Discovery on HearthWrite is a pipeline, not a popularity contest you can tip in one afternoon.
- People read. Opens, unique readers, finishes, follows, reviews, and recommendations accumulate on each story.
- Scores refresh. Those signals update story scores like Momentum, Hidden Gem, Bingeable, Critically Acclaimed, Consistency, and Popular — each asking a different question.
- Confidence damps noise. Until a story has a real audience (or real recent activity), scores stay muted so a handful of friends cannot look like a movement.
- Snapshots rebuild shelves. Homepage and Collections lists refresh on a schedule from those scores. Explore sorts read the same numbers live against filters you choose.
- Eligibility gates apply. Some rails also require minimum recent readers, unique readers, or rating counts before a title can appear — even if a raw score is nonzero.
Money, Wisps, and Embers never buy organic scores. Overlay boosts (when you spend Wisps) can add optional visibility chrome; they do not rewrite Momentum or Popular.
Quick map of the main public scores:
- Momentum — this week’s buzz (opens, new readers, finishes, follows, reviews).
- Popular — reach, follows, and rating quality compared with the catalog.
- Hidden Gem — strong love + stickiness while the audience is still relatively small.
- Bingeable — chapters per sitting, completion, early retention.
- Critically Acclaimed — ratings + recommend percent, with a sample-size check.
- Consistency — steady chapter publishing rhythm.
For shelf-by-shelf browsing tips, see Using Collections and Using Explore. Authors: How Discovery Fits Together in the Almanac stays close while you work in Studio.