Come and wail about AO3 with me
Sep. 1st, 2013 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
birdsofshoreI noticed today that my Smoochfic, Hungry, has been read 5000 times on AO3. 5000 times! Who are all these people? It feels very strange to know that people are reading my fic, which is quite a personal and even, in a way, private thing to me, and I have no freaking clue who they are, or if they liked it, or anything.
I never even wanted to be on AO3! I am such a Luddite, I was going to stay on LJ forever and ever, where it is safe and warm and cosy and I know (kind of) everybody. I blame those wicked![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hd_smoochfest and hd_erised mods! *shakes fist and blows kisses simultaneously* But now I am on there, I want to understand it.
Some random questions:
Why do we put our fics on AO3 (if we do)? To get more reads / comments? I can't imagine anything else I post to AO3 would get this number of reads; I presume it's because it was in the Smoochfest, which is an adored, popular fest. But for all those thousands of reads, I got erm, I think 8 comments on AO3, and 5 of those were from people I know on LJ anyway, who probably would have read it if I'd just posted it to LJ only. I don't know. *shrugs* I suppose I don't really care how many thousand people have read it, if I don't know whether they liked it?
Bookmarks. What's that all about? If someone bookmarks your fic, does it mean they are halfway through and want to come back later? Or that they liked it a lot and are marking it as a favourite, to read again?
Finally, how do you stop feeling paranoid that only a few people commented because they all hated it? Hungry had Angry!Ron and Mean!Gryffindors in, and I get the feeling that was not so popular with everyone. Maybe 5000 people CLICKED on it, and 4952 of them then BACKBUTTONED because they loathed it?
You see, AO3 is really not good for me. It looks all shiny and tempting, with its stats and all those readers waiting with open hands, but it's perplexing and makes my brain hurt.
Anyway, those 5000 clicks can be two fingers up to Mr Birds who thinks there are only about 20 of us deviant Drarry-lovers in the whole wide world. He thinks the handful of people I talk to on LJ are the only ones who could possibly be weird enough to be into it, and that we have all found one another and are clinging together like this purely by luck :DDD.
The other thing that cheers me up is thinking that maybe Draco was one of the 5000 clickers. If so, I like to think that this would be his reaction:
by Microbluefish on Deviantart
I never even wanted to be on AO3! I am such a Luddite, I was going to stay on LJ forever and ever, where it is safe and warm and cosy and I know (kind of) everybody. I blame those wicked
hd_smoochfest and hd_erised mods! *shakes fist and blows kisses simultaneously* But now I am on there, I want to understand it.Some random questions:
Why do we put our fics on AO3 (if we do)? To get more reads / comments? I can't imagine anything else I post to AO3 would get this number of reads; I presume it's because it was in the Smoochfest, which is an adored, popular fest. But for all those thousands of reads, I got erm, I think 8 comments on AO3, and 5 of those were from people I know on LJ anyway, who probably would have read it if I'd just posted it to LJ only. I don't know. *shrugs* I suppose I don't really care how many thousand people have read it, if I don't know whether they liked it?
Bookmarks. What's that all about? If someone bookmarks your fic, does it mean they are halfway through and want to come back later? Or that they liked it a lot and are marking it as a favourite, to read again?
Finally, how do you stop feeling paranoid that only a few people commented because they all hated it? Hungry had Angry!Ron and Mean!Gryffindors in, and I get the feeling that was not so popular with everyone. Maybe 5000 people CLICKED on it, and 4952 of them then BACKBUTTONED because they loathed it?
You see, AO3 is really not good for me. It looks all shiny and tempting, with its stats and all those readers waiting with open hands, but it's perplexing and makes my brain hurt.
Anyway, those 5000 clicks can be two fingers up to Mr Birds who thinks there are only about 20 of us deviant Drarry-lovers in the whole wide world. He thinks the handful of people I talk to on LJ are the only ones who could possibly be weird enough to be into it, and that we have all found one another and are clinging together like this purely by luck :DDD.
The other thing that cheers me up is thinking that maybe Draco was one of the 5000 clickers. If so, I like to think that this would be his reaction:
by Microbluefish on Deviantart
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-09-02 01:17 pm (UTC)My take:
Livejournal - I post here because it's my precious and some of my friends still hang out here (and some have come back recently - yay!) but if you're looking for my fics, even with my tags, it can be a FUCKING NIGHTMARE. LJ is for fandom interaction, not necessarily for reading. With that said, I always post my fics FIRST on LJ and my WIPS are only on LJ until they are complete.
FF.net - I post here because 90% of my readers still read them here. I have friends in real life who don't like LJ and will only read my fics on ff.net. Also, you can set up Author Notifications - I know you can do this on LJ but then they'll get a notification and think, "OMG NEW FIC!" and click only to find me blathering about my real life. BORING. Yet when they get a notification from ff.net it ALWAYS means "OMG NEW FIC!" Also, out of the bajillion reviews I've received, maybe a dozen have been trolls, flaming, angry people, or just plain WTF? Most people are lovely and I've made several RL friends through ff.net, so despite their purge policy (and I've Slytherined my way out of that by using a couple of tricks BTW) I will probably never stop posting there.
AO3 - I use it for what it is, an archive. I make my fics as pretty as can be and put them there for people to download. I don't expect comments or kudos and I don't look at the stats. They are there for people to read and as a safeguard against the day ff.net figures out how to get around my no-purge trick.
As to clicking stats - I sometimes feel like a terrible person because I will click things on a page in order to open a new tab. I click userpics, links, fics, pics, anything that will OPEN A NEW TAB because the Open New Tab button on Firefox opens a tab AAAAALLLLLLL the way to the right, past the 34345 tabs I already have open. Clicking a LINK opens the whatever-I-clicked in a new tab right next to the tab I'm reading. Then I go up to the navigation bar and type in the link to what I actually want. So, um, yeah, I'm one of those clickers who might not actually read the page I went to; I just wanted a new tab. *cough*
*runs away*
no subject
Date: 2013-09-02 01:52 pm (UTC)About the only reason I ever go on ff.net is to read your fics! It is indeed impossible to find them on LJ. But then, because it's not on LJ, and there are already a gazillion people who've left comments saying "blah blah how could you make Scorpius TOP I HATE YOU", I don't leave a comment myself. Because commenting on ff.net seems to lower your brain function or something and heaven knows I need all the brains I can get.
I can't believe you just click on random links to get a new tab. That is very funny indeed. Good job I know you DID read my fic, or that would be us FINISHED.
By the way, that was some good coffee you had... ;-)
no subject
Date: 2013-09-02 03:32 pm (UTC)And yes, I totes did read your fic. Most of my commentors on ff.net are fabulous and only rarely I get a bizarre or WTF comment and those I save for the LOLS. I also share them with a few people and we snicker about the trolls.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-02 02:05 pm (UTC)You crazy clicker you! I'm judging you! :D
But then, i am the same. New Tabs are shinny!