Conlang all year round - Auxpril in August

[aldersprig]

I am going through 365 Conlang thingies beyond #Lexember one month/day in the second half of August.... because I wanted to. See conlang 365 tag for the ones I've done so far...

April’s Auxpril is about getting new fans! (Which leads of course to the question of: for what? I’m a mult-project girl; should I focus on fans for the fan-fic (blood for the blood god?), fans for Edally, fans for my vast corpus of unfinished work (i.e., this blog…)

Sometimes, one of those can translate into another, in theory. So I’ll ask about all three:

• Where do you go to find Fanfic? I have accounts and stories posted on AO3 and Twisting the Hellmouth, and don’t mind writing in a specific fandom if it draws people.
  
  
  
• Where do you go to find original fiction on the internet? I’m listed on Web Fiction Guide, Epiguide, and Muse’s Success (shamless plug: I still pay in fic for every two reviews, and Edally is sadly underreviewed)
  
  
  
• Writers: Where do you go to find audience?
  I know ysabetwordsmith and others have used the Bingo Challenges to go fishing for audience; did you find that it worked?
  Project Wonderful ads, sure, but how do you make them engaging enough to draw people in?
  
  
  
• If you’re already a regular reader, how did you find this blog?
  Any suggestions on making it easier for readers to move from one section of my work (blog, fanfic, serial) to another?

Thanks! Also, if you're a new fan, thank you! Where did you come from and how do I clone you? :-D

Comments

[alatefeline]

Fanfic: I go to Ao3 and search the tags or a couple of media-specific archives, or follow links here on Dreamwidth. I have had much better results with recommendations and bookmarks than with just scrolling and clicking, although I will scroll and click sometimes.

Original Fic: I tend to look for ebooks of the authors I already buy physcial books from -or- original fiction by people I read fanfic from, or follow up on recommendations and news posts. I actually don't *hunt* very often for original fiction online, even though I'm often frustrated with the prevalence of certain tropes and persepctives in dead tree books, because I ALSO get frustrated with what I do or don't find and the difficulty of filtering out stuff I don't like and getting usable formats.

Blog: By following a "what's this person reading" from someone ELSE I was reading. I have enjoyed reading what's been posted so far that's new and doesn't require extensive backstory since I subscribed to your blog.

I really think I would be more likely to get into some of your larger established universes if the landing pages, which are extensive and fairly organized, were a bit less wall-of-text. Maybe just one to three stories highlighted and set apart as "this is a good place to start if you are just getting into this universe." It's a bit like trying to decide where to start a massive book series that's not in chronological order, but even moreso. I will probably get into at least some of your universe eventually ANYWAY, because I like your writing and I am enough of a verbal/written processor that I can deal with wall-of-text sometimes. But other readers might be more drawn in if there was more spacing and images and things, basically something to make it easier to prioritize where to click visually, although then that runs the risk of interfering with screen readers. I don't know. The easiest simplest thing you can do is just not have more than five lines of unrelated text without a space in between them on the main landing page / universe index.

New Fan: I got on DW by way of Ao3 and decided to stay because I like blogs that are centered on communicating via thoughtful writing in paragraphs, not images or tweets, and I also like the prevalence of writers and original fiction/poetry on here, and the less judgmental, more diverse community I've found. If you find out how to duplicate me, I'd love to know.

[aldersprig]

The "start here" is a really good idea for the landing pages, thank you!!

Thanks for tall the feedback. I just started surfing fictionpress and need a way to sort out the dreck...

[alatefeline]

You're velcro!

[aldersprig]

Velcro?

[alatefeline]

Sorry, family joke. "Velcro" instead of "welcome", a bad pun, often with a tagline similar to, "well, it's nice that we doing things for each other worth thanks, we should *stick together*."

:)

[aldersprig]

Aah! *grins* nice

[alatefeline]

*smiles*

[aldersprig]

Additional note:

Something like this? http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/23315.html