I'm late on this post and will be a little late on the Who’s Who for the second quarter (coming Saturday, July 29). I wanted to post both in late June, but work has been non-stop crazy for a month now.
I also made extra work for myself when I made the (correct) decision to post Carter’s Cosplay Turn all in July. It was originally going to be the mid-month story for July, August, and September. After thinking it over, even though I love the story, I didn’t think it was strong enough for that (and the results support my take), so I made a last minute call to change it.
That left me with two empty spots. I filled August 15 with a story that (sort of) addresses a dangling plot point from The Cave 26. It'll be fully resolved in January 2024. For September 15, I moved the first installment of an upcoming four-part Ryan series up from December and added the second part into that slot. It wasn't due until February 2024, but I think it'll work out fine. The Ryan stuff leads to his 30th birthday party in my 250th story. If all goes according to plan.
But that's what's to come. This post is about what I've done. I'm feeling kind of great about my ninth year of blogging so far. Here are a few random thoughts on reviews, images, results, and the length of my stories.
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| Yeah, I think the first half of 2023 went great. (Who are these dudes? Keep reading!) |
Reviews. Probably the biggest question area. I don't have time to do reviews, yet, but I have watched some new action after sticking with my library for over two years.
I actually turned to WatchFighters. It's a different experience, but I'm liking it a lot. For those who don't know it (I didn't until recently), guys are sharing their own videos outside of any producer. There are familiar faces on there, but also unfamiliar ones, which to me is the point. There have always been great guys wrestling hot private matches all over the world and some were available through places like Rec Pro. Now, we get to see even more of them. Very cool.
Because it's more personal and private, I asked permission from a couple of the guys to see if it'd be okay for me to share a few images from one of my favorite videos. They approved! I recently bought this match: Lightning vs. Bison: Lightning Strikes Out. No offense to Lightning, but I was originally drawn to it for Bison ... with his big boy body squeezed into his shiny, tight, skimpy, heel-black trunks and gear. Gorgeous. At 6'1" / 290 lbs with great taste in trunks, he's definitely a guy I'm interested in watching!
And Lightning makes a great contrast for him as a lighter weight challenger in crisp white babyface (jobber) gear. The setup is familiar and it goes as you would expect - the big man ruthlessly crushes (literally and figuratively) his smaller opponent. Lightning is great because he's a gamer. Starts out feisty and can take a lot of punishment. Dude got walked over by 290 lbs of pure Grade A beef. Twice!! Whoa!!! I'd watch both these guys again (and will soon).
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| Dude! |
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| This is the only way Lightning can get his licks in. |
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| Stick a fork in him, Lightning is done! |
Images. One thing that the Carter story taught me (it was completed right after I completed Sentinel, but I delayed posting it so there'd be some Cave stories in between), is that Tumblr is a bad place to source models. No one I follow identifies anyone and when people ask, those get ignored. I found my perfect "Scott", but I could only find three upper body images of him and never his name. So, I moved Ken Clarke from being my original "Mark" to being "Scott". He's younger than I wanted for Scott, but has lots and lots of images on social media.
I’m up to 23 stories in 2023 with the story shift, which will mean a running total of 229 stories by year's end! Wow. I’d originally hoped for just 12 this year, but things worked out well. I’ve been monitoring the numbers. Without reviews, traffic is way down, of course. But there’s a core audience consistently showing up. The Cave stories have performed well. The comments are a little down, but it appears that’s mainly due to some former regular commenters having moved on (unless they’re posting anonymously or cannot comment, like I can't seem to on Mikey Aarons' awesome Knockout blog).
My original Scott
Ken moved up from the secondary
role of cameraman Mark to the co-lead.
I'm measuring in a new way. I’m looking at the first seven days to avoid any bias from posting date and repeat readership. Using this metric, June was the top month by far, with Jae’s return being the biggest story, followed by Zeb vs. Doug. Looks like SuperStar, Asgard, and Xaq brought readers in, along with my return to new stories, Sentinel 1. Not surprisingly, Cave stories were the most popular, doing better than the Vault or Sentinel stories (except for Sentinel 1).
Zeb's Asgard Adventure #1 got a big boost when Zeb's Asgard Adventure #2 posted. I guess a lot of you wanted to catch up or read them back-to-back. Even with that boost, I expect that SuperStar 20 will be the biggest story of 2023 soon (update: it just did on 7/24 but I'm not redoing the graph). Fan favorites follow, with Xaq/Valet and Jeff/Lee close behind. Beau > Buck, at least to start 2023. And despite having no sex or wrestling, the Short with Xaq/Professor actually did pretty well, as does the no-wrestling Short with Bull/Ash/Mark (which had the worst start but picked up steam along the way).
Total Views as of July 21, 2023
Despite the alarming length of my stories, my belief is that it’s still better to post them as one long post here on the blog and let you read/skim as much as you want. Neither Sentinel nor Carter seem to have benefitted from being serialized, although they would’ve been super-long so I’m happy with my decision on those. I’m more looking at say things like SuperStar vs. Duo Dude with intro, multiple falls, stakes, and epilogue. Theoretically, those could be broken up, but I'm not planing to do so.
If you have a different opinion, please share it.
Anyway, so far so good for 2023. Hope you're enjoying the blog!
Alex
Love your stories! I would be careful with just looking at metrics though. While views might be important,it won't always equate to engagement. I appreciate you sharing the information but I want you to remember you are an awesome writer.
ReplyDeleteAs a fan, i love everything wrestling (not just Cave). I really did enjoy some of your short stories like Abuse of Power so i would say keep writing whatever you enjoy.
Thanks! No worries, I won’t be too heavily influenced by views. Comments, which are my primary engagement metric, are powerful, but I’ve never changed the content due to views. I have adjusted my posting schedule at times.
DeleteWatchfighters has been great, and it's nice to know I can pay creators more directly for their videos. And wow yeah can Tumblr be bad at sourcing model images. Even when there are accounts that do source or tag, I think they're a lot more likely to get buried by being more easily filtered as nsfw.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate the comment. I’m sure I’ll buy more producer-generated stuff, but I have a ton of those.
DeleteI don’t use a ton of truly NSFW images for my story images, they’re usually in briefs, but that’s a great point on Tumblr. With the fall of Twitter, social media is a prudish wasteland of censorship, especially against the male body. Guys are always saying how IG pulled down their stuff. Images of women with big breasts and butts in string bikinis are somehow okay while men with big bulges and butts in speedos are not.
I would definitely keep your Cave stories the way you have been posting them. Unless you are thinking of expanding the length of them, there is no natural break to split them into multiple parts. I would be very interested in more short stories ala Xaq and the Professor. Getting to know some of the characters outside of their wrestling and sex pursuits would be very interesting.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it would involve changing my writing a little, writing cliffhangers at the end of falls, that kind of thing. But I’m not planning on doing it. It was just surprising to me. I never thought about how much time guys are investing in reading these stories.
DeleteI’m thinking of those types of stories, but it’s harder than I thought. Xaq lends himself to it because he’s so unique. I think Winston/Toyboy could suit it, as well, because he clearly has a cool life outside of The Cave. We are seeing what’s happening at Asgard Ranch. So it’s happening.
I continue to LOVE your stories both wrestling and not (but wrestling more.) I get many ideas to "manglerize" your stories, but just for me. I try to leave comments when I read your stories but blogger makes it a pain in the ass to do so. (I know how frustrating it is not to get feedback-- do people like it or not?? What do they like particularly?? What don't they like??))
ReplyDeleteRan across your stories on GD, read them, liked them and THEN realized they were from you. 😬
Keep up the good work!!
Thanks! I always appreciate your comments. An reader just emailed me that he thinks we have complementary styles. He suggested that Cumface could do well in The Cave and Jae getting squashed in The Arena. I’m not sure Jae is built for that, but I thought I’d mention it since these are simultaneous conversations.
DeleteI don’t judge non-commenters. I’m not as good at commenting as I’d like to be. Blogger makes it impossible for me on some blogs and challenging on others. And sometimes I just don’t know what to say.
LOVE Mangler's stories and so glad to see he loves the Cave!
DeleteNot sure about Jae in the Arena but Xaq and that attitude are probably more suited for Mangler's world. Cumface vs Xaq
I’m excited that Mangler is a fan, too. It’s definitely a two-way fandom, with me crushing hard on him and his stories. I did a “Firsts” post and shared that his “Redneck Arena” was the first wrestling story I read online. The one that got me into the whole deal. He replied and comments a lot on my blog. And, I’m a character in his stories now, too!
DeleteI read the stories where you were a character! Very hot. I especially enjoyed it when you were taken to the club and worked over cause of your betrayal of the referee code of conduct. I'm just glad Mangler did a cross over; personally i think it adds more spice to the imagination.
DeleteNot sure Cumface fits into the Cave world but maybe some one-off like you did for abuse of power, or maybe meeting Lou or Kyle from the Bad Boys series. Everytime I think of Cumface, I admire his wrestling but I love seeing him getting beaten.
Thanks for the comment and suggestions! It’s definitely a thrill being a character in Mangler’s stories, even if that “me” has to endure a little punishment. Or maybe because that “me” endures some punishment? :D
DeleteYay I liked the Master Peace story (hot model!) and it's great that's continuing on.
ReplyDeleteWhen you said the Sentinel stories aren't as frequently returned-to as the Cave ones, I wonder if that is because they are harder to get back to? If there is a spot where they are all organized to return to other than using the Search function, that might help. As much as Cave stories are always a highlight, I thought the Sentinel content was also great, especially the action chapters, and wouldn't complain if they came back.
I don't think anyone would complain about story length either... especially because the background and drama and context just amp up the action. Like going back to the Sentinel ones, I feel like reading 12 and especially 13 really amps up 14, as compared to just starting 14 on its own.
Yeah, poor Master Peace was carried off and left behind. Luckily, good things come to those who wait, so he’s appearing in August and in 2024.
DeleteThat’s a good point on Sentinel. Navigation on the blog is okay, but it does take a little know-how. I think the fastest way to quickly return to Sentinel (once you know they exist) is via the Blog Archives on the right side. Click on January and they’re all there since I posted them in one month. The Pages are meant to help as well, but they need to be manually updated and I fall behind. I only linked to the first Sentinel story there. I should probably correct that. Gay Demon has links to all chapters at the top of their multi-chapter stories. That might work, too, but I think that it has to be done after the story is posted to the blog get the link.
Very happy you resumed writing and publishing this year. I enjoy reading your long stories and often save them up for when I have a long plane ride. The variety this year has been terrific! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI’m happy I was able to get back to it, too. I’m really happy with how all the stories have turned out so far, so I appreciate hearing that they’re working for you, too.
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