Voter Apathy

I wrote this little essay and submitted it to Literotica after noticing just how few people bother to vote on my stories over there. I'd be interested in hearing what you think of it.

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I write porn stories - - I wouldn’t deign to call them erotica - - mostly featuring women with large breasts having incestuous relationships with their well hung sons though there are a couple of other themes I enjoy playing with as well. I do this for my own satisfaction, really - - I certainly don’t make any money from it.

I write porn because I enjoy it.

I also enjoy reading it and, on Literotica in particular, when I’ve taken the time to read something - - whether I enjoy it or not - - I vote on it. Depending on how well it was written, the subject matter and what sort of reaction it elicits from me, the story will get a rating of 1 to 5. Sometimes I’ll leave a comment if something really stood out for me, but regardless of that, I always, always vote if I’ve read the story.

And that’s what I’d like to talk about - - voting.

While I didn’t major in math, I certainly enjoyed it and to this day I like looking at statistics. With that in mind, I always check the stats on my own stories at the start of each month. The numbers of views per story quoted below are rounded to the nearest thousand and all figures are correct as at Jan 1st 2014.

Let’s look at two of my top tales - - the first is The Trophy Wives Club chapter 1, the very first story I submitted to Literotica. Because it’s been on the site for well over a year now, it has the greatest number of views out of my stories, 133,000. It’s also doing respectably in the ratings, reaching 4.55.

The other one is chapter 6 of The Trophy Wives Club which I picked because it has the highest rating of my stories at 4.69 - - in terms of views it has 47,000 which isn’t bad considering it’s been up for about four months or so.

Now let’s look at two of my bottom tales - - Kara Lofts and the Talismans has the least number of views (3,000) but that’s due in part to it only being on the site for two weeks when I collected these stats so I’m confident that’ll increase. On the ratings side of things, it’s at 4.61.

The other is the first chapter of Charlene's Not So Non-Nude Angels which I’ve selected because it has the lowest rating of any of my stories, 4.15. It only has 13,000 views as well, despite being on the site for over a year.

We now have four stories - - the two with the highest and lowest number of views, and the two with the highest and lowest ratings. In terms of views, there’s a difference of 130,000. For ratings it’s 0.54.

The percentage of people who voted for these stories - - not voted in any particular way but just bothered to select at least one of the stars at the bottom of the story - - was as follows:

Trophy Wives 1 - - 0.7%
Trophy Wives 6 - - 0.7%
Kara Lofts and the Talismans - - 0.6%
Charlene's Not So Non-Nude Angels 1 - - 0.5%

There’s a 0.1 percentage point difference between the stories with the highest and lowest numbers of views, and a 0.2 percentage point difference between the stories with the highest and lowest ratings.

Basically, no difference at all.

Of the thousands of views my stories receive - - and I suspect those of other authors, too - - less than 1% of readers are bothering to take the time to click a star at the bottom of it, even if they hate it.

I don’t vote on stories I read if they’re not what I’m looking for - - if I read a story in the Incest/Taboo category which contains something I wasn’t expecting or wasn’t made clear in the short summary or the intro - - for example two guys getting it on - - I stop reading there and then and don’t bother voting. I’m not going to mark down a story because it’s not something I like. If I did that, I’d spend all day in the BDSM, Gay Male, Non-consent/Reluctance or Transsexuals & Crossdressers categories giving everything a one star vote.

I’ll give a story a low vote if it sounds like something I might enjoy - - big boobs and incest, mostly, like I said - - but is poorly written.

I try and make it clear in the summary and intros what my stories contain so there’s the possibility that - - in the case of the 133,000 people who’ve viewed Trophy Wives chapter 1 - - that someone clicked on it, read the intro and then simply backed away without reading or voting. I have no problem with that.

I find it hard to believe that 99.3% of that 133,000 fall into that category. That would imply over 132,000 people clicked on a story called The Trophy Wives Club in the Erotic Couplings section - - it’s in there because there’s no incest in that chapter - - which has a description of “Rich MILFs in a private club get a big surprise”, read the intro which states “These stories will feature mature mothers with big, fake breasts enjoying the over-sized endowments of their sons” and then realised it wasn’t for them.

While possible, it seems highly improbable.

These numbers make it clear - - people are reading my stories (and, again, I suspect those of other authors) and the vast majority of them are simply not bothering to vote.

Voter apathy rules, it seems.

How much effort does it take to rate a story? How difficult is it to move your mouse over a star and click it? You don’t need to leave your house - - hell, you don’t even need to leave your seat. All I’d like you to do is click one of those stars giving me an indication of whether I’m writing something that people enjoy or not.

If you want to leave a comment, that’s great, too but remember - - constructive criticism is better than something like “Absolute fucking garbage” which is what someone left on one of my stories. To paraphrase an old saying, those who can, do, those who can’t comment anonymously on the internet.

Voting allows you in less than a second to give me - - and other authors - - an idea of whether or not you like something. How many authors have faded away because they don’t receive feedback? I don’t know, of course, but it seems likely that if next to no-one acknowledges what you’re doing, you won’t continue doing it.

Voting is simple to do and is worth doing. It doesn’t have to be a five star vote for every single story, but just take the time to click one of those stars if you finish reading it.

I write my stories because I enjoy them - - I’d just like to know if others do, too.