I think I can speak for authors in general when I say that I love feedback from readers, but I wonder if women are more or less likely to give feedback to male writers. If I see that a story has had a thousand views and not received a single comment and very few votes, what does that mean? It's easy to assume that it means the story didn't do it for the reader, which is okay if the reader wasn't really being targeted, (example, someone who saw a "spanking" tag and expected spanking to be a major element of the story and was disappointed), but to get no feedback from the targeted audience makes it difficult to improve.
It might also mean that a lot of the readers are people who are not members of the site. Your settings may only allow for members to vote and certainly only members can comment.
If you really want more feedback, try a bit of advertising. Sure, mass e-mails are annoying but for every 9 people who throw your message in the trash, one might actually read your story. Stick a link in your forum signature and post lots here. In general, stay active on the site and get your name out there.
I've been on this site for a year and am pretty well-known (fair to say?) but I still struggle to get a lot of people to read my stuff and give feedback on it.
Perseverance!
Clum?? Sorry, not familiar with you... LOL
1ball, what Clum says is true, although I find mass PMs a bit annoying if you get lots of them...
Also interacting with your friends. I don't mean hassling them to read your story, that can be tiresome for them, but post on their walls from time to time. If you DO get a comment on your story, then it's a nice idea to send a little thank you; by way of a wall post or a PM.
Another thing you could try is to post a link to your story as a blog post. That way, it will appear in friends' newsfeeds and also in their online friends list...
Good luck!
Thanks for the comments. especially from Shylass. I hadn't considered the possibility that so many of the views could be from guests, but still, it seems that with views of most of my stories in the high hundreds and sometimes over a thousand, a lack of readership isn't the issue, but a lack of inspiring feedback is. I'm not soliciting feedback, I'm just trying to understand what the lack of it means. I don't want to pull feedback by means other than inspiring those who view my stories to say something. When I read, I'm generally not good at giving direct feedback, because I often read the stories while I'm not online because of privacy issues. But then I don't go back and follow through with a vote or a comment. I follow favorite authors instead and as long as I'm following them, that means they're keeping my interest.
But maybe I'm getting a relevant message. So far, I'm getting responses from authors and not from those who are exclusively readers. Maybe there are just so many readers who are very passive and don't even comment in this forum.
