How to Get Reads: A Social Experiment

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Hello lovelies - 

While we are awaiting confirmations to come tomorrow, I thought I would confess something. I've been conducting a social experiment on the forums and I thought I'd share the results with you. 

Often we hear people say - it's hard for newbies to get reads or you have to be a "cool kid" in order to get a lot of reads. Then, inevitably, an old schooler will reply with you have to give reads to get reads. I've been around a while, so I decided to design a social experiment to find out what it looks like to try and get reads as the proverbial new kid.

Over several comps, I signed up a couple of new forum users to see what would happen.

Overall, only a small handful of users read my story first, and 100% of those were new users. 75% of those were groupmates coming by to size up the competition. So, essentially, waiting around to get reads is not very productive--as an unknown you just aren't going to get a lot of unsolicited reads. This probably isn't surprising, because it is natural for people to remember users who they've enjoyed reading in the past and seek them out over reading a random unknown. 

Trying to get return reads seemed the way to go, so I set out to read 100 stories, equally split between other new users and people who have been around a long time. 

The overall return read rate across all 100 stories was only 53%. However, returns by forum users who have been around a while were at 69%, while newer users only return read at 37%.

The most likely users to return read were folks who have been around a while AND have a high level of points. Points--for those who do not know--simply correspond to how many posts and comments a user makes, so it is unsurprising that the individuals who are most likely to return read are people who are most active on the forums.

It seems that those who have been around longer, more fully subscribe to the general etiquette of if someone reads you, you return the favor. Although, hopefully this experiment will encourage more new folks to return reads! 

Anecdotally: Something I did notice, particularly of old schoolers, is that there's a general air that new forum users equate to new writers. My "newbie" forum handles were often treated as if they were novice writers, to the point where in a few instances it became a bit condescending. I gave the same reviews I would give as nod, but sometimes got a response like - and who are you to give me constructive crit? The return reviews were sometimes in the same vein - even compliments were somewhat patronizing. Wow, what a good job for a new writer. Pat. Pat.

It's worthwhile to remember that you have no idea who the person is behind the forum handle. A new user could still be a well published, award winning author. They could be a professional editor or a MFA Professor. There is absolutely no correlation between how long someone has participated in the forums and their experience with writing. 

TL;DR: 
Even though 100 stories is a small sample size across thousands, the numbers seem to support that the best way to get reads is give reads. 
Active forum members are the most likely to return reads. 
Don't assume new forum users are new writers. 

Experiment complete! Take it as you will.

Edited by nod1v1ng - 30 Jan 2023 at 8:51am