Ditmag

So six stories and 800K words later, I accumulated a few reviews, all very positive. I also got suggestions to post to other sites, so i started posting my work to AO3 as well, which netted a LOT more reviews and comments, a couple hundred to date, also very positive except for some beef with story choices. I’m starting to appreciate how so many TV shows are great untilthe end, when the most brilliant writers often blow it. That’s happened to me a few times. First ten chapters-Awesome! Second ten chapters-Even better! Third ten chapters-Best story ever! Last chapter-WTF?! Why would you do that?! STicking landings is hard. I’m noticing that my latest story is getting single digit dragon prints per day, as compared to 40 a day for my first one. On AO3 my readership is only growing, but here it’s declining. I’m also noticing fewer new stories posted on the site in general.

Any idea what the most read story is here? Or at least the most dragon prints you’ve seen on one story?

Out of curiosity, does anyone know which story has the most dragon prints on this site? The most I’ve seen so far is over 100K. It would be cool if the devs would have charts. All time dragon prints, most dragon prints last week, last year, etc. Although I can see how that might just get ruined by manipulation.

Heh. None of that yet. More like, “Hey, could you write an alternative scenario wherethe hero ends up with X instead?” Of course, being new and desperate for readers, I’ll do whatever anyone wants. As soon as I’m done with the project I’m working on, that is. Looks like it’ll wrap up at about 50 chapters.

I got my first review! And it was good! Plus an email of appreciation from someone else a few days ago. I’m glad someone likes it. I’m both proud of it and cringing over it. Is that normal when you write for public consumption?

Skyrim’s super mainstream, so that would make sense. It could also be the story is just that good. Once I finish my own, I plan to read a lot of the stories here. Especially that one.

Wouldn’t bots be scrubbing the site systematically though, so that every story sees a certain number of dragon prints? I’ve kinda been hoping my story is doing moderately well because it’s gets more daily dragon prints than most other stories that are regularly updated. For example, I’ve got 1288 in 25 days, whereas another story in the games archive has only 650 in 29 days. Of course, there’s a Skyrim story with 11k in 100 days, which is doing better than both of us.

I’m new here and have only one story up that’s a work in progress. I notice that unlike many other sites, there’s no like or dislike buttons, no subscribing to an author, just reviews. And those reviews are pretty rare. The only thing we really have to go on is dragon prints. In that respect, my story seems to be doing moderately well, gaining about 40 dragon prints per day, which seems to be a higher rate than other stories in the “games” category where the story resides. But all dragon prints tell you is who has clicked on the story, not if they actually read it and enjoyed it. So I guess my question is, if I’m maintaining a somewhat higher level of daily dragon prints than other newly updated stories in my category, does that mean I’m doing well? Or is that a completely meaningless measure?