Is it bad to Poll my readers on this sorta stuff?

SouthernMaiden · Tuesday at 2:35 AM

I lowkey wish I knew more about my readers. I've been assuming that they're like me, but what if they're not...

Like, I'm not gonna do it. But I've thought of doing a poll asking them if they like men or women, or other. Or if they care about monogamy. Or how they feel about man on man, or woman on woman.

Personally, I don't care if someone has a taco, or a hotdog, or both!, or neither. Or if someone has one partner or multiple. But what if they do?

And it kinda matters since there's romance in my story

and I want to explore a lot of different things

Ahhh, I don't want to scare anyone off

Hans.Trondheim · Tuesday at 2:40 AM

SouthernMaiden said:
I lowkey wish I knew more about my readers. I've been assuming that they're like me, but what if they're not...

Like, I'm not gonna do it. But I've thought of doing a poll asking them if they like men or women, or other. Or if they care about monogamy. Or how they feel about man on man, or woman on woman.

Personally, I don't care if someone has a taco, or a hotdog, or both!, or neither. Or if someone has one partner or multiple. But what if they do?

And it kinda matters since there's romance in my story and I want to explore a lot of different things

Ahhh, I don't want to scare anyone off

Making a poll in one of your chapters will do. If you scare them off, then they are not for you, or for your work. Reading needs an open mind, after all.

GwynLordofTinder · Tuesday at 3:03 AM

Honestly I should do this, I'm reaaal curious what my demographics are. I think mostly men but I've deffo got a few women.

CharlesEBrown · Tuesday at 3:05 AM

As far as I can tell, you are about twice as likely to get response to a poll as you are to get comments - but that is still a small sample, especially if you close the poll fairly early.

KennyCelican · Tuesday at 3:07 AM

SouthernMaiden said:
I lowkey wish I knew more about my readers. I've been assuming that they're like me, but what if they're not...

Like, I'm not gonna do it. But I've thought of doing a poll asking them if they like men or women, or other. Or if they care about monogamy. Or how they feel about man on man, or woman on woman.

Personally, I don't care if someone has a taco, or a hotdog, or both!, or neither. Or if someone has one partner or multiple. But what if they do?

And it kinda matters since there's romance in my story and I want to explore a lot of different things

Ahhh, I don't want to scare anyone off

Write what you write. Your readers will find you.

Just don't be deceptive in your synopsis or anything like that. Be up front about what's in your book.

Yeah, some people will feel some kinda way. I had a reader recently who got all up in his feels about the MC of the Diary having sex with someone who wasn't their long term partner; they had already said that non-monogamy wasn't their jam, but that they were okay with a stable three person polycule. When they skipped ahead six hundred chapters and read about the MC having sex as part of a religious ceremony, they got all sideways about it.

But that's not 'oh, my story is bad', or even, really, 'that reader is bad'. My story is fruit salad, and they only like apples. My story is everything pizza, and they're strictly pepperoni.

But at the end of the day, you're the one writing the story. You're the one doing the work. You're creating something and sharing it with others for free. If you feel really guilty about them being offended, you can offer them a full cash refund for everything they paid you to read it.

Anonjohn20 · Tuesday at 3:07 AM

SouthernMaiden said:
or both!

May I introduce you to futa supremacy? It is the king of smut.

SouthernMaiden said:
Ahhh, I don't want to scare anyone off

You are thinking about it from the wrong mindset. As I've told multiple people here. There is no story that will appeal to everyone. You make a good story, and with the right cover, synopsis, honest tags, honest genres, eventual reviews from readers, etc., eventually the readers interested in the work you are making will come to you.

AstreiaNyx · Tuesday at 3:08 AM

Do use the poll option. I can’t remember off the top of my head but the most comments I’ve received on a chapter are probably around 10–15, whereas my popular polls have gotten 100–150 respondents.

CharlesEBrown · Tuesday at 3:11 AM

AstreiaNyx said:
Do use the poll option. I can’t remember off the top of my head but the most comments I’ve received on a chapter are probably around 10–15, whereas my popular polls have gotten 100–150 respondents.

That large of a jump? Wow, neat.

AstreiaNyx · Tuesday at 3:13 AM

CharlesEBrown said:
That large of a jump? Wow, neat.

It reassured me that there weren’t just bots and ghosts reading my book. And also, the questions were… interesting ones.

Paul__Michaels · Tuesday at 3:16 AM

I think it becomes a problem if you are spamming polls every chapter. I find it as a desperate attempt to get user engagement.

However, I have never done a poll on SH so I'm more going off of speculation and my own personal feelings about polls in general.

I've only ever done polls on my Patreon because I know that they are my actual fans, and they will be more likely to respond.

Anyway, that's my thoughts. Do what you will with them.

Anonjohn20 · Tuesday at 3:32 AM

Polls are useful for authors, not so much for readers, but readers like to participate. I've seen polls and surveys be removed/deleted because the person moderating them didn't like the results of said poll/survey.

Juia_Darkcrest · Tuesday at 3:36 AM

SouthernMaiden said:
I lowkey wish I knew more about my readers. I've been assuming that they're like me, but what if they're not...

Like, I'm not gonna do it. But I've thought of doing a poll asking them if they like men or women, or other. Or if they care about monogamy. Or how they feel about man on man, or woman on woman.

Personally, I don't care if someone has a taco, or a hotdog, or both!, or neither. Or if someone has one partner or multiple. But what if they do?

And it kinda matters since there's romance in my story and I want to explore a lot of different things

Ahhh, I don't want to scare anyone off

... your tags will tell your readers what to expect. If you want to explore something your tags don't explain, you can make an Author's Note saying what you plan to do and asking if that would bother anyone.

I just checked your tags. I am assuming this is some kind of relationship you want to have between your MC and another in the Trans category. If they are already reading that, I can't see anyone having much of an issue if you want to explore things... that said, I am a Cis-male so what do I know? But if you are tagged, you should be fine to do whatever.

For example, I explore love, affection and relationship building in my smut. He doesn't just grab every woman; he wants relationships, not just 'A hole is a goal'. Hell, I just had a chapter where he taught his 10-year-old stepdaughter to swim for like 500-700 words.

When I introduce something that is a fetish or something outside of one of my tags, I usually say what the fetish is in a spoiler tag before the scene, so people can skip if they want. Like, I had magic breast inflation in one scene (which backfired wonderfully for her, it was hilarious). I had a reader in my comments thank me for warning him, as they didnt like that kind of content.

TLDR;

So long as whatever you are doing has been tagged, you should be fine.

Eldoria · Tuesday at 3:43 AM

AstreiaNyx said:
Do use the poll option. I can’t remember off the top of my head but the most comments I’ve received on a chapter are probably around 10–15, whereas my popular polls have gotten 100–150 respondents.

That's a huge number of respondents. The most I've ever gotten for a chapter was ~30 respondents in as many months, for a simple question, "Do you like this chapter?"

SouthernMaiden · Tuesday at 3:50 AM

Juia_Darkcrest said:
... your tags will tell your readers what to expect. If you want to explore something your tags don't explain, you can make an Author's Note saying what you plan to do and asking if that would bother anyone.

I just checked your tags. I am assuming this is some kind of relationship you want to have between your MC and another in the Trans category. If they are already reading that, I can't see anyone having much of an issue if you want to explore things... that said, I am a Cis-male so what do I know? But if you are tagged, you should be fine to do whatever.

For example, I explore love, affection and relationship building in my smut. He doesn't just grab every woman; he wants relationships, not just 'A hole is a goal'. Hell, I just had a chapter where he taught his 10-year-old stepdaughter to swim for like 500-700 words.

When I introduce something that is a fetish or something outside of one of my tags, I usually say what the fetish is in a spoiler tag before the scene, so people can skip if they want. Like, I had magic breast inflation in one scene (which backfired wonderfully for her, it was hilarious). I had a reader in my comments thank me for warning him, as they didnt like that kind of content.

TLDR;

So long as whatever you are doing has been tagged, you should be fine.

Thats good to know. From what I'm reading here and in other comments the key is honesty, authors notes and proper tagging.

Anonjohn20 said:
May I introduce you to futa supremacy? It is the king of smut.

You are thinking about it from the wrong mindset. As I've told multiple people here. There is no story that will appeal to everyone. You make a good story, and with the right cover, synopsis, honest tags, honest genres, eventual reviews from readers, etc., eventually the readers interested in the work you are making will come to you.

True, I know that theory. But there is the fear of scaring people off. Just gotta be true and honest to my convictions

also futa is alright

Paul__Michaels said:
I think it becomes a problem if you are spamming polls every chapter. I find it as a desperate attempt to get user engagement.

However, I have never done a poll on SH so I'm more going off of speculation and my own personal feelings about polls in general.

I've only ever done polls on my Patreon because I know that they are my actual fans, and they will be more likely to respond.

Anyway, that's my thoughts. Do what you will with them.

Yeah spamming the would come across really badly!

KennyCelican said:
Write what you write. Your readers will find you.

Just don't be deceptive in your synopsis or anything like that. Be up front about what's in your book.

Yeah, some people will feel some kinda way. I had a reader recently who got all up in his feels about the MC of the Diary having sex with someone who wasn't their long term partner; they had already said that non-monogamy wasn't their jam, but that they were okay with a stable three person polycule. When they skipped ahead six hundred chapters and read about the MC having sex as part of a religious ceremony, they got all sideways about it.

But that's not 'oh, my story is bad', or even, really, 'that reader is bad'. My story is fruit salad, and they only like apples. My story is everything pizza, and they're strictly pepperoni.

But at the end of the day, you're the one writing the story. You're the one doing the work. You're creating something and sharing it with others for free. If you feel really guilty about them being offended, you can offer them a full cash refund for everything they paid you to read it.

Thats the kinda situation I want to avoid! Even though it was clearly not your fault or a big deal, some people cam be pretty sensitive

Anonjohn20 · Tuesday at 3:53 AM

Eldoria said:
That's a huge number of respondents. The most I've ever gotten for a chapter was ~30 respondents in as many months, for a simple question, "Do you like this chapter?"

You gotta make them feel included in the storymaking process (even when you plan to ignore their suggestions). Polls that will get tons of votes:
1. Hey, the MC's party is too big; who do I kill off?
2. Which irrelevant NPC needs an extremely detailed backstory?
3. Side characters need more life out of this list of 20+ people. Who do y'all want to ship the most? (No, they won't be part of MC's romance.) (Two votes allowed.)
4. Irrelevant question: If someone was going to buy a mount (totally not for MC

), which of these names would most suit that mount? (List of a bunch of silly names.)
5. etc.

LOL JK

SouthernMaiden · Tuesday at 3:55 AM

Anonjohn20 said:
You gotta make them feel included in the storymaking process (even when you plan to ignore their suggestions). Polls that will get tons of votes:
1. Hey, the MC's party is too big; who do I kill off?
2. Which irrelevant NPC needs an extremely detailed backstory?
3. Side characters need more life out of this list of 20+ people. Who do y'all want to ship the most? (No, they won't be part of MC's romance.) (Two votes allowed.)
4. Irrelevant question: If someone was going to buy a mount (totally not for MC ), which of these names would most suit that mount? (List of a bunch of silly names.)
5. etc.

LOL JK

You are devious

Anonjohn20 · Tuesday at 4:07 AM

SouthernMaiden said:
You are devious

I'd find it hilarious if an author gave an incredibly detailed backstory to a one-off character that will never be seen again. If the story ever becomes famous, can you imagine the fanfiction that character will receive?

AstreiaNyx · Tuesday at 4:13 AM

Eldoria said:
That's a huge number of respondents. The most I've ever gotten for a chapter was ~30 respondents in as many months, for a simple question, "Do you like this chapter?"

~~I asked them if they could handle smut.~~
SH and RR readers responded the same.
They’re the same people. There. Myth debunked.

Juia_Darkcrest · Tuesday at 4:13 AM

Anonjohn20 said:
I'd find it hilarious if an author gave an incredibly detailed backstory to a one-off character that will never be seen again. If the story ever becomes famous, can you imagine the fanfiction that character will receive?

it would be beautiful!

Time4T · Tuesday at 1:38 PM

SouthernMaiden said:
I lowkey wish I knew more about my readers. I've been assuming that they're like me, but what if they're not...

Like, I'm not gonna do it. But I've thought of doing a poll asking them if they like men or women, or other. Or if they care about monogamy. Or how they feel about man on man, or woman on woman.

Personally, I don't care if someone has a taco, or a hotdog, or both!, or neither. Or if someone has one partner or multiple. But what if they do?

And it kinda matters since there's romance in my story and I want to explore a lot of different things

Ahhh, I don't want to scare anyone off

I think polls are a great way to interact with readers who are hesitant to leave comments. As a reader, being the 16th to say TFTC seems pointless. But expressing myself in a easy multiple choice poll, I'm in.

Is it bad to Poll my readers on this sorta stuff?

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