What's a good views/chapter reads ratio?

thedude3445

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What's a good ratio for the number of chapter reads versus views overall on this site? It's the only site I have ever been on that counts the landing page as a view so it's not something I have experience with.

For example, my romance novel has 7014 views, and 3507 reads. Exactly a 50% ratio which I just realized... wow that's weird.

My Mario fan fiction has 36,974 views and 26,056 reads, which is about a 70% ratio of reads to views.

And one of those Waifu Labs cover fictions I randomly grabbed off the front page has 97,879 views with 56,593 reads, which is about 58%.

What's considered good on this site, and what's considered alarming? I imagine that after a certain point of drop-off it's pretty clear that your cover/synopsis/etc. aren't good enough because people aren't reading, but what point is that?
 

Aaky

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It depends in the number of chapters.

-Two people click your novel
- you have 9 chapters
- one person reads them all, the other bounces without clicking chapter 1
Now you have 10 page views, and 9 chapter views, giving u a retention of 90%.

I'll say 60% is average for novels with 10-20 chapters. But each author has their threshold.
 

Malonymous

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On a related note, given that some readers might visit the landing page but won't actually start reading until a certain number of chapters are available, on average what is that chapter number threshold?
 

Aaky

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On a related note, given that some readers might visit the landing page but won't actually start reading until a certain number of chapters are available, on average what is that chapter number threshold?
Hehe that truly depends on the reader. Friends of mine who read eastern fantasy usually want at least 50 chapters worth of material. I am personally in the #ReadAsTheyCome gang.

But if I were to make an educated guess, thresholds would be mostly 10, 20, 25, 30, 50, 100. With most people in the 10-25 range.

Binge readers who wait for a specific chapter count do exist. But sadly I don't have any data to see the quantity of chapters needed.
 

LostLibrarian

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I imagine that after a certain point of drop-off it's pretty clear that your cover/synopsis/etc. aren't good enough because people aren't reading, but what point is that?
As @Aaky pointed out, you can't really use the reads/view ratio for that. But a simple thing would be, to compare your frontpage views with your first chapter reads.

Going with your romance novel, your frontpage had 3.5k views (all views that aren't chapter views). Your first chapter had 480 views, so that would in turn mean, that roughly 1/7th of your frontpage views lead to someone starting the story.

But even that is off, because (a) you'll have readers open your frontpage multiple times or bots or non-readers open it multiple times, so the number of actual reads you can get out of your frontpage views are far lower. I gave my own story a ton of frontpage views just by clicking wrong, getting the link, etc.

Hence 1/7th sounds already not that bad to me. My own story stands at ~1/11th, but there's also frontpage trending in that, where a lot of people just click because you don't see the tags, see the tags, and leave without any chance for a read.


In short: I don't think your pageviews to reads ratio has any meaning beside "good, fine, bad". And yours seems totally fine to me...

If anything, the numbers I would look at are big drops in reads between chapters. Especially after the prologue/chapter 1 or 2. Those point towards problems with your early hook, which can often be the result of unclear or missleading synopsis/tags...
 

LostLibrarian

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on average what is that chapter number threshold?
We had a discussion about that back then on RR and the biggest group (according to subjective experiences) was around 100 pages, which translates to roughly 25k words. Going by SH chapter lengths that would be 10-20 chapters.

Although I would say, that your update schedule also has a really big thing to do with it. If you upload weekly, people might stock up more, while daily updates are more appealing to early reads, because you won't have to wait that long for "more"...
 

ConTroll

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Anything beyond 1 view per chapter is good in my eyes.

The vast majority of us here are by no means professional writers. As such, I personally do not think we should be leveraging the fate of our stories with things like view count -- though, I admit that seeing an increase in traffic is a good morale boost.
 

LostLibrarian

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professional writers
But what are "professional writers"? Isn't the difference between an amateur and a professional writer something in the headspace of the writer. The way they approach writing. The goal they are trying to approach. If people sit down 2,3,4 hours a day over a long time... what's the difference?

I think looking at the view count is both natural and helpful. Given that a lot of people neither comment nor review, your reader/view count is one of the easiest measurements of how your book is doing.

Although I agree, that each person should decide for himself, how much weight those numbers have...
 

JayDirex

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Why is no one talking about Valid Reads?

all of that landing page means JACK-FKn-SHYTE. the only metric that matters to the Author is Valid Read.


@thedude3445 Go look at your Valid Reads, that is the only metric that matters, at all. PERIOD.
 

Aaky

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Why is no one talking about Valid Reads?

all of that landing page means JACK-FKn-SHYTE. the only metric that matters to the Author is Valid Read.


@thedude3445 Go look at your Valid Reads, that is the only metric that matters, at all. PERIOD.

:blob_catflip: No metric on its own has any value what so ever. It's more like a combination of all of them, which gives you an iffy picture of where you stand. The best metric is how much patreon bux the story is making, lol
 

thedude3445

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Anything beyond 1 view per chapter is good in my eyes.

The vast majority of us here are by no means professional writers. As such, I personally do not think we should be leveraging the fate of our stories with things like view count -- though, I admit that seeing an increase in traffic is a good morale boost.
Most of my work may be free but I write full-time with the goal of making it my sole career quite soon, so unfortunately things like view counts and read ratios matter to me more than I'd prefer.

Why is no one talking about Valid Reads?

all of that landing page means JACK-FKn-SHYTE. the only metric that matters to the Author is Valid Read.


@thedude3445 Go look at your Valid Reads, that is the only metric that matters, at all. PERIOD.
I'm not even sure how to find the Valid Reads statistic except in that one graph which only shows individual plots over time instead of the overall number of the number per chapter.
 

Rale

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We had a discussion about that back then on RR and the biggest group (according to subjective experiences) was around 100 pages, which translates to roughly 25k words. Going by SH chapter lengths that would be 10-20 chapters.

Although I would say, that your update schedule also has a really big thing to do with it. If you upload weekly, people might stock up more, while daily updates are more appealing to early reads, because you won't have to wait that long for "more"...
Yeah it's around 100 chapters for me. If the synopsis is really interesting I may not follow that too strongly, but still above 50. The second part of your statement is more important. If I see the average chapter update is 5-7 a week then I'm much more likely to pick it up. If it's updating once every now and then, then I'm not touching it.
 

BenJepheneT

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In essence, Views is basically how well your story attracts. That'll be either the synopsis, or the cover, or the tags, or the title. Reads is the gauge in which how many people are actually STAYING after viewing your brochure (synopsis and all).
 

Kaguro

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60-70%+ conversion is probably the ideal ratio, but most of the time it has to do with your story being already popular or not and the total number of chapters you have.

More chapters to read means the same person can binge read and add multiple times to flattening out that ratio.
 
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Localforeigner

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But what are "professional writers"? Isn't the difference between an amateur and a professional writer something in the headspace of the writer. The way they approach writing. The goal they are trying to approach. If people sit down 2,3,4 hours a day over a long time... what's the difference?

I think looking at the view count is both natural and helpful. Given that a lot of people neither comment nor review, your reader/view count is one of the easiest measurements of how your book is doing.

Although I agree, that each person should decide for himself, how much weight those numbers have...

No, the difference between an amateur and a professional is that professional writers get paid. An amateur could write 16 hours a day their entire life, but if they aren't getting paid for it, they are just an amateur or a hobbyist by definition.
 
D

Deleted member 45782

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Most of my work may be free but I write full-time with the goal of making it my sole career quite soon, so unfortunately things like view counts and read ratios matter to me more than I'd prefer.
Sounds pretty cool. Goodluck. Hope maybe one day can do a hobby as a career that also pays well.
 
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