Now the majority of my stories are 50,000 words or longer because I aim to write novels. When I started writing I used tow rite a lot of short stories, but now I focus more on novel length stories, and sometimes slip over in to saga length stories.

3. The most important reason for a slow release (although every other day isn't that slow) is it cuts down on the emails asking when the next story will be finished, because they don't start sending those emails until a couple of weeks after the story being posted has the last part of it posted.

edit to add: I know of one author who writes the whole story, puts it through the editors, and then makes changes based on the editorial advice. Because he does this part-time it takes him a while to make the editorial reviews, so he posts each chapter as he finishes the review of it, thus it posts over time, despite being finished.

But I don't believe the score is a main motivation or they write to 'purposely string a story out to get more ratings

It's probably that it takes time to write a chapter, and some authors post as soon as the chapter is done but it might take them a long time to write the chapter.

But for those of us who finish the story before posting, the motivation is reads (downloads), not scores. When you post the entire story it shows up once. When you post by chapter, it shows up each time you post a chapter.

I think more authors care about scores than you give credit.

Personally, I think authors caring about scores is like in the song (paraphrased):

... some authors do, and some authors don't ...

There is only one score that I worry about concerning my stories, and that's the one that comes in an email each month with the title of 'Lulu Revenues.'

As for the SoL scores, I only ever look at them when I need to analyze them for a response about the scores here on SoL. By doing and analytical report on my own stories, or all of the stories, I avoid people complaining about me picking on them and their scores.

Well, I've got some relevant experience. Unlike Ernest, who posts a chapter a day, I typically post twice-a-week, but for my current story, since the sequel is taking SO long, I've purposely cut back so there won't be a six or eight months delay between books! I know that many readers will stop reading, or will simply put it aside until it's completed, but part of my decision was to see HOW it impacted the scores and downloads.

As far as scores, the opposite is more often the case. You don't get better scores by only posting a chapter once a week, once a month or once a quarter. You get the best scores by posting frequently, on a set schedule so readers know when to check in. Likewise, if you post all at once, fewer readers will ever see the story to begin with. So the once to several times a week seems to be the best strategy, though I tend to think that once a week is too infrequent while once a day is too frequent, but I still have discovered the golden mean in this regard.

But yeah, I'd glad from a reprieve in the political bickering. I mean, we get it. Certain authors like certain political parties. None of us mind those positions, but we'd rather read stories than continually being hammered with your personal positions on any give topic.

I'll respect you as long as you respect me. You can despise what I stand for, or even hate me as a person, but as long as you don't attack me every time we meet, I really don't care.

That said, when a particular issue comes up, and someone feels compelled to voice their opinion, I don't mind, but if I see it more than a couple times in as many months, I'll ignore ALL the rants.

I think most everyone on the site knows my own positions, as I've never disguised my personal beliefs, and those central themes arise in my stories, but I try not to hammer then continually.