Big chapter dump or space it out?

Letters And Numbers:
A bunch of interesting points. Thank you. I’ve thought more than once that my cover picture might be holding me back. I almost want to go in the other direction and make it like an ARG with images in my photos page that have breadcrumbs to follow and help with the mystery — but that probably won’t help get new eyes on it either!

Thank you though![/quote]

You never know. The idea of doing an ARG has never occurred to me, but it sounds like an impressive idea. Who knows if it would work -- but perhaps it's worth a shot.
1 year

Big chapter dump or space it out?

Noname078:
But I’m by no means an expert. ... Again, this is just some thoughts of mine, it’s definitely not proven in any way, but it might help you to consider these ideas.


No need for modesty; your post was spot on.

To add to your points, FF's stories page is generally a bit trash imo. The search feature is missing some pretty necessary options. What makes it even worse is the monetary aspect of it all. People spamming and clogging up the results pages with stories that you have to pay to read, and by constantly fighting for the spot in "Most Recent" by editing, like, two words in the who piece and calling it a "revision" lol. Not going to outright bash people here for putting their stories behind a paywall, though, since I do it too -- but at least I present readers with the option: either pay 2-3 bucks for a formatted, neatly-presented version of my story on Amazon Book store as an eBook, or read the story for free on FF and Deviant art's yucky layouts lol. It's just fetish fiction after all. Plus, not to be rude or anything, but I'm not going to pretend I don't think there are some examples of fetish fiction that is not written to a standard high enough to deserve being put behind this site's paywall.

In any case, OP; what other users have said already is true. I'm sure your story is engaging, especially if you've spent this much effort writing an almost novel-length piece.

Space the chapters out in such a way that your story spams up the most-recent page. Try and make sure the thumbnail picture for your story is balanced somewhere between classy/interesting and cheaply erotic lol. From what I can see, the pictures you've chosen to use are classy, but they don't tell the average browser that there's anything involving: weight gain, bellies, eroticism, or anything remotely to do with blubbery adipose tissue to begin with. I wish this WASN'T a problem... but it is. People can't help themselves but judge books by their covers -- simply due to there being so much damn content on the web. Human beings aren't meant to be quality-colanders. What I'm trying to say is: add a belly in your story's cover image, somewhere, anywhere, and I'd put a bet on your story getting a higher engagement ratio.

Also, perhaps you could even just outright insert a "note" at the top of the very first chapter asking for readers to comment and like if they enjoy the story. The more comments and likes a story has the more it seems to be promoted and viewed.

I relate completely to your grievances about story engagement on this site. Looking briefly at your two stories, I can already tell you're a talented writer. It's NOT a problem with your craft, I can tell you that much. Honestly it's just this whole site being a bit scummy, a little diseased with bots, and very "lowest-denominator". Same goes for Deviant Art, which is saved only by having a larger userbase and therefore a different nature of engagement.
1 year

Surprising lack of australians-

hiccupx:
Any ideas how we might encourage more Aussies to come here?


Targeted advertising. That's about it. Until Australian culture begins to shift (which I am hopeful it soon will, thanks to the post 2010's tsunami of body positivity that has the potential to reprogram our faulty ideas), until then, I don't see much hope. Diet culture is insipid in its ability to make us feel bad about ourselves, even if we ARE into fat fetishism.

You'd have to target closeted fat appreciators. But how to locate closeted fat appreciators seems like it would be a terrible task to undertake, given that for every closeted individual, they would have their own ways of masking their hidden desires.
1 year

Surprising lack of australians-

Bigwideland:
... many profiles lack detail and so you have to assume the person is not real or false, or not confident to come out.


This was me until recently, for sure. It's shameful enough to feel these sorts of feelings anywhere, let alone Australia, a nation whose public mask is tall, blonde women who have a high probability of surfing because every major city stretches a coastline. We market ourselves this way. If you're fat, you aren't "toeing the line", as they like to call it in politics.
1 year

Surprising lack of australians-

doublefrosted:
there are probably a few reasons in addition to what has already been said to explain why aussies are a rare find here:

* australian culture is very fatphobic, as is australian media


Personally, I think this is the biggest reason. The looks you'd receive here for having anything larger than a moderate paunch are so filthy, and so deeply ingrained in automatic value judgements, that the US and even the UK are both subjected to intense ridicule by the lay-Australian. You'll often hear Australians hate on the US for being "the fat nation".
1 year

Philosophy of belly love

Some Married FA:


My girlfriend found this video, and I think it does an amazing job cracking this one open...

"Every fetish or sexual obsession is really an imagined erotic solution to a real world anxiety"

What do you think?

I think, at least for me, that if my fascination with bellies is a solution to a real world problem, then it is a solution to the problem of fat being seen as ugly. I think the reason this is so accurate is because I really actually DO see fatphobia as a real world problem. For as long as I can remember, I have always seen it as a problem. So maybe my appreciation of bellies/fat stems from there.

MediumHadronCollider:
Hmm, I can definitely see the logic in this, but I've often wondered if it's a more fundamental nature rather than nurture thing - some of us are hardwired to love fat because back in 'the caveman days' fat was a sign of health and fertility and only fat people would survive a hard winter. Perhaps it could be a combination of both?


To my mind, it must be a combination of both.
3 years

Philosophy of belly love



My girlfriend found this video, and I think it does an amazing job cracking this one open...

"Every fetish or sexual obsession is really an imagined erotic solution to a real world anxiety"

What do you think?

I think, at least for me, that if my fascination with bellies is a solution to a real world problem, then it is a solution to the problem of fat being seen as ugly. I think the reason this is so accurate is because I really actually DO see fatphobia as a real world problem. For as long as I can remember, I have always seen it as a problem. So maybe my appreciation of bellies/fat stems from there.
3 years

Philosophy of belly love

What is your personal philosophy of belly love? As in, why do you love bellies? What is it about bellies that makes them so great to you? What is your personal explanation for why you love them so much?
3 years

Is 10lbs good?

I'm in the same boat. So yes, I'd consider 10lbs a good gain if I managed to grow that much in a year, considering I've never had an inch of fat on my before now
4 years
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