So many readers so few reviews

[Tojo]

Some good points there H D- I deleted an email yesterday for the simple reason it looked a bit suss.

Yeah don't give up Sandcastler- I haven't always gotten a response from emailing someone, but the important part is to do it.

I mean if you say hello to a couple of people in R/L, & they don't respond you wouldn't give up?

I've met some of the nicest people ever online, you're not stuck with any tin pot town full of rednecks here, we go all over.

Hell I had a lovely email back from one of the foremost bondage models once. That was lovely.


Tojo

[Mothbrad]

I've just recently had my first story published here, and been excited to see the 'readers' number growing, along with getting a couple of reviews and one polite email. The number of readers is still difficult to get too much satisfaction from, as you can't tell whether a reader has saved the story to their hard drives and pledged to name all of their children after characters in your story or just read the first paragraph and then closed the window. I've had some great email conversations with authors in the past, and that's probably what I would rate even higher than getting reviews - if readers take the time to start a dialogue.

[Widget]

I think one of the reasons so few people offer the feedback is because they just don't know what to say. Maybe the content is not thier cup of tea so they don't want to say anything at all because they don't know how to seperate the content from the style and quality of the writing.

[Aussiegirl1]

I wonder too if many readers just don't think about reviewing. For a few years I just read the stories and it was not until I submitted by first story that I began to understand the whole review process. It wasn't that it wasn't clearly explained but that I just didn't take any notice of it.

I agree that watching the number of readers rise is fun, though you don't know if they read all the story or not. It is a curious thing, but so long as I get at least a few reviews, to let me know what they liked or didn't like about the story, that is good. That to me is the most important part about reviews, if I can get a feel for what worked or didn't work, I can use it to improve my next story.

[Rabbit1]

Well there is an excellent guide to reviewing a story ---and I kind of feel like we need to show members how to review a story ---I get so many emails asking if a particular author is going to add to a story ---and I answer them by telling them I have no idea---but they might want to review the story to let the author know they would like to see more ----Now I never wrote a story just to get reviews---I write because I like to ---but I will tell you that getting a review does a lot to make you want to continue ---

I am a paid author ---I write book ---not erotic book --novels ---I have 5 published novels---and better than reviews I get a check each month ---that tells me people have enjoyed my stories and makes me want to write more ----I started writing erotic stories---that is where I started ---and reviews made a lot of difference to me ----I started on a story board and continued there until they turned it into a pay site----

yes I still get paid from that site as it pays me by the number of times my stories are downloaded ---I get paid from the new member fees that people pay when they join and the monthly fees they pay to stay members

but I would rather my short erotic stories were free and I post them on boards for free ----I like to help and encourage new authors ----

we have started basic writers classes for new authors in the Writer's Block

now I feel like we ought to train reviewers---I hope each of you will take the time to review a story ---and maybe comment on it in this forum ---