13 Tips for Getting Your Fanfiction Read Online
So you’ve written a fanfic and you’d like to share it with others?
Even if you’ve written the best story in the world, there’s a strong possibility no one’s going to read it, especially if the fandom you’ve written for is small. Here are some tips for trying to maximise getting your story to the right readership and audience.
1. Check where other people in your fandom are posting their fics. Are they most active on Fanfiction.net or Archive of our Own (Ao3), or Tumblr, or somewhere else? Try and work out where people go to read for your fandom.
2. Check what kind of stories people are writing in your fandom. If you’re writing long epic sagas and everyone on Ao3 is writing 1000 word one-shot smut fics, chances are their readers are not going to be your readers. Choose your platform wisely.
3. Check how other writers in your fandom tag works, especially on Ao3. People who write for Mortal Kombat tend to use practical tags warning readers on possible triggers in their work or informing people exactly what’s in the tin. People who write for Ace Attorney put entire catchy exposés in their tags, and a lot of the choice on whether people read the fic comes from these tags. A reader once told me they only picked up an Overwatch fic of mine because they were curious about the tag ‘story is something of a black comedy – or rather it’s black but has Jesse McCree in it’. Know what your audiences are looking for and expecting when they browse fics in your fandom.
4. Choose your title and blurb carefully. There isn’t a correct way of doing this, but think about what genre you’re writing and what kind of title and story overview are going to capture the audience you want. Try to give your story the best start in life you can with the right title and blurb. This can be hard if you’re a bit shy or introverted, but try to imagine what you’d read on the back of a book in a bookshop if that was your story in your hand, and whether that overview would grip you. Tell readers something about the plot, or give them a hook that will leave them wanting to click on your fic to find out the answer. Choosing a title can be hard too, and the style of title is always up to the author – check what kind of titles other successful authors writing in a similar genre to you are calling their fics.
5. Sell your story in your first chapter. Give people a microcosm of your story in your first chapter. A huge number of people are never going to click on to chapter two, so make sure you capture the readers you want to in the first chapter. Think about your opening sentence, think about trying to hit the ground running with your plot or character drama, think about trying not to ram exposition down readers throats. Try to give people a taster of what the overall fic is going to feel like. If you’re promising the reader a slow, long, drawn out, coffee shop AU love affair and your opening chapter is a shootout in space, some people are going to walk away disappointed before you introduce your coffee shop five chapters later.
6. Be patient with uploading your work. It can be exciting to finish a chapter and you might want to share it immediately, but your readers will thank you for well-written, proof-read work more than they will for quick updates. When you finish a chapter, let it stew for a few days, come back to it with a fresh mind, and proof read it. Sometimes it helps to put the text in a different font, or ask someone else to read over it for you to try and catch any typos.
7. Update schedules. This only applies if you’re uploading a multi-chapter work. Have a backlog of chapters before you start updating, and choose a day to update each week. I’ve found that updating weekly is the best way to gain new readers, whilst still keeping current readers engaged. Remember lots of people browsing new fics will be looking at the newest fics that arrive in. Updating in intervals rather than all in one go means that your fic will appear at the top of newly updated fics regularly, giving new readers a chance to see your story over a number of weeks. Leave too long between your chapter updates though, and hooked readers may get tired of waiting, forget about your story, or forget what happened in the previous chapter.
8. Choose when to upload your story. This isn’t a necessary step, and I don’t do this myself, but it’s still good to be aware of even if you don’t structure your fic uploading around it. Pay attention to what’s happening in your fandom and see if you can upload fics at times when people are excited about lore and certain characters in your fandom. Has a new character been added to that game you’re writing for? Has a new film just been released in the series? Has someone re-edited those notes Tolkien left in the bottom of a box and collected it together as a book? These are all times when people are more likely to be looking for new stories to read and great opportunities if you’re just starting out in a fandom and looking to pick up readers.
9. Get the word out. Find out what social media platforms people in your fandom are using to talk to one another and get on these platforms to promote your story. Lots of Tolkien readers are on Tumblr, and there are a bunch of great bots on Tumblr that automatically notify people of new fics posted to Ao3 with certain tags. Work out what Tumblr tags to use and you can pick up new readers by letting them know. The Tekken community are more active on Twitter, where gamers can upload their game footage better, but lots of them are pretty supportive of writers too, so posting your fic updates on Twitter can help gain updates if that’s where people in your fandom are active.
10. Be patient with growing your readership. Sometimes, despite all of the above, it can take time gaining readers, especially if you’re writing for a fandom for the first time. Try not to badger other people about reading your work, and instead be a positive presence in your fandom. Leave comments on other people’s fics letting them know what you love about their work. Be the person you want to have reading your own fics. Even small fandoms can be a lot of fun if a dedicated group of writers support one another and read each others’ work.
11. Be open to improvement. This is a tough one. If we’re sharing our work online, it’s often because we feel pretty pleased with it ourselves. It can be tempting to get defensive and say it’s just our style of writing when other people don’t agree with how we write. Sometimes people can just be unpleasant and wrong, but try to keep an open mind when a reader offers negative feedback. Always try to improve your own writing. Read published books or fics by other writers you admire and try to think about what it is you like about their work and how it can help you improve your own. I’m bad at this and get snappy with people who leave rude comments, but later I almost always try to think about why someone has said what they’ve said and whether there are ways I can improve that bear their criticism in mind. If you aren’t sure if someone’s advice is worth taking, see if they’ve written any fics of their own and give them a read. If they’re a great writer, it might be time to suck it up and change up some of your writing style.
12. Play the long game. Keep the same usernames and avatars on sites where you’re talking about your fics. Make sure you’re findable. Give your readers opportunities to interact with you and stay connected to you on other sites. Reply to comments, or thank people in author notes for their time and readership. If people know you and like your writing, you may find readers stay with you even when you switch to writing to a new fandom, or tell their friends about your work and help do some of the promotion for you.
13. Be in love with your source material. At the end of the day, you’re doing this because you love writing and you love the characters you’re writing about. It’s nice to have other people who share that love with you, but if you can write just for yourself and enjoy it, then gaining new readers will feel like an added bonus rather than an anxious competition for attention. Also, if you’re enjoying yourself, it often comes through in what you’re writing and is pretty infectious!
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