Come and wail about AO3 with me

[birdsofshore]

I 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 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

Comments

[torino10154]

I can't speak to the fest influence but IMO though I get measurable hits on AO3, I do get very few comments, always more on the journals than there, whether it's just something I post to my own journal or for a fest.

Basically AO3 is an archive of fic and a lot of people do not comment there. yes, a lot do, but it's far less interactive than the journals. So a lack of comments, to me, means nothing. I get 1-3 on the average short one-shot. Now you should probably have a good number of Kudos, possibly more than you would normally have comments anywhere.

I also really can't speak to the bookmarks with any authority. I assumed it was to be able to find it again--whether that means to finish or to re-read, I don't know. One thing about AO3 is that searching is a bit iffy or has been in the past anyway so probably that's the best way to not ~lose a fic into the ether.

Not sure if that helps at all. Possibly other people can be more helpful. :)

[drarryisgreen]

To me, bookmarks are like 'memories' or LJ or 'favourite' on FF.NET.

It's a rec for myself so i can go back and read it again, if I want to.

and I don't think i've read your fic, I wasn't the 5000 yet. I'll be 5001

♥

[blue-eyed-1987.livejournal.com]

I love fics on ao3 because they can be downloaded in a nice format (for offline reading on pc or e-reader). I personally bookmark fics that I will want to read again (and use the history/mark for later functions for those I need to finish).

Bookmarks can also be used as recs/people can leave nice comments on the bookmarks :)

It is weird to think that you can see all the people who read your fic and know nothing about them, but I guess that's the nature of the archive, you know? And kudos is a decent enough way to see how many people enjoyed it.

[fantasyfiend09.livejournal.com]

First, that comic = HA HA HA HA HA. Oh my goodness. There is a huge smile on my face now.

Part of the AO3 love is that it's pretty, it's clean, and no one will randomly delete your stories (cough, FF.net, cough). If I am exploring a new author, I will chose their AO3 over their LJ. I can sort by pairing, see word count, and otherwise filter for the type of story I'd like to read. It's also easy to download for people who want to read in a pdf form or like to keep copies of their favourite stories.

Bookmarks - I don't use these well, so I am no help to you. I think I have a random few stories bookmarked.

The 5,000 - Don't forget the lurkers! For everyone who finishes a story and writes a comment there are probably dozens who don't. It does't mean they didn't like it. Maybe they don't realize it matters to the writer. Maybe they don't realize they can do it anonymously and don't want to have an account. Maybe they feel self-conscious about their ability to write a comment. Most of us grew up reading books and putting them away when done. I never wrote my favourite authors to tell them I liked their book. It didn't even occur to me. Some people read fanfiction the way they read books. Those lurkers are on LJ, too. It's just that now you know they're there.

[nerakrose]

I'm on ao3 but not because of reader counts. It's because it's easy to upload fic there and organise it and it's easily accessible. What I use it for:

1) mark fics for later. I find something I want to read and mark it as later so I won't forget. Later, I can go through my history and click the "marked for later" button and the stuff I want to read is saved there. When I've read it, I can mark it as read and it vanishes off the reading list. Depending on how much I liked it, I'll do one or more of the following:

a) comment (I always do this - or try to do it at any rate) b) kudos if I liked it and c) bookmark as rec if I liked it enough to want to rec it. There's also d) write a note on the bookmark, either for own reference or to tell others why I liked it.

About bookmarks: fics bookmarked as recs will show up in the recs list thing on ao3. It updates constantly and can be a nice way to find reading material. If you only make a bookmark, I don't think it shows up but will be only saved to your own bookmarks. That's why I prefer to bookmark as rec. I want to give the fic that extra exposure. Advertisement, if you like.

2) archive for recs. if I like a fic enough to bookmark it as a rec, it'll appear in my bookmarks which is easily browsable via tags and I can always find the fic I'm looking for when I want to re-read it.

3) this is probably the most important for me, but the option of downloading fics as epubs is the best ever seriously. I never read fics on ao3 itself as I prefer to read on my iPad and not in front of the computer. I download the epubs onto my iPad and read them there. At the end of the ePub there's a link straight back to the comment page for the fic. So I can download a fic, read it whenever I want and then I can conveniently go leave a comment, mark the fic as read, kudos and bookmark. And then I'm done with it. I keep the ePub on the pad unless I didn't like the fic, in which case I'll delete the file.

As a matter of fact, I've got the hungry ePub on my iPad just waiting for me to read it. :)

I like the kudos option because some people have issues with commenting and/or social interaction, simply don't know what to say or think "I liked it!" is a stupid comment. They can leave a kudos as a sign that they liked it. It's an easy way out maybe, but I don't think the kudos function has a negative influence on the amount of comments.
The stats page can be fun to look at but I'm not really fussed. I used to care a lot about my stats (I used to post hit counters on LJ with my fics) but by now I just don't care anymore.

I don't know if this comment shed any light on ao3 for you?

[eidheann_writes]

As mentioned, ao3 is clean, well formatted without weird fonts or wonky spacing, and allows for downloading fics to read later.

[hollys_tree]

If it makes you paranoid, you can hide click counts. ;)

That being said: I browse a lot, like A LOT (!!!) of fic but I only read about 1% of it. I browse through fics in fandoms I'm not even in... so I produce a lot of clicks and never even read the stuff. Also if I read a fic, I come back to it several times: maybe it takes me several days to read it, then I go back to it to bookmark on pinboard or on my LJ. Like... i can easily click an AO3 fic fifteen times, before I leave a comment or a kudos. AO3 fic always gets a lot of traffic, but it doesn't equal the same amount of readers. My most popular fic on AO3 has over thousand clicks. I don't think this many people interested in HP Nextgen even exist. ;)

And yes, don't forget the lurkers.


ALSO: THIS COMIC IS BRILLIANT WHY HAVE I NOT SEEN IT BEFORE?! His face in the last panel! *loves* ♥ ♥ ♥ Poor Draco.

[hollys_tree]

What Karen said. :)

+10000 on the epub and downloading options. Best thing ever to be invented. :)

Also yeah, I like the kudos because fandoms in which I have no presence (Merlin and Teen Wolf) make me shy and I don't want to comment. I'm just shy and lazy! It doesn't take any quality from the fic.

[birdsofshore]

It is helpful! Everyone's thoughts and info about the way they use AO3 is very helpful, thank you.

I feel a bit princessy for even looking at comment numbers with a dubious eye. It's a different culture over there and before I started writing, I hardly ever left comments anywhere, so I do understand. It just makes you slightly paranoid when you can SEE people have clicked on it, but not responded at all.

[birdsofshore]

Oh, that's helpful! It's nice to know that people might be bookmarking so they can read it again.

I hope you enjoy it if you do decide to try it :D

[gamma-x-orionis.livejournal.com]

Dying over Draco's face in the last panel!

I'm used to the stats feature, since ff.net has basically the same thing - there are obviously a Hell of a lot more than 20 Drarry lovers, and those 5000 people were probably just mostly too shy to comment.

I like Ao3 as a sort of back-up archive, where it's easy to organize fics and search for them (let's face it, searching for fics on LJ is a practically impossible task). Because of the things I write, I get one comment per, like... 10 fics (you non-shipsters are spoiled ;) (I kid, of course)), so I'm definitely not in it for the feedback. To me, maintaining my Ao3 is almost like maintaining an interactive, searchable masterlist.

[birdsofshore]

Yes, I find AO3 nice and clear for reading on my phone. I do like the site, really, it's got a lovely clean layout, but I am not sure about uploading fics, yet. I haven't got the hang of that, and as for the paranoia it induces, LOL!

Now don't start about Kudos. Does that mean anyone who DIDN'T leave Kudos, didn't enjoy it? Because not a lot of those 5000 people left it. You see where my mixed-up brain is taking me, sigh.

[birdsofshore]

Oh, so happy you liked the comic! His expressions are just priceless. I particularly like going back to look at the earlier, bored ones, this time anticipating what is coming :DD

I know, I know! I have been dreadfully guilty of not commenting in the past, and with old fics, I still don't always, even now. I know it's not rational to fret about lack of comments. I also know logically that there are lurkers on LJ. It's just the visible nature of the AO3 lurkers that gives me the wigginses.

[capitu]

As a reader, I like having another option to where to read, I love AO3 specially to read on the go. The format and layout are really cool on mobile devices. When I'm looking for a fic to read on my phone or ipad, going to AO3 is my second choice (to lj).

I bookmark a story i want to read, and as a way to remind myself I want to read more of that author starting with that story. But I admit that even once I read a fic I don't de-mark it. I probably should, since I read it and left a comment. ^^ But so far I keep them. I'd just feel so weird de-marking, you know? Like, I wonder what the author is going to think when they saw a bookmark less and think I didn't care for it when it's the opposite, it means I already read it and loved it. So yeah, I don't delete bookmarks precisely for not adding paranoia to a poor and tormented author. ^^

As for those 5,000 clicks, you have to account the lurkers, also that each click can be the same person who for whatever reason when to a different page and then came back. Every time you return or refresh it's counted (unless I'm mistaken???). Also, sometimes I read at AO3 and then come back to comment at lj, that's another click.

I reckon I'd be paranoid, too, though. Who are all these people, where do they come from? lol

[birdsofshore]

Oh, yes, your comment certainly did shed light for me. I am only starting to understand how it all works, I think. That's really useful, thank you.

I agree with you that Kudos is a useful tool and I've used it myself if I didn't have time / much to say. It does lead to further paranoia though. The stats! I must leave them alone! I want to work out ratios and start comparing with other fics that I think are better than mine, to see how they shape up. It's madness, sheer madness :DD

I really hope you like the fic if you get to it :D

[birdsofshore]

Yes it is clean, isn't it? But I don't like uploading fics to it, so far. It seems very time consuming and full of pitfalls. But I struggle with anything new, especially technology-related *sigh*

[birdsofshore]

Hooooold on... so the clicks are not individual users? It could have just been 500 people looking at it 10 times? Don't tell Mr Birds!

Man, I think there are that many Next Gen fans. I really do!

I couldn't hide the clicks. Since it is there, I have to know, just HAVE TO :D

I adore this comic. So funny. The panel with Ron and Hermione in makes me want to die laughing, too. Poor Draco indeed :D

[omi-ohmy.livejournal.com]

AO3 is an archive and I have never really had many comments on fics there. I think of it as a nice place to store my fics, and only really focus on interacting with readers on LJ (because it is just so lovely here *rolls around in the fluff*). Plenty of my fics there have no comments at all (and only a handful of kudos). I have no idea how many hits there are. And that's fine.

If you archive all the fics you've written there, you will probably see the same. No more looking at numbers. *stern look*

[birdsofshore]

Mr Birds says that he believes there *could* be 5000 HP fans who read fanfic, but that most of them clicked on my fic by mistake. Like, they wanted to read het or something, but they accidentally clicked an NC-17 Harry/Draco slash fic instead O.o

He just can't believe there would be 5000 freaks like me in the world :D

Draco's expressions in that comic are. Just. Perfect.

[omi-ohmy.livejournal.com]

maintaining my Ao3 is almost like maintaining an interactive, searchable masterlist. This is such a perfect description of AO3!

[birdsofshore]

I didn't know it was not per individual user! So it might be far less than 5000 individual readers? Damnit! Mr Birds will be delighted. He will come up with a theory that it's just one insane obsessed person clicking again and again and again.

You are so sweet to not unbookmark people. That's really thoughtful and funny!

ANYTHING can make me paranoid. omi_ohmy will testify that I have been obsessing over AO3 stats since Smoochfest posted. I knew it would be a nightmare for someone like me, and lo, I am still finding new ways to have it fill up my brain with nonsense.

[amorette.livejournal.com]

I have sooo many unpopular thoughts on AO3. But first:

Omg Draco loves it so much! He is pretending to be appalled, but he's secretly totally interested XD And that is one nice Draco drawing - I love it!! I love his face, his hair, omg he's so attractive! <3

So, Ao3. At first, I think the people who posted to AO3 did so as a place to archive their works and not necessarily for the purpose of getting more comments than on LJ. I remember when people would re-beta their fics before posting there, just so everything on AO3 was complete and shiny and as close to perfect as possible.

Now, AO3 seems to me like a big mess. I love love love the concept behind a fan-run archive, and I appreciate that aspect of it so much. But from my experience and from things I hear, it has unfortunately become a big old mess. I hear more people getting shitty, rude comments on AO3 than in any other place. Also, the tagging system is messy. And navigating through there to find fics is not fun because I feel like they aren't organized well... maybe because the tags are fan-made. And yeah, I know the AO3 "mods" can't make every tag for every fandom themselves, so it's just an unfortunate circumstance about the site. And people list way too many tags, and characters, and they s=post all these short, unbeta'd things on there. That's just the impression I get. I am not a big fan of the Kudos because I'm like, can I just get a comment? The kudos just feel impersonal to me.

I know a lot of people disagree with these sentiments, and I'm okay with that, and I don't mean to insult anyone who really loves AO3. I do prefer reading on there simply because their screen fits my phone the best... but that's about the only reason.

[hollys_tree]

No, they're not individual users. That's why chaptered fics have WAY more clicks than one-shots: some people come back for every chapter and then the click count rises fast. I won't tell Mr Birds... ;)

[birdsofshore]

Oh, you caught me! But, NUMBERS. It must MEAN SOMETHING. I can ANALYSE THEM, and COUNT THINGS.

God it's a nightmare. It's like having a needy child sitting in my head, wittering on about Kudos and Bookmarks and Hits and Comments. AAAAAUGHHHH.

[omi-ohmy.livejournal.com]

On ffn.net they make the difference clearer (between hits ans visitors). But you know that, because I took a screenshot of my stats to show you. Because yes, you have been obsessing about this!

I wonder how many of the 5000 hits are down to you, refreshing... :D