I've seen some excellent posts raising the very valid point of the unreasonable ratios of likes/reblogs on fan content including screenshot examples, but those examples have notes that total in the thousands, so I think a lot of people may miss the point and think "stop complaining you're still getting hundreds of reblogs." (I disagree. The percentage is the point, but not everyone thinks that way.) So allow me to illustrate that point using a couple of my own fics, both written long enough ago that peopke have definitely had time to read (the newest being about eight months old).
Now, of course, the size of the fandom might contribute, and while it's no Marvel or Stranger Things, the two in question are not small fandoms (the first is The Witcher and the other two are Umbrella Academy). And again, the ratio is the point not the raw numbers.
Although, lets talk numbers too.
on average a fic probably takes me about 12-14 hours to write. Which for me is the equivalent of two full work days at my job. And that's probably a low-ball
editing takes me around another 2 hours-ish
So for 2+ days worth of work, I get 5-23 people that took the seconds, maybe minutes if you tag extensively, to reblog and say "hey this story is good, you should check it out"
Luckily in the case of the cited TUA fics, that includes the person requesting the fic and doesn't include me reblogging it myself in case I have followers in other parts of the world etc. who might have missed it the first time. For the Witcher one, I don't know about the requester because it was anonymous, but I do know that it includes twice that I reblogged it for self-promotion.
So that's 42 people that, I assume, read the fic, but couldn't be bothered to take the minimal step of reblogging, vs 3 that did, or a ratio of 1:14, or 7% of my assumed readers. And the numbers run about the same on most of my fics, some an even lower percentage. That's not fair. It takes next-to-no time. It's just as easy as liking but actually does something for the author in return for their efforts.
It's disheartening. It's defeating. It hurts to know that I've put time, effort, and love into projects and get crickets back. And I'm not talking about wanting more readers. It feels like you, as readers, as members of the fandom, don't give a crap about us as writers and artists. And that is why people are writing less, posting less, creating less. For most of us, we're not leaving, we're still around on our personal blogs. We're just giving up.
