An Archive Of One's Own

[astolat]

**NEW ETA**: we're going to take a stab at putting this together. For more information and discussion, please join and/or watch fanarchive.

ETA: If you are coming to the conversation late, xenacryst has helpfully collected up a bunch of links to a subset of noteworthy discussion threads, over here!

First, why fanfic is not illegal and why YOU should stop

Comments

Re: Fanfiction.net (redux)

[sholio]

Oh, I know ... and looking back at my original post, I really do come across as something of a wet blanket on the whole idea. And that really isn't my intent. Even if the new archive doesn't end up as the be-all and end-all of archives, there's still no reason why there *can't* be another archive out there, especially a big inclusive one. As a reader, I think it'd be awesome to have another place to search for fic.

But as a fic writer, I'm sure I can't be the only person who suffers from (for lack of a better way to put it) "archive fatigue". Right now I post stories in three places -- Livejournal, my own website and (some of them) at ff.net. I don't post to the fandom specific archives for the fandoms I'm in, because I just don't have time to learn a bunch of new upload interfaces and then keep a bunch of different sites updated, keep up on comments, etc. I'm not saying "OMG no one would come!", because I really don't think that's true; however, speaking for myself, I'm not sure I'd put in the legwork to archive my work somewhere new when I already have a readership at the other sites where I post.

But as a reader and fan, I'm never gonna argue with OMG more fic!

Archive Fatigue

[franzeska]

I know exactly what you mean, but isn't the problem, as astolat said, just that most archives are a pain to post to? I see people cross-posting to dozens of lj communities at times and frequently to at least a few. I like the lj formatting, so I can usually just copy and paste a fic as is. (I normally add italic and bold tags as I write.) I'd be perfectly happy to post to more archives if they were that easy to deal with.

As a side note, I really wish the Yuletide archive would let me upload .txt. files written in Textedit (or whatever that default Mac OSX text program is) instead of only ones written in MS Word. Maybe it's just me...

Re: Archive Fatigue

[sholio]

You know what would be *really* cool would be some way to integrate such a thing with LJ or blogging so that you could click a button and publish to both places at once...

Re: Archive Fatigue

[franzeska]

Well, seeing as that's the first item on astolat's wishlist above, I'd say you're in good company.

Re: Archive Fatigue

[sholio]

I'd read that, but for some reason I hadn't gotten that it was talking about the same thing I'm talking about -- I'd thought that it just meant a standardized interface between different sites. But you're right, it actually *is* the same thing. *facepalm*