story experiment

My experiment on long stories vs serials has had an interesting result. The first part was 2,500 words and 4,000 for the second, so it wasn't halved artificially.
Part one has had 207 readers with 5 comments, and part two has had 122 readers and 4 comments.
That indicates to me that a great proportion of readers open the story and scan for good bits. I expect someone who reads part one entirely will want to read part two; but perhaps I think it more interesting than it is.
I don't blame people, as I am about the worst member: I read hardly anything these days after being avid earlier. Must be age!
I conclude that it is better for a long story to be posted in full, and will do that next time - if I get on with started material.

Interesting, but I wonder if it would hold up after several more trails? I for one on a very long story start to skip paragraphs full of details not involved with the actual spanking, so I find shorter stories (4K or less) are better for me. I am not speaking for anyone but me here, by the way.

Readers are fickle and many have tried to guess what they like, but after several trys at different methods I gave up all that and just wrote stories. Keep trying though, if you find the secret let me know.

CS

I'm not sure what that proved. If 207 people had opened the story in a single part, you'd have no idea how many of them read the whole thing. At least here, you know there's a good chance that most of the 122 readers did read it right through (because if they had opened part 1 and not liked it, they wouldn't have bothered opening part 2). And you probably would have gotten fewer than 9 total comments on a single part story.

Part ones always have more readers than subsequent parts. People will check it out to see if they want to read on or not. Same thing happens in a long single story, you just don't end up with any evidence of it.

I think if your part 2 has over half as many readers as part 1, your story is doing really well. Yes, definitely lots of readers hunt for the good parts and skip the rest. But that would happen if you crammed it all into one part, too, it's just that it wouldn't show in cruelly stark numbers.

Also, I object to the idea that 6500 words is a 'long' story. I know attention spans worldwide are on the decline due to social media and stuff, but geez.

Author: Would you like to read a story about your most secret, most arousing kink?
Reader: Yes.
Author: It's 6000 words long.
Reader: Oh, okay, no.

Well, only because we're on a site with over 27K stories, many of them shorter than that. So it's more like

Reader: Oh, never mind, I'll read three of these 2000 word stories instead.

Which if what you are looking for is spankings per minute of reading, is probably the way to go. If you want well-developed characters, built-up emotions, interesting scenarios, etc. then of course the longer stories (or serials) are where you'll find those.

I have mixed feelings. I'll read a long story if it intrigues me, (and there have been some great ones here), and I also enjoy the shorter ones. A point, however; some stories seem too short and I keep hoping the author will expend it, sometime.
I agree, it's unfortunate that social media have played a big part in the decline of attention spans. Sigh.

Reading online does allow you to skim/scan through a written piece, and likewise we are a want it now, immediacy, speed is the essence society, eg if it takes anything over a few seconds to download then folk think the end of the world is nigh, so quick fix the motto for many.

Personally there are authors here on LSF who if they wrote a full length novel online i would read it all in one go, and likewise when these authors write many episodes of story over weeks and months, i avidly read each and everyone, so size isn't everything.......so they say

So merely from my perspective if it grabs my attention then i am along for the ride in whatever format that is.

Indeed. Just as I'll lose myself in a good printed book.

Interesting comments, which all make sense. It is inevitable that many readers will skim, as there is so much on offer.
Personally, I like long stories which have context and character, and I will read any length if it engages me - and avidly await the next in a good serial.
I have only written a couple of stories aimed at pleasing a segment of the readership. Mostly I write to please myself, and hope it pleases some of the readers too.

I think this is the way to go.