My august shooting star list had about 20 stories. An October shooting star list would have 37 stories.
That means either fewer voters, fewer reader, insufficient exposure, or much more stories.
I think part of the problem is that the number of daily entries on the Home page stream exceed some limit. Even if you came to that on a schedule once a day you would miss some stories due to the Stream maximum length being exceeded much more often lately.
The volume of entries on the home page stream sometimes means that less than 24 hours is covered. Could that be the problem?
AJ
That's exactly what I was trying to express with my convoluted broken english:
The home page stream may need to be longer to alleviate the problem.
The ongoing serials prevent making that determination from a simple site search. I would need to parse the chapter date of the storyInfo I archived to make a clouded determination. Only Lazeez may have the readership behavioral data to get the real picture.
The home page stream may need to be longer to alleviate the problem.
It's currently showing 23hrs worth.
I hypothesise that there's a knock-on effect in that one-and-done stories largely drop from the readers' consciousnesses once they're off the homepage. They now 'disappear' so rapidly that their authors probably get fewer downloads than previous times.
AJ
They now 'disappear' so rapidly that their authors probably get fewer downloads than previous times.
I'm finishing up a 13-chapter story that I plan to post all at once (not a chapter a week). I hope that's not a mistake.
That's the way I posted all of mine and I didn't get a lot of downloads.
Instead,
I suggest that you post one chapter a DAY. It will get out there quickly but it will also get a mention every day for 2 weeks.
That's the way I posted all of mine and I didn't get a lot of downloads.
That's what I'm afraid of.
I wrote it as a short story to be read in one sitting. I still expect it to be read in one sitting, but my days of writing a true short story seem to be over. My stories are now longer and I break them into short chapters.
I'm thinking this story might score better if read in one sitting. So it's score vs downloads.
For what it's worth, I prefer more readers to higher scores. I uploaded a 180k word, 48-chapter novel, all in one go, and although it remains my highest-scoring story to date, it took well over a year to reach just 10k downloads, and after two years still has only 16k downloads.
That said, I usually won't serialize a story unless it starts getting into novella range (15-20k words). Anything shorter than that, and I consider it a one-session read.
I imagine your 13-chapter story has to be in the ~40k+ words range, right? For works of that size, I usually break them into 3 parts of 4-6 chapters each, and then post them over a long, 3-day weekend (say, Fri, Sat, and Sun). That way, the story get a little more exposure, but readers aren't left waiting weeks or months for the story to finish.
I imagine your 13-chapter story has to be in the ~40k+ words range, right?
A little over 32k words.
Did you consider that a higher score might equate to more reads for people using the site's search engine? I have no idea. I also have no idea if posting it all at once will actually help the scoring. I'm simply going to give this one a try.
I suggest that you post one chapter a DAY. It will get out there quickly but it will also get a mention every day for 2 weeks.
Is that not compounding the problem?
I could well be wrong (I normally am), but is the first page or two only available to non payers with subsequent pages only available to paid members and those with writers privileges?
If everyone posts a chapter every day, then the sheer number of submitted chapters would quickly force chapters off the front page and indeed, the 'free' pages available to the non paying site members.
As much as Laz would like the payers to outnumber the non payers, that's simply not the case and when your chapter drops off the free page(s) then the majority of potential readers is also going to drop off, because your story is now behind the paywall (do separate chapters posted on different days count individually to a readers free download limit?).
That might be true of the 'New Stories' and 'Updates' list but not the SOL Homepage AFAIK. It's just a single page.
AJ
The "New Stories" and "Updates" page give 250 entries history to the free members (about 2 days of updates posting and 3 days of new stories).
So the drop out of visibility is a real issue if you do not appear in one of the top lists.
If you post on a schedule, you need to post 4 times a week to be visible to weekly visitor. It used to be 3 times a week.
The "Blogs" page gives about 2 months of entries.
Publish a blog announcing the new story is always a good idea.
I would recommend to post enough chapters to hook the reader on the first posting. Then post a minimum of 4 chapters a week. A chapter or more a day is fine if they are short.
The "Blogs" page gives about 2 months of entries.
Publish a blog announcing the new story is always a good idea.
If that is the case, then wouldn't it make sense to post stories as blogs, as they would last longer (two months) in the readerships consciousness? You could put a link to the full story at the end of the blog(s) However, I think if that became the case, then everyone would start doing it and the influx of blogs would reduce the exposure from two months to something considerably less (and yes, I am well aware of the irony of me talking about people posting stories as blogs).
The Halloween competition is up soon and entries get 'stickied' to ensure equal exposure for all, so there is scope for a backlog to form in the 'new stories' list once voting has finished (and a subsequent high turnover of new stories for the few days after).
I remember a thread some time ago, where the discussion was on what day of the week was the best day to submit a story in order to maximise time 'at the top'. It all seemed rather pointless to me, as if such a day existed, then everyone would jump on it and it wouldn't exist any more.
My take on it is; If you write a good story, you will create traffic to your other work and will drive views. If you try and spam/game the system, you run the risk of alienating readers. I'm not a fan of authors who drip feed on a regular (daily) basis. If it's written, just post the damn thing and allow the reader to binge. If I have to wait for the next day to read the next chapter, then the story better be pretty damn good or I will just ignore it.
There are a few here that I would class as 'spamming' the new stories page on a regular basis. I blocked them and no longer see their submissions. For me, problem solved. For the poster, that's one less potential viewer of their stories- Permanently.
The Halloween competition is up soon and entries get 'stickied' to ensure equal exposure for all, so there is scope for a backlog to form in the 'new stories' list once voting has finished (and a subsequent high turnover of new stories for the few days after).
What does that mean? I just checked and, as of right now, there are 20 stories in the contest. Are you saying that the day the winners are announced, 20 stories show up as "new stories" all at once?
Are you saying that the day the winners are announced, 20 stories show up as "new stories" all at once?
That's not correct.
On the day that the contest opens for reading and voting, all the stories that have been accepted into the contest will show up as new stories.
When the winners are declared nothing happens to the stories other than the one that didn't win get switched to wide availability for free for everybody.
As Laz said, no. When the competition starts, all the entrants are published (as you say, 20 so far). That takes up the entire first page. I don't know the mechanics and I said 'stickied' for simplicity. It may be that the admins just simply hold off posting non competition entries for a few days, so that all entries are given equal exposure.
My point was, that non competition stories are still being submitted during the competition and a backlog is going to develop. Once the competition has run its course, normal jogging will resume and the backlog will be posted. This could mean a rapid turnover of (non competition) stories on the first couple of pages in the week or so after the competition. Which was the point I was trying, and obviously failing, to make.
For those who prioritise exposure time, posting during and immediately after the competition is going to be a really bad idea.
I do not know the mechanics of the submission process, but my understanding is that 'exposure' time depends on the amount of stories submitted. As the site gains in popularity and more contributors, that exposure time is going to decrease. If the site is going through a submission lull, then the exposure time will correspondingly increase.
I'm sure Laz keeps an eye on things and if the problem of too much content looks to be a problem, then there are means of mitigating the situation. Like splitting off the competition into its own separate tab at the top of the main page so as not to cause a bottleneck in the normal 'New stories' tab. Also, if people are now splitting stories and deliberately posting in small chunks daily (which seems to be the case for some individuals, though this is not going to be an issue for the 'New stories' tab) to 'game' exposure, then inevitably a limit is going to be imposed on 'us' that we can only post chapters to a particular story (say) twice a week, or so. This would make the chapters longer and the 'Updates' list would contain a greater variety of writers for longer, which is in the best interest of the readers that pay the bills.
For those that like to see their name daily in the 'new stories' tab, and post 5KB stories to do so, I don't see why those stories can't be collated into one anthology post per week. Obviously that's not what the writer wants as they want to see their name in the first page every day, but it would be fairer for everyone else.
posting during and immediately after the competition is going to be a really bad idea.
Actually posting right before the competition is bad. If your story gets posted and then a couple of hours later the competition stories are released, then your story ends up at slot #21 right away pushing it away from the top.
We usually pause regular stories processing for few hours before we release the competition and for few hours after.
It's currently showing 23hrs worth.
I now make it 34 hrs worth. So the number of entries on the Homepage may not be limited by page size but predefined time blocks.
AJ
I now make it 34 hrs worth. So the number of entries on the Homepage may not be limited by page size but predefined time blocks.
It's 101 items. Regardless of their composition. A blog entry could push a story off the home page, a story review too, etc...
Thank you for the correction.
The prospect of blog entries pushing stories off the home page doesn't seem ideal to me, especially if advice earlier in this thread is followed and each new story is accompanied by a blog entry.
AJ