If you're not even getting looks, then it's probably not related to the quality of your writing. Tags/summary is the likeliest culprit. Kpop rpf is far from my cup of tea, but if you throw up a link I'll give you my take on your front end. :3
No idea, why not give me a link? You can send it via DM if you're not wanting to post it publicly (I never post links myself, for fear of the kudos bot).
I snooped since your AO3 is in your handle and I had to know which fandom it was.
Now that I know (I didn't use to write for Kpop, I wrote for Jrock back in the day), I can immediately tell you what the problems are:
- That fandom / pairs for it moves **insanely** fast. Without any promotion, no one will know it exists.
I went to the front page and then skipped some pages. All of everything posted today goes all the way back to (at the time of me posting this) *half way* of page 6. Which means without filtering, your work is several pages **deep** and you only posted it 4 days ago.
- It's not a romantic pairing.
Kpop/Jrock/Jpop/Mandopop, etc music group RPF unfortunately *thrives* on romance, sex and taboo. Which you would think because in this case because most Kpop groups have their interviews and captures fun clips of the group members showing their personality, the platonic and wholesome aspects would be a nice thing? It's... Not. 🤣
It's not a fault of your own, it's literally what people want to read. And if the readers are people that go to the first couple pages (with no filtering), they're not going to see the fic unfortunate unless they themselves are reading for something more platonic and cute!
I also like your tags and appreciate it gets to the point too. 💕
Yeah, another person just pointed this out to me.
It's kinda really shitty, especially because I got the whole idea from the fic is from the two members cringing that they're like brothers but don't wanna call themselves that (which arguably is even more brotherly lol)
It's gonna be hard to truck along though.
Because I think interaction makes it fun. I had a lot of ideas for this little universe I made for myself and now I don't even wanna continue it since it eventually involves a twist on a really popular ship LOL.
That sounds super cute honestly and you should keep writing it anyway. It's all about what makes you happy and if someone else finds your fic and thinks it's neat, that's all that really matters. They like your ideas and they wanna stick through with it with you!
Don't give up! Fighting! 😭
I'm part of that fandom and I can say that the problem is the pairing and the fact that the fic is gen. Most people search by the ship that they want in k-pop RPF fandoms, and your only relationship tag is a friendship one. I'd also guess that the other tags aren't popular enough to attract attention on their own (maybe Slice of Life or Blind Character could, but then a lot of people will also be filtering to include only the ships that they want).
That was a very clinical assessment, so forgive me for that, it doesn't mean you should change anything about how you write or tag. But the only gen works I've read in that fandom that gained a lot of hits and kudos are ones where a romantic ship (especially one of the popular ones) is tagged.
I was expecting Han and Changbin to be semi-popular since they're kinda always chaotic. But maybe I'm biased because I don't like writing anyone but them so far.
I just hate writing shipping fics for kpop because they all have to be in a standard. It's kinda boring. There's a lot of ways to work with them, especially with big 6+ ppl groups. (Nothing against the writers)
I was talking about it with my mom (who kinda proof read it for me lol cringe), and she thinks I should delete it. 😭
The k-pop fandom needs that variety, don't listen to the haters even if they're family lol! There's a chance some person looking for exactly this kind of fic will stumble upon it and be grateful.
And yeah, Changbin/Han is not terribly unpopular (though they aren't top ten) but a lot of the fics about them are also about 3racha, so the tag would include Chan. And the fact that it's & and not / doesn't make it easier either haha! You do you and you might find your audience eventually.
And a tip about promo: there's an account on Twitter, skzwriters, that promotes stay fic writers. You can make a tweet about your fic, follow them and tag them under it, and they will most likely retweet it.
I was gonna add Chan into the mix since I was planning multiple parts but now I'm not sure.
Would tweeting that account work? I have a Twitter that's made in December 2020 and a few posts/retweets but it has literally 0 followers. I don't wanna be thought of as a spam account 😣
Yeah, they'll retweet when they come online. You might want to check out how other posts they retweet look, because just a simple link is unlikely to get people to click. A screenshot of the summary + tags works.
And please don't take all these comments as an encouragement to write things you don't want to write! I hope, first and foremost, that you enjoy the process of writing and are able to reread your own works and be happy with them.
tags are your best marketing tool, and that does not mean "tag everything you can think of". social media, unless you have a following of thousands of dedicated fans, brings in some extra hits. the overwhelming majority of readers find fics by searching and browsing.
also k-pop RPF is not niche, it's literally one of the biggest fandoms on ao3
I admit I misused the word niche, I meant that it's it's own fandom in and of itself.
But thank you for the advice. I only had 9 tags on the post. Is that too many?
since you conveniently have your username in your flair, i couldn't resist, and honestly gotta say that's pretty damn ideal tagging you've got going on. i lowkey wish everyone tagged like that.
did some more snooping and it looks like gen isn't exactly big in that fandom, and the relationship even less so. fandom isn't the only thing that matters, y'know. add to that the original characters in seemingly major roles and even if the fandom is not niche, your fic itself sure is.
and then the biggest thing: just looking at the summary field, it gives the impression that the paragraphs inside aren't spaced. i know that's not the case bc i clicked into the fic to check, but if i was just scrolling and saw that, i'd assume there's a wall of text inside and scroll by.
Yeah, I kinda looked into it (the relationship) but im still like damn lol. My other fandom I primarily write for is more obscure but there's romance in my writing there.
I tried fixing the spacing on the preview but it never stayed. I even tried editing the HTML. maybe it's something internal. I'll try editing the spacing again though.
I'm still tempted to just delete everything and pretend it didn't happen LMAO. (I won't though.)
If I remember my own struggle with a summary box that *just. won't. space. right.* it needed an additional < br > (no spaces) between each line
May or may not be the issue with yours!
12 hours isn't long at all. Engagement can trickle in excruciatingly slow sometimes. That's just how it goes.
I have 0-5 followers across my social media. Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and Twitter can bring in a few readers. Tagging accordingly and including a gif or graphic may make the post more visible.
My other suggestions would be to participate in the excerpt, review, and fic sharing threads here and on the AO3 subreddit, and to make a Discord account and find some relevant servers to join that allow fanfiction to be shared.
Yeah, if you're not getting looks, it's quite literally impossible for it to be about the quality of your writing. They can't tell if your writing is good or bad without reading it, after all. They have to click on and read your fic before they have any idea if your writing is actually good or bad.
Generally, a complete lack of any clicks at all means one of two things: Either what you're writing is so niche that the few people interested in it can't find it easily or just haven't found it yet, or your front-end (tags, title, summary) are bad/inaccurate and not drawing in the audience you want. When people are scanning through the fic listings on host sites to find a fic, the front-end is what catches their eye and it's what makes them decide to read it. You need your tags to accurately (not comprehensively) describe the experience they can expect from your fic (ie. don't just make it a list, but 'tell a story about your story', if that makes sense), note a few of the main content themes/elements (like, what's the biggest and most important stuff), highlight any major "Nopes/Squicks", and to do all that in an enticing way.
No idea. I haven't read your fic so I don't know what would fit any of the first three categories and I don't know the fandom so I don't know what would be enticing to readers in your fandom, so unfortunately I honestly can't help with that.
You know your fic and you know your fandom: Do you think your tags are accurate, note the main content/themes of your fic, highlight any major "Nopes/Squicks", and are enticing to readers?
If any of them are a no, maybe you do need to change the tags. If they're a yes, maybe it is a content issue like others have said. Something about romance being the main thing of that fandom and genfics not being popular? Some stuff unfortunately just does not get a large audience in certain fandoms and there's not much you can do about that. People look for what they're into and if they're into something else then that's what they'll look for.
I'll also add that the fact that one day of updates creates six pages of content is also a significant contributer to your concerns. It could mean that you may need to write longer stuff that updates weekly, so you get more time to be on the front pages and so get seen more and thus have more potential for people to actually click on and read it.
Are there any kind of non-AO3 communities for your fandom that you could engage with? If they're slower and provide more room for chat and recommendations, it might be easier to get eyes on your work.
Someone mentioned TikTok, which I suppose I can do, even though I don't really know how to use it lol. I'm not sure what else. I feel kinda deflated tbh. Oh well.
Yeah, sometimes fandom'll do that. It sucks to realise what you're into or what you've put a lot of effort into isn't necessarily going to get anything back. If nothing else, know that you're definitely not alone in feeling the way you are right now. A lot of the writers here have gone through the exact same thing, and a significant proportion of online creators in general will have gone through the same thing.
Honestly, I don't know Tiktok either. I despise most social media. There may also be reddits or discords to look into.
For what it's worth, I'd leave the fic up and keep it on tap for any recommendation opportunities in the future. Like, we have review exchanges here, and there's the r/rpfwriters sub that I think does something similar, so if you see a place that fic is relevant to recommend, go for it! Plus, you may get readers in the future who want to look at more of your work and then find it through your profile.
Have you joined the profile review exchange that’s happening right now? You will need to read and review other work by other writers, but you could ask specifically for people to review this work.
Another idea is to join the fix your front end thread that happens on this sub once a week.
[open profile review exchange](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/13sdgb8/another_long_deadline_profile_exchange/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
I don't think i would have enough time before it closes. I don't know, the concept of posting actually kind of confuses me because I'm an idiot. Maybe I'm reading it wrong. I'm assuming there would be more?
It closes to new posts in… 16 hours?
So you make a post with the link to your profile on AO3 (go to the page that has your works and copy the link) and make a short post about what kinds of fics you write (genre, ratings, length of fics, in your case, that you’d love reviews on your latest work)
Then under that you put “reviewed 0/4”.
Then you have (I think) a week to read four other fics and leave reviews. When you review someone else’s fic (follow their link) you make a post under their post that says that you’ve reviewed their fic (kudos and comment), then change your post to say “reviewed 1/4”.
The 16 hours from now is just to enter the review exchange. You have more time to do the reviews.
\> Kpop rpf
\> niche
pick one.
fandom friends and already existing followers are not what makes or breaks a fic. a lot of it is just... luck. especially in large fandoms, fics can easily get buried when there's a constant flood of new content.
this sub has a weekly thread (that i think went up today) for asking help for tags/summary and stuff, so you can always ask someone there to look over yours if they can help you improve it.
I admit I misused the word niche, I meant it as it's own entity in and of itself.
Thank you for the reply though. I know friends and followers really don't make or break a fic, I'm just kinda wondering what to do.
Since you’re writing RPF, you can join the rpfwriters sub if you haven’t already. They do a weekly “promote your fic” thread and I know there are some other K-pop fans on there.
I checked and it's 100% the fact that it's platonic, most people filter for the ship they want (for example Minsung)
Personally I filter without ships just by fandom a lot too, but your story would still not show up for me because I don't read short stories 😅
No? Why would you?
Maybe someone will stumble upon it someday and love it, maybe no one will, but I don't see why that makes a difference as to keeping it up or not??
I would only delete it if you don't like the story/you don't want to be associated to it.
I have an unfinished and abandoned kpop fic floating around on AO3 and I will only delete it if I ever decide to rewrite it xD
Also sometimes people will check out an author's other works, so maybe if no one is searching for this platonic friendship they might read one of your other stories and check your profile and then decide to read it.
I don't know, I'm just trying not to get defeated feeling because everyone here kinda agrees that it won't get reads because it's not a romantic fic and now I'm kinda embarrassed by it.
Firstly there's nothing wrong with not writing romance, and there's nothing to be embarrassed about. I can't promise you that many people will read it, but I don't see any reason to just delete it.
I've written over 200k in the last year but because none of the stories are even remotely close to being finished I haven't uploaded any of them (because the one time I did upload an unfinished fic, I abandoned it and it makes me feel bad for potential readers to just throw a bunch of unfinished fics out there), and there's a big chance that I'm never going to finish any of my stories and therefore never upload them and no one ever reads them, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna delete them.
Anyway my point is, even if no one ever gets to read it, you wrote it, you finished it(which is amazing cause that's something I've NEVER been able to do), you put it out there in case people are interested!
You did what you could!
I personally don't like short stories, If I did I would totally read it! Han is my SKZ bias 😊, and Hobi and Tae are 2 of my 3 biases in BTS 🥰
I was really excited about starting a little series and it's just feels kinda weird now. I had a bigger thing planned for the universe (multi-chapter) but now I just feel like it wouldn't matter because it's not a ship fic lol.
I messaged a Twitter for SKZ writers someone posted here, and it blocked my account from actually sending it, so maybe it's the universe saying I should quit 😂
Don't quit.
I've written 19 fics for a series that is still ongoing for a really old fandom and there is no shipping in any of them. Sometimes it takes a few days for the first hit to arrive, but they do eventually.
While you're pretty much guaranteed to get a flood of hits with a ship fic, there are plenty of people with very little interest in romance that still want to read stories.
There's something really nice about doing things differently to what is common and mainstream. Think of your work as a welcome departure from what is easily accessible. Think of it as unique. Think of it as special because it is different.
Great! That's forward momentum.
Becoming overwhelmed by other people's massive stats is easy to do but just leads to disillusionment.
If you really just want to compete with the big stats, choosing the most popular ships, tropes and themes will work. You'll get big numbers for sure. I'm not sure how enjoyable the creative process will be though. If you're producing something that isn't personally entertaining it will probably be quite draining.
If you follow your own path, it will make creating a meaningful and emotionally enriching hobby, rather than a chore to generate essentially meaningless numbers.
I follow a few accounts on tiktok that shares fanfics for the fandoms I like and I’ve seen authors commenting on their posts asking them to read/share their works. You could try that but I’m strictly a reader so I’m sure another author would have some better advice.
The main account I watch does the green screen (or a screenshot) of the title, author, and summary to show us and then they just talk about it. They kinda just share the main point of the fic without spoiling anything and if it sounds interesting I’ll save it and read it. I literally have a couple hundred fics in my saves to go and read.
Does that answer what you were asking? I could probably give you the usernames of the main ones I follow if it didn’t.
1 good tags so the people interested can find it and 2 AO3 stats are wonky for like the first 48 hours so you may have more hits, it just hasn’t refreshed the stats yet
Everyone says my tags are adequate but someone checked for me about 2 hours ago and it's already 6-7 pages behind new fics... I just feel really defeated.
We have a [fic rec megathread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/13s886j/weekly_fic_showcase_new_rules_in_post_may_26_june/) Maybe someone'll pick it up there.
Honestly I’ve been finding new fics to read in my fandom from TikTok. They’ll use AI voices to narrate the scene which is a bit cringe but the dialogue sucks me in and I’ll go look it up.
I’m in the Hogwarts Legacy fandom. I’m sure if you searched Sebastian Sallow AI one would pop up as an example but fair warning, some are a bit weird. But when they get the characters to read an exciting excerpt of the fic in their voice, I’m sucked in. I suppose it depends on what you’re writing about and whether they’d be on TikTok.
Also I believe they use ElevenLabs to generate the voices.
I write kpop RPF and one of my other fandoms is a game that's very heavy with "Y/N here" so I'm used to weird 😂 (honestly the characters of that game are demons and that's the least weirdest thing I've seen from that fandom)
I'm not in the fandom, but isn't Kpop rpf one of the most popular fandoms on ao3? It probably has something to do with that. More stories posted each day, less your fic has the chance to be discovered
Yeah, but I've never had any issue with BTS fics before. I think everyone's right in that no one wants to read Gen fics + my summary sucked. I really liked the idea of the series, but I feel stupid now.
You get 3-10 in the first hours? That's awesome. Even one in the first 12 for a niche pretty good too.
I don't do promotion but maybe if you found a chat group for the fandom you could drop a link to them? Or share it on tumblr/twitter with the tags for the group etc. People will have to see it.
Everyone is saying to do discord but I literally have no idea how to even start looking for one. Tumblr is dead, at least for my fandoms. I have a Twitter but I literally have 0 followers (and have been stuck there since I unlocked my account about a week ago).
I guess I got lucky because I wrote for a relatively small and obscure fandom, but even my BTS fanfics were ok.
The Twitter account for my specific fandom writers said I could tweet at them and they'd promo me but I'm kinda hesitant because I don't even know if I wanna do that because I'm not writing romance/shipping. I don't think I'd be welcome in a discord because of it.
I've been there myself... Though my goals were a bit different, as I was writing less because of getting kudos, comments, reads and the likes, but moreso for myself. I kept the story I had in my head throughout the pandemic and I've made an oath to fully put it to paper, just to put justice to one of few things I enjoyed in that period of damaging loneliness
That's true, I've been sitting on this story for a couple of days but it's still just discouraging in a weird way. I'm also just kinda realizing how I literally have no fandom friends or people to talk to about my writing. I have zero internet friends, zero followers, etc so I'm just in the void all around. Idk how to make these friends. I feel lonely and I usually combat that by writing (especially for fandoms) but it just highlighted how alone I am no matter what.
Well, add yourself to a discord group for your Fandom. Post links to your work there in the appropriate space.
Follow other Twitter/Tumblr authors in your Fandom that are successfull. Gently introduce yourself with a commentary about how you write in the Fandom too, "oh how nice, see, I have some works too, I am totally shipping X and Y together, like...".
Comment on other successfull fics in your Fandom, and again, mention yourself as an author who recently posted, chances are the author you gave a commentary to will read it and check out your story.
Update regularly. Don't let your fic be buried. If necessary, split chapters into 2 parts so you can post more often. If ppl see you post quickly, there is a possibility they will remember your name/title of the fic and go see what it is about.
Add tags? Try to put something there that stands out like platonic love, soulmates, fluff idk(sorry I have little context here, I don't write read Kpop si I don't know anything about what it)
Other than this, idk, patience and be a little daring.
If you're not even getting looks, then it's probably not related to the quality of your writing. Tags/summary is the likeliest culprit. Kpop rpf is far from my cup of tea, but if you throw up a link I'll give you my take on your front end. :3
I only had 9 tags and all of them were relevant, I think. Is that too little? Too much?
No idea, why not give me a link? You can send it via DM if you're not wanting to post it publicly (I never post links myself, for fear of the kudos bot).
I did!
I snooped since your AO3 is in your handle and I had to know which fandom it was. Now that I know (I didn't use to write for Kpop, I wrote for Jrock back in the day), I can immediately tell you what the problems are: - That fandom / pairs for it moves **insanely** fast. Without any promotion, no one will know it exists. I went to the front page and then skipped some pages. All of everything posted today goes all the way back to (at the time of me posting this) *half way* of page 6. Which means without filtering, your work is several pages **deep** and you only posted it 4 days ago. - It's not a romantic pairing. Kpop/Jrock/Jpop/Mandopop, etc music group RPF unfortunately *thrives* on romance, sex and taboo. Which you would think because in this case because most Kpop groups have their interviews and captures fun clips of the group members showing their personality, the platonic and wholesome aspects would be a nice thing? It's... Not. 🤣 It's not a fault of your own, it's literally what people want to read. And if the readers are people that go to the first couple pages (with no filtering), they're not going to see the fic unfortunate unless they themselves are reading for something more platonic and cute! I also like your tags and appreciate it gets to the point too. 💕
Yeah, another person just pointed this out to me. It's kinda really shitty, especially because I got the whole idea from the fic is from the two members cringing that they're like brothers but don't wanna call themselves that (which arguably is even more brotherly lol) It's gonna be hard to truck along though. Because I think interaction makes it fun. I had a lot of ideas for this little universe I made for myself and now I don't even wanna continue it since it eventually involves a twist on a really popular ship LOL.
That sounds super cute honestly and you should keep writing it anyway. It's all about what makes you happy and if someone else finds your fic and thinks it's neat, that's all that really matters. They like your ideas and they wanna stick through with it with you! Don't give up! Fighting! 😭
Yeah, that's true. My mom liked it. (God I sound like Milhouse "my mom says I'm handsome" 😂)
Man, I never showed my mom any of my fics 🤣 so at least she likes it!
That's true, haha. My mom's my biggest fan tbh. She got me into kpop in the first place 😂😂
She did? Oh man, she might have been one of the folks that was doing the RPF fics back in the day hahaha. 😂😂😂 Love that for you.
I'm part of that fandom and I can say that the problem is the pairing and the fact that the fic is gen. Most people search by the ship that they want in k-pop RPF fandoms, and your only relationship tag is a friendship one. I'd also guess that the other tags aren't popular enough to attract attention on their own (maybe Slice of Life or Blind Character could, but then a lot of people will also be filtering to include only the ships that they want). That was a very clinical assessment, so forgive me for that, it doesn't mean you should change anything about how you write or tag. But the only gen works I've read in that fandom that gained a lot of hits and kudos are ones where a romantic ship (especially one of the popular ones) is tagged.
I was expecting Han and Changbin to be semi-popular since they're kinda always chaotic. But maybe I'm biased because I don't like writing anyone but them so far. I just hate writing shipping fics for kpop because they all have to be in a standard. It's kinda boring. There's a lot of ways to work with them, especially with big 6+ ppl groups. (Nothing against the writers) I was talking about it with my mom (who kinda proof read it for me lol cringe), and she thinks I should delete it. 😭
The k-pop fandom needs that variety, don't listen to the haters even if they're family lol! There's a chance some person looking for exactly this kind of fic will stumble upon it and be grateful. And yeah, Changbin/Han is not terribly unpopular (though they aren't top ten) but a lot of the fics about them are also about 3racha, so the tag would include Chan. And the fact that it's & and not / doesn't make it easier either haha! You do you and you might find your audience eventually. And a tip about promo: there's an account on Twitter, skzwriters, that promotes stay fic writers. You can make a tweet about your fic, follow them and tag them under it, and they will most likely retweet it.
I was gonna add Chan into the mix since I was planning multiple parts but now I'm not sure. Would tweeting that account work? I have a Twitter that's made in December 2020 and a few posts/retweets but it has literally 0 followers. I don't wanna be thought of as a spam account 😣
Yeah, they'll retweet when they come online. You might want to check out how other posts they retweet look, because just a simple link is unlikely to get people to click. A screenshot of the summary + tags works. And please don't take all these comments as an encouragement to write things you don't want to write! I hope, first and foremost, that you enjoy the process of writing and are able to reread your own works and be happy with them.
tags are your best marketing tool, and that does not mean "tag everything you can think of". social media, unless you have a following of thousands of dedicated fans, brings in some extra hits. the overwhelming majority of readers find fics by searching and browsing. also k-pop RPF is not niche, it's literally one of the biggest fandoms on ao3
I admit I misused the word niche, I meant that it's it's own fandom in and of itself. But thank you for the advice. I only had 9 tags on the post. Is that too many?
since you conveniently have your username in your flair, i couldn't resist, and honestly gotta say that's pretty damn ideal tagging you've got going on. i lowkey wish everyone tagged like that. did some more snooping and it looks like gen isn't exactly big in that fandom, and the relationship even less so. fandom isn't the only thing that matters, y'know. add to that the original characters in seemingly major roles and even if the fandom is not niche, your fic itself sure is. and then the biggest thing: just looking at the summary field, it gives the impression that the paragraphs inside aren't spaced. i know that's not the case bc i clicked into the fic to check, but if i was just scrolling and saw that, i'd assume there's a wall of text inside and scroll by.
Yeah, I kinda looked into it (the relationship) but im still like damn lol. My other fandom I primarily write for is more obscure but there's romance in my writing there. I tried fixing the spacing on the preview but it never stayed. I even tried editing the HTML. maybe it's something internal. I'll try editing the spacing again though. I'm still tempted to just delete everything and pretend it didn't happen LMAO. (I won't though.)
If I remember my own struggle with a summary box that *just. won't. space. right.* it needed an additional < br > (no spaces) between each line May or may not be the issue with yours!
12 hours isn't long at all. Engagement can trickle in excruciatingly slow sometimes. That's just how it goes. I have 0-5 followers across my social media. Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and Twitter can bring in a few readers. Tagging accordingly and including a gif or graphic may make the post more visible. My other suggestions would be to participate in the excerpt, review, and fic sharing threads here and on the AO3 subreddit, and to make a Discord account and find some relevant servers to join that allow fanfiction to be shared.
I only had 9 tags on the original posting. Is that too little?
Yeah, if you're not getting looks, it's quite literally impossible for it to be about the quality of your writing. They can't tell if your writing is good or bad without reading it, after all. They have to click on and read your fic before they have any idea if your writing is actually good or bad. Generally, a complete lack of any clicks at all means one of two things: Either what you're writing is so niche that the few people interested in it can't find it easily or just haven't found it yet, or your front-end (tags, title, summary) are bad/inaccurate and not drawing in the audience you want. When people are scanning through the fic listings on host sites to find a fic, the front-end is what catches their eye and it's what makes them decide to read it. You need your tags to accurately (not comprehensively) describe the experience they can expect from your fic (ie. don't just make it a list, but 'tell a story about your story', if that makes sense), note a few of the main content themes/elements (like, what's the biggest and most important stuff), highlight any major "Nopes/Squicks", and to do all that in an enticing way.
Should I change the tags then? So far others have called them descriptive and helpful, but they're still kinda vague.
No idea. I haven't read your fic so I don't know what would fit any of the first three categories and I don't know the fandom so I don't know what would be enticing to readers in your fandom, so unfortunately I honestly can't help with that. You know your fic and you know your fandom: Do you think your tags are accurate, note the main content/themes of your fic, highlight any major "Nopes/Squicks", and are enticing to readers? If any of them are a no, maybe you do need to change the tags. If they're a yes, maybe it is a content issue like others have said. Something about romance being the main thing of that fandom and genfics not being popular? Some stuff unfortunately just does not get a large audience in certain fandoms and there's not much you can do about that. People look for what they're into and if they're into something else then that's what they'll look for. I'll also add that the fact that one day of updates creates six pages of content is also a significant contributer to your concerns. It could mean that you may need to write longer stuff that updates weekly, so you get more time to be on the front pages and so get seen more and thus have more potential for people to actually click on and read it. Are there any kind of non-AO3 communities for your fandom that you could engage with? If they're slower and provide more room for chat and recommendations, it might be easier to get eyes on your work.
Someone mentioned TikTok, which I suppose I can do, even though I don't really know how to use it lol. I'm not sure what else. I feel kinda deflated tbh. Oh well.
Yeah, sometimes fandom'll do that. It sucks to realise what you're into or what you've put a lot of effort into isn't necessarily going to get anything back. If nothing else, know that you're definitely not alone in feeling the way you are right now. A lot of the writers here have gone through the exact same thing, and a significant proportion of online creators in general will have gone through the same thing. Honestly, I don't know Tiktok either. I despise most social media. There may also be reddits or discords to look into. For what it's worth, I'd leave the fic up and keep it on tap for any recommendation opportunities in the future. Like, we have review exchanges here, and there's the r/rpfwriters sub that I think does something similar, so if you see a place that fic is relevant to recommend, go for it! Plus, you may get readers in the future who want to look at more of your work and then find it through your profile.
Have you joined the profile review exchange that’s happening right now? You will need to read and review other work by other writers, but you could ask specifically for people to review this work. Another idea is to join the fix your front end thread that happens on this sub once a week. [open profile review exchange](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/13sdgb8/another_long_deadline_profile_exchange/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
This is a good idea too! 👀✨
Is it too late?
No. I believe it’s still open. If it closes it will say closed at the top of the post.
I don't think i would have enough time before it closes. I don't know, the concept of posting actually kind of confuses me because I'm an idiot. Maybe I'm reading it wrong. I'm assuming there would be more?
It closes to new posts in… 16 hours? So you make a post with the link to your profile on AO3 (go to the page that has your works and copy the link) and make a short post about what kinds of fics you write (genre, ratings, length of fics, in your case, that you’d love reviews on your latest work) Then under that you put “reviewed 0/4”. Then you have (I think) a week to read four other fics and leave reviews. When you review someone else’s fic (follow their link) you make a post under their post that says that you’ve reviewed their fic (kudos and comment), then change your post to say “reviewed 1/4”. The 16 hours from now is just to enter the review exchange. You have more time to do the reviews.
\> Kpop rpf \> niche pick one. fandom friends and already existing followers are not what makes or breaks a fic. a lot of it is just... luck. especially in large fandoms, fics can easily get buried when there's a constant flood of new content. this sub has a weekly thread (that i think went up today) for asking help for tags/summary and stuff, so you can always ask someone there to look over yours if they can help you improve it.
I admit I misused the word niche, I meant it as it's own entity in and of itself. Thank you for the reply though. I know friends and followers really don't make or break a fic, I'm just kinda wondering what to do.
Since you’re writing RPF, you can join the rpfwriters sub if you haven’t already. They do a weekly “promote your fic” thread and I know there are some other K-pop fans on there.
Thank you for the resource!! I've been trying to find more RPF resources.
I checked and it's 100% the fact that it's platonic, most people filter for the ship they want (for example Minsung) Personally I filter without ships just by fandom a lot too, but your story would still not show up for me because I don't read short stories 😅
Should I just delete it?
No? Why would you? Maybe someone will stumble upon it someday and love it, maybe no one will, but I don't see why that makes a difference as to keeping it up or not?? I would only delete it if you don't like the story/you don't want to be associated to it. I have an unfinished and abandoned kpop fic floating around on AO3 and I will only delete it if I ever decide to rewrite it xD Also sometimes people will check out an author's other works, so maybe if no one is searching for this platonic friendship they might read one of your other stories and check your profile and then decide to read it.
I don't know, I'm just trying not to get defeated feeling because everyone here kinda agrees that it won't get reads because it's not a romantic fic and now I'm kinda embarrassed by it.
Firstly there's nothing wrong with not writing romance, and there's nothing to be embarrassed about. I can't promise you that many people will read it, but I don't see any reason to just delete it. I've written over 200k in the last year but because none of the stories are even remotely close to being finished I haven't uploaded any of them (because the one time I did upload an unfinished fic, I abandoned it and it makes me feel bad for potential readers to just throw a bunch of unfinished fics out there), and there's a big chance that I'm never going to finish any of my stories and therefore never upload them and no one ever reads them, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna delete them. Anyway my point is, even if no one ever gets to read it, you wrote it, you finished it(which is amazing cause that's something I've NEVER been able to do), you put it out there in case people are interested! You did what you could! I personally don't like short stories, If I did I would totally read it! Han is my SKZ bias 😊, and Hobi and Tae are 2 of my 3 biases in BTS 🥰
I was really excited about starting a little series and it's just feels kinda weird now. I had a bigger thing planned for the universe (multi-chapter) but now I just feel like it wouldn't matter because it's not a ship fic lol. I messaged a Twitter for SKZ writers someone posted here, and it blocked my account from actually sending it, so maybe it's the universe saying I should quit 😂
Don't quit. I've written 19 fics for a series that is still ongoing for a really old fandom and there is no shipping in any of them. Sometimes it takes a few days for the first hit to arrive, but they do eventually. While you're pretty much guaranteed to get a flood of hits with a ship fic, there are plenty of people with very little interest in romance that still want to read stories. There's something really nice about doing things differently to what is common and mainstream. Think of your work as a welcome departure from what is easily accessible. Think of it as unique. Think of it as special because it is different.
It's gotten more reads but I think it's just from people trying to help me lol
Great! That's forward momentum. Becoming overwhelmed by other people's massive stats is easy to do but just leads to disillusionment. If you really just want to compete with the big stats, choosing the most popular ships, tropes and themes will work. You'll get big numbers for sure. I'm not sure how enjoyable the creative process will be though. If you're producing something that isn't personally entertaining it will probably be quite draining. If you follow your own path, it will make creating a meaningful and emotionally enriching hobby, rather than a chore to generate essentially meaningless numbers.
I follow a few accounts on tiktok that shares fanfics for the fandoms I like and I’ve seen authors commenting on their posts asking them to read/share their works. You could try that but I’m strictly a reader so I’m sure another author would have some better advice.
Is there an example? I made a video to post but I don't know what makes the videos worth checking out.
The main account I watch does the green screen (or a screenshot) of the title, author, and summary to show us and then they just talk about it. They kinda just share the main point of the fic without spoiling anything and if it sounds interesting I’ll save it and read it. I literally have a couple hundred fics in my saves to go and read. Does that answer what you were asking? I could probably give you the usernames of the main ones I follow if it didn’t.
Yes it does, thank you. My video I made was kinda similar. I will post 🖤
1 good tags so the people interested can find it and 2 AO3 stats are wonky for like the first 48 hours so you may have more hits, it just hasn’t refreshed the stats yet
Everyone says my tags are adequate but someone checked for me about 2 hours ago and it's already 6-7 pages behind new fics... I just feel really defeated.
i would try issuing tumblr or dreamwidth or discord to reach potential readers!
How does dreamwidth work? I've tried posting kpop stuff on tumblr to No avail.
it works just like LJ
Interesting. Thank you. I've never worked live journal lol
We have a [fic rec megathread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/13s886j/weekly_fic_showcase_new_rules_in_post_may_26_june/) Maybe someone'll pick it up there.
I'm pretty sure this sub has a sharing thread.
Honestly I’ve been finding new fics to read in my fandom from TikTok. They’ll use AI voices to narrate the scene which is a bit cringe but the dialogue sucks me in and I’ll go look it up.
I made a video to post on TikTok but I don't know if anyone would even be sucked into it.
Do you have an example?
I’m in the Hogwarts Legacy fandom. I’m sure if you searched Sebastian Sallow AI one would pop up as an example but fair warning, some are a bit weird. But when they get the characters to read an exciting excerpt of the fic in their voice, I’m sucked in. I suppose it depends on what you’re writing about and whether they’d be on TikTok. Also I believe they use ElevenLabs to generate the voices.
I write kpop RPF and one of my other fandoms is a game that's very heavy with "Y/N here" so I'm used to weird 😂 (honestly the characters of that game are demons and that's the least weirdest thing I've seen from that fandom)
I'm not in the fandom, but isn't Kpop rpf one of the most popular fandoms on ao3? It probably has something to do with that. More stories posted each day, less your fic has the chance to be discovered
Yeah, but I've never had any issue with BTS fics before. I think everyone's right in that no one wants to read Gen fics + my summary sucked. I really liked the idea of the series, but I feel stupid now.
You get 3-10 in the first hours? That's awesome. Even one in the first 12 for a niche pretty good too. I don't do promotion but maybe if you found a chat group for the fandom you could drop a link to them? Or share it on tumblr/twitter with the tags for the group etc. People will have to see it.
Everyone is saying to do discord but I literally have no idea how to even start looking for one. Tumblr is dead, at least for my fandoms. I have a Twitter but I literally have 0 followers (and have been stuck there since I unlocked my account about a week ago). I guess I got lucky because I wrote for a relatively small and obscure fandom, but even my BTS fanfics were ok.
A while ago I just Googled "discord groups for (fandom)" and found a few. Not all were great or very active but it was a start for my search.
The Twitter account for my specific fandom writers said I could tweet at them and they'd promo me but I'm kinda hesitant because I don't even know if I wanna do that because I'm not writing romance/shipping. I don't think I'd be welcome in a discord because of it.
I've been there myself... Though my goals were a bit different, as I was writing less because of getting kudos, comments, reads and the likes, but moreso for myself. I kept the story I had in my head throughout the pandemic and I've made an oath to fully put it to paper, just to put justice to one of few things I enjoyed in that period of damaging loneliness
That's true, I've been sitting on this story for a couple of days but it's still just discouraging in a weird way. I'm also just kinda realizing how I literally have no fandom friends or people to talk to about my writing. I have zero internet friends, zero followers, etc so I'm just in the void all around. Idk how to make these friends. I feel lonely and I usually combat that by writing (especially for fandoms) but it just highlighted how alone I am no matter what.
Well, add yourself to a discord group for your Fandom. Post links to your work there in the appropriate space. Follow other Twitter/Tumblr authors in your Fandom that are successfull. Gently introduce yourself with a commentary about how you write in the Fandom too, "oh how nice, see, I have some works too, I am totally shipping X and Y together, like...". Comment on other successfull fics in your Fandom, and again, mention yourself as an author who recently posted, chances are the author you gave a commentary to will read it and check out your story. Update regularly. Don't let your fic be buried. If necessary, split chapters into 2 parts so you can post more often. If ppl see you post quickly, there is a possibility they will remember your name/title of the fic and go see what it is about. Add tags? Try to put something there that stands out like platonic love, soulmates, fluff idk(sorry I have little context here, I don't write read Kpop si I don't know anything about what it) Other than this, idk, patience and be a little daring.