Dealing with failure/A name change for my most recent fic/some inner working of Piquo · 11:56am Jul 31st, 2015
So. I've come to a conclusion. My stories will never be popular on this site. My most recent story was an experiment on a duel story, that is two stories told with one set of words. Depending on how you read it changes which story you are reading.
Was it a perfect story?
No.
Was it a decent story?
I'd say it was decent and when people checked it out they liked it.
But no one really checked it out. It says 172 views, which is technically okay for a low follower count profile, and I am a low count at 177 followers. In fact, I looked it up and about 1/3 of my followers haven't been on in a week or more. Some people might just be taking a break, or life might interfere, but about a 1/4 of all my followers haven't been on in months or years.
Added to that of my 174 views about 40 of those were me or editors. You see, to format things I had to do major editing and formatting in the FIMFiction version of the story. Below is one example with all brackets replaced as with pound signs so that it actually shows the format.
*center**color=white*"Wh... What?" asked Twilight as the terror of her memories returned.*/color**/center*
*center**color=white**i**b*My*/b* child, we meet again. *b*I*/b* am the hunger that was to forever sleep and you are the one who woke *b*me*/b*, the one who has promised to feed *b*me*/b* of your eternal mind.*/i**/color**/center*
*center**color=white**size=2em*"H*/size**size=1.5em*E*/size**size=0.75em*L*/size**size=0.5em*P"*/size**/color**/center*
As you can see it was pretty extensive editing and that isn't even counting the amount of experimenting I did.
So it really was about 130-140 views after a few days. Now, as I said that's not bad for someone really unknown. But that is pretty bad considering the amount of promotions I did. I mean, I might be a general unknown entity but I know some people. I reached out to multiple site mods, including Wanderer D, who I've podcasted with at his request, Xepher who I really helped get into pony fan fiction, and a dozen other people, several of whom are some of the most followed people on the site. Most of these people I consider friends in some capacity. I also did a number of other posts to groups and added it to groups.
I probably spent about 5-6 hours trying to promote the story and no one really checked it out. I even had people reach out to me and say to not get down by the low view count without me mentioning anything about it getting me down.
So, people who checked it out liked it, but no one checked it out.
Part of that was completely my fault. You see. The story wasn't originally suppose to be a duel story. It was originally just suppose to be the first story, a random comedy. But I didn't like it. I looked at it and was trying to thing of how to write it but it was inherently flawed and I just can't write random comedies anymore. I take myself way to seriously when I actually do things. It's why I hated trying to be a youtuber, I got way into the business and spent a lot of time trying to be good but having the opposite of fun.
So, I had this failed story, I analyzed it to learn from my failure and then I had an idea. The story itself was flawed but the way it was flawed could work well if I added The Hunger In the Void. I developed the idea and spent a lot of time experimenting. It was fun and even though it wasn't perfect I was happy with it.
But I made a big mistake. I didn't drastically change the short summery. I wanted people to read it for one thing and then have their mind blown. And that worked to a degree but it didn't sell the story very well.
As of then I changed the title a bit and completely rewrote the short summery but I have no illusions. It's been to late and it won't help it get more than a few more views in the next few years.
So. That's how it failed in views. But even though the people who read it generally liked it and wanted more I only got two followers and one of those was as much from a private conversation as it was the story. Some of the people who I contacted and asked for help promoting never got back and I even had a few people tell me they would and then not.
Now I don't dislike them for that. It's annoying for people to ask for help even if you know them. I do ask people for help promoting on occasion but I only do that on rare occasion. In this case I wanted help after loosing months of writing to helping run Everfree Northwest including the best damn writing track of all the conventions in the fandom. I also offer my services to people who help in various forms and am more than willing to return the favor. I won't be asking for help anytime in the near future, I blew my wad on this story.
So, 6 hours promoting the story, burning my ability to ask for help, and I only really got a little over a hundred views. It also negatively effected others when someone with hundreds or thousands of followers tries to help a friend and it didn't get any views.
In that sense I not only failed to get views, I hurt friends and my relations with others.
So, fun experiment. But a failure.
But it's not the only story that had a similar failure. I've been using FIMFiction largely to experiment and get better as a writer. It's just not something people like to see. I had one clickbait story do well (my first story) and some people liked T, the Tiniest Troll. Other than that my stories have generally just not gotten views, even though they get positive responses.
Am I going to stop writing?
No. I even have another story coming out in a few days.
Have I learned things?
Yes AND I've become stronger.
Am I disappointed in myself.
Yes.
Where do I see myself going on this site?
Well, I will continue to work on being a better writer but I understand that I will slowly get fewer and fewer views with an occasional tiny spike as I lose more followers from the site completely than I draw in.
Will I continue to help others?
Yes, it's a great way to learn and, in all honesty, I've probably helped others get more followers and views than I have ever gotten myself between promoting others and helping them become better writers. Hell, the EFNW profile exists because of me and that alone has more followers.
My latest story didn't even get 1/10 as many views as I have followers. It happens, man.
Hey there. Sorry you didn't get the response you hoped for. If it's any consolation, I'm giving you and your story a shoutout in my next story (currently pending approval). I don't expect to pull a ton of views, but hey, it might help.
After writing my own dual story, I think I have a grasp of the time you put into yours. It's definitely a challenge to write in that format, and even after all the work I put in, I'm still not completely satisfied with how my attempt turned out. I hope you didn't take my previous comment too hard. I meant it to be constructive, of course, but having tried the experiment myself now, I may have approached it a little differently.
Anyways, I appreciate the experiment, even if it didn't turn out. Experimenting is what brings cool new things to writing (or anything), so I'm glad you're trying.
Take care! ~Scribs
3284313
Actually, I was more worried that deleting a bunch of comments would be bad. Probably should have just copied over everything to a fresh story post before posting it up.
3284307
Yes but you at least got to a high number of followers. There really is a minimum number of views stories get on this site.
Hey, it happens, Piquo. Out of the 26 stories I've written, only one was popular enough to be featured on this site. We all have our ups and downs and just be happy to do what you enjoy which is writing good stories.
That's the total viewers in the first four days.
...actually, looking at the "Views And Ratings" graph at the bottom, I see only 91 views since the story was published (that should be ignoring the pre-readers and stuff).
Now, having a look at what may be my most successful story, this one over here - if I look at just the first four days (by zooming in the graph a bit), I get a total of 211 views; and that was with it being an entry on an Equestria Daily contest (I got 54 referrals from the contest page, some of which would count towards that total). So, yeah, little bit over twice as much. But, I've found, that means little or nothing in the long run. Zoom the graph out again, and you'll see that the same story experienced a major spike in views a full year later (it got a dramatic reading at the time). Sometimes, someone posts review of your story, or a dramatic reading, or, well, something... and boom, you've suddenly got a couple of thousand readers.
I don't understand how it all works. I do know that four days is far too soon to claim the story is "unpopular".
I'd have done something right away if I could, but this week has been (and still is):
- Switcheroo contest judging
- Hugo Award reading and voting
- Writeoff Association contest judging
- Meeting with my wife to fill out divorce paperwork
- Two extra workdays on short notice :(
I'm just glad nothing's on fire. I'll still get around to a signal boost, it's just halfway down the list behind things with hard deadlines.
If some perspective helps, though:
Chinchillax does a lot of data analytics on FIMFic stories. According to one of his spreadsheets, over 50% of stories have 14 upvotes or less. (The view count is seriously skewed by the length of time a story stays up on the site; the long tail adds a lot.) Even "failing" here, you're doing far better than average.
Also, what 3284307 said. Follower count includes everyone who once upon a time followed you and then left the site; it's going to be significantly higher than your number of active readers. For a good perspective on the latter, check out the sidebar of this blog post and look at the average number of views your blog posts get — probably about 30 recently. (This tracks with my own numbers; I've got ~700 followers and probably less than 200 active readers.) So your 130 views over 3 days are coming from 30 people who read everything you write, plus 100 people your advertising pulled in.
I know how disappointing it feels to miss out on the featurebox, especially after the amount of work you did, but that hundred people ain't nothing. It's not the thousand readers that the featurebox-lottery winners get, but it's still the equivalent of three full rooms of people. That's more than showed up for the EFNW writing track events. It's more than many authors on the site will ever get for anything they do.
Keep your sights high, but don't forget that you're still doing pretty well.
Huh... Good idea for a panel.
Lol. This blog received more views in one day than the story I was disappointed with.
3284534
Ah, it will gain views over time as all stories do. But while I was happy with the story it isn't suited for a dramatic reading, it is only really suited for a live review given the nature of the fic, and the one person I've seen do those doesn't anymore.
Though, I have a rather negative view on the chances of me ever inspiring anything. The only person who I've ever inspired to do anything (music, art, a reading) only did it as a troll and the image was removed before I ever saw it, the account being banned. I assume it was a link to some porn or some such.
Edit: so, um, later in this post you may notice me responding to someone who said they were inspired by the mechanic to try their own hand at it...
Mistakes were made...
3284424
Still kicking ain't I. This post helped me deal with the disappointment a lot as well. It was kind of the point and something I don't do that often.
3284321
I appreciate it. Be sure to PM me. As I stated the people who liked the mechanic in the story liked it and I can point it out to people. I might also do another one myself someday as one follow up idea popped into my head.
Edit: just found it in my feed.
3284885
Don't sweat it. You PMed me back and I know your busy. And I couldn't, in good conscience, expect you to recommend something you don't even have time to read. As I said I spend many hours trying to get some views, I knew that most wouldn't ever come back in time for a feature and to be honest I didn't ever expect it to be featured. Mostly this was just me expressing my feelings at getting fewer and fewer views as my "career" here goes on.
3285890
Hey, if we can't laugh at ourselves then all we have left is cats. I like cats, but they go best with variety.
Thank you all very much for your support. It is heartening to be able to express frustration and receive support from others.
You've started something now.