Conngratulations Aunt Carla

I was just looking at the stats and notice that Aunt Carla has made the list of most commented authors, even though her stories have been loaded here less than three months. That's amazing! It puts her way ahead of this Guy.

Guy.

Amazing I had never looked up stats before. Grace, Flopsy and Katie B leading the field on the comments. I can't believe how many stories some people have read though. Five thousand!! How on earth do they manage it. I don't think I have read five hundred yet.

She writes fun stories and they obviously push a few buttons. I know they push a lot of mine.

Way to go Auntie! But then you knew you'd cause a stir. Grin.

Yes, her stories are very good indeed. I`ve only just discovered them but what a find they are. I`m usually quite conservative with my choice of spanking fiction but I`ll happily make an exception when stories are as good as Aunt Carla`s are. Her stories make me smile a lot whilst fuelling my imagination and her writing style is very accomplished. Mmmm, , I think it`s time to read another one.

Speed reading is the way!

Her climb is like a force of nature - unstoppable. She'll be with the other three 1000+ comment authors by the end of the year. The rest of us - well, we pick up a few comments here and there. Congrats to Aunt Carla, as well as thanks for the stories.

Who is 'us'?
I think, that the mere amount of comments tells only half of the truth.
If you divide the amount of comments through the amount of stories Aunt Carla is still leading with 9 comments per story.
Just some other authors rates:
TEM: 8,4
Blimp: 7,4
Rollin: 5,7
Rick Marlowe: 5,3
KatieB: 5
flopsybunny: 4
barrethunter: 1,6
Grace Brackenridge: 1,4
John Benson: 0,9
Flogmaster: 0,6

So your last sentence is only true for the last quarter of my list. One reason for the low rates here may be that most of the stories of this authors are older. I myself comment more likely on actual entries than on stories loaded in 2007.

I must admit, that I haven't read any story from Aunt Carla now. I will do that soon. But I think other rates are also quite interesting. First the rate of 8,4 from TEM. I think it's more likely to get many comments on single stories than on one big serial. One of my favourites for example is the Woody-back-to-school-saga. But I will not comment on all 1.800 parts. Once said: "Nice serial" seems to do it. So any author should also consider the amount of comments from different readers. 100 different readers stating "Nice" would comfort me more than 100 comments on 100 stories of just one single reader.

In consideration of the fact that blimp is writing on topics for a smaller amount of readers his rate is also remarkable high.

So if an author wants to increase his/her comment rate there may be a lot of different ways:

- As the authors are making the most comments be friendly to your peer-group
- Write on topics of interest for sebastian and twisted8, than you have a regular income.
- Write many stories in any competition as the chance is big to get attention from the whole variety of readers
- plug your own stories shamelessly
- answer on all comments from readers
- (write good stories) The last point I put in brackets because the rate of flogmaster or john benson are showing that this is no guarantee to get a lot of comments.

All authors who have low comment rates shouldn't be worried about their quality of writing. I myself for example tend to not comment on authors whom I perceive as some of the best. I just assume they know, that they are good and doesn't need a lot of feedback.

You're missing a a lot of good stories, then, if you're only reading the new entries. And you're not the only one. You're absolutely right that an author with a high proportion of older stories (indeed, any from before May, 2010) will suffer in comparison with an author with newer stories when the metric used is comments per story. My guess is, though, that if you could look at the post-May,2010 stories only, Aunt Carla would STILL rank at or near the top on comments per story.

Actually I read more old stories than new entries. But I don't comment on them very often. Somehow it seems quite irrelevant to tell f.e. the flogmaster or john benson or flopsybunny that I like a particular story loaded in june 2008 when afterwards about 1000 other stories followed.