I'm making this topic to kind of take an impromptu survey.
A story of mine has over 1,000 views. Great, right?

Here's the thing, it has 7 likes and 1 dislike.
I'm not stupid; I don't expect every single person who clicks on the title will read my story, let alone enjoy it, but that kind of difference? I just don't get it.

I don't mean to rant so much, but do you realize how frustrating that is? It's maddening. I need a chillax.

So what about you, dear fellow author, have you encountered this strange phenomenon?

I have 730 reads and 3.5 k views
along with 48 likes and 8 dislikes
most interestingly is that i have 60 favorites

I don't get it either

I found that those "views" have the possibility of being you viewing the story. Then again, people just might not like your story or are extremely lazy.

I think that some of the excess views come from unregistered readers. And the higher favorite over like rate is common, some people favorite a story before reading it, which also explains random favorite losses.

854571
Yeah, that is also partially it. But i have the problem of the sight counting my own views when i go to edit a chapter.

854582
That should only count for a single view.

I have 310 views ( thats individual people not total times looked at, which is 952... I think) yet only about 30 people took the time to give it a thumbs up OR down?? I am dissapointed with humanity! If a story was neither good nor bad for me I leave a comment expressing my thanks for the story, but why I couldn't thumb it up or down.

That makes sense, RisingOne, but it does very little to alleviate my concerns.
I can't help but think that there is something I'm doing as an author that is turning people away at my metaphorical doorstep.

Carry On

Not to sound like a jackass, but many of the fics that get featured only do so because of people being attracted to a fad or shock value. take that as you want, i say its just data that you can't really use because of how empty it is.
I remember there was a ship fic that was featured once, it was complete shit! but the reason why it did was because the title was "What is love" and everyone, myself included, viewed it and posted a comment that was a lyric of the song.
So in short, getting a lot of views really means that people were interested enough to take a look, (i peeked into your stories section and can deduce that it is the Lyra one) when they saw Lyra, notice that it may or may not have been what they wanted, and then left.

It really pisses me off about this fandom, it either clop, a stupid overdone topic, shock value, or people following a bullshit author that they are watching that usually get featured, hence why i think being featured mean nothing.

One of the best fics ive read was about Steve magnet going to Canterlot, doing girly things, and inadvertly becoming the next Ms. Equestria. it was really funny and well done for what the author was aiming for, but it didn't have a Lunar guard having sex with Colgate while Celestia turned humans into ponies before beign banished to the moon by Luna.

Dude, your story has a thousand views. I would kill for that kind of exposure.

It's like we've got opposite problems. I've got 60 up votes, but less than 200 views. It sucks flank.

I wish I knew the solution though.

854604
I would gladly trade the views for a few comments and upvotes.
What good is the exposure if no one cares?
I have SIX favorites! SIX!

I'm tearing my hair out here! What in the name of Luna am I doing wrong!?

Carry On

I don't get it either. My story has about 1300 views, just barely over 200 likes, about 10 dislikes, and around 350 favorites. Though now that I think of it, my story isn't the best example.

I don't want to brag or to boast or act all high and mighty, but I know my work is better than a lot on this site. Not the best, not by far. I'm not TAW or SSaE or Regidar, but have you looked at what is currently the top story in the feature box?
It's not horrible, but dear God how is that the highest rated thing? Tell me how?
I don't get it. I just don't get it.

Is it so much to ask for a few comments on what I'm doing right or wrong?
How can you tell me a thousand plus people accidentally clicked on my story? Or were so turned off by something completely oblivious to me, something that horrified them so much, that made them scream and run for the back button?

Carry On

854604

Write a view whore story. Romantic clop with one or more of the mane six tends to attract a lot of views. I wrote A Pleasant Surprise as a challenge. It became my most read story literally overnight. I advise you try this route. http://www.fimfiction.net/story/93809/a-pleasant-surprise

854559 Its really annoying right? You could spend spend weeks writing a perfect story and the next day a Bioshock Infinite story will pop up and it's an instant feature. I guess people read about what interests them the most at that specific period in time. Just write a Bioshock fic and you'll get plenty of views, likes, and comments

Don't you just feel the artistic creativity in the air? The adventure? The excitement? The grandeur?
No?
Me neither.

Well, I'm gonna keep on writing anyway. I suppose a passion is a passion even if everyone else is dead to it.

All cheers and smiles here right? I need to look at some pictures of Fluttershy.

Carry On

854589
Well it doesn't. I counts one view every time i go to edit even though it shouldn't so i just don't get that aspect.

854559 If you're getting a lot of views but not a lot of likes and dislikes I think it could mean that your story was given the OOOH good summary, but when they read it meh, nothing special I won't bother following reaction.

One of my story has 536 views, 70 likes and 2 dislikes and 65 favs. That was because although there was little viewcount was lower the people who read it were genuinely interested.

The other story, my more successful one got 3545 views, 1052 favs and 683 likes to 10 dislikes. This probably meant people insta faved it when it was just beginning and forgot to like it. It also mean 1/3 of the people who read it wanted to follow it.

So you might want to take a look over your first few chapters because those are key to catching the viewer count. I'm not saying they're bad, but they could be better.

854725

^This.

The story in question has what seems like an interesting premise from its title, but I'm guessing the actual content was found to be less than exhilarating.

You all have some pretty good examples, but I've got whatever you all have worse.

Combined views, likes and favs of my first five stories:
1,085 views, 68 likes, 55 favs

That, right there, is FIVE stories.

It hurts knowing that people seem to be lethargic to my early works, but now I get insane responses to my stories, example being Hey There, Cheerilee which, on its own, eclipses the first five again.

I would only advise this: if it don't work, try something else. I did that to pin down a good style of writing and struck gold on my sixth story.

854559

Wow... And I thought my stories had weird ratios. 1070 views? 7 ups? 1 down? 6 faves? So... Less than 1% of people who read the first chapter actually left any kind of response? That's ridiculous, and I can understand why you're so pissed off. My stories seem to have around 10 to 15% of readers give a thumbs up/down or fave.

I'll give your fic a read and see if I can come up with a reason, but honestly, even if you've happened to write a steaming pile of crap you'd still expect more feedback than what you've received.

854559 It's funny; the first time I read your story I was actually really surprised by that. I can't account for the lack of favorites and likes, but I can say that to have a story with that kind of viewership means that you must have a knack for catching people's attention with your title and description.

Also, I'm kind of biased because I like the story in question, which has an offbeat sense of humor I enjoy, but with this level of discrepancy between views and actions I agree that something must be up. If it was just a matter of people interested by the description and frustrated by the story itself then there should be a bunch of downvotes from all those dissatisfied readers. But there aren't.

What can I say? Your story is an anomaly.

Well, what can you do?
I'm really just surprised, mostly because isn't the whole idea of sites like FimFic to improve and critique new or small time authors while having fun?

What really makes it frustrating is the feedback I have gotten is almost all positive. The only dislike I have left NO COMMENT. So I'm stuck with six favorites, a handful of watchers, seven likes, one dislike, and some 1,000 people who felt that my work was just totally and completely below them.

I don't mean to rant, but it feels really bad when a story with spelling errors in the description has half my views yet 6 times as many likes and is in the feature box. I guess the path to success is crossovers and Nyx fanfiction fanfiction.

Carry On

I just chalk it up to laziness.

854598 Which is why the feature box is more like a "best seller" list than an actual measure of quality. The closest thing to a stamp of quality would be EqD, but they come across as a literary award judged by pretentious a**holes who think they alone know what good writing is...

856788

Isn't that by definition what a stamp of quality is?

856850 They don't call it that. But yes, you are right. I just wish there was someone else out there doing the same thing but with tastes that more accurately reflect my own. sigh.

EDIT: it's the difference between saying Michael Bay is a terrible artist and saying he's a highly successful director. You can complain all you want about how lousy and stupid his movies are; he can't hear you from behind the giant piles of money.

As opposed to some weird, depressing Scandinavian novel about the futility of happiness winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. It is brilliantly crafted, but I'm still not going to read it.

856788
hmmm, I say fuck EQD, their standards are stupidly high, and they also have a massive mob mentality, I read a blog that a person didn't get their story featured because of some retardly stupid reason, like how on the first page it didn't have enough "direction" for them. while at the same time, mega popular fads get on the second they are on youtube, Like "Friendship is Witchcraft" episodes(as you can tell, im not a fan, thus no tears were shed when they were taken down). or stupid assed recent videogame crossovers reenacted by ponies. It truly is a pessemistic system,really. I partially Blame the NLR and the radical woona fans.

856912 I find they don't really reflect my tastes or standards. I guess they're entitled to their opinion, but I (and you, apparently) exercise my (our) right to not give a horseapple.

856885

You can hardly blame them for having tastes exactly like yours. That's no reason to call them pretentious assholes.

856912

EQD doesn't purport to put other media to the same standards it does for fanfics, and for good reason. Anyone can shit out a terrible fanfic in a few hours. Things like animation, video games, or even redubs take a lot more time and effort than fanfics, that's why there's so much less of them.

Also, I guarantee that there are far more butthurt writers who got rejected from EQD simply because they weren't good enough rather than genuinely good writers that get rejected for stupid reasons. If every single "EQD rejected my fanfic" complaint were taken at face value, why, there'd be no bad writers in the universe!

857092 You have a point, and I was probably a bit harsh earlier. I do know some excellent authors who have been rejected for strange reasons, but I can't speak to how often this sort of thing happens.

And I don't blame them for their tastes, it merely means I do not use their recommendations as a way to decide what to read next. (don't like the flavor? don't eat it.)

I understand they work very hard at what they do, and I do like their comic recommendations, and clearly they have a lot of people who do pay attention to what they decide to recommend. It goes back to the Michael bay analogy. I don't blame him for a second.

857092>>857117
yeah, here we are, a website that allows the people, the mob to decide, what is the "best" (FIM) vs. a few people with certain tastes (EQD). it really sucks no matter what way you look at it. To be honest, to prove a point with the whole mob mentality of FIm, I made a fic that has a ton of the things that I hate in teh story, a bait and switch plot, and I am going to see if i get featured by it, (or rather, the mob downvoting me to hell because they can't take a joke). the story is simply going to be called "Celestia kills Luna", so when it gets published, im just going to sit back and wait for the haterade to flood my inbox. If I do get featured, im going to laugh my ass off for the entire night.

Also, with EQD's fics, im a little disgusted, a long time ago, EQD had a story i read when i first got into ponies. it was Resident Evil fic and since i am an obvious fan (hence Jill as my picture) i read it... and it was the opposite of a shitty HIE tory. Ponies in the mansion, and it did seriously NOTHING, just retell resident evil with Twilight backpacking the entire mane 6.

On the Contrary, FIm has a story that i love, Albert Wesker in Equestria, and its better because its not so damned predictable! it actually has a soul!

857147

The fact that EQD has one story you don't like and Fimfiction has one story you do like literally says nothing at all about either website.

857156
im not basing it off of that! im just giving an example of why I don't like EQD. there's more, i just dont want to go into detail.

857170

Well, it's not a very good example.

What I've noticed is that the faster people find your story, the less feedback you receive. Prior to the sequel to one my stories getting featured, my ratio for views to likes/dislikes on the original was around 4:1, which was alright for me. However, after the sequel being featured the views jumped on the original, with not the same growth for the likes/dislikes. This means that the original has now ended up with a ratio of more 10:1 of views to likes/dislikes.

854613
I hate to say it, but I took a peek at your story, but that thousand or some views you got isn't very representative of the story's actual reader ship. The first chapter may have over 1K views, but the second only has 50 (not 50k, just 50), and the last one has something around 20. For some reason your stories has been super exposed to a huge audience, but most of the people who drop in to read the first couple lines don't stick around long enough to get to the next chapter.
This is to be expected, to some degree, with every fic. I have a fic with around 1800 views, but only 800 readers kept reading, and only about 500 are dedicated (400 faved, another hundred stay caught up through EQD). Out of the 400 people who faved my fic, 250 bothered to hit the up vote button. I lose around 4 favorites every time I update, and gain about 10-15.
That said, what you're experiencing is super extreme. I'd expect at least half of the people who read the first chapter to keep reading, and some percentage of that number to fave your work.
It's super frustrating, I know, but if you can figure out how to hook your readers into the story more and apply that to your writing, and assuming you can recreate that same kind of exposure you got with this piece, you can develop a vast reader base.
Good luck, and namaste!

Man, if people got as worked up over my stories as they did over my forum posts, I'd be sky high happy.
I think I'm gonna add this to my milestones, "Spawned 'debate' over EQD and Fanfiction quality." Heh heh, I'MSUCHALOSEROHMAGAWDREADMYSTORIESINEEDTOSEENUMBERSTOSTROKEMYEGO!

*Ahem*

I bid thee adieu!

Carry On

862294 864264

You also have to take into account that most of your views could be what I like to call "window shopping" I do that a lot actually with the stories that are featured or are in the "popular list" To me if they made it there it must be something good about them if they are up there so I usually click it to see whats its about but about 90% of the time its nothing I'm interested in.

Don't get discouraged or just quit because of some viewing system. Just remember that people are fickle and if something doesn't catch their interests or live up to their standards they almost always move on to look for something that will, which explains the many clops, or so-and-so is a changeling stories that get featured often.

Just keep writing and following your original idea until you post the final chapter of the story; if one of your followers read it to the very final chapter than you did your job as an author which is to entertain and capture someones imagination. Sure the likes, and favs are nice but writing something that makes at least one person love it is better.