Poll Results
Added 2024-09-01 18:38:27 +0000 UTC...Oops? I meant to post this last night, actually. But, well, I got wrapped up in multiple projects with deadlines. As well as with getting the next story release ready. Anyway, I just ran the vote weighing calculation, so here's the polling results:
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One Piece - Halfway Broken: 115
Harry Potter - Pandora's Box: 55.5
A Very Confused Pokemon Adventure: 47
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Yeah...this was a bit predictable, huh? Admittedly, both Pandora's Box and the new story both put on surprisingly good showings, but neither could come all that close to overcoming the reigning champ of Halfway Broken. Partially, that's due to the simple fact that several people on the higher tier Patron options routinely vote for Halfway Broken. In fact, only a single person above the basic $3 voter tier voted for either of the other stories. That's where a lot of that difficult gap to overcome comes from. Which, honestly, fair. The whole reason I make those tiers available is to allow people to put their thumb on the scale a bit more for their favorite fics.
I do have a tiny bit of good news for the people that voted for A Very Confused Pokemon Advetnure, though! For those of you have actually been paying attention, I announced during the last My Hero Automata release that I needed a little time to fill in some better detail on my future notes/outlines for that story. As such, the first story release of the month won't be My Hero Automata as usual. (Don't worry, it's still getting its mid-month release!)
Instead, in recognition of A Very Confused Pokemon Adventure actually getting a fairly decent amount of interest, despite having less than 2k words of teaser...it will be getting roughly another 6-7k release in My Hero Automata's place! I actually have 5k of that already written. I'll add a bit more to it tonight, edit it, and post it tomorrow. I'll likely let it have a second run on the monthly Poll, as well, rather than moving on to another story concept. That way it gets a fairer shot at dethroning the giant. Though I do have another story concept planned as well, which will get its own shot sooner or later.
I have to admit I'm also considering ways to make it harder for a single story to dominate the poll long-term. I'm a member of a few fanfic Patreons myself, and I've seen various ways to attempt to keep slightly less popular works in circulation. Frankly, most of them always felt pretty unfair to me, as usually they mean that a more popular fic, that was legitimately more heavily supported by people contributing to funding the works, gets shafted in exchange.
Currently, my only thought of something that might be vaguely fair is to start adding a building bonus percentage to the other fics. In example, a fic that didn't win in one month gets a +20% to its votes the next month, then if it loses again, a +30% the month after that, and so on. As you can see if you apply it to this voting result, that's not a staggering advantage. Pandora's Box still wouldn't have won even with a 20% boost. But it would ensure that eventually the weight of time would force an update for every fic....
Feel free to chime in either for or against that idea. If enough people are interested, I might run an extra poll this month to see if the idea has enough support/acceptance to justify trying it?
Comments
Hmmm, doesn't look like it. I can get number of 'impressions.' Essentially some unholy algorithm of people who view the post. But that fails to account for people who view post via email digest. It's also...not very helpful, as the impressions for posts regarding Halfway Broken, Displaced Hero, and Automata are all pretty close to even. That DOES possibly indicate that Halfway Broken is at least on part with the stories though. Meaning that idea to make it a permanent story and replace the first release of the month with the poll story (or, well, the word count at least. Might move it around inside the month) might make sense. Sigh. I think I'll have to run a poll on this topic, I just have to figure out what I want the poll to give as options...
Novus Peregrine
2024-09-03 01:23:18 +0000 UTCWhat about here on patreon? Can you get statistics for downloads?
Keht Jelicho
2024-09-02 13:18:13 +0000 UTCTo be honest, I don't know. At the time those stories were put in those positions they 100% were the two most popular running stories. Halfway Broken is now a serious contender though (it didn't even EXIST yet at that time). I suppose I could run a poll to find out for sure...but that would assume I could get everyone to vote -_-. You'd be surprised how many voter-tier subscribers don't vote in even the main monthly poll in any given month. Trying to get an accurate read on popularity is a bit like trying to catch smoke. Even if you ignore Patronage and look at the raw numbers for reads/favorites/follows on the various platforms? Automata utterly dominates over the others on Scribblehub, but barely ties with Displaced Hero on Fanfiction.net (where both get owned by Halfway Broken in turn). QQ is hard to measure. I do know that both stories are still fairly popular. I just don't know if Halfway Broken has overtaken either of them. As I mentioned to Arya13579, another option would be to remove one of the Automata updates. Leave the mid-month 10k update, but exchange the 5k update I usually do as the month's first release. Use that spot either for the poll runner up, or even just make Halfway Broken permanent and run the three other stories (Eridium Dreams, Pandora's Box, Very Confused Pokemon Adventure) as the poll with a 5k update on the line. Frankly, I feel like I need to change SOMETHING, but I'm still puzzling over the best way to do it. Or, honestly, even what questions to ask. Which means the feedback is helpful, by the by ;-). I hadn't thought to consider if Halfway Broken had overtaken Automata or Displaced until you asked.
Novus Peregrine
2024-09-02 07:54:11 +0000 UTCNot that I would want it to be the case (I particularly like Displaced Hero) but do you have a poll confirming that both Automata and Displaced actually are the two most popular stories? If Halway Broken is actually now more popular than one or the other, or both, of the "every month" ones could it supplant one or another of those two stories? (If you put up all stories for votes and the top three got updates, could that change things?
Keht Jelicho
2024-09-02 05:56:26 +0000 UTCThat's technically what I'm already doing. It's just that my writing time is so tight that I've only managed to squeeze in a single 'extra' update each for Eridium Dreams and Pandora's Box since January. I'm hopeful I might managed another small one for Eridium Dreams either this month or next, but I'm currently pretty hard pressed to free up additional time for writing. :-( I suppose another option would be to cut out the second Automata update. Only do one 10k update of it a month, then another 5k of the poll runner up? Or even just lock Halfway Broken in and make the 5k story a poll between the other three...which might just reproduce the problem all over again if one of them is de facto more popular. I'm thinking I may have to run a poll or series of polls with these sorts of options to gather enough feedback on what sort of balance people would most like to see...
Novus Peregrine
2024-09-02 05:10:38 +0000 UTCAh, how I wish that those two stories were actually 'author's choice' :-p. If they were, I'd be rotating them fairly regularly. What those stories actually are though is me updating the two most popular works. When I first started the Patreon, I released around 30,000 words each of My Hero Automata, Pandora's Box, and Eridium Dreams. Then picked the one that was most popular to be my second updated story of the month. The first story was one that pre-dated this Patreon and was close to being finished. The pretty smut-heavy Mass Effect:Final Error. I focused on it as the other story because it had a lot of content already, had at least some pre-existing fans, and was close to done. As that time, Displaced Hero was actually a Poll Story, along with Pandora's Box and Eridium Dreams. Only...it won every single poll. In much the same way that Halfway Broken is now doing. It was, in truth, far more popular than Final Error. So as soon as final error finished, I turned it into the replacement story to update monthly. Then I introduced Halfway Broken as a new poll story, having prepped 25k or so of it before hand. I honestly expected it to struggle against Pandora's Box and Eridum Dreams, as those stories already had fans. Instead, it hasn't lost a single time, or even come CLOSE to losing, since it was first introduced -_-. Which means that this has actually been an existing problem before Halfway Broken was even in the picture. It's just that Displace Hero was the previous overly popular monster that overwhelmed every other story in the polls :-p. So what's really going on is that I'm updating the two most popular stories regularly, then THEORITICALLY giving all of my other stories a chance at an update through a poll. It's just that...well...the polls are doing their job in showing what the most popular story is a little too well, I guess? I don't want to arbitrarily not update one of the two most popular fics. Even this month, I only skipped a single update of Automata because I NEED to sit down and work out more of the outline. The last few updates have been very seat-of-my-pants as my original more detailed outline only extended through the Invasion Gates opening. I have lots of disorganized ideas for stuff after that point, but it wasn't a proper outline. Now that I'm beyond that point I need to stop for a little bit and sort it all out before I start accidently leaving Disney-Sized Plotholes everywhere...
Novus Peregrine
2024-09-02 05:04:49 +0000 UTCI haven't backed other patreons, but have read public releases with mention of polls in the author/release notes. One method I have seen is a "streak limit" where after x number of poll wins that story gets passed over leaving only the other stories, then if the other story gets repeated it too is off. So in a three story (A, B, C) vote with A winning consistently then after a while the choice is only between B and C. Then if A keeps winning again after being a choice, and B won both the previous and the current B or C poll, then after the next A Streak the story would automatically be a C update to break it up. Now that system was for an author who Only did poll-updates, no "every month" updates like you do for Displaced and Automata. Their reasoning for doing so was because they wanted to write different stories and have more variety on Their end to keep their creative juices flowing. Personally, and going from this month especially, I see your releases as "two Author's choice, and one reader's choice" story updates (with one story's update being split into two parts/mini releases), and a slight chance for occasional bonus updates. So going by that perspective, and like you're going to do this month with the pokemon story instead of the first Automata, I feel like you have full right to swap out one of your "Author's choice" stories to a different story if you feel a desire/need to give an update to a story that isn't getting much attention. It's your choice-slot so you can choose any story of yours you want to update. Heck you could even repeat what you're doing with Automata, or do something similar with Displaced and do a "half-size" release and a small update for another story if you wanted to divide your writing/time in that way. I am here for your writing, period. I like all your stories, so you do what you feel you need to do. If you're bothered by some stories lagging behind in releases and want to take a month to just write something different and update all of the secondary fics, I would be just as happy to read those. Do what makes You as the writer happy with your releases.
Keht Jelicho
2024-09-01 19:33:47 +0000 UTCSeems like a better idea than doing nothing, at least. I have to admit that I am fairly interested in the HP and Mass Effect stories, but they're currently too short for me. I hardly think I'm the only one, so even just posting a chapter for those every once in a while until they reach a decent length could end up helping them win polls. Maybe once a month or every other month you could just pick a fic that hasn't been updated in a while and add a chapter in addition to the poll winners? I don't know how feasible that is, you might not have the free time for that, just spitballing at this point lol
Arya13579
2024-09-01 19:18:07 +0000 UTCI like the idea try it please because I love all 3 of the story’s
Aimee Hebert
2024-09-01 18:44:39 +0000 UTC
