Author Pulse: asking what Short Story Lovers should improve

Building Short Story Lovers with passion also means being willing to ask where we should go next.

Earlier this year, we ran Author Pulse 2026, a seven-question survey for the SSL community. Instead of only asking whether people liked the site, we wanted to understand what might actually make writers publish more, stay motivated and feel more connected here.

Authors received 200 True Reader Points for taking the time to complete it.

We asked about more than features

The first question was deliberately broad:

What would you like to see more of on Short Story Lovers this year?

The choices included author interviews, writing events and workshops, local writer meetups, an AI writing tool, interactive social games, and milestones and badges.

Then we went deeper.

We asked which idea should be prioritised first. We asked whether local writer meetups sounded useful. We asked what had been holding people back from publishing and what might motivate them to publish again.

We also asked what keeps writers going: reader feedback and comments, milestones, author spotlights, earning opportunities, or something else.

That matters to us because there is a big difference between adding another feature and solving a real reason someone has stopped writing or publishing.

Some questions were intentionally open

One of the most important parts of Author Pulse was the free-text question about publishing:

What has held you back from publishing recently, and what might motivate you to publish again?

There was no product name hidden inside that question. We wanted people to describe the problem in their own words.

A theme that stayed with us was the hesitation that can exist between finishing a draft and making it public. Writers may want feedback first, more confidence, or simply more control over who sees something while it is still taking shape.

That thinking later helped shape Private Stories, where an author can share work privately before deciding whether it is ready for public publication.

Not every idea is a promise

Author Pulse also explored things that may take much longer, or may change completely as we learn more: interviews, events, meetups, social experiences and writing tools.

That is intentional.

A survey should help us understand possibilities, not turn every option into a public roadmap.

The more useful question is: what problem is the community trying to solve, and is there a way Short Story Lovers can genuinely help?

The idea continues with Insider

Author Pulse is one reason we want Insider to be more than a list of release notes.

At the bottom of Insider there is now a simple way to share an idea directly with us. We can keep listening while we build, instead of waiting for a large annual survey every time we want feedback.

Some ideas will become features. Some will make us rethink an existing experience. Some may never be built.

But they all help us understand what Short Story Lovers should become.