Well from more than 22 years in the future, I don't know if anyone will ever read this but I'd like to thank Kelly Ann for this. Looking back on what I like to read I like long stories, bad boy to good girl will usually get me to take a look to see if I can get into the story, femdom some times will get me to take a look, mind control, hypnosis, smoking, seduction are also things that I really find will pull me into the story, and I tend to like happy endings all the way around, with both those changing and doing the changing growing things about themselves.

Some of the things I don't like, unending humilition, pain and torture for it's own sake I have never found a story with these that I have liked. I've only found a few body swap or magical transformation stories that I have liked. I don't tend to like stories with the complete operation or castration since what they get rid of is what I find sexiest about transgender women, it's what makes them sexier than more than ordinary women. If I wanted to read heterosexual stories then I wouldn't be here looking for transexual stories.

Finally though not related to this in the last year many sites have started requiring that all chariters be 18 years or older. Some of my favorite stories are gone now. In addition many search engines are limiting the results of what we can search for with google being the worst. If anyone here knows of a search engine that is not doing this I hope and ask that they will post it.

Interesting read. Thanks

waccRX comment2

XJVowU comment6

Excellent article, I read stories that I would probably never have read as a result. Jaquie, Heather, Bobbie and Tina are very high on my "best" list, No Half Measures was really good too. All quite long, but not in your lists.
These stories are free, and as such I feel I can only give positive feed back....But.....This would mean that authors who want to do better will be left in a void.

Generally an easy improvement would be to use a spell checker. Most do not. (Cut and paste to Word, run spell check, save as PDF down load to ereader..done it myself, for just myself.)

Have a section that is un-proof read so a reader can proof read for grammar improvement, before general posting. Crystal would need to do this. Set up a section.

Buy as .epub using paypal. At the moment you get nothing for your work. I would have paid $5 for the approx 400 page stories that I have mentioned. (They should have the above steps applied first though.) I can still do this for free, but I still buy CDs and DVDs because I think that for the work to continue people need to be paid. (I shop around though.)

My best likes are what best reflects that I feel. A boy/man (physically) that is more girl/woman (inside). I do manly things, I am an engineer, I work on machinery...weld...mechanical repairs..plumbing..anything that needs making or fixing...etc. But in my time out I like my female wardrobe, I an an accomplished cook, I can knit, sew, dress-make etc. I am married, I love my wife. She loves me for me, but is sometimes confused as to which me I am, though inwardly I am only just me. With an outward mask that fits what I am doing. I guess the stories I like best are the ones that resolve this issue. My most favorite story has yet to be written....The male lesbian happy ending with all the transitional stages. Losing genitalia is fine. I only know that I love a woman, have only loved women, and not I am not homophobic. My male parts are inconsequential..I can have a female orgasm.

These are just my views.

Thank you for your efforts and work...I am hoping you may be inspired to write another story

Hi,if I had my way more storys would have aprons worn in them. I dont mean with those stupid frenchmaid tiny silly aprons. No what I mean is pretty aprons, women used to wear, yes I,m telling my age, of when women wore pretty aprons, even pretty plastic aprons. Well thanks, CINDY

My psyche has shifted after ten years of surfing Storysite.  At one time I took it as a Rohrschack (spelling)? (read- ink blot) test of the authors thinking.  When I first began, some stories were exciting, but now I look for themes of personal development in the protagonist's unconscious.  It is clear to me that we all suffer from society's blocking a basic instinct and so many of us end up with physical appearance as symbolic intercourse.  That is why panties are erotic for a short time.  If we all were able to get early "hands on" experience in sexuality I doubt that Victoria's Secret or Fredricks of Hollywood would find a market.  I'm angry that society gives us a bad time for their own complicity.  So my final comment is, "What to do about it."

This essay was an inspired idea. Alas, it is starting to show its age.

Whatever happened to the author?

Really liked this summary found it very helpful thats one of the dislikes I have with the way this site is layed out and you have a hard time finding stories youre looking for of interest.
Thanks!!1
Jenny

Your hard work is really appreciated. Bless you for taking the time and effort. I discovered Crystals Story site a few months ago and have been working my way through it methodically. How I wish I'd discovered it years ago! I'm one of the ones who love the sweet, kind,understanding stories ( the most popular ones) I loved all your stories very much indeed. My wish is that I could meet people like the ones in your stories in real life, that would be a dream come true!
Bless you and thanks again,
                           Eleanor.

When are you going to get around to analyzing "Hot Wheels?" I think velocity may be a better indicator than hits, but can Crystal measure velocity? ("Velocity" is hits per week or month.)

Do you want to continue this analysis?

You are an excellent writer, btw.

As you appear to have a genuine interest in what the readers like, I thought I would offer "my two cents".

When I read the fiction I have made a great number of observations and some of these do have an affect on whether I open a story or whether I revisit the story multiple times.

1. After entering a story, some of them may appear to be written by people who don't have a great deal of writing.  I overlook that and look for the story content.  What often amazes me, however, is that the author has not read it before posting it.  Doesn't everyone have a spell checker?  And not to be too picky, but some of the grammar is horrible.
2. Once into the story, I want it to be easy for these tired old eyes to be able to read. One thing that will cause me to leave the story immediately is if the font is too small.  But the one big thing that makes reading a story too cumbersome is when the story doesn't stay within the monitor.  If ever line is twice as wide as my screen and I have to use the scroll bar to go back and forth contanstly, I probaly don't stick around - regardless of how appealing the story may be.
3. The third thing that makes a story uninteresting is when each little action or item is repeated over and over.  It makes me think of my high school days when I had to read "Babbitt" - (booorrring)
4. And I am happy to state that in Crystal's site there are no pop up banners.  There are some sites that I've visited where the moment one enters the site, suddenly I'm beseiged by one banner and ad after another.
5. But as to the story content itself. I guess I like the somewhat happy stories and also those that deal with either a silly bet or a favor or Halloween.  Some of the stories appear to be written by authors who assume that a lot of swear words are going to turn me on - they do not.  Some of the stories appear to be written by angry people who are out to "get" someone.  And it surprises me that in a story, a woman who is feminizing a man will act or think of it as a horrible fate - as if she herself thinks that women are inferior and therefore feminizing the man makes him inferior.  I often wonder whether she hates the man or whether she hates herself.

I began in Crystal's site on page one and have been going through everything in order and have only now reached this article.  I'll return and offer some feedback when I have gone further.

Oh, yes, you made a comment about how many "hits" some sites have.  I would hope that a quality story contains more hits but I know thaat is not always the case.  I do not spend a lot of time of the web each night and therefore is a story is really really long or if I have other things that I must attend to, the story may not really be that good but it will contain several hits from me as I come back to it trying to get through it.  Then it may have yet another hit from me as I verify that I indeed finished that story and am able to move on.
B  

ive read many but never posted comments.  i start anew here.  while i appreciate you doing what you did, i really have to ponder your sanity for such an endeavor.  but history shows that out of bouts of insanity comes serious evolution.  although not a perfect correlation, i am sure, what i gleaned from your work was a deeper revelation of the transgenderist (and perhaps their admirers).  what makes us tick and where we would fantasize our lives would lead in a perfect (yet kinda realistic) world.  while it doesnt surprise me to see that so many TGs are interested in happy endings and sweet stories and femdom, now i have a little science to support my beliefs.  on top of that, i think you have brought our little community a little closer in showing that we are not alone.  thanks doll.  hasta, nikk.

Fantastic! What you have done is truly amazing. You obviously have a very special talent for Research & Development. Perhaps, you could contact our host, Crystal, to "create" some "electronic means" of checking the "hits" on every story (as I doubt if even you could possibly ever want to repeat this process manually).
Thank you very much - Cathy

Well Kelly <long sigh>  I thought you were nuts, I heard you were nuts, now I know you are nuts!  LOL  

Seriously, thanks so much for taking the time to do all this work.  The information you provided us with makes this one of the most important pieces on the entire FM list. It really makes you see what works out there.  I don't know what prompted you to do this, but thanks for all your hard work and time.  

*Hugs*  The other 'Kelly'

BTW -- some call me the nice Kelly! I don't know what the mean but that.  :)  

I read with great interst your analysis and while I think it's indicative there is a major flaw in relying on the counter system used on story-site. As Crystal does not believe in cookies the counters will go up every time the page is visited - whether by a new party or the same individual. I'm not concerned about padding but suspect that as the story gets longer those who read online might read the story in increments, returning several times. Authors who like to check their counts and who do it by opening the story (although I believe they have access directly to the counter) also inflate the numbers. It's hard to judge how much this problem with the counters might skew the data but the smaller the counter number the greater the variance is likely to be. As you chose the most popular the data may be less skewed than an analysis of the overall site. It might be of interest to have both types of counters - to see how many unique readers there are (or who at least opened the story) and how many overall hits to see how often stories are re-read.
 I appreciate the fact that you anticipated what I surely would have raised as a question, that being about stories posted on multiple sites, but I would add this caveat. Stories added to both sites in the same relative time period are probably less likely to have crossover readers. Stories posted farther apart may at least be opened because the reader has forgotten they had read the story and did not immediately recognize it from the title or description. In the case of multi-part stories the degree of fall-off after the first part may indicate this or simply that the story was not to the reader's taste.
A lot of time and effort that opens a window into this room we call "visiting the other side."

Thank you for your wonderful work.  As an occasional contributor to this site; and an almost everyday reader; I often wondered who was reading what and if it corresponded to what I read.  This study is truly appreciated.  Thanks again.

Jamie Lynne

Thank you for all the hard work. I can't speak for the accuracy of the findings, but it is nice to know somebody is reading the stuff we write.

A Happy Wife

I've been thinking some more about your terrific analysis.

Assuming that a hit is counted when someone clicks on the word
"story" in order to view the story, the question must be, what
is there that induces the viewer to do this?  Word count is one
thing that's immediately visible, & that is consistent with your
observations.  The second thing is the summary, & perhaps some
summaries are more effective at drawing the reader than others.
The third thing would be the list of categories, as you mentioned.
Finally, there is the author's reputation.  I suspect that this is
enhanced if the author consistently writes the same kind of story.
(One thinks immediately of two of my favorites, Vickie Tern &
Janet Stickney.)  If your stories vary so widely that they're
essentially unpredictable, then only the first three factors--word
count, summary, & categories--are likely to influence the reader.

Pervy

---- Thanks! A large amount of work taken on by a qualified person has produced very valuable and interesting results.

My first thought was that some of the story ideas I have in various stages should be re-prioritized. But then again, like virtually everyone here, I write for the fun of it so I doubt that will happen. And yet....

Anyone who writes for StorySite, or is thinking about writing, should check this out. And those odd individuals that feel compelled, sometimes beyond reason, to know as much as they can about the things with which they come into contact will like the hell out of it. I did.

RJMcD

This is a must read for all TG authors and critics.  Thanks, Kelly Ann!

Carrying out such a study was an inspired idea.  We're all in your
debt for doing this.  It's a pity the format of the tables got
munged, however; couldn't make head or tail of them.  But in all
other respects an outstanding job.

Pervy

Firstly I would like to thank you for all your hard work. Secondly I would like to ask you where you will place this story in your next analysis? (Because it will surely top the hit list) And last but not least (tongue firmly imbedded in cheek) who the hell is anal enough to do ALL the reading and number crunching involved to put out a report of this magnitude?

Thank you for the research, it was very informative. I'll admit to being disappointed not to see some of my favorite genres and authors there, but I guess the majority rules. Once again, thanks for all of your hard work.

  I found your findings interesting even with some of your charts missing parts from a corrupted download.  Personally I would like to see the results of the hot list you mentioned.  How did you pick the 500 hits per month figure?  From my observation, the number of hits in the first 36 hours, now occur in the first 12 hrs from only one year ago.  This change would complicate comparing older and newer stories.  It was an interesting piece though.   Huggles  MichelleA

I suspected my usually magical or sci-fi, rarely sissified or femdom, sometimes kinky, usually bizarre changes tales didn't fit the norm here. Thanks for proving it. I'm not bothered, though. On the contrary, this was a revealing and fun commentary for a big fan of statistics.

While reading this study:

64% of the time I was grinning.  Make that 65% as I rounded all my reactions off to the closest 5%.

15% of the time I was trying to remember what made me want to 'have a stroke' in each story.

35% of the time I wondered if we would soon see recipe stories written to appeal to a broad readership.

50% of the time I didn't know if I wanted to read more.

50% of the time I couldn't wait to read the next very interesting fact.

100% of the time I thanked the mad scientist Kelly Rogers for her time and effort.

Where do you want the flowers delivered? *S*