What makes a story successful?

There are many ways to succeed. If you write a book, it may be a bestseller, or it may become the critics' new favorite, but it may also go unnoticed until somebody discovers it fifty years from now. It's a bit of the same in here - you may get a thousand views, or you may get a few good and substantial comments that make you feel that somebody really understood and appreciated your work.

There are so many factors involved that it seems impossible to come up with good statistical measures of success. The title means a lot for the number of views as does the position on the page of new stories when it gets published. Challenge stories tend to get many comments but fewer views than ordinary stories, and so on.

What I consider my least successful story has 123 views, 4 favorites, and 12 comments, but the "per view" statistics would put it ahead of the one with 581 views, 15 favorites, and 40 comments. The point is that all your stories, even the less successful ones, will get its fair share of comments from the people who usually comment on your stories, and what really makes the difference is the numbers of comments you can pick up from the people who don't usually comment on your stuff. But these comments are usually few and far between. My guess is that the number of comments (on stories, not serials) grows something like the square root of the number of views.

In the absence of a rating system, like in the challenges, my benchmark is ratios of views to comments and views to favorites. Views alone don't mean much, since a snappy title alone can get a quick click, but if I'm not getting a comment for every 10-20 views and only a couple of favorites, the story has clearly failed, at least from the perspective of being interesting to readers.

CS, I tend to write more M/F stories than F/M primarily because I think that's what people want. I personally have an equal preference for both and if I wrote according to my preference, you would see roughly equal numbers. If you look in video clip sites such as spankingtube, the severity of the punishment from my samplng is much greater with F/M. I wonder if this is because the subs are actually clients of the Domiatrices and need to zbe punished hard rather than doing it for a paycheck. I know I really need if hard but don't know how many other women want the severity that I need to meet my needs.

My standard for years for all stories single or in a series has been 150 views and 8 comments. With comments dropping this may no longer be realistic but I am still hoping. Anything less especially on the start of a series makes me drop it very quickly. I am a number stats person so this is good for me but not for everyone.

Challenges are good but with numbers lacking there as well it makes me wonder. Good titles are vital for number of views and I am lousy at titles. I do compare stats on a individual story bases and on a grand total bases and so far I have managed to keep my numbers up but I must admit I get feeling to ask administration to remove some stories when they do not get the numbers.

CS

Guy has a valid point here. For any of us who are "self publishing" if we don't appreciate our own stories, then why bother?

The prolific English writer W. Somerset Maugham once said that the reason he wrote was to purge the demons in his head. That once these demons/characters were committed to paper, he was then free of them ... never to be bother by them again.

That seems like a pretty dark way of thinking about writing, but then again Maugham wrote for a living and he wrote one ton of stories, plays, novels etc.

My sense is most of us don't feel that pressure to write, but do so because the stories we write fill a void for us.
That "void" is an imaginary world in which we wished we lived.

Back to Guy's point, I would never write a story (i.e. create an imaginary world) that I can't imagine myself in. This creative process forces me out of my rather mundane real world similar to the escape one gets by watching a movie only far, far more powerful. More powerful, because it's the world we envisioned NOT someone else's vision.

Achieving that escape is what makes a story successful for me and that can only happen if I create a story/imaginary world that "I" like.

On that score, I consider a story successful if *I* keep going back and re-reading it. I feel kind of conceited admitting this, but some of my stories I like to read and re-read. Though none of them are based in truth, I do sometimes find that I relate a little too much with my spankees -- sometimes I get a real physical nervous tummy sensation when reading them!

That's a good point Rosie. Likewise I re read my own stories, smiling at the jokes and feeling the tension in the protagonists. Of course these worlds were created by me and perforce push my buttons. Having said that I do like to read stuff far more severe than I would write but we have often addressed that topic.
As to v/c ratio, I'd give up writing if that was my pass mark.

I would say that there are multiple factors and some you can't even affect as a writer. When I look at my stories a few basic things strikes me. A direct title that implies that a female teacher will get spanked is a good kick-off. Fantasy titles are completely off, school rules. The story should be over 2000 words, but less than 6000. Already when crossing 5000 words the number of reads drop. Just do single stories, the second part can be counted as successful should it get half the number of reads compared to the first one. More than four parts is out of the question if you're looking for reads. The final part usually does get more reads than the second last one in a series though, so people want to know how the plot ends even if they don't care to read the whole story. Then you have to be lucky with the release. Your story should be among the last ones that are upped in a release, so it's close to the top of the page. That has been an advantage to me. Then there is also a large element of luck what stories are clicked the first few hours. The ones that get a lots of reads initially usually stay in the lead, even though they have no likes or comments. Many people having read a story is always a certain winner, in particular when people searches the library. Secondly people seem to go for likes, but in a much lesser sense. When looking at a weekly release of stories, it often strikes me how dominant it is to have many reads the first few hours and how it overshadows everything else. It's a bit strange though, that a story with five likes and two-hundred reads keeps staying low while a story with four-hundred reads and no likes keeps soaring. I'm generalizing a bit of course, but this is a trend I've seen. I try to look for average number of likes compared to reads when searching for stories myself. Or rather, to be honest, I just read the synopsis and if it appeals to me I read the story no matter how many reads it has or how many likes. The time on the first page is also vital. I've had the distinct luck of having released some of my stories at times when the accumulation of stories appears to have been low and I got up to three weeks exposure on the front page. At other times you get only four days and then your story is pretty much screwed, no matter the qualities; it gets overshadowed by the later releases. If you look at the plot, which actually seems to come second on my list; an extensive spanking seems to do the trick. So to say, let her have it good and long. There has been a lot of discussion on stereotypes and clichés, but to be honest I feel that they quite work. Don't drown the story in them, but most people seem to like these trigger words. Standard phrasing like "Take your medicine" can be quite rewarding when an adult is undergoing a childish treatment; it's part of the process to humiliate them just as much as the actual spanking and it seems to appeal to many readers. Be as standard and down to earth as possible, try to get the emotional state of the characters obvious. Unwilling but subdued spankees seems to be most popular, in particular such holding their nose high before having been taken down. So, a plot can be brilliant and witty, but what sells is an excessive spanking of an authoritarian figure. Another good way can be to make it F/M. Yes, there are so much fewer such stories here than F/M, but that means that there is a craving for such. More people normally will jump on a F/M story when it's released than a M/F story, which more easily drown in the competition.

Ps, my own standards for a successful story are 1) more than 100 reads and 2) one like (except if it is a long series. Then it's fine if only the first part has been liked) It's much more difficult with the likes nowadays though. My first stories where upped just before the page was turned into a membership based organization and the likes and similar that you could dish out was hampered. My first stories got like 25 likes more or less right away (Trading places), while the ones released after the introduction of the membership system get just a handful at best. The average reader just don't have so much praise to dish out these days.

I have to say I find a large part of this thread utterly depressing.

Whereas I can understand there being disappointment if someone submits a story or serial and it gets largely overlooked, this obsession with views and comments I find to be quite shallow and not a little unhealthy.

If I'd known that this is how authors would react I can say for sure that I wouldn't have included any of the so-called statistics that seem to have become the primary focus and apparently all that matters for some.

For heaven's sake, write because you enjoy writing, share what you've written because you enjoy sharing, and write first and foremost for yourself. If others like what you've written, and are prepared to say so in the form of a comment, then see that as a bonus. Ultimately, of course, it's not for me or anyone else to dictate what you write and submit, but writing purely in an attempt to aggregate the maximum number of comments, views, favourites or whatever, really is a sorry state of affairs in my opinion.

I tend to agree with Februs, else I wouldn't be launching one extensive fantasy series after the other. There are another three series about the witch and the ghosts in the attic will return eventually, so hold on to your hats. I'll keep releasing them no matter if I reach the 100 reads limit or not. All of the episodes... (Moah-ha-ha!! <evil laugh> ). Well, if for nothing else it'll narrow down what you have to scan through on the release day to find something that you like. But I will keep kicking in occasional schoolgirl/teacher stories to keep me from getting booted for consistently getting zero reads...

Oh, the favorites I chase not for achievement, but to know if I've got things together in a good way. I mean, English is after all my second/third language and getting the shades, underlying insinuations and the emotional setting through in the way I see it can be really hard. So if I get many reads and many likes the first thing that goes through my mind is "Yay!! I could actually write a piece in English that worked for an English speaking person! I get to keep my day job a little bit longer!"

By the way Februs, you should really add your name to the spelling dictionary; it keeps coming up every time I try to send a message that includes it.