How does a story get noticed by the readers?

I’m just curious, because I’m sure it is hard to get someone to noticed a story and get them to read it. Because readers are most likely to read whatever in the top shelf. It’s not like stories from the top shelf appear out of nowhere. I am currently working on my first ever story and have not published yet. What if when I published it and there will be no one to read it and I worked hard on coding it? :frowning:

16 Likes

I’m in the same position. And in reviewing stories I have found several amazing directors and story tellers, but their work goes unnoticed.

8 Likes

I’m sure readers will come to us soon. Episodians now always looking for underrated stories to read. Don’t lost your hope

7 Likes

People do tend to judge books by their cover, myself included. Usually if the cover is well edited and the description is intriguing the work gets noticed. Also if it’s a romance/drama it’ll be more likely to get readers because these genres are very popular on Episode.

18 Likes

Yes! Absolutely agree with this!

2 Likes

I have written two stories one had reached 1.8k and my current one is at 100+ reads but it is very new. Basically the covers do play an important role. Sometimes people find them when your rank is lower. And sometimes people find them through reviews you submit your story for. It depends. If an author likes your story they give it a try. It depends. If you writing for reads it’s going to be disappointing at first. But if you write for the love of it. It shouldn’t matter when you get reads.

9 Likes

You can also try to team up with some writers who have agreed to team up with you so that when they mention you in their story people will decide to check out your story since they have bonus scenes from the story they are reading
(hope that made sense :grin::stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:)

3 Likes

This is not a good idea. Please don’t take advantage of people who have reads. I have friends since before they got features and I have friends after they got featured. But I never once push them to promote my story. They can do it if they want to. But this is not a very good approach omly to achieve reads.

7 Likes

A lot of people will recommend read-for-reads. While I think that’s a good way to get started, the problem with read-for-reads is that most people will read your first three episodes (or whatever is agreed upon) and not continue. So you may gain some reads but not true readers. What you really want are readers who will be hanging for your next update. Readers who will continue to read every episode you publish and who may even promote your story to their friends and followers.

You could try getting reviews on Instagram? Good reviews (from accounts that are known for being tough but fair) can bring in new readers.

You could also try entering contests (you can’t do this with an already published story). A lot of people read contest entries and even if you don’t win, you could gain readers that way. They may then also read your other stories. Entering contests has another advantage- they help you get noticed by Episode. There’s been a few instances where stories that didn’t win still got featured on a shelf at some stage.

Do you have Instagram? I think that also helps. Of course it helps when you have more followers, but back when I didn’t have many followers at all, I still gained a few readers because of the screenshots I was posting. They thought my story looked interesting.

As someone else mentioned, make sure you have a great cover and an interesting description (with no grammar/spelling errors).

Also try not to get discouraged. It took me over two weeks to get 100 reads on my first story (and they were mostly all read-for-reads). Nearly 3 months later, that story barely had 500 reads. My second story then got 1000 reads in a week.

31 Likes

The majority of the stories on Episode are underwhelming at best. Even the official Episode stories are all the same teenage girl’s power fantasy with underdeveloped, one dimensional characters and lazy writing. The sheer oversupply of complete trash is what’s making it difficult for any new stories to emerge. People don’t care about new stories because their predecessors are already unworthy of even a minute of reading. That’s the problem with everybody being able to release their stuff.

Same problem occurs in the world of music, indie movies and whatnot. Most of it is pure garbage so no-one’s interested in the new stuff.

13 Likes

That’s true, I’m not the exact target age for Episode (26) but I enjoy reading the stories if they are well written. I too am tired of the teenage/early college years lovey dovey cliched trope. So I had decided to make my own story that’s, while still having a bit of that cliche because it is practically inevitable, more realistic and relatable. But it has been quite difficult to promote it as I don’t have very many friends in the real world, and they don’t play Episode. I tried promoting it on the old forum awhile back but I couldn’t make any comments or replys or anything.

15 Likes

just add a few gangsters and controlling billionaires and you’re good to go. Maybe even add a baby along the way.

15 Likes

but in all honesty, i appreciate a story with complex plot lines, complex and real characters, good music, and artwork.

5 Likes

Love that sarcasm :wink:

Man… I was so confused why I seen a quite few underrated stories and wonder why they don’t have much reads :confused: I guess that explains it

2 Likes

My story has been published for a little over a year, and I had 1000 reads for most of that year. Then Episode finally added the genre shelves so I added mine to Adventure and I’m now at 17,000+ reads.

When I first started reading Episode, I ventured out of the Episode stories and began searching the shelves for user stories. Beautiful covers attracted me. Well-worded descriptions convinced me to open the first chapter. A GREAT first chapter (with proper grammar and good directing) made me want to continue.

DO NOT SAY “The first 3 chapters are pilots, I promise this story will get better at chapter 4!” I will shut that story ASAP. Put your best foot forward. Hook the reader with that first chapter.

25 Likes

Mine is an incredibly cynical generalization, of course, but I’m sure there’s a seed of truth in it nonetheless.

1 Like

I actually quite agree to what you said. The idea of pilot episodes is so boring that you never want to continue,

3 Likes

You can try promoting your story here on the forum. Go for read for reads with other authors. This way your story will get noticed too and who knows you may find a hidden gem that you love.

4 Likes

The whole point of a pilot episode is to see if people like the story, so they should actually be the most engaging, carefully crafted and interesting chapters… so yeah, if the so-called pilot episodes aren’t interesting, I can’t see how it’s going to get better by the 4th chapter…

7 Likes