Writing/Ao3 stuff

[shapinglight]

Haven't done one of these posts for oh, at least a week.

I'm still puzzling over the vagaries of reading choices on Ao3, and still feeling a bit grumpy on behalf of my revised version of Brief Encounter, which, despite three nice people leaving me kudos on it, has only had 26 hits altogether.

Comments

[sueworld2003]

Hey, imo people like what they like, and so I wouldn't tie yourself up in knots trying to figure out why it's not so popular. Readerships are funny animals. *g*

Oh and by the way I'm going to punch Wexina in the face If things carry on as they are on Slayalive. *g*

[shapinglight]

I suppose I feel a bit resentful on behalf of my story, which I think is better than the number of hits on it suggests.

I shouldn't care, of course. After all, it's just angsty teenage fanfic. Not a great work of literature like the Buffy comics ;)

[sueworld2003]

"Not a great work of literature like the Buffy comics ;)"

*Snerk*

[lynnalso]

I have read it several times & certainly enjoyed it. Very clever and a good sense of "place".

[shapinglight]

Thank you. :)

I should stop harping on about it, I know. It's unattractive.

[avidrosette]

Hi! Probably you've already gotten this kind of advice, but for what it's worth, here would be my suggestions for driving hits on your AO3 story

[shapinglight]

Hi, love.

Thanks so much for all the good advice. I will try to make myself promote my stuff more on LJ and remember to link through to the Ao3 post. I suppose I didn't do it when I posted a lot of stuff on Ao3 a while back because they were all old stories. I also made the mistake of posting them with the date I first posted them to LJ rather than the date I posted them on Ao3. I'm not sure whether I should just go back and change that. Dunno. What do you think? I did change it for Brief Encounter, but as far a I can see, it made no difference.

As for Tumblr, I dunno. It's not a site I care for. I do have a Tumblr but I never use it. I'll have to investigate.

Also, sorry about the whingey nature of this post. I'm not actually dissatisfied with the amount of hits/kudos etc I've had on Ao3. I just couldn't understand why this story, in particular, and compared to other similar stories, appeared to be so unpopular.

[liliaeth]

I know the feeling, but honestly the amount of comments or kudos a fic gets often has more to do with the specific kinks (sexual or otherwise that a fic hits than the quality of the work)

[shapinglight]

'Twas always thus, I suppose.

[yourlibrarian]

This probably won't make you feel any better but this past week I finally got to reading a Buffy story that I'd uploaded to my eReader back in 2011. I'm sure it got there because of someone's rec though and given how much stuff there is to read streaming in from every direction that probably makes a difference.

One thing that occurred to me is that maybe you could add some of your work to collections? Here are open ones for Buffy: there might be some opportunities there.

[shapinglight]

That's a good suggestion. I actually did write one of those stories for a collection that's already up on A03. However, when I try editing the story to include that, even though typing the collection name in the search box brings up the name, when I try to post it just keeps telling me it can't find that collection.

Weird.

I can see all the other fics in it and I haven't made a mistake with the name.

It's called Buffy is the Hero, Damnit!, but when I click on that, the site is putting it in two separate collections called 'Buffy is the hero' and 'damnit' and then saying it can't find either of them.

[yourlibrarian]

Unfortunately since I don't have any fic of my own, I don't have any experience posting to collections. But I'd suggest opening a Support request: http://archiveofourown.org/support If there's actually a bug in the process, they'll want to know that, and if it's just an error they can give you instructions for any other fics you add later.

[shapinglight]

That's a good idea. I'll do that.