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

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

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

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Yes'm. And that's a good point about essays, though I don't often find myself searching out a particular essay with the desperation I have looking for a beloved fic.

Icarus