I read The Traveller when it was a Clue contest entry, and I really enjoyed it. The directing is great, the characters are pretty diverse, the only reason why I didn’t really expect it to win was that I felt the main focus of the story was romance, so I wasn’t quite sure it fit the theme. But anyway, I liked that the story is set in another era and I liked the author‘s approach on the “rich guy falling for the poor girl” trope, so I’m glad to see it on a shelf.
While I was happy to see that all the stories were quite low on reads (I believe 4 had <1k at the time of being featured and 1 even had <100), a couple stories on the shelf look like they haven’t been updated in months and one author appears to have been inactive since July. I’m really curious how Editor’s picks are chosen as I used to assume that “February picks” meant stories that did well in February
But congrats to the authors. It is nice to see an editor’s pick shelf full of hidden gems.
I always assumed it was retention too, but now I think that the team which reviews stories for shelves just puts their favourite that they reviewed that month
There was also one in last month’s picks which was updated in over a year