I'm going to cover several subjects here:
- Popularity
- Publishing format (Fictionmania)
- Financials
- Gamer Gurl Perceptions
- What's next
Popularity:
Let's start with 'popularity'. I'm not sure that's the word I'm looking for, but it fits for now. I've 'published' my stories in two locations. Fictionmania and CHYOA. Both keep track of how many times a story was read. Now, I'm not naive enough to think that these are true 'how many times people read the story' type numbers. For instance, any time that someone clicks on Gamer Gurl at CHYOA, it gives it a 'read' even if they next click on the story map and move on to the latest chapter. So the main page or introduction to Gamer Gurl has 27,000 reads. Every chapter after that, it goes down. The point where it evens out seems to be around 2,000 reads. Some chapters have more, some chapters have less, but it seems to have evened out there. The last few chapters are still increasing, even though they were published almost three weeks ago and all hover between 700 and 1,000.
So, do I count Gamer Gurl as being read 700 times at CHYOA as only those that made it to the latest chapter read the whole thing? Do I count the 27,000 as that many people started it? I don't know.
At Fictionmania it's similar. I've published Thirty Three stories at Fictionmania. Except not really. Including Gamer Gurl: Origins, I've published nineteen stories. It's just that both Just Dance and Gamer Gurl: Origins were published with eight chapters. Most of my stories there average about 10,000 reads. Temp, published in March of 2020 has 26,000 reads. Now, most of those stories at Fictionmania, including Temp, were longer versions of Caps or outright Obscuras. They're rather short compared to my stories. So, I want to focus on four stories. Opals and Pearls, Thesis, Just Dance, and Gamer Gurl: Origins as these were all written as stories first.
- Opals and Pearls
- Published 03/23/2020
- 6,846 words
- 10,864 reads
- 18 comments
- Thesis
- Published 06/07/2020
- 41,697 words
- 15,952 reads
- 9 comments
- Just Dance (published as 8 chapters)
- Published 06/28/2023 - 07/05/2023
- 76,206 words
- Words per chapter - 8,194, 10,181, 9,111, 9,305, 9,742, 11,161, 8,962, and 9,550
- Reads per chapter - 6,620, 3,575, 3,030, 2,589, 2,451, 2,202, 1,874, and 2,598
- 35 comments (total)
- Gamer Gurl: Origins (published as 8 chapters)
- Published 02/12/2024 - 02/20/2024
- 92758 words
- Words per chapter - 9,550, 10,987, 12,187, 11,402, 13,307, 11,803, 12,162, and 11,360
- Reads per chapter - 5,169, 3,307, 2,696, 2,524, 2,431, 1,826, 1,491, and 796
- 44 comments (total)
I guess to put a point on this, at least in my own mind, is to say that I can be satisfied with the readership I'm getting. This does, though, lead me to the format.
Publishing format
One disheartening thing I found from the comments on Thesis, at least originally, was complaints about its length. Understand, at the time I published Thesis it was by far the longest thing I'd written. It was almost four times longer than my previously longest story. I didn't know that both Just Dance and Gamer Gurl: Origins would be longer yet. Just Dance is almost twice as long and Gamer Gurl: Origins is more than twice as long. At the time it felt right to break down any longer stories into multiple chapters.
Initially, when I published Just Dance in eight parts, it felt good. It gave me many more comments and that made me think I was getting that much more readers. I don't know why I didn't come back and check the readership though. I believe that having Thesis all in one big story has kept its read numbers closer to the rest of my stories. Sure, some of that is people reading a part of it, then coming back to read more. Maybe they had to read it two or even three times just to get through it. But at least when they come back to read it for enjoyment... maybe just to peek in on one of their favorite scenes... it increases the reads just like any other story. With the multiple chapters, I think people get turned off quicker. For example, lets say they read the first part and see that it's all about Sarah and Nick/Sadie. There's no guy there and they really want to have a relationship with the subject and a possible male lover. They don't see that, so they don't come back. Oh, maybe they'll wander through and read it later, but that initial read number is vastly diminished.
I also hate the logistics of publishing multiple chapters. For instance, picking out all the categories and keywords for the story vs the categories and keywords for each individual chapters. Only one chapter would include 'Breast Implants' while only the latter chapters would include 'Hormones'. Once I have the story sliced up into chapters, I'd have to at least skim through it and see which categories and keywords fit. The same goes for the synopsis. Each chapter should include a synopsis of what happens in it. But I don't do any of that. I lumped up the synopsis of the entire story, put all the categories and keywords together, and then wrote in the synopsis that "Rating, Categories, and Key Words apply to full story and may not apply directly to each chapter."
Yeah, it's kinda cheap, but I want to put my effort into writing and not into publishing. Maybe if I got more reads (or even the same amount), it would show people being interested in this format. But besides there being no complaint about the length, I have no 'reward' to show for the effort of breaking it up into multiple parts.
So, unless someone can come up with a good reason otherwise, I think I'll stick to single story publishing. Or maybe 'Thesis' sized chapters.
Financials
I know I've talked about this before, but for whatever reason it was one of the things flowing through my head this morning. Should I be making money off of my writing?
Most of the time when I talked about making money off my art, it was in relation to my caps. And that's a big NO. It was then and it still is now. At least until I can come up with a good way of making my own photographs, I won't make money by using someone else's photograph. And yes, AI generated images is a way forward on that... but it's nowhere near what I'd need yet.
But even when I mentioned writing, it didn't seem worth it. When I was working as a nurse manager, I was making just under $100,000 a year (and with the planned raises, I would have topped that number by now). It's not like I could quit my job and rely on 'Caitlyn' money. It seemed like a link to me as well. Say I publish a book on Amazon or make a Patreon/Subscribe Star account... they'd have to be linked to my real name and not Caitlyn Masked. And if it were 'real' money? Well, I'd have to claim that on my taxes! So, it just didn't make sense to think about it.
But several things have changed. First, I'm not working. I'm not even getting my long term disability right now. I'm living off my 401k savings, hoping that I'll get the long term disability back in a few months. Let's play out that I don't get that money back. They just say 'screw you' and I'm left with nothing. At that point, making a few bucks on the side isn't just a side hustle... it could be the difference of me paying my bills or me having to empty the rest of my 401k and selling my car.
How would I go about it, if I did decide to make money. I see two ways. First is just to outright sell my stories. I'd want to contact some authors there that I've had at least some contact with and see if that's an option worth looking into. If I were to do that, I'd have to lean into it pretty hard. I'm talking about pulling my stories from Fictionmania, and not publishing future stories there. Not writing my own stories at CHYOA. Otherwise I'd be putting out these stories for free instead of enticing people to give me some cash for them.
The other way would be to open up a Patreon. Now, I'm going to use Patron even though it's not the service I'd actually use. So far as I know, Patreon doesn't like Adult Content. On the erotica/porn scale, I tend to lean more toward porn, so that's not a good idea. But there are others like Subscribestar that I could use. Anywho, I could set up an account there. I could entice people to join with exclusives, but I think I would use it as a 'way to help support your author/artist' type place instead. I used to enjoy listening to podcasts and there was one that I really loved. She'd talk about words and language and make such a dull subject honestly interesting. Initially she was a part of a larger group of podcasts and made money through them. But for a good reason, she parted ways with them and became independent. When she did that, she opened up a Patron with three donation levels. $2, $5, and $10 a month. All three levels though were the same when it came to 'rewards' as she just wanted a way for people to donate. I really liked that idea. There's another person I followed on Patreon that only had one level at $1 but made it clear you could donate as much each month as you wanted.
The best thing is that both of these creators had very little true 'exclusive' content. The podcasts would go up one day in advance and she had some live streams. She'd have posts just for the subscribers, but it was more 'behind the scenes' stuff. The other creator, he makes youtube videos about games, offered up his videos for a day exclusively through Patreon and... that's about it. Again, he was just offering a way for people to help support him.
Out of those options, I like the last one best. Offer up a way for people to 'tip' me or even donate on a monthly basis. I'd make it clear that all of my stories and other creative outlets would be public. The CHYOA format doesn't really lend itself to having anything be exclusive, but I could offer up the final polished versions that get put up to Fictionmania as exclusives for a week or so. I could give behind the scenes information, answer questions, and maybe even have my own discord where people could come and chat.
One thing that got me thinking about this again recently is that someone sent me an email, asking if there was a way they could support me (they mentioned ko-fi as a donation method). While I was truly touched that someone would go through the effort of finding my email and writing to me (I didn't even ask HOW they found my email so I don't know if it was from one of my blogs, CHYOA, or Fictionmana), I think one of my biggest fears of doing something like this is that there is very little to no donations. I mean, how embarrassing would it be to set up a place for people to donate... and then have no one choose to donate.
And as I've been writing this, I've thought of another problem. One that will put the kibosh on asking for money. IF I continue to get my long term disability, I have to let them know about any money I'm making. Any money I make is taken off the top of my long term disability. In other words, if I make $100 a month, they reduce my payment by $100 a month. It'd be more work to keep up with it for no benefit at all. So, we'll see once they make a determination. If I keep the long term disability, I'll keep away from this. If I lose it... I'll seriously consider it.
Gamer Gurl Perceptions
Something struck me as odd while publishing the chapters of Gamer Gurl: Origins to Fictionmania. Let me set the scene first. You know (I assume you know) that I wrote this one chapter (or scene) at a time at CHYOA. I initially didn't have any idea of where the story was going to go. Even when I did have a vague idea, I was still playing loose and fast with the story and it took me in directions I didn't know it would. Throughout writing it, I laid out bread crumbs that I figured I'd pick up later. Like introducing the character of Todd. I have some idea of how he'll be used, but I can take him in several different directions. About the only thing I had certain was Nick/Sadie's reactions as he/she is the subject and it's told from his/her perspective. I also had a good idea of Sarah's intent.
When it came to Sarah, I didn't put anything in cement for her character. I specifically didn't make her an angel nor a devil. But there were a few people on CHYOA and then two in particular on Fictionmania that seemed to call out Sarah as being evil and truly manipulating Sadie. One even called out the fact that I put 'Sweet/Sentimental' as a category. They put it like this: "I must ask you to clarify what prompted you to categorize the chapters as "Sweet/Sentimental"? I can understand it in chapter 1, but from chapter 2 it is clear that Sarah's motives are neither sweet nor sentimental."
The fact that I put that in as a category, should be telling... right? Or am I writing this wrong. I'm certainly and distinctly writing her as a domme that has almost no experience with being a domme in a long term relationship. I even wrote out that she's going to have to deal with her own feelings of forcibly feminizing someone and balancing that with the fact that she wants to help Nick/Sadie. But I don't think I wrote her as clearly having motives that were ill.
I don't know. I guess it kind of shook me. In Just Dance people commented along with the postings and seemed to get what I was writing. Some guessed incorrectly what was GOING to happen, but they didn't seem to misread what was in the chapters that had been posted.
What's Next?
With Gamer Gurl: Origins fully published at Fictionmania, I'm now left asking myself what I should write next. I'm honestly torn. I'd kind of like to write something different. Something more overtly XXX rated. The time travel story certainly fits into that role. With Thesis, Just Dance, and Gamer Gurl, I thought a lot of the fun was fully establishing the character and setting them up for sex (speaking specifically for sex of the transformed man with another man). They started off as cis-hetero-normative, and through small change after small change ended up willingly having sex as a woman with a man. Also, in all of those cases, they were still physically men. Sure, they didn't have access to their penis, but they had breasts and were looked at as women. And obviously, Gamer Gurl hasn't gotten there yet. I'm not even sure it WILL get there, but if you know what I write you can probably guess that Sadie will have a cock in her mouth at some point.
The idea I have for the time travel story though is a fairly quick transformation into a full woman. Breasts, curves, vagina, ovaries. The subject would have to deal with menstruation and the possibility of pregnancy (the idea of possibly getting pregnant will be a big part of the story). Soon thereafter she'll be introduced to sex. Oral, vaginal, and anal. A little might be with women, but it will almost exclusively be by men. And the sex, while certainly gratuitous, will be a part of the story. She'll learn about the society she's in by the sex she's having. So, that's appealing to me. I often 'go there' in caps and some shorter obscuras... but it seems when I get into longer form, I go for the long build up and keep sex to the last half.
At the same time, I really do feel invested in the story of Sadie and Sarah. I have the second part partially mapped out. I don't have a point by point set of subjects to hit, but I do have several tent pole items that will come up. We're going to talk more about her streaming and finances. We're going to have more interactions with Sarah including sex and devotionals, but not necessarily more discipline. We're going to have more of Sadie going out on dates.... probably with Louis, but I'm not sure. We're going to learn more about the mysterious MdeVoltaire and Todd. And while it's not meant to answer questions that people have brought up about Sarah's finances, we're going to answer how she's making this much money.
I had the itch to write today. I've been migraine free for three days now and got caught up on everything else I wanted to get to. Instead, I wrote this post out. And frustratingly, I'm not closer to picking one of these stories. When I think of the time travel story, I'm all on board with it. When I think of Gamer Gurl, I'm all on board with it.
I just don't know.
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