Q3 comments number crunching
Happy October! It's the beginning of the fourth quarter of the year, which means I am here with random facts and dubious statistics about the last three months' worth of comments on my (up to 254, yowza!) fanworks archived at AO3. I admit it's mostly navel-gazing, but some of my conclusions may be of interest to those of you who wonder about things like readership and feedback in general on new and older stories. This past quarter I also tracked kudos, but that will be in a separate post.
Total comments: 63 threads, 70 total comments, which is about the same as for the first two quarters of 2018 added together! The reasons for the huge increase are that I posted a lot of fic (eight new stories plus eleven reposts), and also that a fandom friend got an AO3 account and went on a commenting spree (♥) (Also, one comment was a reply from last quarter, so it should probably be 62 threads.)
Number of individual works commented on: 40 (39 stories and one fanvid)
Fandoms commented in: A Song of Ice and Fire, Dragon Age, Lord John series, The Witcher, Harry Potter, Six of Crows, anthropomorphic octopuses, due South, Stargate Atlantis, Eagle of the Ninth, The Machineries of Empire, Slings and Arrows, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, The Devil Wears Prada, original fic, fairy tales, Gentleman Bastard sequence, Farseer Trilogy, Dire Wolf (song), Magnus Chase series, Old Kingdom series. 21 different fandoms altogether; last quarter there were 16 fandoms, and I thought that was a lot!
Comments on recent stories: 32 comments (28 threads) on 8 stories written for exchanges posted during this quarter. Also, there was one comment each on two recent reposts. (For the next few items, I'm counting the reposts as new stories.) So about half of my comments were received on recent works (less than a month after posting).
Comments on stories over one month old: 36 comments, 32 threads, 30 works.
Comments on stories over one year old: 30 comments, 27 threads, 24 works.
Comments on stories over five years old: 19 comment threads, 18 works.
Comments on stories over ten years old: 12 comment threads, 11 works. (Note these were reposts, as AO3 didn't exist then. But most were reposted a long time ago, relatively.)
Comments on stories over fifteen years old: 6 comment threads, 6 works, 5 individual commenters, all in Harry Potter fandom. (Same note as above). Five of these were first posted (to LJ and fandom or pairing websites) in April 2003, one was posted in May 2003. One comment specifically noted it was a reread.
Fic with most comments this quarter: Going Viral, an anthropomorphic octopus drabble written for the Multifandom Drabble Exchange which revealed July 15th, with 8 comments.
Fic not posted this period with the most comments: Three older stories had two comments each from different people: Blood Imari (The Machineries of Empire, posted October 2016); A Different Sort of Complicated (The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, posted December 2015); and Across the Great Divide (due South, posted July 2006). The last was by two people who had been discussing angsty fics and one of them mentioned mine, and they both went and re-read it then. The other two stories are in tiny fandoms and so I can imagine that if you're suddenly discovering or rediscovering those fandoms you may go eagerly to AO3 and read everything available, which isn't much, and comment on your favorites - at least, that's what I do!
Most popular older fic commented on: An Eye for an Eye, an E-rated Lucius/Harry (Harry Potter) noncon fic that I wrote in December 2003, and has the second most hits and bookmarks, third most kudos. Most of the comments are people pleading for a sequel even though my author's note says I will not write one (and gives permission for others to write sequels), and yep, guess what the newest comment said... :(
Least popular older fic commented on: My old friend
ride_4ever was nice enough to leave a comment while rereading an obscure due South drabble (written as a remix in 2012) of mine, Together (the Duet). While looking this up, I noticed that the ficlet I remixed, written by
luzula, was also cited as inspiration for yet another story, by
akamine_chan!
Other things that I noticed: As I alluded to earlier,
sovay got an AO3 account and went on a spree, commenting on 7 of my stories. \o/ Sixteen other comments were made by fandom friends (for some value of "friend") post-author-reveal. So basically 1/3 of my comments came from people who (I know) know me. After Remix Revival, someone who'd read 
Philipa_Moss's remix of Oral Sex went back and read my original, and commented it, and also re-read and commented on the sequel. Five people commented on multiple stories in a fandom (Fandoms for which at least one person commented on multiple stories: Harry Potter, due South, The Eagle of the Ninth, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, and the Old Kingdom series.)
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth
Total comments: 63 threads, 70 total comments, which is about the same as for the first two quarters of 2018 added together! The reasons for the huge increase are that I posted a lot of fic (eight new stories plus eleven reposts), and also that a fandom friend got an AO3 account and went on a commenting spree (♥) (Also, one comment was a reply from last quarter, so it should probably be 62 threads.)
Number of individual works commented on: 40 (39 stories and one fanvid)
Fandoms commented in: A Song of Ice and Fire, Dragon Age, Lord John series, The Witcher, Harry Potter, Six of Crows, anthropomorphic octopuses, due South, Stargate Atlantis, Eagle of the Ninth, The Machineries of Empire, Slings and Arrows, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, The Devil Wears Prada, original fic, fairy tales, Gentleman Bastard sequence, Farseer Trilogy, Dire Wolf (song), Magnus Chase series, Old Kingdom series. 21 different fandoms altogether; last quarter there were 16 fandoms, and I thought that was a lot!
Comments on recent stories: 32 comments (28 threads) on 8 stories written for exchanges posted during this quarter. Also, there was one comment each on two recent reposts. (For the next few items, I'm counting the reposts as new stories.) So about half of my comments were received on recent works (less than a month after posting).
Comments on stories over one month old: 36 comments, 32 threads, 30 works.
Comments on stories over one year old: 30 comments, 27 threads, 24 works.
Comments on stories over five years old: 19 comment threads, 18 works.
Comments on stories over ten years old: 12 comment threads, 11 works. (Note these were reposts, as AO3 didn't exist then. But most were reposted a long time ago, relatively.)
Comments on stories over fifteen years old: 6 comment threads, 6 works, 5 individual commenters, all in Harry Potter fandom. (Same note as above). Five of these were first posted (to LJ and fandom or pairing websites) in April 2003, one was posted in May 2003. One comment specifically noted it was a reread.
Fic with most comments this quarter: Going Viral, an anthropomorphic octopus drabble written for the Multifandom Drabble Exchange which revealed July 15th, with 8 comments.
Fic not posted this period with the most comments: Three older stories had two comments each from different people: Blood Imari (The Machineries of Empire, posted October 2016); A Different Sort of Complicated (The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, posted December 2015); and Across the Great Divide (due South, posted July 2006). The last was by two people who had been discussing angsty fics and one of them mentioned mine, and they both went and re-read it then. The other two stories are in tiny fandoms and so I can imagine that if you're suddenly discovering or rediscovering those fandoms you may go eagerly to AO3 and read everything available, which isn't much, and comment on your favorites - at least, that's what I do!
Most popular older fic commented on: An Eye for an Eye, an E-rated Lucius/Harry (Harry Potter) noncon fic that I wrote in December 2003, and has the second most hits and bookmarks, third most kudos. Most of the comments are people pleading for a sequel even though my author's note says I will not write one (and gives permission for others to write sequels), and yep, guess what the newest comment said... :(
Least popular older fic commented on: My old friend
ride_4ever was nice enough to leave a comment while rereading an obscure due South drabble (written as a remix in 2012) of mine, Together (the Duet). While looking this up, I noticed that the ficlet I remixed, written by
luzula, was also cited as inspiration for yet another story, by
akamine_chan!
Other things that I noticed:
sovay got an AO3 account and went on a spree, commenting on 7 of my stories. \o/ Sixteen other comments were made by fandom friends (for some value of "friend") post-author-reveal. So basically 1/3 of my comments came from people who (I know) know me.
Philipa_Moss's remix of Oral Sex went back and read my original, and commented it, and also re-read and commented on the sequel.
Crossposted from isis at Dreamwidth where there are
comments. | Comment at Dreamwidth