Forum: Author Hangout

For those of you that have been writing a while - what is the best way to increase the readership of your works?

Do you use multiple platforms/more blogs/other methods to get more readers to your stories?

I notice that over the past month the number of readers appears to be plateauing to what I believe are the number of regular readers.

How do I boost that? Is this just a function of time or are there better ways to introduce new readers to your works?

Both my stories have an 8.5+ rating and I do get comments from the occasional reader that has found me from the top lists, but they are few and far between.

There's a saying in publishing: Books sell books.

It means — When you publish a new book, if it's good the reader will check out your other books. So the new book sells your older ones. So I guess if you keep writing good stories on SOL, the readers of your new story will find your older stories.

With an 8.5 rating, you really can't get much better in terms of scores. However the best way to control reader involvement is a 'schedule' your posts. Typically if you only post once every three months, or post irregularly, then your overall scores, the number of downloads and reader feedback tend to fall off.

So what works better—at least on SOL—are shorter chapters that post on a consistent regular basis that readers can anticipate each post, driving up their excitement. Thus when it's scheduled to appear, your readers will be actively waiting to devour the latest chapter.

Personally, I've always found between two to three chapters per week get the greatest response, though a story that posts regularly once-a-week will do nearly as well.

However, if you haven't planned ahead, and are just writing/posting chapter by chapter, largely as the inspiration hits you, then you're downloads will main fairly low, as will the reader feedback.

Readers are impatient, so if they know how long they have to wait they'll respond better. Otherwise, as has been noted, most will just say "Screw it, I'll wait until it's done before even starting." In short, regular posts signify a 'plan of action' and usually indicates a story written in advance, so readers tend to trust those over the may "Will they finish they story or not" postings.

But again, there's a big difference between downloads, sales and reader feedback, so the three are best considered individually.

Also, as an aside, the best way to get greater feedback is by actively engaging it. So specifically asking for feedback in the story description is the best start, as is asking for corrects and/or suggestions, as that gets a reader/author dialogue going. Then, you have to followup on it, so that if readers bitch about something, you'd better address it or it simply sounds like empty promises.

However, some changes take longer than others, so if you merely acknowledge the issue—especially in the story itself—readers will assume you're working on it and will then trust you to fix it in your own time—as long as you actually do it, that is.

I agree with most of the above.

For me, the story needs to have a good plot, be well written, and have a minimum of grammatical errors.

Some of the things that turn me off about an author include:

• A poorly written description. This is one of the first things I see. It should tell me enough about the storyline to garner interest in the story. If it doesn't address the storyline, I don't bookmark the story; a reference to a prior story isn't enough. If the description contains major grammatical errors, that is an indication that the story will contain similar errors.

• Numerous "Inactive and Incomplete" stories on the author's Authors Page. There are numerous valid reasons for a few of these messages, however a large number of messages is an indication that the author will not complete the story. That is one reason why I believe in completing the story before I start posting it.

• Turning the Feedback links off so readers cannot contact them. Either the author is being attacked by his readers or the author has a problem with accepting take valid criticism. I used to send authors a list of errors in a chapter and suggest they get an editor. A number of these authors did not appreciate my attempt to help them improve their stories.

I recently commented to an author about their extremely short chapters. Their response was the short chapters were intentional and were being used to motivate the reader into buying the book for their reason for writing was to make money.

• Not thanking your readers for taking the time to provide you with feedback.

There are others but I can't think of them now.

Good luck.

REP

Wow! Lovely to see so many replies.

So to summarize what you have said so far:

1. Finish stories - future stories will get you more success
2. Engage frequently by allowing feedback and get back to those giving it to you.

That said, I do notice a couple of one-off authors writing their first stories (ongoing) getting a ton of downloads a week. Is there any trick to that?