Lack of Feedback After Thousands of Total Chapter Reads

[yinjenxie]

I am confused, for the love of me, that for unknown reason I am unaware of, the people that read my story, particularly the prologue and/or chapter one, seems to be not commenting anything (good or bad, appreciation or criticism) at all.

Now that makes me anxious especially after I went ahead and read some other newer writers' (like first time publishing in SH, or like RR) stories and found out that people left some comments voicing out their opinions or whatever.

I'm not saying that I want every reader to comment, but if not one of these people comment now and then, then I wouldn't know what these people thought of my story, and I am unable to adapt my writing style in a greater degree since I can't get it to my head on whether I should revise the previous chapters, alter/enhance my writing style, etc., or not.

At least someone who read Chapter 1 or Prologue has a high chance to leave a comment especially if they found it out of their taste, right?

Maybe it's bad luck, but the Goddess of Luck seems to ignore me since its been going on for months.

Although I was able to receive one review a few months ago, that is lackluster compared to others.

Was it really bad or good? How would I know?

Complimenting my own work, though motivational in some way, is still lacking, compared to some stranger offering their opinions on your work and you can immediately get the gist on where you f'ed up, or where did you shine out.

I tried approaching my irl-friends, but their opinions feel like biased in a way. Is anybody else experiencing this through or am I that only one lucky unlucky man?

Or maybe I have to continue with this silent treatment and guess for eternity that my novel was really good, average, or very bad.

 

[EternalSunset0]

A lot of people just read quietly most of the time. What you could do is to add a poll at the end for feedback purposes. Just a simple "do you like it?" with some options should do, and it's at least some feedback.

I'm pretty sure a lot of writers experience the same thing you do.

EDIT: I went and checked your story, and your first chapter had 129 total views. That's not a lot imo. Your "3.8k views" is cumulative of all the chapters. Since you have over a hundred, that's averaging around 38 views per chapter (which obviously isn't accurate since most views are skewed towards the start). Honestly not a whole lot.

I'm not sure how SH calculates algorithm, but me not reading it but opening it will already add to the tally if I'm not wrong.

 

[yinjenxie]

Tried that once, ended up with a silent treatment. ? I am so weirded out.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Don't rush.

 

[Zirrboy]

Don't rush.

Is what I wanted to say too, but they've been posting since early 2021, at over 200k words now

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Is what I wanted to say too, but they've been posting since early 2021, at over 200k words now

 

[greyblob]

this is pretty bizarre. I'd say the main issue is with the prologue and first chapter. you haven't managed to hook readers. people are uninterested/don't fully understand what you wrote. your latest chapters have almost no views, meaning you have no active readers, meaning you get no comments. the readers you have now just have your novel in their reading list

 

[KiraMinoru]

Your biggest problem imo was that you added the tragedy genre and no hot genres. Nothing strange about this to me. Most people typically avoid tragedies and just want to read easy going fluff that makes them feel happy and good. Personally, I’m the type to avoid tragedy stories like the plague. The tragedy tag essentially cripples your chances of getting readers. I’d even go so far to say a lot of people might even filter out the tragedy tag. This could make it so even less people see your series. So for the views you’re getting, they may actually be mostly from people clicking on the fiction page, seeing the tragedy tag then clicking off. For the few that are fine with the tragedy tag they may gloss over the latest chapter released to see what the current writing is like in addition to the prologue and first chapter.

You’ve also got a one word title. For SH longer titles tend to do better. The title is a chance to sell your story. A lot of people look down on long titles, but the truth is in a highly saturated market those longer titles are what stand out.

Your cover also will draw eyes. It’s a bit sad to say, but anime girl on cover trumps all and reigns supreme in the demographic SH appeals to.

Now as for your genres, you lack any of the big four that the SH demographic looks for. Girl’s love, gender bender, smut, and harem. These are like the SH equivelant to the long running mainstream anime at any given time that act as pillars for the anime industry in Japan.

There are people on this platform I’m certain as soon as they see GL and GB they will add it to their list just to support those genres by itself. They may not even ever read it as their lists of added fictions number in the hundreds or thousands. Though some will just comment for the sake of supporting the genre with a simple TFTC or blob emoji. But them doing these simple acts leads to a multiplier effect as it pushes them up in the algorithm early on. People see a large number of readers early on and they add it to their list for later thinking it’s good. This psychological effect leads to some people even reading the story early on and inevitably dropping a few comments here and there. Doing so early on pushes the series onto trending. Once on trending front page people are more likely to comment because of the sheer amount of exposure.

Now your odds for author’s getting comments is already quite low actually. It isn’t uncommon to get none at all. But when you take the factors you have going against you into account, your odds of getting people commenting is even lower.

The best bet you’d have to get even a few more people to look at your story is to completely remove the tragedy tag. You’d then need to find a way to build reader retention. Something you don’t have, going off of the very low view count on your most recent chapters. Honestly, it’d require a complete rebranding of the series. How you sell it to people.

Even the worst of stories can do well so long as you understand what a demographic is really after.

 

[Deeprotsorcerer]

I am confused, for the love of me, that for unknown reason I am unaware of, the people that read my story, particularly the prologue and/or chapter one, seems to be not commenting anything (good or bad, appreciation or criticism) at all.

That really sucks, I'm sorry. I'll at least take a look at your first chapter and give it my impressions. I'd normally say the problem could be due to unlucky update timings, getting drowned out by more popular works with similar tags, or a lack of an interesting cover, but I don't think any of the above apply. How strange.

At a glance, you could clean up your synopsis a bit. It's understandable but it almost reads like awkward ESL composition with bits of crucial information missing. Take a look here:

Conflicted about what should he become, and what should be done, join him as he ventures out into the world of Pandragea, searching for the answer to his questions, the truth of his identity, and the mysterious artifact within his body.

feels like two unrelated clauses smooshed against each other, and both are vague. Why is Zachariel conflicted? What information about this artifact can you give us? Simply solidifying some of your language will make for a more enticing preview.

 

[yinjenxie]

A lot of people just read quietly most of the time. What you could do is to add a poll at the end for feedback purposes. Just a simple "do you like it?" with some options should do, and it's at least some feedback.

I'm pretty sure a lot of writers experience the same thing you do.

EDIT: I went and checked your story, and your first chapter had 129 total views. That's not a lot imo. Your "3.8k views" is cumulative of all the chapters. Since you have over a hundred, that's averaging around 38 views per chapter (which obviously isn't accurate since most views are skewed towards the start). Honestly not a whole lot.

I'm not sure how SH calculates algorithm, but me not reading it but opening it will already add to the tally if I'm not wrong.

I once tried tallying the total reads and those views that were recorded in the list of chapters but they didn't match up. And my views seems rather weird in a way because one chapters has 3 views, then in a later chapter, it goes back to 1, fluctuates back to 3 on the next chapter and the pattern continues.

Your biggest problem imo was that you added the tragedy genre and no hot genres. Nothing strange about this to me. Most people typically avoid tragedies and just want to read easy going fluff that makes them feel happy and good. Personally, I’m the type to avoid tragedy stories like the plague. The tragedy tag essentially cripples your chances of getting readers. I’d even go so far to say a lot of people might even filter out the tragedy tag. This could make it so even less people see your series. So for the views you’re getting, they may actually be mostly from people clicking on the fiction page, seeing the tragedy tag then clicking off. For the few that are fine with the tragedy tag they may gloss over the latest chapter released to see what the current writing is like in addition to the prologue and first chapter.

You’ve also got a one word title. For SH longer titles tend to do better. The title is a chance to sell your story. A lot of people look down on long titles, but the truth is in a highly saturated market those longer titles are what stand out.

Your cover also will draw eyes. It’s a bit sad to say, but anime girl on cover trumps all and reigns supreme in the demographic SH appeals to.

Now as for your genres, you lack any of the big four that the SH demographic looks for. Girl’s love, gender bender, smut, and harem. These are like the SH equivelant to the long running mainstream anime at any given time that act as pillars for the anime industry in Japan.

There are people on this platform I’m certain as soon as they see GL and GB they will add it to their list just to support those genres by itself. They may not even ever read it as their lists of added fictions number in the hundreds or thousands. Though some will just comment for the sake of supporting the genre with a simple TFTC or blob emoji. But them doing these simple acts leads to a multiplier effect as it pushes them up in the algorithm early on. People see a large number of readers early on and they add it to their list for later thinking it’s good. This psychological effect leads to some people even reading the story early on and inevitably dropping a few comments here and there. Doing so early on pushes the series onto trending. Once on trending front page people are more likely to comment because of the sheer amount of exposure.

Now your odds for author’s getting comments is already quite low actually. It isn’t uncommon to get none at all. But when you take the factors you have going against you into account, your odds of getting people commenting is even lower.

The best bet you’d have to get even a few more people to look at your story is to completely remove the tragedy tag. You’d then need to find a way to build reader retention. Something you don’t have, going off of the very low view count on your most recent chapters. Honestly, it’d require a complete rebranding of the series. How you sell it to people.

Even the worst of stories can do well so long as you understand what a demographic is really after.

Probably true with regards to the tragedy tag. After all, I once despised stories with tragedy but I got over that over the years.

And I don't really know if it would be that tragic the way I have narrated things for now, so it might be a good way to remove the tragedy tag for now.

For the cover, I am not that yet 'money' accomplished so forget about it. The eye holds relevance, though the story would only put that thing's significance in the later part.

With regards to reader retention, I would like to go 'boom' and start adding cliche stuff (like harem, or system going crazy) but that would destroy the tempo I am attempting to do. The slow-plot progression from the start would go off.

Anyway, I guess I would have to wait for more time. Consider it bad luck I guess.

I planned to publish some other stories which fits some hot trends and criteria, and put my main in a hiatus, but I doubt I would be able to handle changing my train of thoughts because of this switching from one novel to another.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

To get more comments, I recommend writing.com. They have a gift point system you can use to request reviews. Leave reviews on other works to earn gift points, and then use those gift points to request reviews from other people. If nobody is offering you gift points for your reviews, the system offers free gift points every time you review an author you have not reviewed before, and there are some pieces that auto-reward for reviews.

 

[Temple]

As others mentioned, you still have low readers. I'd also add that SH readers are comparatively more silent than RR readers. So much more silent actually.

It might be harsh, but I think you should go for a rewrite/new story. Your early chapters are not hooking in the readers. In my story, the first chapter obviously has the most reads, then it gets slashed by like half the next chapter, and then it steadily goes down over time. In your case, it went down too fast in the span of the first few chapters, meaning you're not retaining the readers. It might be a reality check to perhaps do a rewrite. Even if your latter chapters will be super good, readers won't get to it.

It's actually a detriment to have this much content with this low readership because people will judge your work based on the statistics. If you see a very long story with few readers, what will you assume of it?

Either a rewrite or a new story (as you mentioned yourself). Kira up there provided good marketing strategies, there is nothing wrong going with the mainstream of the site you're publishing on.

However, if you do insist on pushing on with a planned story that's not mainstream, then it's going to be an incredibly difficult uphill climb. I could write pages on the challenges that it will entail because I have experience with it myself (my story has a one-word title, no hot tags, not under the big genres, goes against web novel reader conventions, slow-paced, intentionally not for self-insert, etc.), but I suggest you not do it until you have more experience.

Non-mainstream works are judged so much harsher. Furthermore, you'll be asking people to try something else than usual; that's not how web novel readers work. Kira discussed just how genre-entrenched readers are.

Even the worst of stories can do well so long as you understand what a demographic is really after.

^ This.

No sugarcoating, you can go either for a rewrite or a new story.

 

[yinjenxie]

As others mentioned, you still have low readers. I'd also add that SH readers are comparatively more silent than RR readers. So much more silent actually.

It might be harsh, but I think you should go for a rewrite/new story. Your early chapters are not hooking in the readers. In my story, the first chapter obviously has the most reads, then it gets slashed by like half the next chapter, and then it steadily goes down over time. In your case, it went down too fast in the span of the first few chapters, meaning you're not retaining the readers. It might be a reality check to perhaps do a rewrite. Even if your latter chapters will be super good, readers won't get to it.

It's actually a detriment to have this much content with this low readership because people will judge your work based on the statistics. If you see a very long story with few readers, what will you assume of it?

Either a rewrite or a new story (as you mentioned yourself). Kira up there provided good marketing strategies, there is nothing wrong going with the mainstream of the site you're publishing on.

However, if you do insist on pushing on with a planned story that's not mainstream, then it's going to be an incredibly difficult uphill climb. I could write pages on the challenges that it will entail because I have experience with it myself (my story has a one-word title, no hot tags, not under the big genres, goes against web novel reader conventions, slow-paced, intentionally not for self-insert, etc.), but I suggest you not do it until you have more experience.

Non-mainstream works are judged so much harsher. Furthermore, you'll be asking people to try something else than usual; that's not how web novel readers work. Kira discussed just how genre-entrenched readers are.


^ This.

No sugarcoating, you can go either for a rewrite or a new story.

I don't think its harsh though, and you do have a point.

I guess starting it out with some easily entertainable stories that fits to the trend is better, before introducing some more serious ones.
That would lead me in building up my own fanbase and reputation.

Anyway, thanks for the remarks. Much appreciated.

 

[chocomug]

Aside from what the other posters have already mentioned, you have two main problems.

The first is the one-sentence paragraphs. It disrupts the flow of the readers, especially the readers on RR who prefer longer paragraphs. Second, the punctuation for the conversations is a bit odd and the quotes are placed in a way that doesn't help the reader know who is talking. I am not sure if there is a good source to help you, but I have pulled this link from google. These are basic problems, but they will turn off potential readers, no matter how good the content is.

 

[XKARNATION]

I don't know if u noticed but most web novels have really long titles that are borderline synopsis such as: "That time I was reincarnated as a slime", there's a good reason for this. It draws people in to click on it to read the rest of the synopsis and maybe even the first chapter.

I looked at ur novel and the title and cover art just say "Shatter", shatter what? what is that? I have no idea so I won't even bother to read the first chapter.

 

[Deleted member 58005]

A lot of people just read quietly most of the time. What you could do is to add a poll at the end for feedback purposes. Just a simple "do you like it?" with some

That's a great way to stir up my anxiety xD

The fear that no one will answer

I am confused, for the love of me, that for unknown reason I am unaware of, the people that read my story, particularly the prologue and/or chapter one, seems to be not commenting anything (good or bad, appreciation or criticism) at all.

Be like me

No comments for the past 25 chapters. To that one guy who keeps favorite-ing my latest chapter, love you.

 

[OnlyIndie]

I read, but if I have nothing good to say, I won't comment or leave anything.
Simply to respect the author. Simply I do not wish to continue, and there is no way I will continue reading it.
Example, I was never a Slice of Life reader. I bump into an interesting title, then I read the prologue or first few chapters.
Only then to realised, it is not my jam, and I have no idea whether it is good or bad because, it is not my thing.
So I left... that's all.

 

[Lloyd]

That is why I have beta readers / editors.

Is what I wanted to say too, but they've been posting since early 2021, at over 200k words now

Thank you for your service.

 

[Deeprotsorcerer]

I read the the first chapter of Shatter it just feels... underdeveloped. Like, I can tell that you put a bunch of thought into the story, it's just that we're not getting all of it on the page. More details in the chapter comments.

 

[yinjenxie]

I read the the first chapter of Shatter it just feels... underdeveloped. Like, I can tell that you put a bunch of thought into the story, it's just that we're not getting all of it on the page. More details in the chapter comments.

Thank you for the feedback. I have stopped publishing more of the story for now and might re-write it on another date. I am currently working on another one instead, but I'll try my best to incorporate your feedback onto my new one as well.