Low View Counts

[Scribbler]

Can I just say how much it bums me out when I see stories with hundreds to a thousand pages, with only a couple hundred views. Like, that just kills me on the inside. I mean, what the fuck did that person do in their past life to deserve such a fate.

This kind of touches the question of when do you consider your story a success or failure, which I've been seeing bounced around on the interwebs as of late. And I gotta say (well not literally), barring whether or not your story was actually good or not, which of course matters, your views are the biggest of deals. I don't even care about high ratings or favorites or having active commenters. All of those things can be explained away, like people just didn't have the same taste as your writing so they rated it low, or people forgot that favoriting was a feature, or people just didn't have anything to say.

But what sane, just reason is there, to allow such an injustice as a low view count for a story that is consistently pumping out the content?! None! I say none!

*shakes head* It's just... it's just messed up man...

I know forums are supposed to be spaces for discussion, but I kind of just word vomit what I'm thinking and assume that that will make others think things too, that they may or may not wish to share.

 

[Deleted member 29316]

Well, indeed, it feels like an injustice being done to the hard-working author. But then again, we can't control how the readers think, no matter how much effort we put in our stories. The best we could do is to keep writing and doing our best to cover the plot-holes, make believable characters, and be consistent with our works (an advise to myself too).

I mean, I only reached my view count (64051 views as of typing this) because of the large backlogs I had when I first uploaded my story here. It seemed like I was consistent with my updates, when in fact, I'm only updating my backlogs.

 

[ForestDweller]

Yeah, that's why I've abandoned my old stories. It's just not worth it.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Yeah, that's why I've abandoned my old stories. It's just not worth it.

So true.

 

[cravingsoul]

The pain is real but then again it is not necessary that everybody is going to read your work as we all have different interests but that does not mean that we should halt our interest in writing.

An angel without wings is not a devil’s child

The end of a new beginning. The beginning of a new end. After the Angdem war II broke out, a place was created where the benevolent souls and Malevolent beings coexisted. But the war had severe side effects and hence the offspring produced was regarded as mutant or cripple(only...

www.scribblehub.com

 

[Daitengu]

As a reader, I've been conditioned to avoid a few things. Because the story gets dropped practically every time.

Example: a male protagonist tag with a female on the cover. I got burned everytime for three years. No matter the chapter count it's either dropped or shit harem. Not even good harem, but some guy with trophy wives with no character.

Example 2: DC fanfics. Never seen a completed one.

 

[ForestDweller]

Example: a male protagonist tag with a female on the cover.

Oof, that fits my story to the T.

 

[Lazy_Acorn]

I think it's like he said.

The pain is real but then again it is not necessary that everybody is going to read your work as we all have different interests but that does not mean that we should halt our interest in writing.

Even if I'm not sure, I feel that the site where the story is posted makes a difference. Like, I post my story in SH, WebNovel, RR and wattpad, while in the first 2 I have good views, ratings and comments that encourage me. In RR I have only 1k views with an overall rating of 2 stars and received a single comment from a guy who did not like the story. Wattapad doesn't even count, the views I have there is mine.

Although it bothers me a bit, it's not to the point of making me discouraged, since my story was made especially for me by myself.

 

[ForestDweller]

I got my story deleted by the mods of RR. And when it's up, I mostly got negative comments and reviews.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

I got my story deleted by the mods of RR. And when it's up, I mostly got negative comments and reviews.

Interesting, so far my rating is better there than here, albeit admittedly, only by 0.1.

 

[yansusustories]

A low view count can be a real bummer. I'm surprised something with so many chapters would only reach a few hundred views though. Have you ever checked when/how they were updated? If they updated a large badge of chapters (because they originally posted somewhere else and then just moved here, for example) at once, it could be that people just weren't able to read all of that yet or didn't see the story because it only appeared on SH regularly over a few days instead of being spread out.

 

[tounokenja]

Depends. My first public novel I started for NaNoWriMo I've posted here alone. My ratings are meh to be expected from a first time author, and I've managed to acquire a fair amount of reads, and almost 180 readers. To me that's a wild success. My genre is Smut, so I mean, that's an easy entry to readers, but I've tried something I haven't really seen before with my sort-of harem, by making their characters a bit more three-dimensional.

I even had a discord made for me, and a small but very cool community of people who joined and offer suggestions, criticisms, and get generally passionate about the way the novel is going.

To me, it's a big success. I hope in the future when I do more novels, I have the same support as this one, the community at SH is great! The main satisfaction is uploading a new chapter and looking at the statistics page with all the list of registered readers reaching the latest chapter.

Best feeling in the world.

 

[Valmond]

To start off, in comparison to wattpad. Scribblehub has a much better system for stories being noticed. This is what I have come to notice. The search feature helps to break this down, as well as the newly updated. Unfortunately, Scribblehub also suffers from the ‘complete’ category. Meaning, a story that is complete, will start to die off.

Now, my series, when I started off. It was pretty bad. Did not get many views as well. Back then, I was on wattpad. After I completed it, I took time off from writing, a few months really. Then I came back and wrote a standalone. Still the same, no progress with my exposure. Then, I figured out a possibility. So I acted on this, went back to my first book, first chapter, first line. I then began to rewrite the series. Line by line, then I edited it line by line, with an audio reader for confirmation. I rewrote the series over and over again. The first time I announced the rerelease of the series, a remastered trilogy. A lot began piling in at once. It hit me, that they were waiting for me to really polish up the story.

Since then, I rewrote the story a few times. Massively expanded it, cleaned it up, consistently made it flow better, rediscovered my style of writing, etc. After I was comfortable, I branched off to Inkitt, which was a bit faster than wattpad. Though, it was here a valuable reader helped me realize my work had quite a lot of errors. So I went back, and rewrote my work again, perhaps two more times. Then I moved to, Royal Road. This is where I found out my story still needed work. This was the time, where I really rooted out most errors.

Along the way, as I branched off to more sites, my visibility slowly became better and better. I improved due to my perseverance to learn the craft. This eventually amounted to follower on various sites. Some who even followed me, privately contacted me to tell me that they enjoy the series. So, while my track up was very difficult to say. I never gave up on my trilogy. As of recently, I finished remastering the final book in the trilogy, and release has began on Wattpad and Inkitt for that book. Royal Road is now getting the release of the second book. Which I have been drawing in more readers now.

While a lot do not voice themselves. The lists they added their books to helps me know that they liked it. Which is enough. Now on scribblehub, I am still struggling my way up, but not as much anymore. Part of getting exposure, is also taking the time to improve yourself. You gotta also take the time to branch off to different sites. I came from a very steep ground, if not unlikely to rise from. Abandoning my work would have only left me in the same ditch. I had to make my trilogy as best as I can. Since this will also serve as a base for the rest of my exposure. In all reality as well, the trilogy is the best I have ever written in my life. The more I improve it, the better I became as a writer, and the more readers that came in. On Inkitt, I know at least two people made it from beginning to end on both books. There could be more. Though, it is difficult to say due to the slow updates.

On Royal Road, I know about 18 made it all the way to the end of the first book. So far around 12 went to the second book on R.R. The second book also seems to have drawn attention to my first, which is good. On wattpad, about forty or so managed to finish both the first and second book. Now there are those jumping on the third one. Do not give up, keep improving, and certainly more will come. Next month I should be able to begin rewriting my standalone.

 

[Valmond]

As a reader, I've been conditioned to avoid a few things. Because the story gets dropped practically every time.

Example: a male protagonist tag with a female on the cover. I got burned everytime for three years. No matter the chapter count it's either dropped or shit harem. Not even good harem, but some guy with trophy wives with no character.

Example 2: DC fanfics. Never seen a completed one.

This gets under my skin a lot when it comes to games. Seriously, sometimes I prefer to play a game with a female protagonist, sometimes with a male. However, it is misleading when they put the opposite gender on the cover. When in reality, the protagonist is the other gender. I have become quite keen to these sort of play. When I get tired of the male protagonist, I change it up with the female protagonist, and same in vice versa.

 

[DubstheDuke]

Well I guess I have a little story to tell here. I actually went 250 chapters of my story with very low views compared to others before I went trending.

250 chapters at around 8-9 pages per chapter.

Now why did I go so far at such a low view count? I even received a couple reviews where people directly asked me "Why do you keep writing this?"

The answer: because I enjoy it. And not just a little. Its not just some hobby I do when I feel like it, my story is a world that I've become so immersed in that life would feel strange if I went a day without writing.

And eventually I made something out of it.

It was a small moment of glory and without a doubt it was random. I couldve gone 250 more without hitting trending, and tbh I expected to.

Even so, I would have kept writing. I have a few loyal viewers who read every chapter I post these days and some even comment on all of em. And thats more than plenty for me to keep writing.

 

[Valmond]

I got my story deleted by the mods of RR. And when it's up, I mostly got negative comments and reviews.

How? R.R has to verify the content at first. Did those mods overstep their standing?

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

How? R.R has to verify the content at first. Did those mods overstep their standing?

I guess stories can evolve. They can move away from the initial premise by adding more smut and whatever than allowed. So while the first chapters might be still tolerated, the later ones could cause a ban. Just my theory.

 

[Valmond]

I guess stories can evolve. They can move away from the initial premise by adding more smut and whatever than allowed. So while the first chapters might be still tolerated, the later ones could cause a ban. Just my theory.

True, also it makes sense in that case. If the site has rules, better follow it.

 

[gaylolis]

i kinda prefer having low view counts, rather than attracting drama and toxic people.

it's just a hobby of mine and a way to spend time, just writing what i'm comfortable with.

i really don't want to care about all the troublesome things and just be happy.

 

[ForestDweller]

How? R.R has to verify the content at first. Did those mods overstep their standing?

No brocon sister character allowed.

I guess stories can evolve. They can move away from the initial premise by adding more smut and whatever than allowed. So while the first chapters might be still tolerated, the later ones could cause a ban. Just my theory.

They only checked the first chapter.

It wasn't even smut though. They just don't want anything that even alludes to incest.