Archive your fics.

[icarus]

painless_j has declared this international Archive Your Fics Week.

For the good of the fans she asks that you archive your fics in a variety of major (and stable) archives. Your LJ could someday be deleted, or f-locked. You might marry the Prince of Bhutan and have little interest in such trivialities as fanfiction in years to come -- but people will still want to read your stories.

I have another far more self-serving reason to archive your fics in numerous locations: Marketing. In other words, building a readership.

How many times have I heard someone complain "I never get any reviews" or "My work is barely read by anyone"?

I always ask, "Well, where have you posted it?"

Invariably they say, "Just in my LJ" or "In my LJ and X archive." And I have to laugh.

I had a friend named Suzanne who had a sexy contralto voice and a southern accent, and at times like these I like to imitate her, "Well, honey, I don't see how anybody's gonna find that story hidden down there under a bushel."

Look at it from the readers' point of view: Your story is a moving target.

Especially in LJ. You post it on X day, at X hour, and only those people who happen to be looking at that point in time (or those who follow your LJ religiously) will even see it.

If you archive at ff.net there's only a window of about an hour where your fic is listed on the main page. At Fiction Alley, that window is a couple of days. Likewise other archives. At RS.org people have to be already looking for that pairing. And often people need to see an author's name or a story's name several times before they'll click on it, particularly if the summary doesn't grab them or it's a pairing or subject that's unusual. (This is is why many of the most inventive fics don't get the attention they deserve: they need heavier marketing.)

Adding your story to multiple archives places it on the table in front of different audiences, and gives those people who are what I term "hungry readers" (who graze multiple archives) repeat exposure to your name and the names of your stories.

Not only do you want to have your story archived in multiple locations, you want to archive it in various places within the same day or so. It's like playing an ad during the Superbowl. Yes, repetition is a good thing.

painless_j is correct, this kind of repetition is not the same as cross-posting in multiple communities (or mailing lists), because you are not flooding people's f-lists and emails. Archives wait for the reader to come to them.

Now, I will be the first to admit archiving in multiple places is a royal pain in the arse. In the past, I've kept as many as nine archives (and two or three mailing lists) up to date with all my fics. I recommend keeping three major archives up-to-date. That should be enough, without becoming overwhelming.

I recommend for Harry Potter readers:

Family fare: Fiction Alley
Adult fiction: The Restricted Section
One multifandom archive: either Skyehawke or The Archive At The End Of The Universe or Fanfiction.net

What if you have tons of stories? These days only my own personal website has absolutely everything, and I find the idea of uploading all 100 or so of my fics at The Archive oh-my-god daunting.

If you have many, many fics, what I've discovered is that you need a minimum of ten stories to make enough of a "bookshelf" to be visible in an archive. For archives outside your main three, pick your top ten fics and then provide a link to either a personal website or an archive where you keep everything.

Lastly, to reach your future loyal and beloved readers, there is no substitute for character and pairing-specific archives. They're obscure, yet, like that "special street corner" where your drug of choice can be found, the addicts all seem to know where to go.

Comments

[iibnf.livejournal.com]

Can we not do that? As long as we don't complain about not being read, that is...

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Can we not do that?

Well, if you don't complain...

Seriously, that brings us back to the whole "altruism" thing. painless_j started this request in response to the Detention Archive being suddenly deleted. She's had many fics on her thematic recs that are just... gone... because authors only had them in Detention.

I've also had quite a bit of frustration with broken links on recs when authors lock their LJs (sigh) after originally having their stories openly available, or then there's my favorite, the moving personal website. It's kinder to people who rec your stories to make them available in several places.

Icarus

[catrinella.livejournal.com]

Hm. So, the more widely I archive my work, the more likely the Prince of Bhutan is to find it, and thus to marry me. Is he cute? 'Cause I hate making the *.txt files and figuring out what HTML each archive will accept.

Er. *clearly needs more coffee*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

His name's Tenzin Norgay, he's quite tall, moderately good-looking, with a self-effacing sense of humor. Very, very intelligent, quotes Shakespeare, though he says his school did probably the worst production of MacBeth in history. His English is fluent (if heavily accented, his teacher was a Canadian Jesuit) and he has the equivalent of a doctorate in Buddhist studies from Nyingma Namdroling Institute. He's a bit of a poet and literature buff in general.

What? You didn't think I actually knew him, eh? :D

Icarus

[selkielass.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the recommendations of archives, even If I'm a reader, not a writer, but isn't Skyhawke invitation only?
Underappreciated writers aren't likely to be part of the skyhawke elite, are they?
Has anyone made up a 'HP guide to archiving' with lists of Archives and information on their specialties and submission requirements?

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

I could bewrong but I think, as with the-archive, you simply need to go to the boards on the website and ask for an invite or ask on your LJ flist for one. Anyone whohas an acount on either archive can invite other writers, its not restricted to the admins.

a guide to archiving would be a great idea.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

I joined Skyhawke recently without being in any sense a well-known writer in any currently active fandom. You almost certainly already have someone on your f'list who's a member, and any member can invite you.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

thats a great idea. If you dont mind i'd like to link to this.

Using 2 or more archives is really a great idea. Never know if one will go down, change their TOS, or their server is simply down for a bit.

I'd also like to suggest people ARCHIVE ESSAYS- I've seen so many great pieces people have written on LJ and unless you catch them on your flist or a newsletter and remember to bookmark or add them to memories (assuming the features *works* grrrr) they are so very easy to loose! I've read esays on the history of slash, literary interpretations of the books, slash and sexuality, writing tips (characterisation, plotting, dialogue etc.) etc. Many archives do have non-fiction/meta sections availabe but these are sadly underused!

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

oh duh, i issed the first line where its Painless j that started this, nevermind! Ill link there =)

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

Since I've been handing out The Archive invites as if they were candy today, are the invites done automatically? I invited 6 or 7 people (all of whom specifically asked to be invited), but at least one [musesfool, aka victoria p] - still hadn't received her invitation 3 hours after I filled in the little boxes. Her name shows up in the authors' list, but no invite.

any thoughts?

[venivincere]

You might marry the Prince of Bhutan

Is he still available? ;-)

I'm with you and PJ on this one; I'm looking around right now for another archive besides Skyehawke where I can archive all my fics together. I have a site with Isis, and I will get that running, too. Even if I do marry into royalty, my stuff will live in obscurity infamy forever.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well, it's good news/bad news.

The good news is that he's 42 and not married. The bad news is that's because he's been a monk since age 20.

The good news is he has lots of cousins et al. The bad news is I don't know them personally. :D

Though I admit, their lives might not be as royal as you'd hope. On the one hand, yes, the family runs the country. On the other hand it's a rather small, poor country. The live in a regular (if rather nice) house, and the country is more or less their family business.

I recommend The Archive (http://www.the-archive.net) for your infamy.

Icarus

[titti]

I mean to ask you the other night, but would you mind setting me up with an account at The Archive At The End of The Universe. With all my fandoms, it's much easier to put everything there.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Sure! I know your writing very well. Let me see how I do this.

Icarus

[caseylane.livejournal.com]

I could kiss painless_j for making this suggestion. I've often lamented the fact that LJ has made finding stories very difficult. When I first came to LJ I would hear people recommend stories but I could never find them on the author's journals. Even now, I'll see a story recommended on hogwarts_today and find it locked.

As a reader I love when an archive has a good search engine. That way I can look for the pairing I'm craving, or limit what I find, i.e. any Draco slash except incest.

I've also heard from more than one person that places like Schnoogle (?) are so difficult to find what you want that they don't bother anymore. I only go there when I'm desperate for something new.

I like Ink Stained Fingers because they have an option for "completed stories in the past 7 days" since I'm not a fan of WIP's. Unless it's a pairing, or author, I loath I'll usually give anything posted a try.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I've been hearing rumors about Fiction Alley merging their Schnoogle, Dark Arts, et al, and that would be a welcome change. I agree, I can't find a darned thing on it.

Icarus

[lebannen.livejournal.com]

As a reader who spends most of her time on lj, I'd like to add my voice to the 'Please, please Memorise your fic' call! A link to the author's own site is all very well, but when it has two stories from last year and a note saying 'Sorry, it'll be updated soon!' (and I know all too well how that kind of thing happens, my photo site has looked like that since July), taking that one extra minute to add a new post to your lj Memories can make a huge difference to the number of people reading your fic. And it will give those readers a much happier and lazier Sunday afternoon, too.

Re. the 'your lj could some day be deleted or f-locked' comment, in my experience when people have left lj in a fit of deletion, they've removed their fic from archives as well; all I can do here is grovel before authors and say 'Please, don't do it!', but in many cases (most of those near the bottom of switchknife's recs list, say) I suppose it's too late.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

LOL. Yeah, I've been pretty good about updating my site roughly once a month, though lately it's been longer since I haven't been writing as much as in the past.

What do you think of tags as opposed to memories?

'your lj could some day be deleted or f-locked'

I run into f-locking much more frequently than deleted journals. It seems to be a common occurance for people to have a public LJ and then run into problems with family, coworkers, friends finding it. *blinks* That's it for my rec-list.

Hey, do you know if Switchknife is still updating her rec-list? Because about a year ago I moved my website to Slashcity, but I kept the old one up. Now as of Jan. 4th, the old website is going away, and I think she's one of the main people who still has the old links.

Icarus

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Is it okay if I gripe a little? I love Restricted Section; they were the first to archive my stuff. But I've sent them stories for archiving and received no response, so, I stopped. Should I bother with a "Do you now hate me or something?" email or just leave it?

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

When did that happen?

The last fic I sent to them was Two Way Mirror in August, and they archived it without hesitation. But there was a period where they had a personnel changeover that backlogged a lot of fics.

Icarus

[teaphile.livejournal.com]

I've actually been thinking about this recently, but I want everything in one place and have been having a hard time finding a multifandom/multigenre archive that's not ff.net (which I hate to read from).

[dodyskin.livejournal.com]

Silverlake (http://silverlake.imjustsayin.net/) has about four hundred fandoms under its roof. And it's definitely not ff.net. :)

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Second the rec for Silverlake; you might also try Glass Onion (http://glassonion.populli.org/) (tho' as I recall it doesn't take RPF).

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

http://www.slashfanfiction.com is also a good multi-fandom archive. It accepts both RPS and FPS, all ratings, so long as the story is slash.

I find it really annoying that so many archive have so many restrictions. One is only family friendly, one is only porn, one is no RPS, one doesn't accept fic by authors who disapprove of fanfic, one does this and that and the other thing.

I think I have yet to find an archive that accepts everything, but so far slashfanfiction.com has come closest, I think.

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

It can be even harder to find an archive that takes gen, het & slash; I write all three on occasion, and on principle refuse to send my stuff to an archive that excludes one (unless there's a clear sister archive to take up the slack).

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Thank you. painless_j sent me over here to strengthen the point about archives, which are really a royal pain in the arse. Possibly Bhutan royalty, I couldn't say. :) In the end, if you believe your work should be read, you have to be pro-active about it. (Boy, I hate that, though.) If the mountain won't come to Mohammed ...

*wanders off to start shifting through fics*