Tips for Getting Comments

Tips for Getting Comments

Summary: 5 tips for getting more comments from your readers.

Note: Thanks to Tex Beethoven for editing.

Tips for Getting Comments

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about posting stories on Literotica is the lack of effort put in by the readers.

Now before I get into my main topic, I need to mention that I'm not criticizing the readers. Mostly they come here to read erotica and to get away from the overly judgemental real world. They might come to find a piece of work, or an author they feel understands their emotional state, or they come to get turned on and hopefully reach an orgasm (or more than one... right, my multi-orgasmic ladies?) from someone else's ability to create a stimulating and believable (sometimes) erotic story.

Speaking as an author to other authors, our first problem is that often the reader might come before they finish reading your story (so the story really did its job, didn't it?)... but once their orgasm has subsided, most of them don't finish reading the story... never mind voting, or leaving a comment.

Other times they might skim through a story until they get to a sex scene. I find this particularly true for illustrated stories and longer stories, since many readers won't read all the way through a ten-page plus story... they only want to read a two- or three-page one.

Many times they don't even consider leaving a comment. I mean in all truth, far less than 1% of the people who read a story leave a vote in the first place, which can be disappointing for writers who spend a fair amount of time writing a story, getting it edited, and having the courage to post it in today's very critical world. You have to have thick skin to be an erotic writer. I've received comments from a variety of people saying what bad a person I am, or how I should go to jail, or even die, because of words I've posted to the cloud.

With that said, some readers will email the author instead of posting a comment, which all authors do indeed appreciate. Yet, we would also love you to leave a comment for other readers to see... especially kind words if you liked the story, or helpful words if you're criticizing the story.

So, that's enough of a pre-ramble, this essay isn't actually about the readers, but the writers.

With all that said, here's a final note to the readers, if you're reading this: PLEASE VOTE AND LEAVE COMMENTS ABOUT THE STORIES YOU READ THAT IMPACT YOU IN A POSITIVE WAY (Mentally or physically... likely both).

1. GREAT TITLE

If you've read my Tips to Write Erotica & Get Readers, you'll know this is critical. If they don't click on your story and read it, they certainly can't vote on it.

The title and description might draw the reader to your story. Then your story might keep them there.

1. USE ALL THE RELEVANT TAGS YOU CAN THINK OF

If it's an incest story, use every incest tag word that fits. For example, if it's a son seducing his mom, use the tags: mom, mommy, mother, son, incest (even though that's obvious, since it's in the incest category), mom-son, and so forth.

I always add stockings and pantyhose tags, because that's my thing (and it should be yours too, lol). I'm kidding (kind of), but including tags that draw attention to your fetish can help. People who like nylons will often read a couple of my nylon-fetish stories, then they'll often end up perusing my entire catalog, thus becoming fans who bookmark me as a favourite author.

Remember: tags are your friends, and many readers use the search engine to find stories that fit their particular niches.

1. UNDERSTANDING DATA AND CATEGORIES

While the above items 1 and 2 are important, I do that for every story I write, and I still have stories drawing very few comments.

Let's take a look at my Summer Contest releases as of Sept 26^th, 2023, when I wrote this.

The four stories and when they were released are:

Family Anal Play With BBC (Incest, but I wanted it to go in Interracial, since the mother and daughter don't interact sexually... technically) released on Sept 8, 2023

Summer Teen Seduction (Lesbian) released on August 30^th, 2023.

Backseat Step-Family (Incest... barely) on August 24, 2023.

Daughter Gets What She Wants ... (Illustrated) on August 18, 2023.

Family Anal Play with BBC has 37,460 reads, 638 votes, and 31 comments.

Summer Teen Seduction has 46,025 reads, 724 votes, and 30 comments.

...so Family Anal got one comment for every 1,208 reads, and Summer didn't do as well, with one for every 1,534 reads... and oddly the other way around... Family Anal scored 4.58, and Summer did better, with 4.80.

... so Lesson One is that the score of a story doesn't necessarily translate into more comments (please note this may not be the case for all authors, and these are all my own hindsights, based on my experience).

Backseat Step-Family and Daughter Gets a What She Wants show a more extreme version of how comments can work.

Backseat Step-Family has garnered 115 comments from 115,487 reads, with 1,076 votes.

Daughter Gets What She Wants has 17 comments from 190,163 reads, with 485 votes.

These two stories have each gotten over a hundred thousand reads in less than a month. Which is common for these two story categories (Incest and Illustrated).

1. For reasons I don't know and can't remotely understand, readers love Backseat stories. They always get more reads than other stories... a lot more reads. My most read story of all time is Backseat Mommy, which has 7,713,117 reads, 332 comments, and 31,148 votes. The sequels also did very well, although each one had diminishing returns (the cold, hard, frustrating reality of writing sequels).
2. For the record, in case you're a new writer, incest stories generally attract more reads than any other category, and by a large margin, except for one...
3. Illustrated stories get the most reads (although you must understand that in this category, many people don't actually read the story, but just peruse the pictures, and maybe skim through the story). So Illustrated stories are known for two extremes: lots of reads, very few comments).

As I compare these two stories, both of them long, the Illustrations make a story use more pages with all the pictures, the final results tell a clear story about how to get and not to get comments.

Daughter Gets What She Wants has 55,000 more reads, yet less than half as many votes.

Backseat Step-Family on the other hand, has 268 favourites, compared to only 49 for Daughter Gets What She Wants.

Now while there isn't a reliable correlation between different themes... it definitely does help.

With that said, regardless of the category, your best-written stories will get more comments.

1. LONGEVITY

Other than writing a story that wows everyone or offends everyone, longevity is the only way I have found to successfully get comments.

My top 12 comment stories:

Family Affair: Backseat Sister..............373 comments.......... with 3,066,183 reads.

Becoming a Lesbian Slave Ch. 03............333 comments.......... with 49, 987 reads.

Backseat Mommy: A Long Hard Ride.....332 comments.......... with 7,713, 162 reads.

Big Fat Cock: A Hot Mommy Seduced....328 comments.......... with 1,943,452 reads.

A Sister Surprise..............................309 comments......... with 2,080, 317 reads.

Catching Mommy: Housewife Lesbians...291 comments......... with 294,905 reads.

Best Present Ever: Bitch Sister...............264 comments......... with 2,225, 970 reads.

"Stocking Submission": Office Submission.263 comments.........with 2,170, 466 reads.

"Mom-Son": A Love Story....................237 comments..........with 1,857,069 reads

Hynosissy 03: Big Nerd Cock.................226 comments..........with 197,350 reads.

Family Affair: Bathroom Mommy............221 comments.........with 742,886 reads.

Shemale Surprise.................................219 comments.........with 1,206,675 reads.

Other 200+ comments:

Backseat Mommy: Lustful 3-Hole Slut (219)

Backseat Mommy: Mom's Lap of Luxury (213)

"Pet Mommy": Becoming a Mommy-Slut! (213)

Daughter's Initiation of Lust (211)

Accidental Gangbang (210)

A Mom & Son Affair: Accidental Orgy (209)

Bedding the Babysitter Ch. 06 (203)

Awakenings: 7 Slutty Blackmail Tasks (201)

One thing common to most of these stories is longevity. Many of these top 12 are also in Literotica's top 250 all-time list.

Backseat Mommy: A Long Hard Ride (12^th place)

Accidental Gangbang (49^th)

Family Affair: Backseat Sister (60^th)

Best Present Ever: Bitch Sister (111^th)

"Stocking Tales": Office Submission (119^th)

A Sister Surprise (125^th)

Big Fat Cock: A Hot Mommy Seduced (147^th)

"Mom-Son": A Love Story (162^nd)

1. ASK QUESTIONS AT THE END OF THE STORY

The second thing is stories that end with an invitation to the reader to decide which of a few endings they think the story should have. And the third is a long time between sequels.

Becoming a Lesbian Slave Ch. 03 is part of an ongoing novella I hope to finish in 2024. At the end of this chapter, I left the readers with the option of which of a few directions I could take in the main character's journey. I then used the readers' feedback to write part four, and I'll continue using it as I wrap up the story.

Catching Mommy: Housewife Lesbians. In part 5 part of this series, once again I gave the readers a choice of who should win: The bitch seductress Victoria, or the daughter defending her mother Olivia. On occasion I write a series that moves readers in ways I can't anticipate... and this was by far the one that blindsided me the most. The readers were polarized between die-hard pro-Victoria or pro-Olivia fans. It was fascinating, and it led to my writing and posting three alternate endings, since I didn't want to disappoint anyone. Then after the alternate endings in 2014, four years later I released a marathon illustrated story told from Olivia's Mom's point of view. In the end, I created characters the readers both loved and hated, which led to a massive investment by them in the form of numerous comments.

Hypnosissy 03: Big Nerd Cock is part of a strange series. It currently has 11 parts... they've all attracted a surprisingly high number of comments, and they all have very good scores. This is another example of a story that connects with the fans. Unlike the previous two, which are lesbian novellas, this one is a unique story that uses hypno videos to turn a straight, arrogant, stud jock into a feminized sissy who loves cock. Check out these comment counts by story:

Hypnosissy 01: Becoming a Cocksucker 745,817 reads, 192 comments

Hypnosissy 02: Becoming a Cum Slut 372,010 reads, 50 comments

Hypnosissy 03: Big Nerd Cock 197,359 reads, 226 comments

Hypnosissy 04: Cum Cravings 194,307 reads, 50 comments

Hypnosissy 05: Ecclesiastical Sucking 95,338 reads, 45 comments

Hypnosissy 06: Educated to be Pegged 107,871 reads, 103 comments

Hypnosissy 07: Glory Hole with Nerds 57,617 reads, 23 comments

Hypnosissy 08: Hot Shemale 69,184 reads, 22 comments.

Hypnosissy 09: 66,140 reads, 25 comments

Hypnosissy 10: 62,137 reads, 41 comments

Hypnosissy 11: 70,488 reads, 154 comments

As you can see, these are some odd numbers. Part 1 has a lot of comments, because it was very popular. Part 3 has a lot of comments, since as I mentioned earlier, I asked a question at the end. But also, there were quite a few intervening months before part 4 came out. Part 6 had over a hundred comments too, I think because there were almost two years between chapters, while on the other hand, parts 7 through 10 came out every 5 weeks or so. Lastly, the most recent part has 154 comments, and without a doubt the most emails requesting another sequel... which I should write someday soon.

Lastly, I was surprised to see Shemale Surprise got so many comments, but it's a story where I revealed many little tidbits of information that could be expanded upon. I believe it was also my first trans story... and trans stories tend to be well-liked, but by a smaller group of readers.

.....

In conclusion, getting your readers to submit comments is difficult. For example, Family Affair: Backseat Sister, my most commented story, has 3,066,301 reads, and 373 comments, for a percentage of comments of 0.00012164494. Which is crazy when you think about it.

My best ratio is Becoming a Lesbian Slave Ch. 03, with 0.006661065771%, or only about seven thousandths of a percent.

As I type this, I suddenly feel a little depressed.

With that all said, I write primarily for my own enjoyment... and also for the readers... and not for comments... but it's nice to get comments, and emails too.

Jasmine, NOV 2024