I look forward to some good answers to this question myself. I am sure that some days are better than others to. I'd love to know.
I agree with everything that Lisa said. It takes time to establish yourself as an author and actually get a loyal following.
I think developing an online presence where you show a bit of your personality will often make new readers curious enough to want to sample one of your stories. Hopefully when they do, the quality of your writing stands for itself. Some easy ways to do this are to properly fill out and pimp your profile. Make it an interesting page to visit. The photo album options are a great way to do this. Show people what you think is sexy in a visual way. Posting more often in the forums will also draw in new readers as they get to know you through your opinions and answers on certain topics. The idea is to make people curious enough to want to know more about you.
One can argue that writers with 'hot avatars' or cyber-friendly profiles will get more reads and votes. Yet a lot of those are throw-away votes so don't get discouraged. I've always found that it's better to check out who is following you (ie. the people that read a story you write and actually want to be alerted when you post a new one). I just checked my own stats and see that I have 246 people following me right now. I would say that I have never talked to 95% of them and probably 50% of them aren't on my friend list. So it's definitely not all about cliques or friends. Once you've established yourself on the site and have written enough of a collection of stories, the fan base will often create itself.
edit. My post came off as really really whiny. Someone bitchslap me.
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser. Socrates I've had a reasonable number of responses on my stories, but there doesn't seem to be much of a pattern to it really.
I do make sure to vote and comment on the stories that I read - there's always a chance that people will see and have a read of yours too...
The best one I have had was a short story which I wrote, it had a reasonable number of votes, but when I recorded an audio version, the views, votes and comments shot up...
I've also noticed an increase if I've been a featured member...
I was going to say something else, but I forget what... damn...
*edit* - lol I remember now - the audio story put me onto the featured writer list briefy too and the views shot up for a while then as well...
Funny enough I have seen the opposite, my first story ever has the one that had the highest amount of votes (21) while my third chapter (which I would say was my hottest one) only received 12 votes. I must have been lucky to submit my story on a little "slower" day and it may have stayed on the homepage a little longer.
That being said, it's the quality of people that comment on your work which makes the difference to me. Thanks to those that have supported me!
I think titles are super important. Come up with a creative one.
Stories with creative titles catch my attention more than "I Fuck Mom - Part 75"
Rxtales made a very good point about titles. Without a catchy title a very good story may go unnoticed.
), don't expect much and blame others, not yourself. That's the way I manage to cope.
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