Guests

[Silverbullet]

My stories average about 300 readers each. With only a handful of others most of these readers are guests. One of my stories "Oh Mr. tucker" had a little over 1000 people read it here. As I say with the exception of a handful they were all guests.

our threads many guests read those too.

Who are these guests and why , with the rare exception, don't/won't they leave a comment on a story?

Without them I would not have written any stories since the few from this board who read my stories has fallen off to one or two and it owould not be worth my time.

I don't know the number for others but suspect that people like Alelou, distracted, Rigel Kent and others have far grater numbers than I do, that includes Asso who in my opinion is a wonderful writer.

Any ideas

SB

[Kotik]

I would say that the numbers gathered in our archive are not very convincing. First of all the whole counting was tacked on as an afterthought and since there is no account management in the archive the only resonable ID to detect distinct users is the IP address, but most people do not have a fixed IP. Every time I connect to the interwebs I get a new IP, which is usually different from the one the day before, which means, if I read a story two times, I'll show up as two users having read it. Considering that, I've probably done my part in wrecking the stats for authors like bluetiger, who's stories I've reread dozens of times.

Same goes for the comments, but for different reasons. I would have commented on a lot more stories, if we had something different than this horrible captcha thing. I can imagine that I'm not the only one, who is losing motivation to leave comments, because the process is such a pain in the backside.

[Silverbullet]

Kotik, dunno, the numbers exceed an author looking to see if anyone has read his/her story. You might reduce the number by 100 and still leave a lot of guests reading stories on this board.

I am not sure about the archive. Does it register people who read the stories after they have been put in to the archive?

SB

[Alelou]

The people who bother to leave comments are always going to be in the tiny minority, SB, and in my experience it's even rarer that anyone leaves feedback on old stories. And stats, even under perfect conditions, only tell you who started to read a chapter, not whether someone finished it or liked it.

My advice is simply to be as happy as you can with the comments you get, and write primarily for yourself and the fans or friends who bother to respond. After all, you're not getting paid. Sometimes stats disappear into black holes for days at a time even at ff.net. This needs to be fun, or it's not worth doing.

[panyasan]

I like to see how many people read my work: at TRIS is about an average of 400-500 people for a story, at other sites it's about the same or less (there are exceptions: more than 700 people on one story).

Now I know that the numbers may be not right at TRIS, I doubt if my joy of the 500 people is justified. Maybe it was just me alone, clicking to see if I got a new review.

The reviews differ as well. Some stories are loved at TRIS, some stories get less love, but more love on other sites.

Of course, I like when people comment and read my stuff. I think every writer would. So I would encourage you to leave reviews. I also get a little bit down with less readers and reviewers. But the best way to handle that is to keep in mind that the process of writing is a joy in its self. Even when writing isn't easy.
(Almost finish with my Valentine story! The last - fun - chapter. What a pain that previous chapter has been! Guess angst isn't my thing - but you can decide for yourself ).

[putaro]

Reviews and stats are interesting. Some of the chapters that I felt was some of my best work got the fewest reviews. And one chapter that got the most reviews got the fewest hits. Go figure. I agree, with panyasan - write for yourself. Reviews and feedback do become addictive very quickly, though.

[Silverbullet]

Two people on this board has said that feedback is the life's blood of a writer. without it a writer does not know if his/her stuff is worthwhile.

(note, there have been 22 people who have read this thread, guests. Only five people have actually contributed to the thread)

Panysanne, you have a nice fan base, I envy you. But then, you are a better writer than I am. Hell, tht can be said just about everyone.

Still my question is, who are these guests? Are many members of this board who only read stories and no longer are interested in participating in the threads?

SB

[Kotik]

Now I know that the numbers may be not right at TRIS, I doubt if my joy of the 500 people is justified. Maybe it was just me alone, clicking to see if I got a new review.

Well, it depends if the IT wizzards of TriS implemented something like a cookie semaphore to prevent one from wrecking his/her own statistics. From what I've seen in my cookie history, it seems unlikely. I'll test that in the evening

[Alelou]

Then there's the part where you check back to see if someone responded to a review. So it's not just the author checking back....

[Alelou]

Two people on this board has said that feedback is the life's blood of a writer. without it a writer does not know if his/her stuff is worthwhile.

(note, there have been 22 people who have read this thread, guests. Only five people have actually contributed to the thread)

Panysanne, you have a nice fan base, I envy you. But then, you are a better writer than I am. Hell, tht can be said just about everyone.

Still my question is, who are these guests? Are many members of this board who only read stories and no longer are interested in participating in the threads?

SB

I'm sure that even in its heyday, far more people lurked to read Triaxian Silk threads than posted. That's just the nature of the Internet, SB. Some people probably find the conversation interesting but feel no need to jump in. Most people lurk for awhile before they jump in, trying to determine just how functional or dysfunctional we are (and may run for their lives once they figure it out). Some people lurk because they've officially decided we're the bad guys but want to keep paranoid tabs on us. And some fans are probably just not comfortable conversing in English.

[panyasan]

Two people on this board has said that feedback is the life's blood of a writer. without it a writer does not know if his/her stuff is worthwhile.

(note, there have been 22 people who have read this thread, guests. Only five people have actually contributed to the thread)

SB

I know you have fans as well, SB and they like your work a lot. I was told in one of my studies that normally most people don't respond and that you should always multiply the response you get. My guess the same counts for reviews.