successful or not?

There are some excellent points in the comments that have been made in reply to this question.

I confess that absence of comment and of indication that people have read my efforts can be extremely disheartening and can, if I let it, dissuade me from putting further effort into writing.

However, if I go back to the reason why I wrote a story in the first place, I usually get past that rather narrow-minded hurdle, since I write, if I am honest, for my own pleasure; this is my sole form of expression of a scene that means a great deal to me and has done for most of my life.

Creating a scenario that I enjoy is what really matters. When others share that enjoyment, I feel an enormous sense of delight and satisfaction, but I cannot honestly say that I equate that with giving a story a 'success' or 'failure' rating, something that I would normally associate with a commercial venture in which an objectively quantifiable result is achieved.

A very interesting question.

I was going to start a new thread on this, but I feel this one will do fine. My opinion in many stories where there are over 300 reads, and only 8 or 9 comments that it's because those 200 (and some odd readers) are simply looking for the spanking parts and not reading the descriptive data in order to know the plot. The why the spanking occurs. Hence, no comment. They don't know how to comment. This may be true with the longer stories of over 2,000 words or more. Although some may do this, and leave a comment on the spanking. Still, those comments that are given and, what is said in them, should tell the author that it was a successful story. For me, I read all of it. A spanking story is still a story, but with a little spanking here and there.

My own definition of the success of a story is by how many times I read it after it is posted. This entirely subjective view demonstrates how kindly I feel towards it and how much I enjoy the story. There are some I never tire of, just like when my children were small and required the same story read to them time and again.

Another measure I use is when I get a comment. Any comment. Just one will do.
As I write in the oddball end of the genre I know I'm not going to get loads, so every one is valued, most particularly those from someone I've not had comment before. That is not to say that I don't appreciate the efforts of my loyal reader(s). I do, particularly the one who has single handedly provided nearly 40% of all the comments on my work, but the evidence that someone new has stumbled across my stuff and hasn't run away screaming "I thought this was supposed to be a spanking story! Where's the spanking?" is most gratifying.

I'm so new at this writing thing that I thrive on comments letting me know what people think about my work. Also, I am definitely gratified when someone thinks enough of one of my tales to mark it as a favorite. Ultimately, however, the number of times a story is viewed matters since a story isn't going to generate comments or be "favorited" if no one reads it.

Another indicator that I look at to judge how successful one of my stories has been are the number of people that take the time to read subsequent chapters of my multi-part efforts. I've only submitted a couple of dozen stories/chapters so far, but it looks like a 50 - 60 % reader retention rate from chapter to chapter is typical for my multi-part stories. My most favorited story so far has been a two-chapter tale that had nearly an 80 % reader retention rate from the first chapter to the second. On the basis of the number of favorites the story received and the number of people that read both chapters, I would be inclined to call it my most successful effort so far.

I have seen over the years that the more chapters one adds to a serial it is very common to watch the number of readers drop successively on each of the chapters. Not true of all serials but in general very true. It is because a lot of readers will go back 1 or 2 chapters to start at the beginning but rarely beyond that and will tend to ignore a chapter if it means too much reading past stories.

While I am on this particular forum I wanted to mentioned I am a numbers orientated person so I tend to judge my success on numbers, as foolish as that may be. I do enjoy writing my stories and it is not a sad day when the numbers don't indicate a success but the numbers still speak to me.

A long time ago I adopted 150 reads and 8 comments on any story as a success. Not high numbers for sure but they provide a base for me to indicate at least enough people liked it besides me to show I can continue on a similar vein in future stories. I note no one else as mentioned specific numbers like I have and can only conclude I must be a little crazy, however I have been told I have been crazy on my life so no change there.

Anyway I believe the whole point here is to continue writing and be happy in my own head and be damned what others think ...LOL. So I will be continuing and successful or not you will have to put up with my F/M stories for a while yet.

Agreed! I think many of us are primarily writing what we enjoy reading ourselves, so to that extent, we are the best judge of its success. However, it's only human to look for other people's approval too.

I'm not sure number of reads is all that significant, because it includes people who start reading and then give up after a couple of sentences. If it measures anything, it's probably how good a title you have chosen. I suppose with a serial, the number of reads of part 2 is a measure of the success of part 1.

Number of favourites is probably the most objective measure of how well-received a story has been, as favourites are anonymous, and while comments can be positive, negative or luke-warm, favourites are only positive. Unfortunately, my stories tend not to score all that highly when it comes to favourites. As far as I can tell, the best way to get more favourites is to make the punishment harsher and crueller, but those stories aren't my personal favourites.

So I rely mostly on comments as a measure of success, not so much the number, but what they say. If the reader says they have been affected in some way by the story - touched, amused, intrigued or whatever - that for me is as good as it gets. The thought that you have created some sort of emotional connection with someone you'll never meet, perhaps on the other side of the world, is the true magic of the whole thing.