my new fandom: observations
I posted "Pieces of the Dead" to my ff.net archive earlier today. The results were really quite interesting. The story was submitted at noon or a little after, and took a little while to percolate through the system. As of nine PM, "Pieces of the Dead" appeared as the sixteenth story in the Transformers section. That means that fifteen more stories or chapters were posted between that time and the time I posted. At ten PM, "Pieces of the Dead" was the eighteenth fic updated. Since noon.
What's more, there were a good number of readers. FF.net keeps stats, so I was able to see that in one day, that story got more hits than my last DCU story posted there, "Minute of Angle," has to date -- since I posted it there August 4. A quick review of the Batman section shows that, in comparison to TF, fewer stories are posted on a daily basis. The stats confirm something I'd pretty much figured anyway: the DCU fandom is largely off ff.net these days, with folks using journals and personal archives, and del.icio.us serving an index/recommendations function. I certainly get most of my reader reaction through LJ (in part because the mechanism is a lot easier and smoother here, and the interactive nature of journals mean that the etiquette is more easily picked up). I'm still reading through the TF fanfic that's out there; my impression is that the fanbase skews much younger than DCU, which may also be a factor in the use of ff.net. (A lot of the recent interest is also young: folks have been into them since the eighties, but the new movie, on which many newer stories are based, came out only in July.)
So, it's interesting to see the contrasts between my ongoing fandom and my new one. A few folks have said that I should write more Transformers, so we'll see how things go. (webpetals, for one, wants more, and I am immensely fond of her, so I'm inclined to do it; we'll see what I come up with.)
What's more, there were a good number of readers. FF.net keeps stats, so I was able to see that in one day, that story got more hits than my last DCU story posted there, "Minute of Angle," has to date -- since I posted it there August 4. A quick review of the Batman section shows that, in comparison to TF, fewer stories are posted on a daily basis. The stats confirm something I'd pretty much figured anyway: the DCU fandom is largely off ff.net these days, with folks using journals and personal archives, and del.icio.us serving an index/recommendations function. I certainly get most of my reader reaction through LJ (in part because the mechanism is a lot easier and smoother here, and the interactive nature of journals mean that the etiquette is more easily picked up). I'm still reading through the TF fanfic that's out there; my impression is that the fanbase skews much younger than DCU, which may also be a factor in the use of ff.net. (A lot of the recent interest is also young: folks have been into them since the eighties, but the new movie, on which many newer stories are based, came out only in July.)
So, it's interesting to see the contrasts between my ongoing fandom and my new one. A few folks have said that I should write more Transformers, so we'll see how things go. (webpetals, for one, wants more, and I am immensely fond of her, so I'm inclined to do it; we'll see what I come up with.)