December news. · 10:58pm Dec 23rd, 2016
Happy holidays everybrony!
So, My last update dates two weeks ago. Too long, but I'll get better.
In the meanwhile, I managed to progress on my current story, Other.
So far I wrote almost 6k words already, and I managed to fill one chapter.
Problem is, I haven't reached the breaking point that I had planned for that chapter. So, now I have to decide if splitting the chapter into two parts (like I did with Chapter 5) or if publishing a chapter way longer than I'm used to.
If I had to take a rough guess, the entire thing should take 8k words. Anyhow, I won't publish the chapter until all the work is done.
But let's speak of me for once, am I satisfied with the feedback?
Yes and no.
Yes, because my rating score is very good.
No, because very few readers rate my stories.
I don't want to put numbers on the table, but I'll tell you how I feel about this.
It's like readers have no reason to dislike the story, but aren't impressed enough to express an opinion.
Don't worry, I'm not asking you for more comments or ratings. I'm just not sure if I'm doing something wrong.
If you have any idea, please feel free to comment.
See you soon.
There are a few factors here. A lot of readers just read without rating any stories. For them, they're mainly just interested in reading and not at all in the community. Some readers won't rate a story that's incomplete (you can't take back a thumbs up, only turn it into a thumbs down, so you can never return to a neutral stance if your opinion on a story goes to 'meh' at some point). Some readers simply think the thumbs up/down system doesn't really do anything (which is incorrect, as it's involved with a few things besides just stroking an author's ego). Some people boycott the system for being just an up/down vote and not allowing for a more proper rating (say, rating the story on a scale of 1 to 10).
Additionally, there's no way to tell how many readers you have. The common methods are view count and bookshelf count, but those are both skewed. If I read half a chapter on my computer then finish reading it on my phone, you just got two views. And some people (as you've probably noticed) use a ton of bookshelves to organize stories. Both of these stats are useful for getting a general idea of how many are reading, but you'll never get a hard number from them. Also, keep in mind that you could have readers who don't have accounts, which will also raise the views without having a chance to impact the rating.
I do agree it's disheartening to get a favorite notification and not see the rating bar go up any, but it's nothing you did. It's just a fact of the site, and the internet in general.