Feedback stats

[indri]

I've just been sorting out my overfull email account. As a few people have recently posted about feedback, I took special note of any I had received in my two years of fic writing. And then, what with me being confined to bed with the flu and me being a numbers person, I wound up doing a mini study of my own.

Here I'm defining feedback quite broadly to include email, LJ comments, BBF discussion, requests to archive, feedback left at archive sites and award nominations. I have not included recs made by others in their LJs or websites as I have no way to count these. Nor have I made any attempt to distinguish between "You rock" single-line feedback and mini-essay paens of praise that make me go weak at the knees.

If I just add all these kinds of feedback up, then I can say that, before I got an LJ, I'd usually get 17-25 pieces of feedback per fic. Of the fics I've posted since getting an LJ, I received 30 for "Descent" and a record-breaking 39 so far for, God help me, "Shagging Harmony Kendall". I expected good feedback for "Descent", because it's the piece I've worked longest and hardest on, but the strong response to "SHK" has rather taken me by surprise.

Now, either I've got a whole lot better-known in the past year or LJ is skewing the stats, perhaps because LJ friends are much more likely to comment on one's fic. So if we recall peasant_ 's suggestion that each piece of feedback probably represents 100-500 readers but apply it only to my pre-LJ stats, then I'm looking at a readership of 1,700 to 12,500. In all likelihood, a few thousand people may be reading my stories, given that peasant_ may have been defining feedback more narrowly.

I haven't written enough to gauge to what extent feedback depends on pairing, theme or rating. What is clear is that feedback is in no way proportional to effort: I spent a year on "Descent" but only got twice as much feedback as I did for an hour's work on the drabble "Doomed".

Some oddities: my most-archived fics have been "DeNile" and "Foreign Devils" (4 times each) but the only fic nominated more than once for a fic award has been "A Good Man" (3 times). "Foreign Devils" did poorly in terms of total numbers but the feedback I did receive was exceedingly fine and resulted in a few friendships. I received almost twice as many emails about "Shagging Harmony Kendall" than for any other fic, ever.

So there you go, that's my baseline.

Comments

[onetwomany.livejournal.com]

My experience with fanfiction.net has been an incredibly consistent one piece of feedback per 100 hits - although that applies only in the early days of posting. After that, the stats go a bit funny. Whether that's representative, I don't know, but the system there provides clear stats, so it's interesting. I've only had one fic nominated on BBF, and there was no real discussion about that, so I can't really go by that list, however allaboutspike has been a pretty good source of feedback for my Spike fic. I'd love to know what feedback stats are on that site! The other stuff I write gets feedback from my LJ friends, but none from anywhere else - even Symbiosis, which garnered heaps of gacking here on LJ, and is by far and aware my most recced fic, has never recieved even one piece of feedback anywhere else.

Feedback is odd :)

[indri]

Ah, you must be a paying member of ffnet.

Symbiosis, which garnered heaps of gacking here on LJ, and is by far and aware my most recced fic, has never recieved even one piece of feedback anywhere else

Maybe you should swing by and tell roseveare. She's a bit down at the moment and it may be partly my fault.

Interesting that the 1:100 ratio holds up.

[deepad]

I expected good feedback for "Descent", because it's the piece I've worked longest and hardest on, but the strong response to "SHK" has rather taken me by surprise.

See? its the meaty content thing again. I remember Yahtzee had the same response for "A Stitch in Time" vs "Termination". She said, if i remember correctly, how frustrating it was that an insubstancial snack got more response then a full, three-course banquet.

[indri]

Yeah, it's what I expect these days. I wonder sometimes if the prevalence of WIPs is due to this: writers wanting to do something substantial but publishing bit by bit so they get some actual feedback.

Of course, it's also more difficult to write good feedback for a long piece as it requires more thought -- or at least that's what often makes me postpone emailing.

[deepad]

more spammage, since you are online.. what is UP with Voy. I've tried posting in that thread you pointed me to 6 times, and its saying the whole thread was deleted or something. Grrf.

[indri]

It may have been archived. I'll go and look. If so, a quick email to Masq the moderator would bring it back to the board, she's good about that sort of thing I understand.

Yup, it's automatically been moved to Archive 2. Masq's email is masqthephlsphr@yahoo.com. Or you could start a new thread and explain which posts you're responding to.

[deepad]

Meh. I'm not sure my reply's worth the effort involved. Plus, I copied something else forgetting that I had copied my post, so now its lost and I don't feel like typing it again.
::wishes there was a bed at office so she could sleeep::
say, are you on any IM? Yahoo, MSN, AIM?

[indri]

, I copied something else forgetting that I had copied my post, so now its lost

Bugger. That's happened to me before.

say, are you on any IM? Yahoo, MSN, AIM

I think so, I'm just not sure what, the SO set it up. Let me ask him.

[indri]

Answer to your AIM question seems to be yes, but I have to fiddle around with software. Don't hold your breath though, I may not make it.

Isn't it the early morning where you are? What are you doing in the office?!

[deepad]

no, dude, its noontime... you're ahead of us, timewise, remember? Ok, if you get the AIM set up, I'm DeepaD0 on it, so feel free to add me. you already have a yahoo id though, so you should set up yahoo messenger. anyway...
you haven't read the HP books yet? ::boggles::
i am shocked. come to think of it, if you're feverish you shouldn't strain your eyes over a computer screen anyway. go read the books.
or, you know, read the illegal e-text versions of them. We have them at home if you want me to mail them to you.
although anyone who would read a book the size of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on a computer needs to get their head as well as their eyes examined ;)

[indri]

Yahoo Messenger? Oh, duh. I don't know, I've just never tried to use these things.

Noon. That makes more sense. I have an little electronic time-around-the-world thing that's clearly gone nuts then.

I'll go and read the YM FAQ and if you hear from me, you'll know I've succeeded.

[stumbelina.livejournal.com]

Hello, random comment from a random reader.

I don't write, but I read more fic than can be healthy. I can only offer observations of my own feedbacking behavior for you to see how it fits into your patterns...

Before LJ it was a very rare event that I emailed feedback. I felt shy and more than a little lame that all I had to say was "guh" and "holy fuck I am broken now". The 4 or 5 stories I responded to that way, out of many hundreds read, were mid-length and very emotional.

My feedbacking ratio here on LJ is completely different though. On a bad day I will comment on one fic in five that I read, on a good day probably every second. Most of the time it is still a thank you, just a line or two to say I read and enjoyed, but I am increasingly comfortable with (as a non-writer) offering actual critique. This I am sure is through reading hundreds of pages of comments from other people over the last year.

This is of course made easier in LJ land because I see a much higher percentage of well written fic than I did out in the wild. I love the authors on my reading list and any fic pimped there might as well have a guarantee stamped on it.

I know myself that I am more likely to respond to something that is between 1000 words and 10,000 than anything very short or novel length that I have to read in more than one sitting. I may think more on a longer fic, and rate it highly in my head but the very complexity of them can mean that I don't know what to say to the author. One line of "god, that was a hot sex scene", or "oooh, scary twist there" is not going to cut it. I get shy.

Random things: I think perhaps more feedback can be generated by a fic with one core emotion, or a strong simple premise. It is just easier to casually respond to. Leaves the author wondering about their more complex or subtle work though, I'm sure.

I still freak about email feedback - because it is private and seems somehow intrusive...? that will just be me then.

Shagging Harmony Kendall is fab!

Ok, so this is all a little random, and I think some caffeine must have snuck into my body this morning, because I am not usually this wordy at all.