roane72 replied to your post: Dear Brain, 100 hits and 10 kudos does not mean…
Not only does it not mean that, but a 10% kudos rate is actually VERY VERY good. (Says she who has also fixated on numbers in the past,) <3
That’s really interesting, I’ve never looked at other people’s numbers. My brain is just weird about numbers and if it can come up with a rule for their relationship to each other, it will, and it won’t let go.
Yep, what Roane says. I have fun crunching internet numbers, and my better stories generally maintain about a 10% kudos rate.
I did some experimenting, in fact, and discovered that if you’re feeling snobbish, looking for stories with a roughly 10% kudos/hit ratio is a great way to find the high-quality stuff. It doesn’t matter how high the actual hit or kudos numbers are; the ratio tells you more. All you can really tell from a lot of hits or kudos alone is that the story’s been around for a while and maybe it went viral.
Also keep in mind that quite a lot of readers prefer to download stories onto an e-reader, in which case they often forget to come back and leave kudos later even if they loved it.
And on that note, you should read wintergrey, guys. He’s a writer who really knows his way around a story. His style reminds me of bendingsignpost’s a bit, actually: in the way that they’ve both got that thing where they write at a comfortably accessible reading level, with a style that’s graceful but straightforward. But that straightforwardness is cleverly cloaking how they know which words to pick and how to work the quiet metaphors and how to ever so subtly turn their characters inside out until suddenly IT ALL BECOMES CLEAR AND YOU ARE AMBUSHED WITH FEELS.
So yeah. Wintergrey is da bomb.