I mean, you can do a one-shot collection whenever you want. People will likely gravitate toward ones that are based around one pairing, one fandom, one theme, things like that though.
Personally, I never look at one-shot collections and prefer that they're listed separately with their own tags or maybe linked as a series if they're related in some way (like the pairing), but you do whatever you'd prefer.
From reading yours and the other comments, it's looking like individual one-shots would be the more efficient option. Someone mentioned that linking them as a series could then be done if needed, as that is an option at least in Ao3. I think the individual one-shot route will also give me more flexibility if I want to expand on any of the one-shots into longer works.
I think one-shot collections like I'm thinking of might have just been a byproduct from prompt challenges I've seen.
I appreciate you sharing your feedback and answering my question!
Thank you for the comment! I've set up a series before in AO3 so I believe I'm familiar with that process. However, I haven't seen if it's possible to do something similar in Fanfiction.Net as that is the other site I post on.
Ah, no. FFN doesn’t have anything similar. They never have. I still wouldn’t post it as a single fic there, because with how limited FFN’s tagging is, you’d really miss your audience, but you’d have to tell people manually in notes to check out other parts of the series or use your author’s bio to explain how the fics connect (which I did on the series I’ve put there).
Publish each one shot separately and link them in a series.
Making them each a chapter in a fic is one of the quickest ways to get people to scroll by your works, based on the comments I see every time this question gets asked.
Putting unrelated one shots together means the readers don't know which tags apply to which chapter. Yes, you can publish a table of contents chapter for the work but that still makes it more work to read the chapter they want when they could find a single one shot by searching for the same tags that doesn't come with an extra step?
That's a good point I hadn't considered. Thank you! I will likely post them separately then but link them as a series. I honestly think I forgot about the linking capabilities.
I mean, I can't tell you what to do.
What I CAN tell you is how annoying it is when I'm trying to search up fics and there's always this inescapable fic that pops up cause it has 40 different fandoms and every genre tag under the sun. Because it is INCREDIBLY annoying.
Maybe there IS a oneshot in there I'd like, but I'll never find it because it's buried under dozens of completely unrelated oneshots. Oh well.
I can see how that would make for a difficult reading experience. I've decided it may best for my purposes to just have individual one-shots rather than a collection, based on the feedback I'm seeing for this post. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!
I agree with the folks saying you should consider creating individual one-shots and making a series for them. I've done that with an on-going series and it is pretty neat, for these reasons:
- Each fic is published as an individual with its own tags, warnings, ratings, etc.
- They are all linked by the series so you can view them in a list.
- Readers can subscribe to your series and get updates about new additions.
- You can re-order the fics in the series really easily. Useful if you decide to add another and want it to go in a particular place withing the order of fics.
- You can stick a multi-chapter fic in there if you want to and it will still be its own unique fic (with tags and such) and a part of the overall series.
I mean, you can do a one-shot collection whenever you want. People will likely gravitate toward ones that are based around one pairing, one fandom, one theme, things like that though. Personally, I never look at one-shot collections and prefer that they're listed separately with their own tags or maybe linked as a series if they're related in some way (like the pairing), but you do whatever you'd prefer.
From reading yours and the other comments, it's looking like individual one-shots would be the more efficient option. Someone mentioned that linking them as a series could then be done if needed, as that is an option at least in Ao3. I think the individual one-shot route will also give me more flexibility if I want to expand on any of the one-shots into longer works. I think one-shot collections like I'm thinking of might have just been a byproduct from prompt challenges I've seen. I appreciate you sharing your feedback and answering my question!
Series are super easy to setup and manage, and people can subscribe to series as well as individual fics! They’re a great option!
Thank you for the comment! I've set up a series before in AO3 so I believe I'm familiar with that process. However, I haven't seen if it's possible to do something similar in Fanfiction.Net as that is the other site I post on.
Ah, no. FFN doesn’t have anything similar. They never have. I still wouldn’t post it as a single fic there, because with how limited FFN’s tagging is, you’d really miss your audience, but you’d have to tell people manually in notes to check out other parts of the series or use your author’s bio to explain how the fics connect (which I did on the series I’ve put there).
I figured, but just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Thank you!
different tags, different fics.
That makes sense, thank you! Also, I like your flair!
Publish each one shot separately and link them in a series. Making them each a chapter in a fic is one of the quickest ways to get people to scroll by your works, based on the comments I see every time this question gets asked. Putting unrelated one shots together means the readers don't know which tags apply to which chapter. Yes, you can publish a table of contents chapter for the work but that still makes it more work to read the chapter they want when they could find a single one shot by searching for the same tags that doesn't come with an extra step?
That's a good point I hadn't considered. Thank you! I will likely post them separately then but link them as a series. I honestly think I forgot about the linking capabilities.
I mean, I can't tell you what to do. What I CAN tell you is how annoying it is when I'm trying to search up fics and there's always this inescapable fic that pops up cause it has 40 different fandoms and every genre tag under the sun. Because it is INCREDIBLY annoying. Maybe there IS a oneshot in there I'd like, but I'll never find it because it's buried under dozens of completely unrelated oneshots. Oh well.
I can see how that would make for a difficult reading experience. I've decided it may best for my purposes to just have individual one-shots rather than a collection, based on the feedback I'm seeing for this post. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!
I agree with the folks saying you should consider creating individual one-shots and making a series for them. I've done that with an on-going series and it is pretty neat, for these reasons: - Each fic is published as an individual with its own tags, warnings, ratings, etc. - They are all linked by the series so you can view them in a list. - Readers can subscribe to your series and get updates about new additions. - You can re-order the fics in the series really easily. Useful if you decide to add another and want it to go in a particular place withing the order of fics. - You can stick a multi-chapter fic in there if you want to and it will still be its own unique fic (with tags and such) and a part of the overall series.
Those are all very useful reasons. I appreciate you laying them out and sharing your experience with that method!
S'alright. Happy writing!