[ SECRET POST #180 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #180 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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13. [ Not a secret. ]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 56 secrets from Secret Submission Post #026.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken links, [ 1 2 ] not!secrets, [ 1 ] not!fandom/repeat.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Thursday, July 5th, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: Here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[jetamors.livejournal.com]

3. I don't mean this in a wanky way... but take a step back and study what more popular ficcers/artists/whatever do. Are there elements in their stuff that you don't use? Do they do one particular thing better than you do, even if everything else is worse? Are they one of those people who's been on LJ for umptybillion years and has a million people on their flist? I'm not saying that you have to do any of those things to be popular--but once you know what they are, you'll know why those people's stuff gets more read, and you can choose whether you want to do those things and get more fans, or keep doing what you're doing with more realistic expectations.

16. Don't worry, we all hate Michael Eisner. He's like George Lucas to Star Wars fans, in a way.

18. LOL

Re: 16.

[jetamors.livejournal.com]

*full body shudder*

[(Anonymous)]

you mean all those fics on ff.net written while on a sugar high at 3 in the morning that get hundreds of comments for OOC characters, implausible plots, shitty grammar and spelling...

... might actually be good?

[jetamors.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily; I'm saying to look at it from more of a marketing perspective. The people who write those kinds of fics (as well as other kinds of fics that are more popular than yours) are giving their audience some thing(s) that you aren't. By isolating 1) what those things are; and 2) what audience they attract, you get a measure of control over the situation. You know how to attract a certain audience if you so desire, so either you can write goodfic incorporating those themes and watch the reviews roll in, or keep writing what you write with a better idea of who it'll appeal to and can feel pleasantly elitist if you like.

[(Anonymous)]

You know how to attract a certain audience if you so desire, so either you can write goodfic incorporating those themes and watch the reviews roll in,

really wished it worked that way.

a nice concept. doesn't always work in practicality.

you are right about the 'if you so desire'. writers can either look at trends, decide if they want to abandon what they do to chase those trends in the hopes for more feedback or decide not to and realize they may be relegated to the dustbin of not being read because it doesn't cater to fannish whims.

damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[jetamors.livejournal.com]

But... there's more than one audience, and one of the things you can do by looking at these trends is to find which audience your fics will appeal to most. If you're writing arthouse-type stuff and posting it on FF.N, of course you're not going to get too many reviews. But if you post it to a comm like hp_literotica (or create and advertise such a comm, if it doesn't exist in your fandom), then it's a whole lot easier for the people who'll like your kind of stuff to find you. Conversely, if you're writing 200-chapter epics, LJ is really not the place for you; the way the site is set up makes them very difficult to follow. You can advertise them here, sure, but it's better to archive someplace like FF.N, where people can read the whole fic in one go and sign up to get notifications when you post another chapter.

I'm not saying that you *have* to change your writing, though I did put it out there as an option. Heck, you don't even *have* to network by leaving reviews/reccing/whatever, though it does help a lot. The simplest way to get more readers is to present your fic to the sort of people most likely to like it.

relegated to the dustbin of not being read because it doesn't cater to fannish whims.

BS. It's not a question of "whims" so much as simple likes and dislikes. You don't deserve readers simply because you write well, though if you have a record of writing well you can get away with "weirder" stuff. And at any rate, *somebody* is going to read you no matter what you write. There's a huge fandom world out there, and at least one other person is going to be into whatever you're into. (Which, incidentally, is why you should encourage people who write similarly to you and/or write well. If there isn't a niche for your stuff yet, carve one out.)