What makes a story popular?

Well I have stopped looking at views. Folks have convinced me they are unreliable but I'm still addicted to my 3-4 likes per chapter

 

I cannot say what makes a story popular, though my initial guess is if it's high likes you seek then decipher what the popular fetishes are and take over from there. Incest seems to be the dominant kink, then I would guess it would be some sort of genderswap fantasy or perhaps a harem-like approach where all the ladies salivate over the main character.

Popularity is not something I would say I accomplished over night, it took my over a year to gather over 3000 likes in my main story. However, I have committed to said story most of each year and well I would say that is developing a fan community over your work rather than being populer. Which I prefer, because popularity come's and go's but the fans will stay with you to see how this ends as long as they like what they get. Although each new chapter I publish gets 3 or 4 likes, it's from the same 3-4 fans which have stuck around for a very long time and that hits my center far more than gaining thousands of likes over the span of a few days. Younger me would dispute that, but you learn that fans and feedback is more desirable and rewarding than the highest number of likes in the end