Average Downloads?

thestorygirl · Post by **thestorygirl** » December 21st, 2019, 1:26 pm

Does anyone know what the average number of downloads is for the first month or few weeks of the release of a fiction novel by Librivox on Internet Archive?

Post by **TriciaG** » December 21st, 2019, 1:38 pm

I don't think so. At any rate, that info is not available to us (as users or as MCs).

One could do a little research project, I suppose!

KevinS · Post by **KevinS** » December 21st, 2019, 2:03 pm

There will be a good number of new releases in January and February. One could note a few and make a record. Not entirely scientific, but better than nuttin'!

Post by **TriciaG** » December 21st, 2019, 2:05 pm

Could start now with projects cataloged a month ago.

KevinS · Post by **KevinS** » December 21st, 2019, 4:42 pm

TriciaG wrote: ↑December 21st, 2019, 2:05 pm Could start now with projects cataloged a month ago.

That's a good point. There is a catalog (published?) date on archive, isn't there?

Post by **TriciaG** » December 21st, 2019, 4:47 pm

Yep. Here's the LV collection, sorted by release date, newest on top: https://archive.org/details/librivoxaudio?sort=-publicdate

Post by **Availle** » December 21st, 2019, 5:14 pm

I keep track of the downloads for the titles I choose as staff picks for a given month.

On average, an average LV title has around 200 - 300 downloads (edit: views, as Anne explains below) in the month it is showcased as a "staff pick".

LOTE works can be much lower, and our most famous titles (Dickens, Bronte, Shakespeare...) can go into the thousands. I guess that's because they may be on some school's/university's required reading lists and/or people know what they are looking for.

Post by **annise** » December 22nd, 2019, 12:52 am

Archive does not actually keep count of downloads - it keeps count of what it calls "views"
A quote from Archive after it's latest changes to define "views"

What counts as a view in the new system

Each media item in the archive has a views counter.
The view counter is increased by 1 when a user engages with the media file(s) in an item.
Media engagement includes experiencing the media through the player in the item page (pressing play on a video or audio player, flipping pages in the online bookreader, emulating software, etc.), downloading files, streaming files, or borrowing a book.
All types of engagements are treated in the same way – they are all views.
A single user can only increase the view count of a particular item once per day.
A user may view multiple media files in a single item, or view the same media file in a single item multiple times, but within one day that engagement will only count as 1 view.

The item page is the page at archive on which your project is defined
So for example if it were a 100 chapter book and I downloaded it all in the same day , the view counter would go up by one
If I decided to stream a chapter a day it would go up by 100
If I look at a project, play 20 secs and decide I don't want to listen any more the view counter goes up by one.

And the view count is forever, not weekly or monthly

So trying to rank projects by the views is difficult - they are interesting only.

thestorygirl · Post by **thestorygirl** » December 23rd, 2019, 9:36 pm

This is highly informative; thank you all for the analytics!