What’s your most read story and why?

Mine is ‘Older Woman, Younger Man’. It’s read count is a massive (for me) 741. This is despite the fact it had hardly any advertising or read for reads. None of my other stories even come close. The next most read one is ‘The Wanderer’ which has 314 reads, which is less than half of ‘Older Woman, Younger Man.’
I think it’s because I did something different. We see WAY too many of the obligatory older man, younger woman stories and people like to see a refreshing change for once.
I try in my stories to be different and have common themes that I don’t see much in here:

  1. Girls having close relationships with their fathers.
  2. Bad boys NEVER get the girls.
  3. Older men NEVER get younger women.
  4. Criminals are shown for the scum they are.
  5. No ‘bad sexy girl’ that makes life hell for the MC.
  6. Lesbians that are not there purely for the sake of turning guys on.
  7. Lots of different ethnic diversities.
  8. Not having a ‘token Brit’ just for the sake of it.
  9. There are other places in England apart from London.
  10. Subjects that don’t get much mention eg, dealing with divorce, lgbt issues, unemployment, etc.
  11. The character is allowed not to have attended college.
  12. Love triangles don’t have to be in every story.
  13. Bad boy characters are shown to be cowards deep down.
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My most read story is Video Game Champion, probably because it has customization, and you get to choose to play as either a boy or a girl.

By the way, I really like your list of themes.

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Thanks. The boy girl thing is a good choice. It takes a lot of time and effort for that.

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really appreciated number 8 and 9 on your list. Not gonna lie, seeing stereotypical “British” stuff slightly offends me as an English Person.

My most read story is Olympus Has Chosen (78k reads) and I don’t really know why It has a lot of reads. It just peaked randomly. Although Comparing it to my new story there is a MASSIVE read difference and that may be due to the style as Olympus Has Chosen was written in INK and my new story ‘Tokyo Underground’ (138 reads) was written in Limelight.

I try to avoid cliché topics as when I read books I can literally predict the ending and that makes it boring for me so I like to throw a plot twist in every now and then or a new character to keep the story interesting :slight_smile:

The read count used to bother me but I don’t think about it anymore. I write the stories because I like to see the end product and Don’t really care if people dislike them anymore.

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Mine is Love You To Hell And Back with 102,944 reads, and then Scandalous Vampire with 3,797.

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My most read is my oldest. So I guess it has the most reads coz it’s been out for a year? Haha. Almost 2k reads atm

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My most read story, and the one I’m most proud of, is Aphrodite. It focuses on LGBTQ students, without stereotyping them.

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My most-read story is Oh noes! She got kidnapped! (the Limelight version, that is) at 1605 reads, because apparently even parodies of gang stories get the reads. Whatever.

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Cyberstalk is my most read story (140k+) followed by Spotlight: Maternal Instincts (120k+), but the latter has only been out since February whereas the former was released last year in April (it’s a shorter story though).
I like to think it’s my most popular story because it’s actually the best lol. It’s in spotlight (which isn’t a popular style), but I do really think it’s my best story in terms of plot and character development. Most of the fanmail I’ve been getting are from readers who say they loved the suspense in the story, the fact the choices matter and also the way I addressed some of the more mature topics.
Choices matter in both and both stories are now complete.
Also both stories were contest winners which obviously contributed a lot to their read totals. :smile:

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Yes I agree. Too many American stories have a token Brit when there aren’t as many as they claim. Also I am tired of only American and British characters in stories. There’s a whole World of different countries out there.

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I agree. That’s why my new one has a large focus on Japanese, Korean and Thai characters as I haven’t seen many stories with Asian characters. (There are probably loads but I just haven’t seen them yet.)

Yah. I try to say to people, when they put in a british character, why not a New Zealander instead. A French character, why not a Croatian character, etc. Nationalities that aren’t often used

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Mine is Echoes of the Future with 1646 reads. I think a big part of it is that I used new (at the time) things like custom overlays and filters. Also, it was a contest entry for Halloween, which is the only time a lot of Episode readers will intentionally read horror stories. I also think it’s one of my best works in regards to character development, diversity, directing, and worldbuilding. Plus I poke a little fun at the whole “bad boy” archetype without going into full parody mode, so it’s fun but doesn’t kill the mood of the story.
I don’t know, I just really like Echoes of the Future and I’m glad it’s gotten so many reads.

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My first story is the most read. It’s currently going on to 100k readers now as it has been a story on the Episode app for a year and a half.

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