#they're like the four elements of online video content

[seizethedeansofproduction]

they're like the Beatles for people obsessed with one specific aspect of pop culture

[likegemstone]

just me puzzling through some issues there have been re: posting HBM online

So, HBM is posted on 4 different sites: Royal Road, Inkitt, Tapas, and Webnovel.

Episode one has now been up for *checks calendar* 3 months and 10 days. According to the analytics from each of those sites, HBM has been viewed, across all sites: 1,893 times. Now, each new chapter counts as a new view, so it hasn't been 1,893 people, but only Inkitt shows me the views on each chapter (as far as I can tell) so idk exactly how many people just pulled up the first chapter or whatever and then bounced. Royal Road says the average views are 21 (out of the total views on that site of 494) but I don't know enough about math anymore to be able to properly interpret/estimate how many people actually finished all the chapters. Anyway, none of that really matters

What matters is: of all 1,893 views across all four sites, HBM has gotten exactly 7 comments.

6 are from the same person, the fiancee of one of my best friends who read the story as a favor to said best friend. The other comment is from me replying to one of her comments LMAO

Although all four sites allow and encourage reviews of stories, it has gotten no reviews, nor any ratings.

I'm going to assume, if only for my own sanity, that this is very normal. That readers in this day and age on these sites are not inherently inclined to comment/like/review/rate random stories they read, even if they did enjoy them enough to read all the way to the end of Episode One. That if there isn't some other factor (like being my bestie-in-law) to nudge them toward actually engaging with the story, they won't.

Part of it is also an issue of how I posted Ep 1 I think. I, for the most part, just dumped the whole thing on there at once when, from what I've seen, it would have been much smarter to update one chapter per day until the whole episode was out. However that's more factoring in to bringing in new readers, not necessarily getting readers to engage. I think.

(This is all completely new to me and I am just theorizing for like 99% of this)

So what do I do about this? Aside from just post more of the story (which I will be doing soon, hopefully!) and hoping that as people get to know the characters and the story more, they're more inclined to engage?

If I put myself in the mindset of a reader (who is not also a writer and therefore doesn't immediately then put myself in the mindset of the person who wrote what I am reading) then I think I would just not really. Think to interact with the story unless it like REALLY grabbed me and made me Feel a big Feel. I think it wouldn't even occur to me that the writer needs me. I would see myself as just a number to the writer, and I would think "oh they're just going to keep doing what they're doing no matter what I do or say, so why take the time?"

Also there's the fact that HBM is free, right? I want it to always be free if I can afford to do that because I want it to be as accessible as possible. No paywall, and if people want to and are able to support me financially then they can and hopefully will.

Some might think that readers would be like "wow this person is offering something they have sunk years of their life into for free I am so grateful for that, I should do what I can to show that appreciation and let them know I support what they're doing!" but in fact it's the Free element that emphasizes this kinda mentality that it's just. It's just content, right? It's just online content and I am just a number. I don't matter to the writer.

It's weird how that works. But I totally get it because I am totally that way with, for example, video content. Like there's that whole "like comment and subscribe if you like this video!" thing and that always felt so impersonal and like the youtuber or whatever was just saying it because other people always said it and they didn't even actually care about the comments/feedback they were just trying to play to the algorithm so it didn't actually matter if I did those things. I just always saw it as a creator trying to increase their numbers because "bigger number better person" and all that.

Okay so what do I do with all of this that I've just talked through?

Wait I'm going to reblog this with further commentary that is not under the cut and I don't know if it will show up like I think it will but let's give it a try

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