Lack of reviews.

[DemonGoddess]

I'd say a fair number of us have been insulted in that manner. Yes, it is an insult. If a reader goes out of his or her way to give you what you ask for, and because you dislike hearing truth you delete the review, that makes reviewers who used to be willing to give that kind of review reluctant to do so.

[Kurahieiritr]

I'd say a fair number of us have been insulted in that manner. Yes, it is an insult. If a reader goes out of his or her way to give you what you ask for, and because you dislike hearing truth you delete the review, that makes reviewers who used to be willing to give that kind of review reluctant to do so.

A: Amen. You are officially preaching to the choir because I am one hundred and ten percent upon the same page of late. The only question left seems to be; how can we correct the ongoing insult that so many readers now feel because of getting treated so badly by that ilk?

[Crystalandra]

I guess I am part of the minority here that as a writer I do appreciate any reviews that I get. Whether they be negative or positive, I do not delete them from my posts since they are very much like trophies to me. I'll give you an example, a story that I have posted elsewhere received quite a vicious review--the individual did not like my main character stating that she was too powerful, snotty, and even went as far to criticize the name. I took this all in stride--I didn't get angry in fact it helped me to sit down and re-evaluate the character that I created. *shrugs. It's a shame that some authors are insensitive to honest reviews and have spoiled it for others who appreciate them.

[TimedWatcher]

My most popular story (with 6000 views as of this writing), has 10 ratings but not a single review.

Even my least viewed stuff has gotten reviews.

[GeorgeGlass]

My most popular story (with 6000 views as of this writing), has 10 ratings but not a single review.

Even my least viewed stuff has gotten reviews.

6000 hits and no reviews? Incredible. In what category is the fic posted?

A few days ago, I posted an original story ("Firelight") in the Erotica > Het-Male/Female section that has garnered about 1000 hits and 8 ratings but no reviews. My other single-chapter stories (all fanfics) have gotten about 1 to 5 reviews per 1000 hits, so I'm not sure why it's so different for this original fic.

With regard to ratings, people generally give my fanfics either 5s or nothing, whereas this original story has earned a couple of 1s (in addition to some 4s or 5s). That makes me even more curious to know what readers like or don't like about it.

[Cuzosu]

I adore my reviews, especially if they point out specifics that I should either keep doing or fix. A number of my fan fics have no reviews, but honestly, I get the feedback that I want for those from other people, generally people I met in the specific fandom and for whom I write the fics.

My original work has been a blessing and very much fun for me. Within the first 50 views, I had a review. I call that a miracle; personally, I think I posted it at just the right time, because I started getting more in very short order, and I've looked around enough to know that that's rare, in any category. And I must be doing something right, because I had a total of nine reviews on a then two-chapter story by the end of the first month. Now it's up to five chapters, has a rating of 62, and 2,900-some hits. It has 15 reviews, which isn't all that much spread out (3 reviews per chapter), but I'm really delighted to read them because the reviewers are actually leaving opinions--so I know what keeps drawing them in.

If I'm posting a work and looking for reviews, I know that it's my responsibility to make that connection with the readers, that intangible link that makes them want to review. If I'm not getting reviews on a story that I'm trying to get feedback on, then either I haven't asked in the right way or my story was lacking. And if that's the case, it's on me. (Well, either that or I posted in the wrong place, because popularity matters, too, but that would also be my fault.)

[copperleaves]

I don't know, for me it's weird. I'll see a story on, like, ff.net with 100+ reviews, and I'll barely be able to get through the first chapter because the writing's so poor and formulaic. I don't even mind a recycled plot/setup that you see in dozens of stories as long as the author is a good writer and is doing something fresh with it.

But when I see that, it sort of makes me feel a little defeated? Because I feel like, "man, I'm a better writer than this and my much longer story has WAY fewer reviews..." So I kinda wonder what I'm doing wrong.

I do appreciate ppl taking the time to drop even "keep it up!" or something, but of course I do prefer more thoughtful reviews.

[DemonGoddess]

I'm sure I've made mention of this before, but it's something I've been seeing for years. Good writers don't tend to get the reviews of writers with fanpoodles. Why? Who knows?

[GeorgeGlass]

I don't know, for me it's weird. I'll see a story on, like, ff.net with 100+ reviews, and I'll barely be able to get through the first chapter because the writing's so poor and formulaic. I don't even mind a recycled plot/setup that you see in dozens of stories as long as the author is a good writer and is doing something fresh with it.

But when I see that, it sort of makes me feel a little defeated? Because I feel like, "man, I'm a better writer than this and my much longer story has WAY fewer reviews..." So I kinda wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Don't let that stuff get you down. There are a great many factors that affect how many reviews a story gets, most of which have little or nothing to do with how well it's written. To name just one, FFN has no age restrictions, which means that compared to AFF, it has an audience that is much bigger, far less discriminating, and more prone to gushing or flaming (either of which ups the review numbers).

I have two stories posted on AFF that I consider to be the best I have ever written. I literally sweated over them and (less literally) poured my heart and soul into them. And of all the stories I have posted here, they are the least reviewed and the lowest rated. Why? Probably because, unlike most of my other stories, they aren't porn. But the relative lack of attention to those stories doesn't mean that I think any less of them; I just know that they can't be measured with the same yardstick as my other stuff.

[LockedBox]

Building on what GeorgeGlass brought up, I've noticed that a lot of readers and reviewers seem to be attracted to a certain sort of story. If you just take a look through some of the subsections in the originals category, there's a pretty clear trend that shows that stories that advertise explicit sex (especially kinks like noncon and BDSM) get drastically more views than those with more general summaries, and that is after you take into account when works were posted and how many chapters have been added. As a consequence, they get more reviews, even if a lot are simple one liners commenting how sexy the story was. People just seem to be looking for certain things in their reading material here, and I'm not trying to be judgmental when I say that. People looking in the inuyasha fandom may want a very different sort of story to anyone in the Harry Potter fandom, each section seems to have it's own microcosm of readers who pounce upon some buzzwords that another fandom might snub all together and every now and again someone will write a story that, while not necessarily good, fills a niche that a lot of readers were looking for and gets an enormous response because of it. I mean, just recently there was a mafia themed story posted to the originals section, and it's view count has tripled compared to others with the same amount of chapters. Now, while it wasn't to my taste, a lot of the reviewers were saying the same thing; that they really liked mafia stories and wished there were more of them, which is certainly understandable.

Next time you see a story with a whole tonne of reviews, take a skim through them. Odds are that there will be a lot of reviewers commenting on a particular theme or kink that they really liked and wanted more of. I'm not a statistician by any means, but that's what I've noticed in my years here.

[GeorgeGlass]

If you just take a look through some of the subsections in the originals category, there's a pretty clear trend that shows that stories that advertise explicit sex (especially kinks like noncon and BDSM) get drastically more views than those with more general summaries, and that is after you take into account when works were posted and how many chapters have been added. As a consequence, they get more reviews, even if a lot are simple one liners commenting how sexy the story was.

You are not wrong. That's part of why tagging is so important, IMO. It's not just to warn readers away from content they won't like; it's also to attract them to content they probably will like.

People looking in the inuyasha fandom may want a very different sort of story to anyone in the Harry Potter fandom

I'm not sure I agree. The fetishes you mentioned (BDSM and noncon) seem to be popular in pretty much every fandom that I know of. I'm currently working on my eighth Phineas and Ferb story, which, unlike its seven predecessors, includes some noncon (okay, a lot of noncon). Even though I have only posted the first chapter, it is already clear that "Little Blonde Monster" is going to be far more popular than any of the others, given how quickly it is attracting reviews and votes.

Next time you see a story with a whole tonne of reviews, take a skim through them. Odds are that there will be a lot of reviewers commenting on a particular theme or kink that they really liked and wanted more of. I'm not a statistician by any means, but that's what I've noticed in my years here.

If I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands, I would LOVE to do a statistical analysis of review rates and votes, broken down by tag (or by fandom AND tag, if there were enough data to allow a meaningful analysis). There might be a lot to be learned about what AFF readers as a whole like, how the tastes of people in different fandoms differ (or don't differ), and whether hits versus ratings versus reviews represent different aspects of a story's attractiveness to readers. Of course, I'd have to beg the mods to give me the raw data. And possibly a supercomputer.

[DemonGoddess]

ohgoodgoddon'tdothistome!!!! aaaaahhhhh!

Okay, have that out of my system. You know, I've been pondering doing such a sampling, for years, to satisfy my curiosity. The problem is, I have no time.

[Cuzosu]

I don't know, for me it's weird. I'll see a story on, like, ff.net with 100+ reviews, and I'll barely be able to get through the first chapter because the writing's so poor and formulaic. I don't even mind a recycled plot/setup that you see in dozens of stories as long as the author is a good writer and is doing something fresh with it.

But when I see that, it sort of makes me feel a little defeated? Because I feel like, "man, I'm a better writer than this and my much longer story has WAY fewer reviews..." So I kinda wonder what I'm doing wrong.

I do appreciate ppl taking the time to drop even "keep it up!" or something, but of course I do prefer more thoughtful reviews.

I think the biggest difference between FFnet and AFF (besides the age requirement) is that on FFnet, so many more of the readers are...well, pick a description: immature, indiscriminate over literature choice, followers, etc.... I'm not saying everyone there falls into those categories, but certainly a number of them do.

Poor writing and story/sentence/paragraph structure is a massive turn-off to a much higher percentage of writers here, too, as opposed to on FFnet. On the other hand, there are more people who actually beta here and are genuinely good at it than on FFnet.

Recycled plot/setup is also used more on FFnet, I think, whereas writers here seem to pride themselves on creativity. At least, if they use an old plot, they tend to throw in new twists to keep things interesting. The downside, again, is that almost all of us here seem to be much more picky about the quality of writing and so there's a shortage of both stories and reviews.

You may not be doing anything wrong; some of it is that most readers are lazy and don't like to search back through the pages to find what they might enjoy. If you can figure out a time when more readers are on, you might try posting around the time they log in so that your story is in plain sight. Also, there are discussions about story/chapter length in different threads here.... Sometimes it's the length of a story/chapter (or lack thereof) that turns readers away from it. Picky things, readers. Even me.

If you want more than a mere, "Keep it up!" you might try adding an author's note that mentions it. Something like, "Reviewers: I love that you enjoy my story, but a little concrit would be appreciated, too. What stands out to you as you read this? What am I doing right or wrong? What makes you feel as you read this? Thanks again!" Oh! Sometimes having a review reply thread helps, too; some people will review more often if there's a potential for responses or actual conversation. For my own part, I've noticed that my readers like to see that I have plans for a story, little notes before/after a chapter that entertain them with tidbits of my inspiration and/or issues for the chapter. I think it makes them feel involved - and if they're involved, they're more likely to review.

[GeorgeGlass]

I like the insipid rate thingy, myself. It provides information about how well readers like the story that hits and reviews don't necessarily capture.

[JayDee]

I don't. S'too damn exploitable. One person who really hates a story/writer can simply get it re-voted until low score, like with my Felicia Hardy story (here) where I had 12/13 votes with it showing 4 or 5 stars and next day over 100 down to 2 stars, 'cos they'd obviously got bored of trying to get it down to 1 star. I just ignore 'em. And in that one case, found it amusing enough that someone was engaged enough to take the time and effort to try to annoy me that I didn't ask to have it reset!

Give me a review, positive or negative, any day over the stars and if the plan on the code changes is still to remove 'em then good riddance.

Edited July 27, 2014 by JayDee

[LockedBox]

I find the star ratings to be rather useless, even when they aren't being abused. People only ever seem to use two ratings: five stars if they like something and one or none if they don't, so you only ever seem to see the two extremes of the spectrum. It tells you noting about the quality of the story and it's so untrustworthy it may as well not be there in my opinion.

[DemonGoddess]

yes, the plan is still to remove them, because they are definitely useless

[BronxWench]

Honestly, I doubt removing the ratings button will increase actual reviews. What it WILL do is remove a tool used by some people to vote a story up or down because they are either rabid fanpoodles or are harassing an author. Both scenarios are sadly endemic, and removing the tool whereby those scenarios can exist is wise.

If we want to increase reviews, we need to make the commitment ourselves to read and review the stories posted by other authors. It does not take a huge leap of logic to understand that creating an atmosphere where reviews are welcomed by an author will also lead to more reviews. Make a review reply thread, and talk with your readers. Before you hit that "Delete" button on a review, stop and consider that the reviewer put themselves on the line a bit by stepping forward to comment. If they chose to remain anonymous, but otherwise left a review, think about WHY people choose to remain anonymous. Perhaps they had a bad experience with an author who took umbrage at a review. Perhaps they do not wish to have anything connected with them come up on a Google search. Or perhaps, like people who give to a cause but ask to remain anonymous, they simply don't feel the need to be in the limelight, so to speak.

If you foster an atmosphere of mutual respect with your reviewers, you'll find you do get more reviewers. I was told by one reviewer that they were not aware that I have a review reply thread because I didn't include it in my stories. It was a good point, and I'm now making an effort to do so. I'm never too old to learn, from readers, reviewers, and other authors.

[GeorgeGlass]

Honestly, I doubt removing the ratings button will increase actual reviews.

No, I don't think so either.

I think you mentioned that the plan for the revamp includes a one-click method of favoriting stories and authors. The number of faves might be a slightly more meaningful metric than the ratings, because people will mostly fave stories that they think they will want to read again. Will the number of faves appear somewhere?

[DemonGoddess]

I would expect in the story listing for the author. At least that's how I understand it.

[green-tea]

No, I don't think so either.

I think you mentioned that the plan for the revamp includes a one-click method of favoriting stories and authors. The number of faves might be a slightly more meaningful metric than the ratings, because people will mostly fave stories that they think they will want to read again. Will the number of faves appear somewhere?

I would be interested in seeing this. I feel like there's three metrics to care about: page views, which counts how many people clicked on the story. Readers, or the people that not only clicked, but kept reading. And reviews, which are people that clicked, read, and then had an opinion they thought worth typing up. The last one is the hardest to get, I feel, as commentary takes a bit of an effort and some people may enjoy a story but feel they have nothing to contribute in the terms of a review. Having that in-between stat to tell if it's being read or not would be lovely.

And does anyone feel that the codes are more important than the story description...? Because I sacrificed codes in favor of more text about the story and I don't think it's working.

[Kurahieiritr]

I would be interested in seeing this. I feel like there's three metrics to care about: page views, which counts how many people clicked on the story. Readers, or the people that not only clicked, but kept reading. And reviews, which are people that clicked, read, and then had an opinion they thought worth typing up. The last one is the hardest to get, I feel, as commentary takes a bit of an effort and some people may enjoy a story but feel they have nothing to contribute in the terms of a review. Having that in-between stat to tell if it's being read or not would be lovely.

And does anyone feel that the codes are more important than the story description...? Because I sacrificed codes in favor of more text about the story and I don't think it's working.

A: I think the idea of being able to favorite stories and authors is a nice addition to the way AFF is run. It would clear up a few things like the vote down system that happens to some people that have posted stories here and upset someone else for whatever odd reason. Removing the star system would make it harder for the petty to function as problematic for people they get upset with also. They cannot undo another user's account after all. Am looking forward to seeing the new system once it gets launched. I can only hope there is an announcement about it once it gets launched since my schedule has been so hectic. i would hate to miss learning how it works once it is incorporated.

Green Tea: I tend to tag a story description with the most important codes plus a note (codes inside) to make clear i have not listed all codes in the summary that shows. It is easier to add a lot of codes in the author note on the very first page for first chapter without causing problems. The most important codes are about really odd fetishes and things like MPreg which can offend some people so those do belong in the viewed mini summary to prevent the readers from screaming foul later. Still, many codes can be reserved for first chapter right before starting the story I have discovered. If I wind up with a twist i did not expect to have while writing a story, I add the new code tag once the situation requires it at the beginning of the chapter, and will often revise the first chapter to reflect the newest added code asap. So you can work around the large number of codes sometimes required, and have a story summary by altering where the bulk of tags get placed if you start with an author note before you start telling the story inside of page 1 by using this kind of system. It is also okay with the administration so long as you do have codes listed in the story itself.

[BronxWench]

And does anyone feel that the codes are more important than the story description...? Because I sacrificed codes in favor of more text about the story and I don't think it's working.

I'm going to offer a completely unscientific opinion, and say that it depends on your target audience.

We have readers who come here to be titillated, who are interested in the sex, and the kinkier the better. Stories are no more than wank fodder for these readers, and that's fine. They are the readers who look for tags that suit their interests, and will click on and read anything with the appropriate tags.

Then we have readers who want plot, and they are willing to wait for the sex as long as they're engaged by the author, and feel like the characters and plot are compelling. These readers might offer reviews that suggest plot developments or pairings, but they aren't motivated solely by the sex. They might even read a story tagged No-sex if the summary is compelling enough.

The tags I think are crucial in a summary are the pairing tags (M/F; M/M; F/F; 3Plus) because some readers are not fond of certain gender pairings, and get irritable if they encounter slash when they expected het, and the trigger tags (Minor1/Minor2; Incest; Rape) because these particular content markers are the ones we'll hear about fastest if they're missing.

My suggestion is to write a short (150 words or less) blurb about your story. Then distill that to one strong sentence of Twitter length. That sentence is your summary, and leaves you enough space for the most crucial codes. Use the longer summary as the AN in the first chapter. We allow up to 600 words, but 150 is a good length without becoming boring. If you have oral sex cropping up in chapter 3, you can add a line at the top: "Additional Warnings: Oral" and no one can say they were not warned. That's entirely within the guidelines here, and in fact, it works well for many of our authors who hate giving away too much with tags.

[green-tea]

I am so very bad at summaries. I'll give what you all have suggested a try though and see how it goes. It'd be nice if the tags were a separate field than the description.

[BronxWench]

That's slated for the code rewrite project we're engaged in at present. We'd like to have the tags in a field of their own, and give the summary the full 240 characters. That's tight enough without sharing!