10 reasons to wear low kudos counts as a badge of honor
You wrote a trope that isn’t popular in fandom right now and isn’t high on search lists—you’re expanding fresh content
You wrote an out-of-the-box characterization
You’re learning to be proud of your work without external validation, which is a hard process and every little time you do it improves you
You didn’t write smut and a lot of readers only click on fics with smut, while other readers are grateful for new G&T-rated fic
You did write smut, a specific kink many people avoid, but other readers are thrilled to find it
You tackled a difficult topic that might trigger readers and your warning tags rightfully reduce your readership but don’t diminish the importance of the work
You wrote gen fic or wlw or a rare pair and are boosting content in underserved areas
You wrote a longfic that takes readers longer to consume, which is an awesome accomplishment regardless
You had a story in you that needed to come out, and you put it into the world
Even if the story was awful, which it probably wasn’t, you took the risk of doing it anyway, which is how you get better every time you write, and that commitment and grit is 90% of the battle
Kudos are not a measure of merit, which can be hard to remember. Kudos are affected by a million factors, only some of which involve merit. Kudos trickle in over time. Kudos are affected by fandom trends, and how many followers you have. Kudos are affected by who reblogs or recs your fic, which is pretty random itself. There’s no end to the factors that go into it.
Want thousands of kudos? Go to high-traffic fandoms, pick the most popular ship, find the most popular tropes, and write a good fic in that trope. Put in the work of making friends with big names and hope they reblog your stuff. Turn fandom into a transactional experience if that’s what you want. But is that following your muse? Is that what will make you happy? Maybe; if so you’re lucky. But if not, realize that choosing to follow your muse even though it takes you elsewhere is an incredible thing, and the lower kudos counts that result are not evidence of lack of quality or reader hatred.
Almost all of my fics have fewer than 300 kudos. A handful of longer ones have more, and my top kudosed fic is a silly short coauthored 8th year that is not at all what I’d consider my best fic. My longest fic (105k, took me two months of full-time writing) has only 200 kudos. I’m still super proud of it and feel like it had a great reception and amazing comments. I have a bunch of shorter fics with under 100 kudos.
I think there’s a misunderstanding that it’s expected to get a high kudos count, and in my experience that’s just not true, so I don’t really understand why we talk about it that way. Let’s change the conversation, and focus instead on our pride in our writing and our love for other fics, and move away from using kudos counts as a proxy for worth. You’ll never feel satisfied if you’re turning to ao3 stats for your self-validation.
