Hey, I didn’t know whether to DM or what but I’ve been following you for some time now and I absolutely love your writing! I’m wanting to know, even though I like posts, submit an ask for blurb events or just submit an ask in general either as my profile or anon, that drawing too lol and I sometimes even share your writing with people I know. Is there any other way I can support you as a creator?❤️
oh my gosh this is such a lovely thing for you to ask and it really means a lot that you care about what i (and others) create that you want to help!! Also thank you for being patient and waiting for a reply - i wanted to wait until i was able to properly sit down and think about this one because theres a lot I could say. As it is this got kinda long and I really hope it makes sense. There’s probably more I could say but this gets at the main bits I think.
The TL;DR of it is that what you’re already doing is absolutely amazing but the biggest thing that will help creators is sharing their work!
And the rest of my thoughts are under the cut
So firstly, I just reblogged this post which talks about lurkers and I do agree with it to an extent! It isn’t always easy to comment or interact with someone’s post and like I love everyone who takes the time to click on anything I’ve written, even if they don’t tell me they clicked on it. Sometimes as a creator you can get caught up in how many notes your posts get but it’s important to remember that notes aren’t really That important. They’re a good way of measuring interest but theres probably people interested that you can’t see and that’s okay! So what you’re already doing is really so much more than I could ever ask for!!
But. I think it is also equally true that fandom content creators are struggling to be seen at the moment, especially regarding fics and especially in a fandom like the queen/borhap one which isn’t as big as it was 2 years ago after the movie was released. We are a relatively small fandom!! Certainly smaller than when I first joined. And the thing is, creators aren’t obligated to make things. They make things because they want to and they love it but it can be incredibly discouraging when it feels like no one cares. I write for you guys as much as I write for myself. If I just wrote for myself I wouldn’t bother editing and positing things, I’d just store them on my computer or maybe turn them into self published novels or something idk. And so I think supporting content creators (of all sorts, but im obviously speaking from a fic writer point of view) is incredibly important to keep this fandom going.
I think the biggest thing creators on tumblr struggle with is being seen. So the best way to help creators is to share their stuff! Likes are great for letting the OP know that you saw their stuff and liked it (or saved it for later), comments and requests and messages and all that are great for letting a creator know that you Enjoy what they make and want to see more of it or that you want to be friends with them and believe me i fucking adore getting asks and replies! It really makes my day when someone tells me they’re excited for something I’m working on or that they had an idea and think i’d do it justice (as long as they’re polite and not demanding about it) or just that they read something I wrote and it made them smile! But if we’re talking about helping content creators then there is one thing that helps above everythign else and that is sharing their work. Reblog it or link friends to it or whatever, just share it.
The tagging system on this website is finicky at best and that makes it difficult to get your fic seen by people who don’t follow you. The last two fics I posted didn’t show up in the tags i use and I cannot for the life of me work out why. I checked for ~inappropriate language~ in the tags and there was none, i didn’t link to outside websites, i did everything the exact same way as normal and it still didn’t work. Which means that I’m relying on the people that follow me and see the fic to pass it on to others. Not to brag but I have roughly 1700 followers (give or take some inactive/spam blogs). If every single one of them reblogged it and got 1 of their followers to see it then it would have reached 3400 people, or twice as many. Obviously that isn’t going to happen and it’s unrealistic to expect that. But by sharing a fic with one person you make a big difference! It means that one extra person saw it and had a chance to respond to it!
Now obviously not everyone feels comfortable reblogging fanfics, especially smutty rpf fanfics, on their main blog and thats totally fine! But if you make friends in the fandom and can say “hey did you see illfoandillfie’s latest fic” and link them then that’s really great! Or start an anonymous sideblog that you use solely for sharing fics you read! That’s how I started this blog! I’d been on tumblr for literally 10 years and I felt like my followers wouldn’t appreciate being inundated with rpf smut (especially when people i was friendly with were kinda anti rpf fics) so I started a sideblog to reblog fics I liked and post a few of my own!
From your message it sounds like you’re already doing a lot to try and help me as a creator and that is incredible! Don’t feel you have to do anything more than what you’re comfortable with. And I do want to acknowledge that, while this fandom has shrunk a bit, I do feel like it’s more interactive than before! My fics don’t get quite as many notes as they used to but I feel like more people comment on them and give me feedback and that is so unbelievably valuable!! I can’t stress how important every little thing is, anything that can let creators know you see them and see the time and effort they’re putting in.
Enormous thanks to AILSA WILD for running a stellar workshop yesterday - just look at these letters! ・・・ Repost from @ailsawild: About to go post letters from the Little Activist Letterwriting workshop yesterday. Kids thought about what was important to them and I helped them decide the best person to write to. Their letters are so excellent. Squishy (and Jessie!!) would be proud. #squishytaylor #littleactivists #writing #local #community #bookshop #littlebookroom (at The Little Bookroom)
