Low View Counts

Valmond

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Oct 31, 2020
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No brocon sister character allowed.



They only checked the first chapter.

It wasn't even smut though. They just don't want anything that even alludes to incest.
Ah, yeah, incest is more of a moral ground. If not widely reprehensible. Probably should not even touch that topic, unless it is not promoting it. Promotion of such a topic will no doubt get it taken down.
 

lnv

✪ Well-Known Hypocrite
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Dec 24, 2018
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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.
That would be odd. My guess is they released the story elsewhere and then just uploaded everything at once. Thus didn't take advantage of the publicity of regular releases.

Generally if you wish to add your thing to a site, it is often best to release 1 chapter a day or every 2 days or so to get the publicity of a release.
 

BenJepheneT

Light Up Gold - Parquet Courts
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To be honest, I might sound condescending but really, I never had any problem with low view counts. I never written for anybody else but myself. Of course, considering that I'm aiming to turn my hobby into a job, I'm gonna need a consistent reader base to do that, but besides that, view count is only ever a side thought compared to my personal gauge of quality to my writing.

Genuinely speaking, even if no one were to read my stuff, I'd still keep writing them. Hell, if I can't write them I'll draw them out, or record it in speech with crappy voice acting. Views had never been the point; to me at least. As long as the story gets out of my head and put into a format where I can enjoy from a third person perspective, I'm content.

i really don't want to care about all the troublesome things and just be happy.
This is the mantra I think all authors should hold. And by hold I don't mean "repeat it to yourself every dang time you see a sour comment". I mean it in the sense where you find peace with yourself and dull your senses to external feedback, both good and bad. Never let anything get over your head; that's how ego and self-doubt sets in. Having a little bit of both is crucial, but letting both take over you is detrimental. Don't just memorize the quote; actually own up and adopt it.

Learn to see feedback from a different angle. Instead of taking it face value, do it like how you'll analyze and interpret other author's works in a more meta sense. Read their words and cross-reference it with your works and see if you can absorb any lesson or sense from them; whether intentional or not. If they're complaining and nitpicking about stupid shit, take it anyway, and at least give it a little worth of thought. People don't complain out of nowhere. You must've done wrong or at least lacking in some degree where people like them crawl out of the woodwork. Same goes to praises and compliments. Don't just stand there with rosy cheeks and bask in the sunlight; that's how the moss sets in. Read through what they thought you've done great and improve on it further.

And if it gets too much, always remember: you're doing this for no-one but yourself. You don't owe anyone shit. Your works are for yourself and yourself only. If you wanna take it to a complete 180°, go for it. If you wanna drive it to a new direction, go for it. But just remember: the feedback you recieve aren't born out of a vacuum. You decided for yourself to show it to the world, and this is how the world sees you. They're a reflection of your work in other's eyes: no matter how smudged and shattered of a reflection it may be.
 

Plus1

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Joined
Nov 16, 2020
Messages
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93
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.
I have the opposite problem. I decided to write a trashy smut story and publish it for the heck of it, and now my story refuses to leave the top of trending! I'm barely even posting new chapters anymore despite having backlog, trying to get it to go down! It's embarrassing!
 

Temple

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Oct 15, 2020
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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.
What other sites are good for viewers? I am just familiar with SH and RR and Webnovel. But I don't want to go to Webnovel. Been hearing bad things, not sure if true.
 

EternalSunset0

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What other sites are good for viewers? I am just familiar with SH and RR and Webnovel. But I don't want to go to Webnovel. Been hearing bad things, not sure if true.
Well, I came from Wattpad, but I don't think it's good for viewers. Story visibility is just awful there compared to here. To be fair, there are some things that I like better there than here like the overall story interface or the in-line commenting, but I still wouldn't recommend ditching SH for it.
 

thedude3445

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Jun 6, 2020
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Most stories that have tons of pages but absolutely no views are crossposted from other sites, at least from what I've seen. It seems like people dump all their chapters on new sites at once in order to "catch up" with other sites quickly, or other things. Or, they don't try to get involved in the community at all and let the stories silently post without even really checking on the site to see how things are going.

Stories that are original and posted to Scribble Hub (or Royal Road) and still get nothing? That's the really sad stuff, and there's no easy explanations for that stuff.
 

Temple

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Stories that are original and posted to Scribble Hub (or Royal Road) and still get nothing? That's the really sad stuff, and there's no easy explanations for that stuff.
Maybe something that's so far out of the preferences of SH and RR. RR seems to a smaller pool of genre that work there
 

thedude3445

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Maybe something that's so far out of the preferences of SH and RR. RR seems to a smaller pool of genre that work there
Mostly it does seem to be the stories that just don't fit in the genre wheelhouse, but there ARE stories that don't fit in RR's niche that have done phenomenally well, like Re: Trailer Trash, The Courting of Life & Death, Synth, Epilogue, and more. Even my own romance novel, thanks to the sheer hustle of it all, did quite well on the site and surpassed my expectations (I wasn't even planning on posting it there but decided to at the last second). What's the factor that sets apart he non-wheelhouse stories that do well versus the ones that are ignored? No idea.
 
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