Website update (I so need an SPN icon)

Uploaded to my website:

Supernatural
Self Sufficiency, PG, Gen, wee!chesters

John likes to be self-sufficient, even if he has to battle Dean.


Looks like I need to create a new fic category for my site.

How Important are Livejournal Fanfiction Writers (and readers) to FanLib?

If FanLib loses a large portion of the Livejournal "market" of writers, there are still many other groups and fanfiction communities to tap outside Livejournal.

So how important are Livejournal fanfiction writers (and readers) to FanLib?

In January 2005, when Six Apart bought Livejournal, they were forced to shut it down to resolve technical issues. That weekend a bemused Google announced that their top search term was "Harry Potter fan fiction." Harry Potter, published in over 30 countries, is the largest of the fanfiction communities. Once Livejournal resumed service, the top search terms returned to Michael Jackson's trial.

Since then, the number of Livejournal users who list "fanfiction" among their interests has grown from 40,000 to over 86,000 -- with 63,000 interested in slash. FanLib's reputation is "ankle-locked on the LJ base."

Livejournal attracted many fanfiction users in 2002 after fanfiction.net's ban of explicit NC-17 fiction and an unrelated 2003 crackdown on adult fiction that closed many Yahoo Groups, since Livejournal does not prescreen content. Many in the fanfiction community, as well as professional writers and bloggers commenting on the situation, wonder if FanLib's goal to "mainstream" fanfiction is even compatible with the adult fiction that has made Livejournal such an important venue.

Still, at least one writer has stated in FanLib's forums that she's sticking with FanLib out of dissatisfaction with her own fan community, viewing FanLib as a fresh start (note: link goes to FanLib). Other FanLib members are outside the Livejournal community and only heard of the controversy through the FanLib forums.

FanLib's archive remains tiny. Using Harry Potter as a point of comparison, FanLib boasts less than 0.0016% of Harry Potter fanfiction stories when compared to fanfiction.net. While Fiction Alley doesn't post the number of stories in their archive, FanLib's current 500+ stories is far less than Fiction Alley, which has over 1,000 writers whose names begin with the letter 'A' alone.

Since May 23rd, after an initial plunge in the number of stories uploaded to the archive, FanLib's statistics remain relatively unchanged across most fandoms. Overall, however, they have continued to fall: the number of Lord of the Rings stories on FanLib dropped by half this weekend, from 167 to 86, after the Livejournal Lord of the Rings newsletter middleearthnews posted about the controversy.


Statistical note: Fanfiction.net and Fiction Alley both do not allow adult fanfiction, while FanLib does.


Crossposted to life_wo_fanlib. Tired, and busting tail to finish the quarter, so turning off comments.