Author stats

[was originally 'Authors who aren't library members / complaints']


That's a virtually meaningless statistic .. I think at the time you posted there'd been around 460 members online so if they'd read just a single story each from the Latest Loaded page that would account for almost 600 views right away. Most days there are over 5,000 items viewed and I'd wager that a sizeable majority of those will be whatever has just been loaded. It stands to reason that no author is going to find their stories being read constantly.

Some days I regret providing all the statistics on here.

There are some that are read constantly--Brackenridge, Benson and Flogmaster come to mind. To a lesser degree flopsy and DJB. I admit, a very unscientific review, but these are the names I always see when I page back through the "latest read" to see what is selling.

The statistics don't support your observations at all:

Rollin
views: 57,299
items: 200
avg. views per item: 286.55


Flogmaster
views: 128,063
items: 653
avg. views per item: 196.11


Grace Brackenridge
views: 206,716
items: 1407
avg. views per item: 146.92


John Benson
views: 94,655
items: 801
avg. views per item: 118.17


What I don't understand is why any of this matters.. all the above authors are clearly popular and widely read irrespective of whichever arbitrary statistical metric is used.

Wow. Size does matter. Ok professor, you win.

rollin

I think and I am sure I am not alone you write great stories. In looking at your latest submitted stories I think I counted over 1300 reads just on the last five which is a good number for anyone. In fact I have always thought you were better read then me, but your writing is one of the better ones on site so I don't mind at all.

Don't get discouraged, don't worry, be happy. Keep reading, keep commenting and write lots as I have said on the rare occasion. Have fun

Another explanation: Regular readers may have read already all stories of their favorised authors, so it's natural that the views drop, if you are not submitting new stories every day. The cumulated Member-statistics shows, that in 2010 the increase of members was about 400 % in relation to end of 2009. In 2011 it only increased about 20 %. And only the new members will read your old stories, the old members already finished them. So if authors wants more readers and more views they should think of ways to promote this library in the net.

And/or, write more new stories.

Guy

In other words, get back to work and stop screwing around on the forum, right? (LOL)


To be sure, that's part of it, but I'd also guess that any author's popularity waxes and wanes periodically, and it's usually centered around new releases. But here's the funny part--new releases seem to create enthusiasm for the same author's older material too. It just seems to come in clusters. Like in the old song: "When you're hot you're hot, when you're not you're not."
A new story seems to stay hot about 48-72 hours after release. Not surprising really. Even a blockbuster movie exhausts it's popularity after a week to ten days. Two weeks later you're sitting in an empty theater.

But in between all the blockbuster are always a few who become classics.

Don't even THINK about dropping them! Since you (among others here) suffer from the disability of being British rather than American, and thus living without Baseball, you probably can't appreciate how lengthy discussions about the relevance and importance of obscure statistics can be such a consuming passion.


B-b-but... I WANT my stories read constantly!


Agreed - clearly all four are popular and widely read, for good reason. For rollin's benefit, I'd note that the other three all have a lot more stories posted here than he does, so, irrespective of the number of new stories posted at any one time, they are likely to get more views than he when readers search randomly for stories.



You're absolutely right! (advice I'm not likely to take myself, so that I can be the one complaining about not being read)