Is there Correlation between Chapter Depth, Likes, and Views?

Zekar

Zekar

Really Experienced
Going through my stories and seeing some other statistics from the site it made me wonder about depth of story correlating to number of views and likes.

The theory: that Chapter Depth has an impact on number of views a story gets.

My data pool is just from my stories and I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to this. If someone else can back this up with a more general pool of data(I.E. other author stories than mine) that would be great.

My Data
Costume Story - 404 Likes, 120k views, 15 Chapter Depth
Dream Prom Date - 324 likes, 363k views, 25 Chapter depth
Erotic Stage Magician - 108 Likes, 34k views, 9 Chapter Depth
Gender Change: At the Office - 207 likes, 38k views, 12 Chapter depth
Gender Change: Beta Test - 1033 likes, 282k views, 31 Chapters.
Gender Change: Magic Closet - 98 likes, 53k, views, 16 Chapter
Mind Control: Fantasy Amusement Park - 103 likes, 32k views, 13 Chapter depth
Bridal Boutique - 153 likes, 93k views, 15 chapters
Ye Olde Ren Faire - 117 likes, 40k views, 15 depth

Conclusions?
From my limited dataset 15 Chapter depth stories ranged from 98 to 404 unique likes. Generally they never got above 100k views.

The two stories that I've had above 20 Chapter depth have between 324 to 1033 likes, but also over 250k views.

Thought this might spur some analysis on metrics.
 
I assume that some numbers are kind of related.

Some people who search for stories might filter for chapter depth, probably ignoring "new" stories with less than 5 chapters or searching for long stories with 25 or more chapters.
So chapter depth might attract readers (including more likes and views)
 
gene.sis said:
I assume that some numbers are kind of related.

Some people who search for stories might filter for chapter depth, probably ignoring "new" stories with less than 5 chapters or searching for long stories with 25 or more chapters.
So chapter depth might attract readers (including more likes and views)
Click to expand...

Definitely the case with me. When I started out, I always searched for the sories with most chapter depth. I mean, this is ultimately a porn site, so when I see a story with maybe <10 depth, I figured it's either all just build-up to sex that isn't there yet, or just sex with no build-up, which is also no fun. With a super long story, you can be sure that there's going to be sex eventually, so there's less worry about wasting time.

Kinda regretting that view now, since my writing style favours long chapters, meaning that even my biggest story has yet to hit the 15 depth-mark, even though it's pretty broad and wordy...
 
I really wish there was a word count, both in individual chapters and whole stories.

I can't remember how many times I got attracted by a story with tons of chapters only to discover that most of them were one or two paragraphs only...
 
I would say that there most likely is a correlation between all of them. The more you write the more attention your story will gain. That is not a bad thing at all.
 
Definitely a correlation, however I do not believe it is causation. I believe a lot of it has to do with the genre you are writing in. I have read some real stinkers that have hundreds of thousands of views and lots of likes, but it is in a popular area. Theni have found some real gems that are in virtual obscurity because they classified as another.

With that said, I do believe a word count would be a better search metric than chapter length. Personally I have some single chapters that have more content than some 20 chapter deep stories, but I am as much about the build and setting as the culmination of it all.
 
The larger, the more active, and the more interest a story has the more popularity it has on this site. I also think that it also depends on genre. Many might like one particular fetish, but not all like on fetish.
 
I don't think it could help but make a difference. The only information a viewer sees about stories on the front page (aside from title and the accompanying pic) are genre, the last time they were updated (which is somewhat redundant if it's one of the "recently updated" or "new" stories, which are the first listed) and the chapter "depth". "Depth" cannot help but be viewed from this vantage as being important- the site is putting forth this information to the exclusion of number of likes, over-all number of chapters, number of branches, and so on. And without that other information, it's implied to somehow be a measure of quality- who doesn't want to read a "deep" story? (Or at least be seen as the sort of person who reads "deep" stories?)

As I've said elsewhere, it's a bit of a pet peeve, since a story with twenty chapters but one branch is implied to have greater "depth" than one with two hundred chapters wherein branches never go deeper than ten. But my most notable story is in the latter category, so, y'know, sour grapes.
 
do you know what statistic I would most like to see instead of chapter depth?

Number of Contributors...

Think about it: what are the chances that a story with 27 contributors will not have SOMETHING worth reading?

Pretty low, I think.
 
Nemo of Utopia said:
Think about it: what are the chances that a story with 27 contributors will not have SOMETHING worth reading?
Click to expand...
What are the chances you will get something not worth reading?

Try 28 stories without contributors and you'll probably have the same ratio. (A good editor can change this though it would be nearly the same again if you take an overall view)
 
gene.sis said:
Try 28 stories without contributors and you'll probably have the same ratio.
Click to expand...

Disagree.

Any shmendric can publish their own story: but it takes something special to inspire others to add to a story, and the more people have added the higher the chances that the story already has a good editor and a helpful internal community commenting on each other's work: pointing out plot holes and closing them, collaborating on characters, designing aspects of the world together.

Just look at the stories I have adopted, several of them are one chapter deep: published and abandoned.

Now, I come along and see something in them worth saving: that's two contributors right there...

But you know, hey, that's just one chapter deep, doesn't sound like much...

Ah, but: consider the most popular story on the site:

https://chyoa.com/story/The-Gamer,-Chyoa-edition.12004

How many contributors is THAT up to? Thirteen by my count? Sure, a ton of stories can boast over 50 chapters...

How many can boast 13 contributors?

(I actually have no idea, if someone could data mine that would be great...!)
 
There are also the stories to consider that people don't add to because they don't think they can do as well as the original author. Considering a full 1/8 of my story views are from the introduction im not in that category but there are some others who are. These usually only attract a few contributors like Runt of the Litter which has 1.6 million views and over 7k likes but only 6 contributors and only around 3 who have done more than 1-3 chapters.
 
So the overall consensus is more contributors to a story that can also write more then 3 chapters is likely to be very actively busy.
Maybe joining a story with multiple contributors who can eventually lead to me writing a story that has multiple contributors should be my second goal for the year. After writing chapters for all of my adopted stories first.
 
Nemo of Utopia said:
but it takes something special to inspire others to add to a story,
Click to expand...
a special idea, a nice concept, a generic entry point or just being a story collection

Nemo of Utopia said:
more people have added the higher the chances that the story already has a good editor and a helpful internal community commenting on each other's work: pointing out plot holes and closing them, collaborating on characters, designing aspects of the world together.
Click to expand...
Collaborating — not contributing — is always a gain, no matter if all involved persons added to the story or not.
If a small story is good it probably doesn't need an editor.

Nemo of Utopia said:
Just look at the stories I have adopted, several of them are one chapter deep: published and abandoned.
Now, I come along and see something in them worth saving: that's two contributors right there...
Click to expand...
actually no. As the creator abandoned the story, you are basically alone.


Nemo of Utopia said:
How many can boast 13 contributors?
Click to expand...
what about
https://chyoa.com/story/The-Politician's-Wife.99
https://chyoa.com/story/Hentai-Anime.582

or this one (I counted 29)
https://chyoa.com/story/Pick-a-Fantasy.760
or (I counted 38)
https://chyoa.com/story/The-Lilith-Strain.237
 
So...depth seems to be a definite attractor for a lot of folks, but what about breadth? Stories with a lot of depth tend to end up being fairly linear, with lots of choices that dead end.
 
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