As someone with two stories in the works and one in the backburner, I'm curious as to what draws readers in. Primarily, what types of cover art, summaries, or even chapter titles catch your interest. Feel free to mention the genre of course, but I'm asking for a more general perspective here.
Its mainly the title and the summary. They first draw in readers who would get curious and would try out reading the first chapter after knowing what novel title it has and what summary it shows. Second would be the cover but it mainly distincts what type of story you want to write. If the artstyle its good, it means you plan on writing a good novel. If its sht, you want to write a parody. It it styles a bit on western art, it holds a bit of sexual/political or any gender fluid type of story which depends if readers would prefer that.
Most are drawn in towards on the anime art(since it means you follow a certain anime trend) while western art sometimes would send mix signals which it mainly depends on the story and not the cover if readers are to get interested in.
Lastly would be on the first chapter. These would judge if its worthwhile to read your novel or not. It holds the critical role if readers were to continue to read your story or not.
Its mainly the title and the summary. They first draw in readers who would get curious and would try out reading the first chapter after knowing what novel title it has and what summary it shows. Second would be the cover but it mainly distincts what type of story you want to write. If the artstyle its good, it means you plan on writing a good novel. If its sht, you want to write a parody. It it styles a bit on western art, it holds a bit of sexual/political or any gender fluid type of story which depends if readers would prefer that.
Most are drawn in towards on the anime art(since it means you follow a certain anime trend) while western art sometimes would send mix signals which it mainly depends on the story and not the cover if readers are to get interested in.
Lastly would be on the first chapter. These would judge if its worthwhile to read your novel or not. It holds the critical role if readers were to continue to read your story or not.
Thanks for the more in-depth response, most of this I was aware of, some not, but it certainly tells me a bit more. That being said, would you prefer to see a story with named chapters or baseline names (ie. Chapter One), in the case of a longer story?
Tags>Cover>Title=Synopsis>First Chapter, in that order.
Tags honestly are the most important as the right usage can bring a mediocre story to the high heavens. But yeah, people will click on your story if they see anime tiddies. Then they look at the title and synopsis to see if it's interesting. Then they finally decide to give it a chance when they read the first chapter. It's usually that way.
The longer and more absurd your title, the more weight it will have than the synopsis(and even the cover), because well, it kinda becomes the synopsis, y'know?
As someone with two stories in the works and one in the backburner, I'm curious as to what draws readers in. Primarily, what types of cover art, summaries, or even chapter titles catch your interest. Feel free to mention the genre of course, but I'm asking for a more general perspective here.
Cover art, I typically am drawn to anime art (see my signature). Preferably with a level of polish. I usually don't click images that are obviously saved/grabbed from Google, especially if it's someone from an IP I know that has absolutely nothing to do with your title or premise (ie using an MHA character in a grimdark melodrama, you get the picture). Pixiv art of OCs are exceptions to this bias against "grabbed from Google" covers. There are exceptions, and one of my favorite stories on the site uses a Google'd character, so it's not a hard rule.
I can't say I have a specific preferences for summaries. Not in a quantifiable way, at least. I tend to avoid walls of text, though. Probably something like what you'll see from a show's TV Tropes page (the first paragraph or two) or an anime's MAL. That's probably my preferred style.
Chapter titles, no hard preferences, but I tend to like those with actual chapter titles instead of just numbers.
Genre, I prefer modern fantasy. Or school romcoms. I'm a weeb who got sucked into the hole in the late 2000s to early 2010s, so those years affect my biases and all. I'm generally lukewarm towards Isekai, especially the Medieval/D&D World types, but there are some of those that I liked. Generally, I'm not too big on the actual sex or the raunchier stuff, although there do exist some exceptions.
As for the actual content or impressions I get from clicking a chapter, I am quite judgmental towards formatting, so if I see large spaces as line breaks, it's a sizable deterrent to keeping me invested. For grammar, I don't mind too much since the latter is also an area of improvement for me. As long as your sentences are comprehensible, I'm cool with it.
My reading preferences tend to be physical LNs of anime I liked and paperback thrillers, with an odd sprinkling of classic literature here and there, so content that fits in with those should be fine. I can't quantify it, but I just "feel" it once I open the first chapter or so.
For pacing, I have decent patience for slow burns, but it helps me stay invested if I can predict a direction for the plot, or imagine the characters' appearances and how they are moving/talking through descriptions and/or good dialogue. Basically, if I can visualize the action very well and even "hear" them say their lines and such, it keeps me in.
Let’s see. The first gatekeeper is your title and cover art. First thing posted when you start a new series, always present when you update and when your story’s page is viewed. A clear, simple title and meaningful without looking childish cover art is probably best? These need to be “not bad” more than “good”.
Second gatekeeper is your tags. Every update will show your main tags with the cover art and main title. Readers search by tags. Don’t really need to go into which tags are preferred here, just going to say tag appropriately? Please?
Third and final gatekeeper is your synopsis. Your ad copy. Telling what the story is about, giving readers a reason why your reborn as a xxx story is more worthy of their time than the dozens of other reborn as a xxx stories on this site alone. We have a glut of web fiction right now, you need very compelling ad copy to put eyeballs on your real work. As for what constitutes good ad copy? I have no idea. Selling sand in the desert is beyond my understanding.
Not that important to not at all important are your chapter titles and, well, you know, your actual writing. Which makes my very sad. But the content of your actual work simply is not what draws readers in. It is what keeps them reading. But that’s a different topic?
Tags are what I search by. Titles can lose my interest if they are obnoxious. The synopsis can hook me in or make me skip right then and there. The writing in the chapters is what will keep me around. I do not care about the cover as much but it does help/hurt alongside the title, more it may hurt rather than help TBH.
Having the right Tags and Genres is by far the most important, since if the story don't have what I am searching for, it won't appear in the search list...
Beyond that, the story needs to have "something" I find interesting about it in the search list, or its unlikely I will bother to look into it any further...
It could be a nice Cover or Title or the story might just have some additional Tags or Genres I also like, but didn't search for specifically...
If I see a lengthy story synopsis that seems to be foreshadowing future events along with that "tragedy" genre and some spicy tags like corruption or conspiracy I am very likely to click on it
