Fic Talk > General Discussion
Question of the day part 6
RokofAges75:
Time of year is definitely a factor - as summer winds down, people get busy either going back to school themselves or with their kids going back to school. I don't know if reviews have decreased over the years, but I do agree with Mare that it's a different batch of people doing the reading and reviewing.
I know personally, I've averaged way fewer reviews per chapter on the story I'm writing now than Curtain Call last year, but that doesn't surprise me at all given that it's an AU and not about Nick. It doesn't have as wide of an appeal. I think AU in general is still a turn-off to some readers, no matter which Boy it's about.
When I compare the amount of reviews CC got to the amount of emailed feedback I got for Broken nine years ago, it's about the same, but the people giving that feedback were different. The reader base as a whole has probably decreased over the years as the fan base has decreased, but we also have newer readers who weren't reading fanfic ten years ago to replace some of the ones who have lost interest in it.
FrickingKaos:
I think a lot of the newer people just aren't reviewing like we talked about earlier, but I've noticed a drop as well. This time of year is always that way. Everybody is finishing their summer vacations, getting ready to go back to school like Julie said. It could be a number of things.
mare:
It's interesting you mentioned competing for reviews, Erika. I'm curious if you meant with your own stories or other peoples? One thing I think people don't keep in mind when it comes to reviews is the amount of chapters that come along with those reviews. It's easy to see a story with 500 reviews and think "That's not fair!!" But then people don't bother to look and notice that the story is over 100 chapters long.
There are always exceptions of course but as a general norm, the more chapters there are to a story the more reviews that story is going to have.
The way I gauge if my story is doing well review wise is if I have at least double the amount of reviews as I do chapters. So if let's say I have a story with 15 chapters, as long as I have 30 reviews I feel like I'm doing okay and not discouraged and when you really think about it, that's only two people reviewing each chapter. If it's any less then that, that's when I start to doubt myself and don't really want to write on the story that much.
Like Julie said, AU's in general probably tend to get less than your normal ones. I know my least reviewed stories are my AUs and my best reviewed stories are the real life documentary style ones like Why I'd do it All Again and this recent one, again because of the amount of reviews versus the number of chapters.
So here's a question, how do you gauge your feelings about how well your story is doing? Do you go by reviews or read counts or any other way?
Rose:
I don't judge by read count just cause there's plenty of times I may double check past chapters or when I post click on it again to make sure I didn't miss anything. As for reviews, yeah I look at the ones who are consistent. If people stick with it, I figure I'm doing okay. But even when reviews drop to nothing, if I loved the plot enough I'll stick with it.
Carter-Orange:
I never even look at the read count because I know that doesn't mean anyone is actually reading it! They could click on and of it, or it could be me checking to make sure it posted correctly, lol.
If I like what I'm writing, then I'll continue with it. Of course it's nice if someone else likes it too, I'm always happy to see a review.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version