Ministry Statistics!
Apr. 24th, 2003 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusA friend of mine was bemoaning the fact that she had rather few reviews. We tossed around theories why that would be, because she is a wonderful writer.
Welllll. I haven't worked in corporate America for 15 years for nothing.
I did some research. Hard, cold numbers.
There were three factors I could measure on chaptered stories:
1 - Exposure rate, or how many people clicked on the story in the first place.
2 - Reader loyalty, or how many of those who clicked on the story in the first place came back for the later chapters.
3 - Review rate, or what percentage of those who read a particular chapter reviewed.
Results:
Review rates for books are a consistent 2-3%. Whether it's Cassandra Claire or Joe Blow. There is a considerable jump in review rates for humour (one-shot) stories (to 50% of the readers responding), but for chaptered stories it's consistant from one writer to the next.
Exposure rates vary, but are in the four figures for first books, and five figures for trilogies. The increase for trilogies is exponential. The more books you write, the more exposure you have. I checked this with really lousy (but prolific) writers, and acclaimed writers. It's consistent. The difference may be 10,000 (for an average writer) and 40,000 (for an acclaimed writer) initial 'clicks.' But the jump is still pronounced.
Reader loyalty is where you see the difference. It seems to be the only figure that sets one writer apart from another. One writer may have only 10% of the people who click on their story returning. Another will have 35%. The average is about 20% people coming back.
Once again, the trilogy rule holds true. As soon as there are two or three books, reader loyalty jumpsexponentially. And here the quality of the writer seems to be irrelevant. Even a very average author with only 13% reader loyalty in their first book will see a jump to 42% if they produce three.
Cassandra Claire had a 17% reader loyalty for Draco Dormiens. Her reader loyalty for Draco Veritas is 45%.
Barb had a very high reader loyalty to start 35%, which jumped to 40% for her second book, and 46% for her third.
There you have it folks. I see now why Tor Books demands trilogies from fantasy writers.
Welllll. I haven't worked in corporate America for 15 years for nothing.
I did some research. Hard, cold numbers.
There were three factors I could measure on chaptered stories:
1 - Exposure rate, or how many people clicked on the story in the first place.
2 - Reader loyalty, or how many of those who clicked on the story in the first place came back for the later chapters.
3 - Review rate, or what percentage of those who read a particular chapter reviewed.
Results:
Review rates for books are a consistent 2-3%. Whether it's Cassandra Claire or Joe Blow. There is a considerable jump in review rates for humour (one-shot) stories (to 50% of the readers responding), but for chaptered stories it's consistant from one writer to the next.
Exposure rates vary, but are in the four figures for first books, and five figures for trilogies. The increase for trilogies is exponential. The more books you write, the more exposure you have. I checked this with really lousy (but prolific) writers, and acclaimed writers. It's consistent. The difference may be 10,000 (for an average writer) and 40,000 (for an acclaimed writer) initial 'clicks.' But the jump is still pronounced.
Reader loyalty is where you see the difference. It seems to be the only figure that sets one writer apart from another. One writer may have only 10% of the people who click on their story returning. Another will have 35%. The average is about 20% people coming back.
Once again, the trilogy rule holds true. As soon as there are two or three books, reader loyalty jumps
Cassandra Claire had a 17% reader loyalty for Draco Dormiens. Her reader loyalty for Draco Veritas is 45%.
Barb had a very high reader loyalty to start 35%, which jumped to 40% for her second book, and 46% for her third.
There you have it folks. I see now why Tor Books demands trilogies from fantasy writers.
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Re: Marketing...
Date: 2003-04-26 06:30 pm (UTC)~Icarus