How the heck do you get people to discover already-finished stories?

[thedude3445]

I've come into a puzzling dilemma that I'm not sure how to solve (or if it's even worth solving). When you finish a story, what can you do to make sure it doesn't just sit around and gather dust? I've been pondering this for a while to no avail so far.

My story Hands Held in the Snow finished in early August on its main site, and on August 31st on Scribble Hub and Tapas, and it was a bit of an event at the time, especially for the people actively reading it since the beginning. It was really fun to go on this nine-month journey with the readers and my characters alike. But since then... it's been kinda slow. A few people have finished it on Royal Road, and recently the story got more attention on Tapas, but it's still significantly less readership than when it was still serializing. I kind of expected that there'd be more people who had the story bookmarked and were waiting for it to finish to read the whole thing, but I'm not sure that's happened so far. On Scribble Hub, in fact, only ten registered users have read the story at all since it finished, and only one finished.

Not complaining about it, of course, because I'm glad anyone's been reading to begin with. But I've been trying to figure out how to get more people to read the story now that the whole thing's available.

I know the story isn't the issue, at least if reviews and comments from readers are to be believed. So then it's got to be an issue that it's just not very easy for readers to discover the story anymore, or something like that. I guess? Besides adding all-new content (e.g. bonus chapters, art, Q&As), what can an author do to promote their stories to more readers after it's complete?

 

[Leti]

Try making a sequel to the finished story. It works. This is how you do that:

 

[TRNRLogan]

Either that or casually mention it in Author's notes for unrelated stories.

 

[Generic.Archdemon]

Generally, when I an reading a book, or finished a book I go and look up what other works the author has done... so one of the most effective ways is to write more books....

 

[NotYourTypicalMan]

finished book that have 100+ chappies are hard to find.... the unknown creature called authors, love to drop their stories and create another one.

 

[Ral]

If you don't do anything, then it will gather dust.

SH doesn't really provide much of anything for completed stories. Any finished stories are practically archived and virtually vanishes. The SH front page, for example, only shows Trending, Latest Series, and Latest Update. Completed stories would never appear there.

There are only a few ways for finished stories. One is by searching using the Series Finder. Here is a thing, unless the reader deliberately set the Series Finder to only look for Completed stories, it prioritize Ongoing stories. I tried. I checked three tags: Drama, Fantasy and Girls Love; corresponding to the first three tags of your story and none of the stories that appeared in the first page (24 stories) are complete. The first Completed story that appeared is the 27th story (Life Hunter) only has Fantasy as its relevant tag (the Series Finder really doesn't even prioritize the criteria you want or even ignore them).

Of course, people could just search for Completed stories but that is kinda rare if anyone even bothers at all. From what I can see, people doesn't even bother to search and are fully satisfied with what the Home Page, Trending Page and Latest Series Page provided for them. And, even if you search only for completed stories, the chances of your story being visible after is minuscule.

The other two avenues pertains to the users when they either, put your story in their Reading List or they Review it. Your story essentially appears on their profile page in the Reading List and Reviews tabs respectively.

It could also appear on their Activity tabs if they commented on your story or liked a chapter, but that isn't really reliable in the long term since people who comments on stories tends to comment a lot and likes a lot, and they would not be commenting on your story or liking your chapters anymore after it is completed, meaning it would drop out of sight.

Here is the thing, this depends much on the reader's interactions, if you got a lot of readers and/or you got a lot of reviews. Reviews are out. Almost no one gives reviews in SH. (Hey, if you get a lot of negative reviews, your story at least would be very visible) That leaves the Reading List. But here is the hitch, the quickest way to see other people's reading list is the interactions they made (comments, reviews, etc.) that leaves easy to click links to their profiles. That is, the person themselves have to be very visible. If they never commented or reviewed, then they are virtually invincible. Considering that people here doesn't really interact much if at all (they especially don't review stories), this avenue is not reliable. Not to mention, people can just block their profiles from access.

See how everything is stacked against Completed stories?

But what you can do? There are also what other suggested. Like, make yourself more known which means people might go looking at your other stories and spread them around through word-of-mouth (which is kinda difficult). Making a sequel also works, though it begs the question as to why you completed the story instead of just continue publishing more chapters (not viable if you aren't looking to continue the story).

The best thing to do though is to never complete your story in the first place. Stretch it as long as you can, forever if possible. Completed is a death mark.

 

[GDLiZy]

You can search for completed stories. I would exclusively use that if I ever want to read something here. At least I can be sure that the authors didn't drop the story.

 

[thedude3445]

Generally, when I an reading a book, or finished a book I go and look up what other works the author has done... so one of the most effective ways is to write more books....

Well then it's good I always have lots of stories to post

If you don't do anything, then it will gather dust.

SH doesn't really provide much of anything for completed stories. Any finished stories are practically archived and virtually vanishes. The SH front page, for example, only shows Trending, Latest Series, and Latest Update. Completed stories would never appear there.

There are only a few ways for finished stories. One is by searching using the Series Finder. Here is a thing, unless the reader deliberately set the Series Finder to only look for Completed stories, it prioritize Ongoing stories. I tried. I checked three tags: Drama, Fantasy and Girls Love; corresponding to the first three tags of your story and none of the stories that appeared in the first page (24 stories) are complete. The first Completed story that appeared is the 27th story (Life Hunter) only has Fantasy as its relevant tag (the Series Finder really doesn't even prioritize the criteria you want or even ignore them).

[...]

See how everything is stacked against Completed stories?

Wow, I really see how difficult it is for completed stories. I never even realized how lacking it is, and I'm actually baffled by it; why wouldn't the site want to promote stories that are definitely all there for people to read and finish, rather than to read stuff that has a good chance of being abandoned, or already has been? SH doesn't even have ads, so I'm not sure what the benefit is in prioritizing the (presumably bulkier chapter sized) Trending/Ongoing stories over things already completed.

Other than a sequel, which is definitely not happening in my case at least, it seems like options are kinda limited here...

EDIT: My own friggin' fan fiction is 30 places higher on the Completed stories list for Girl's Love genre, lol. They're only separated by about 40 chapters, so it's very surprising just how big of a popularity gap they ended up having (not really related to this thread).

 

[bafflinghaze]

Often I search for Completed Stories only (to binge read/not have to wait for updates), but writing more stories is definitely the best way to get more readers.

On tapas, if your story is complete and gets put into the "Binge" section, you can also get more readers after completion. From what I understand though, this Binge section is curated by hand. It looks like your story in on the Binge tab for GL? I still get a good number of readers for my completed fic in the BL Binge tab....so this is an audience thing on tapas....

Maybe put in feature request for a special Completed tab????

 

[gaylolis]

i just want them to gather dust and people to forget it, yet for some reason they kept discovering it.

 

[JayDirex]

@thedude3445 I'm glad folks were able to answer your question. I saw it when you first posted it and I felt bad. I know the feeling as an author who's written multiple completed works (on RR I have like 10 novels). but it's interesting that honestly I never really felt sad the same way you did because I knew once it was complete that was the end of it.

The sadness comes from this being a never ending cycle that I can't seem to break of constantly having stories in my head that I need to write and constantly writing them. having the lows and highs of people reading them only to see it all end. Then you start all over again ;)

but I digress

Bro, what do you think is going to happen once your stories complete? -_- it ain't these websites job to promote your completed story. So whatever your promotional end game is you honestly need to do it yourself. writing multiple stories helps, but if you want more eyeballs you could always buy Facebook ads or something.

but in the end what is that worth? if you're going to go through all this trouble you may as well take it down and post it on Amazon and get some money for people reading it (I've done that too with mixed success)

I'm providing you different perspectives. but one thing is clear, you want people reading your stuff git gud and do your own promotion, paid or otherwise. no one else will.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

@thedude3445 I'm glad folks were able to answer your question. I saw it when you first posted it and I felt bad. I know the feeling as an author who's written multiple completed works (on RR I have like 10 novels). but it's interesting that honestly I never really felt sad the same way you did because I knew once it was complete that was the end of it.

The sadness comes from this being a never ending cycle that I can't seem to break of constantly having stories in my head that I need to write and constantly writing them. having the lows and highs of people reading them only to see it all end. Then you start all over again ;)

but I digress

Bro, what do you think is going to happen once your stories complete? -_- it ain't these websites job to promote your completed story. So whatever your promotional end game is you honestly need to do it yourself. writing multiple stories helps, but if you want more eyeballs you could always buy Facebook ads or something.

but in the end what is that worth? if you're going to go through all this trouble you may as well take it down and post it on Amazon and get some money for people reading it (I've done that too with mixed success)

I'm providing you different perspectives. but one thing is clear, you want people reading your stuff git gud and do your own promotion, paid or otherwise. no one else will.

That is the main reason why the majority of web novels are practically never ending stories. They ride the dead horse as long as possible with 1k + chapters about god knows what to milk the cash cow.

 

[yansusustories]

you may as well take it down and post it on Amazon and get some money for people reading it (I've done that too with mixed success)

I would actually say you might wanna put it on Amazon no matter what other efforts you make. You don't even have to take it down anywhere (just choose the non-exclusive option there). You might not earn much but it's nice to see people buy your stuff. I have stories from 5 years ago that are still being sold there. It's always nice to see that happening because I haven't even though about those stories myself anymore and suddenly, someone is interested. That can be very motivational in carrying on with the current stories. And as others already established: New stories might help old stories being discovered.

 

[pyrak]

As an online novel reader I think I've only gone back and read another novel of an author I like once (for paper back books I'm much more into looking at other series and book the author has written) and that's because I liked their writing, and I liked the story premise, but there's been a few others where I decided against reading their other novels simply because I wasn't interested in the premise.

Personally I like reading webnovels like reading webcomics, binge until I catch up and then read the new chapters as they come out. If I want to read something completed I would prefer getting a paper back book (or five) from the library and read that instead.

Long story short, if you're consistent and reliable, then people who are reading your current novel and have caught up will possibly read your other novels if they want to read completed online novels.

 

[AdLeto]

Delete it and start reposting, this way you are posting new chapters

 

[bafflinghaze]

Delete it and start reposting, this way you are posting new chapters

Or how about posting to different websites instead?

 

[Moonpearl]

Some clear and well-placed advertising helps. I see that you have a little icon that links to your story in your signature, but it's actually not clear that it's an advert or that you can interact with it - it kind of just looks like a cute bit of decoration.
You might get more clicks if you included the title nearby as well, to indicate that it's for a story.

You can also recommend your own novel to people in the Looking For section, so long as it matches what they're searching for and you do it in a polite and respectful way.

 

[Zero300]

Shamelessly advertise it on the discord server.

 

[lnv]

I've come into a puzzling dilemma that I'm not sure how to solve (or if it's even worth solving). When you finish a story, what can you do to make sure it doesn't just sit around and gather dust? I've been pondering this for a while to no avail so far.

My story Hands Held in the Snow finished in early August on its main site, and on August 31st on Scribble Hub and Tapas, and it was a bit of an event at the time, especially for the people actively reading it since the beginning. It was really fun to go on this nine-month journey with the readers and my characters alike. But since then... it's been kinda slow. A few people have finished it on Royal Road, and recently the story got more attention on Tapas, but it's still significantly less readership than when it was still serializing. I kind of expected that there'd be more people who had the story bookmarked and were waiting for it to finish to read the whole thing, but I'm not sure that's happened so far. On Scribble Hub, in fact, only ten registered users have read the story at all since it finished, and only one finished.

I know the story isn't the issue, at least if reviews and comments from readers are to be believed. So then it's got to be an issue that it's just not very easy for readers to discover the story anymore, or something like that. I guess? Besides adding all-new content (e.g. bonus chapters, art, Q&As), what can an author do to promote their stories to more readers after it's complete?

Participate in 1 shot contests, and use that to promote your other works. This way you don't stretch your original story thin through trying to come up with bonus content while still creating publicity.

 

[Typing...]

You've seen it done many times in media. Especially in trailers they will hype up a director or some other person of note. "From the author who wrote breaking bad." In your new story synopsis you can add a small note of similar flair.