First 10.7k words of Nightmare Night side story published · 8:01pm Feb 26th, 2020
In four bite-sized chapters instead of the large ones I use in the parent Nightmare Night story in hopes of gaining/sustaining more new reader interest. Check it out if you haven't already:
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Unfortunately, in hindsight, I flubbed the initial story launch by not having several chapters released and available immediately, as the initial chapter there was only a light teaser with no promise of what was to come. I should have just posted the first three chapters I had ready and not tried to withhold the last two in hopes of sustaining heat levels with their later releases should I feature. All it did was ensure I couldn't feature at all as there wasn't enough there to hold new reader interest.
Live and learn. Regardless, there's a good chunk of story available now, and some very nice griffon-eagless-on-pony-stallion action--even one of my prereaders, who did not care for griffons before this, liked it! This first arc is the story of how Night Owl was made and the subsequent corruption of the Ponyville Post Office.
Since the chapters are smaller, I'll be able to turn them out much quicker, and I'll be concentrating on at least finishing the first story arc before moving on to other things. Please give it a read if you haven't already. Or if you only saw the first chapter and said meh, check out the others as well.
PS: I got at least one comment on the last chapter that said that the opening section was repetitive, so I may be doing some reworking of it. if so, I'll let folks know when it's updated.
I think the trick would have worked if it wasn't the side-story of a sequel. The thing that I don't understand is why so many downvotes. I guess it was the tags that did it but sequels tend to suppress up and downvote accumulation as those negatively inclined towards the first wouldn't give the sequel the time of day, while new readers are intimidated by having to read another story to read the one being promoted.
Most of the people who vote on fimfiction.net are honest actors as those who vote tend to be a hardened core of the community who take the site and its incentive-systems seriously. But there's also a punitive streak among cloppers, and people who show M-rated fics generally, against any story on the front page they find unworthy of it as well as fetishes they view as pathological. You've got non-con and a dark tag which may give the impression the story glorifies rape or something, which of course it doesn't. Combine that with sequel suppression and it may explain your 3-1 ratio.