Getting readers what forum do I use for sharing stories?

DamoMartin

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Was wondering what people use here to share stories to gain readers?
Are there reading groups here or anything else used?
 

NotaNuffian

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ah fair enough my main stuff I write is sci-fi or stuff that involved with warfare / any other sites that could work if not?
 

AliceShiki

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ah fair enough my main stuff I write is sci-fi or stuff that involved with warfare / any other sites that could work if not?
Don't bother with the people saying you need smut or isekai or harem to be popular. Just write what you want and if there is quality there, it has a good chance of becoming popular.

If you wanna see what's popular in this site, ignore the forums altogether and just take a look at the trending stories as well as the stories with the most views altogether, it will help you have a better grasp of the things that tend to have more readers.

As for how to get more readers... There is only one method that works: Write regularly, and write with quality.

It's as simple as that, if you keep making new releases often, more people will see your story, so more people will give your story a shot and you'll start having more readers... And well, if your story is good, the readers will keep reading and quite possibly do the work of recommending it to other readers as well, which will increase your popularity.

That's basically it. Start writing and keep writing, do that and things will eventually work themselves out.
 

Lys

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Get lots of readers with 2 easy steps:
  1. Include GL, genderbender, litrpg, isekai, and smut
  2. Write lots of chapters
Quality doesn't matter. Only the tags and the quantity.
You can write the best scifi out there and it'll probably flop because SH's readerbase doesn't read scifi.
 

Horizon42

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ah fair enough my main stuff I write is sci-fi or stuff that involved with warfare / any other sites that could work if not?
Smut can be beneficial to the story if you want it to. It doesn't even have to have a lot of emphasis put on it. Maybe make an average 1 out of 10 or 1 out of 15 cbapters a smut chapter. But if your story doesn't have an MC, then I wouldn't recommend it. Adding an Isekai element to your story would also be pretty easy. It's literally just +2-5 chapters at the beginning to set it up. Harem is usually done incorrectly and It's hard to pull off so I wouldn't recommend trying it. These are the ways to get maybe 300 readers fast.

If you want a stronger reader base, then you need to write well and post as often as you can.
 

Reisinling

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Don't bother with the people saying you need smut or isekai or harem to be popular. Just write what you want and if there is quality there, it has a good chance of becoming popular.

If you wanna see what's popular in this site, ignore the forums altogether and just take a look at the trending stories as well as the stories with the most views altogether, it will help you have a better grasp of the things that tend to have more readers.

As for how to get more readers... There is only one method that works: Write regularly, and write with quality.

It's as simple as that, if you keep making new releases often, more people will see your story, so more people will give your story a shot and you'll start having more readers... And well, if your story is good, the readers will keep reading and quite possibly do the work of recommending it to other readers as well, which will increase your popularity.

That's basically it. Start writing and keep writing, do that and things will eventually work themselves out.
That sounds nice, but man, there is a reason why trends exist. Look at mangadex for example - many shitty stories in currently popular trends get hundreds of times more views then some of the best manga on the site (hyouge mono , heterogeneous linguistics)

Even ignoring that, let's face it- if your first 2-3 chapters are shit, you are finished. I suspect most people won't read past a badly written opening paragraph, not to mention whole chapter.
 

AliceShiki

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That sounds nice, but man, there is a reason why trends exist. Look at mangadex for example - many shitty stories in currently popular trends get hundreds of times more views then some of the best manga on the site (hyouge mono , heterogeneous linguistics)

Even ignoring that, let's face it- if your first 2-3 chapters are shit, you are finished. I suspect most people won't read past a badly written opening paragraph, not to mention whole chapter.
The first 10 minutes of any form of entertainment are the most important ones. I never tried to deny that.

I also never said that there aren't trends that are more popular than others in this site. All I said was that what the people in this forum say doesn't really reflect the reality. If you wanna see what's popular, go look at the top stories and at the trending stories of the main site, don't go listening to the nonsense that people keep talking about in the forums.

If one were to believe the forums, about 80% of the top stories in the site would be smut ones... Yet if you bother to look for it, only 2 in the top 10 are actually smut.

The forums don't reflect the reality, go look at the site directly to see its trends.
 

Discount_Blade

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The first 10 minutes of any form of entertainment are the most important ones. I never tried to deny that.

I also never said that there aren't trends that are more popular than others in this site. All I said was that what the people in this forum say doesn't really reflect the reality. If you wanna see what's popular, go look at the top stories and at the trending stories of the main site, don't go listening to the nonsense that people keep talking about in the forums.

If one were to believe the forums, about 80% of the top stories in the site would be smut ones... Yet if you bother to look for it, only 2 in the top 10 are actually smut.

The forums don't reflect the reality, go look at the site directly to see its trends.
See, I have seen the trending list different than you. I've seen 6 of the top 10 be smut, I've even seen the top 9 of 10 be so. ONLY RECENTLY in the past month, literally kinda near the beginning of 2021, have I seen non-smut titles start taking a more active appearance in the trending. I don't spend a particularly long time on this site, but I DO check in at least 5-10 minutes daily on my phone and have been doing so since mid August of 2020, and I have not EVER seen smut NOT dominate trending until just THIS YEAR.

I do respect your thoughts on this matter, I mean I find you to be one of the more pleasant and best people here and on this site, and one of the select few whose opinions/thoughts I think are actually worth listening to, but your being a little naive here and I also gotta say you're ABSOLUTELY wrong. It's aggravating that people are still denying the influence that smut has on this site as far as readership and popularity. This is one of the few sites that allows its presence, so of course it's going to have a very powerful position. Even the awfully written ones have longstanding followings that are on average, larger than what I consider better written stories, but without all the sexuality being "in your face".

Smut has always dominated this site's trending (since I've been active at least), and I'm skeptical on this recent downwards spike of it lasting long or becoming a permanent thing. I hope to be wrong though.

I end this statement by saying I've had an account here since July 2019, but I never got very involved in the site until mid 2020, and so my experiences and observations do not reflect the entirety of the sites history. I also do not write smut and have only occasionally read any of it here since the VAST majority of it is terribly written, lacks any plot besides "someone sticking something inside someone".
 
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BenJepheneT

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That's basically it. Start writing and keep writing, do that and things will eventually work themselves out.
This is what I'd wish for. Wish. Truth is that brute force and being headstrong just eats away at people in the end. If you don't evolve to fit with the changing times, you're basically left out, and what's left is either a fruitless effort or a shell of your former self.
 

AliceShiki

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See, I have seen the trending list different than you. I've seen 6 of the top 10 be smut, I've even seen the top 9 of 10 be so. ONLY RECENTLY in the past month, literally kinda near the beginning of 2021, have I seen non-smut titles start taking a more active appearance in the trending. I don't spend a particularly long time on this site, but I DO check in at least 5-10 minutes daily on my phone and have been doing so since mid August of 2020, and I have not EVER seen smut NOT dominate trending until just THIS YEAR.

I do respect your thoughts on this matter, I mean I find you to be one of the more pleasant and best people here and on this site, and one of the select few whose opinions/thoughts I think are actually worth listening to, but your being a little naive here and I also gotta say you're ABSOLUTELY wrong. It's aggravating that people are still denying the influence that smut has on this site as far as readership and popularity. This is one of the few sites that allows its presence, so of course it's going to have a very powerful position. Even the awfully written ones have longstanding followings that are on average, larger than what I consider better written stories, but without all the sexuality being "in your face".

Smut has always dominated this site's trending (since I've been active at least), and I'm skeptical on this recent downwards spike of it lasting long or becoming a permanent thing. I hope to be wrong though.

I end this statement by saying I've had an account here since July 2019, but I never got very involved in the site until mid 2020, and so my experiences and observations do not reflect the entirety of the sites history. I also do not write smut and have only occasionally read any of it here since the VAST majority of it is terribly written, lacks any plot besides "someone sticking something inside someone".
Ah, I'll be honest and say that I never use what I see in trending as reference for anything when trying to talk about stories and popularity... Mainly because I use the Release Filtering function, so what I see on Trending is actually quite biased towards my own preferences, which makes it absolutely useless when trying to discuss what are the most popular stories on the site and what not.

It's why I instead talk about story popularity in general when looking at the top stories of the site... I mean... 2 stories out of the top 10 are smut... That's a pretty big number I'd say. And if you look at the top 20 the proportion actually becomes a bit bigger (I think it was 7/20, too lazy to double check), so... Smut is definitely popular here, I'm not trying to deny that.

... What I'm trying to say is that forcing yourself to write smut is not the way to go either. Because yanno... Out of the top 10 stories, 8 are not smut. You absolutely do not need smut to get in the top rankings, the numbers kinda speak for themselves.

Smut being popular doesn't really make it a necessity to make your story popular. That's the kind of thing I was saying.
This is what I'd wish for. Wish. Truth is that brute force and being headstrong just eats away at people in the end. If you don't evolve to fit with the changing times, you're basically left out, and what's left is either a fruitless effort or a shell of your former self.
Look, OP said he likes writing sci-fi, which is not one of the most popular genres in Scribblehub.

If you look at the most popular Sci-fi stories here, you'll get the following number of views for the top 5, respectively:

721k, 706k, 587k, 535k, 474k

If you look at the rankings, that's #34, #36, #44, #48 and #55. While those ranks are by no means as amazing as the top smut, action, litrpg and whatnot stories, they're still pretty respectable and those stories are definitely popular in their own right.

It's why I was saying that one should just look for themselves, it is quite clear one can become quite popular by writing genres that aren't the mainstream ones in Scribblehub... You just need to actually try and be good at what you're doing.
 

DamoMartin

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Ah, I'll be honest and say that I never use what I see in trending as reference for anything when trying to talk about stories and popularity... Mainly because I use the Release Filtering function, so what I see on Trending is actually quite biased towards my own preferences, which makes it absolutely useless when trying to discuss what are the most popular stories on the site and what not.

It's why I instead talk about story popularity in general when looking at the top stories of the site... I mean... 2 stories out of the top 10 are smut... That's a pretty big number I'd say. And if you look at the top 20 the proportion actually becomes a bit bigger (I think it was 7/20, too lazy to double check), so... Smut is definitely popular here, I'm not trying to deny that.

... What I'm trying to say is that forcing yourself to write smut is not the way to go either. Because yanno... Out of the top 10 stories, 8 are not smut. You absolutely do not need smut to get in the top rankings, the numbers kinda speak for themselves.

Smut being popular doesn't really make it a necessity to make your story popular. That's the kind of thing I was saying.

Look, OP said he likes writing sci-fi, which is not one of the most popular genres in Scribblehub.

If you look at the most popular Sci-fi stories here, you'll get the following number of views for the top 5, respectively:

721k, 706k, 587k, 535k, 474k

If you look at the rankings, that's #34, #36, #44, #48 and #55. While those ranks are by no means as amazing as the top smut, action, litrpg and whatnot stories, they're still pretty respectable and those stories are definitely popular in their own right.

It's why I was saying that one should just look for themselves, it is quite clear one can become quite popular by writing genres that aren't the mainstream ones in Scribblehub... You just need to actually try and be good at what you're doing.
Yeah once I have a routine down, I have a lot of stuff I'm planning mainly a big multiverse project concept that I'm planning on.
Just a lot of stuff to plan lol.

Anyway I'll keep working on the weekly routine as well
 

Discount_Blade

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Ah, I'll be honest and say that I never use what I see in trending as reference for anything when trying to talk about stories and popularity... Mainly because I use the Release Filtering function, so what I see on Trending is actually quite biased towards my own preferences, which makes it absolutely useless when trying to discuss what are the most popular stories on the site and what not.

It's why I instead talk about story popularity in general when looking at the top stories of the site... I mean... 2 stories out of the top 10 are smut... That's a pretty big number I'd say. And if you look at the top 20 the proportion actually becomes a bit bigger (I think it was 7/20, too lazy to double check), so... Smut is definitely popular here, I'm not trying to deny that.

... What I'm trying to say is that forcing yourself to write smut is not the way to go either. Because yanno... Out of the top 10 stories, 8 are not smut. You absolutely do not need smut to get in the top rankings, the numbers kinda speak for themselves.

Smut being popular doesn't really make it a necessity to make your story popular. That's the kind of thing I was saying.

Look, OP said he likes writing sci-fi, which is not one of the most popular genres in Scribblehub.

If you look at the most popular Sci-fi stories here, you'll get the following number of views for the top 5, respectively:

721k, 706k, 587k, 535k, 474k

If you look at the rankings, that's #34, #36, #44, #48 and #55. While those ranks are by no means as amazing as the top smut, action, litrpg and whatnot stories, they're still pretty respectable and those stories are definitely popular in their own right.

It's why I was saying that one should just look for themselves, it is quite clear one can become quite popular by writing genres that aren't the mainstream ones in Scribblehub... You just need to actually try and be good at what you're doing.
I didn't know people were trying to get him to write smut. Yeah nah don't do that.
 

BenJepheneT

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If you look at the most popular Sci-fi stories here, you'll get the following number of views for the top 5, respectively:

721k, 706k, 587k, 535k, 474k

If you look at the rankings, that's #34, #36, #44, #48 and #55. While those ranks are by no means as amazing as the top smut, action, litrpg and whatnot stories, they're still pretty respectable and those stories are definitely popular in their own right.
Yeah, but the Sci-Fi genre ITSELF has already 34 pages' worth of content to scroll from, and when the top fifth is hovering around 400k views, things aren't gonna look pretty at the bottom, as compared to Smut alone, which has around 1.02m views already. There are just series that couldn't catch wind in their sails and no doubt there's many of them who, like you said, gave their all.

I'm not trying to refute the point that effort breeds result. What I'm trying to say that it isn't solely because of effort. Chance, manipulation, and opportunity is also part of the equation. Understanding the war is just as important as giving your all in the battle. Simply going in head strong isn't going to net you success; gaming the system in your favour alone won't get you far either, with no result to back it up. It's the combination of both that gets you somewhere.

Simply telling OP to ignore the forums and write what he likes is just, in some way, closing one of both eyes. You even said it yourself; you put stuff through release filtering so you WOULDN'T see the smut. And I'm not telling OP to gun for trends either. What I'm telling OP is to do the best of both worlds.

If he wants readership and a smooth reader-base, he needs to incorporate the popular genres in a way that won't hinder his artistic intentions. Otherwise, he'd be thrown off into the sea of like-minded individuals that'll take a fucken Moses, sea-splitting miracle to stand out amongst the rest. If he doesn't wish to do that, then all I can do is hope for the best and empathize with him.

And I'm not saying this because I've done this before; I'm saying this because I've been through the lower end of the shitstick. I've been writing for about a year now. I've barely broken past 4.8k views, while others pass 50k on their first week. I'm not blaming others for it; I chose to not do it because as stated, it hindered my artistic intention. But the reality of the situation is that unless you adapt, you can't really blame anyone for your lack of success.

That is unless you win the algorithm Powerball, then I can't say anything about that other than "damn I want that as well".
 

lambchap

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ah fair enough my main stuff I write is sci-fi or stuff that involved with warfare / any other sites that could work if not?
sufficientvelocity? Royalroad? Creating your own website (although it won't be easy to get readers)?
 
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