Some great posting meta and that meme again

[kate]

melannen posted Ten Simple Ways To Get More Attention For Your Fanwork that is all really solid advice. If you're looking to get more kudos/comments/attention, her advice is good, and presented with a sense of humor. I'd add one more, actually - if you want more kudos/comments, write porn. My clicking around tells me that Explicit ratings get more hits than General Audiences - and the Gen stories that end up high in the kudos/comments sorting are exceptionally well written while the Explicit ones are middling to good (with the occasional one hitting it out of the park). If it's a long story, add a sex scene to get more readers (this is my cynical side talking - I don't actually do this myself, but I am willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that it would make a significant difference in your hits/kudos/comments).

Day 1. Discuss something old
Day 2. Discuss something new
Day 3. Discuss something made for someone else
Day 4. Discuss something made just for yourself
Day 5. Discuss something for a large fandom/pairing/character
Day 6. Discuss something for a small fandom/pairing/character
Day 7. Discuss something you're just really proud of

This should be totally easy! Most of the 133 SGA fics I've written are McShep (73 of them, actually, which is.... somewhere between half and two-thirds - not as many as I thought), and they are the juggernaut pairing. I've written Alexander/Hephaestion in the Alexander fandom (all 29 of my fics are that pairing), Cougar/Jensen in The Losers (22 of my 37 fics), and a little Destiel in Supernatural (only 4 of my 38 fics). So basically, I could talk about roughly half of the stories I've written.

The sad thing is, if I had finished it, Impromptu would be the thing that goes here. God, so much time and love has gone in that fic and every time I realize I'm not going to finish it, I just want to cry.

But of those juggernaut pairing fics, let's go with my most popular (continue with the theme, I suppose), which is different depending on whether I sort by hits (Truth, Justice, and the Lantean Way (McShep)), comments (The Astrophysicist Job (McShep)), or kudos/bookmarks.

I'll go with kudos/bookmarks because it seems like that's a truer reading of the popularity - the comments on The Astrophysicist Job are all basically "more!" (which is fair, really) and the hits on Truth, Justice, and the Lantean Way are because it was a big bang and it has chapters (and it's only 4th on that list - the other three aren't in huge fandoms and/or don't have huge pairings). They're solid, and both in my top 10, but the one that's actually the most popular is a Losers fic.

the antechamber of another world is a Cougar/Jensen fic set in a steampunk world. I'm ridiculously proud of it, I cannot tell you how much - I'd never done steampunk before I and I was scared shitless writing it, as I am not super-familiar with steampunk. I really enjoyed creating the world, though, and I just really enjoy the story. The fic itself should be longer, but I'm finding that one of the things I can do pretty well is find a way to taper off my novel-length stories at a satisfyingly happy stopping point, even if it's not the true ending of the story. This is one of those. A lot of my Losers fics are like that, sadly. A lot of my fics are like that, actually, because I have too many ideas and they're all too big for their britches. Life was easier when I only got one plot bunny at a time.

Comments

[melannen]

Ah, yes, I was trying to avoid advice that involved changing a story, but "rate it as high as you think you can get away with" probably ranks up there with "tag for major pairings at the least excuse".

[omens]

Haaaa yep, sex sells.

*adds steampunk fic to to-read list* :D

[scheherezhad]

Ah, I really love antechamber, and I love that you love it, because it's amazing. <3

Also, very true advice re: porn. It's a long-proven fact that smut is at least going to get hits, if not kudos/comments/bookmarks/etc. I know I was already reading meta to that effect some 15-ish years ago, when I was new to online fandom (and didn't yet know the term "meta").