Another comment re A03 hits and some whinging about WIPs (mine, that is).

[shapinglight]

Further to this post about A03 hits, I realised I'd made a mistake by putting the original dates I posted them to LJ on my stories on A03, instead of the date I posted them to A03. I actually went back and remedied that in the case of the revised version of Brief Encounter, which I'd posted with its original date in 2006. It now has the date in June this year when I posted it on A03.

However....



....even though it's now second on my list of stories (arranged by date of posting), it still only has six hits. Which is the reason why I re-dated it in the first place. Weird. I've just re-read it, and it's not that bad, surely?

I can't explain the lack of interest in it as being down to the pairing either, as I have several other Spike/Darla stories posted, one of which is quite popular. I also can't explain the lack of interest away as being because it's an historical story. Yes, those don't seem as popular. Then again, my story with the most hits of all (110, which I know is not much compared to other writers, but it looks like a lot to me) is not only an historical, it features Spike and Darla (and Angelus and Drusilla). What's more it's posted with its original posting date in 2007, so comes right at the end, or right at the back, or whichever, of all the stories I have posted on A03.

Oh well, I suppose those of the opinion that I should never have revised Brief Encounter in the first place will think it serves me right. ;)

In other writing news, I managed to do a bit more revision of the penultimate Spike/Giles season 7 story the other day. I'm now at the bit where I have to start doing some major, major re-writing. :Whimper:

I also have three more chapters of that Spuffy thing I started on sb_fag_ends last month written. But I don't want to post them yet. In fact, I really wish I'd managed to draw what I had to something more like a close on the comm. I don't like WIPs. Do you?

By which I mean, I don't like it when I write them. I'm always afraid I won't be able to finish them. Posting any chapters at all until the whole thing's done makes me uncomfortable.

My own fault, of course.

Yeah, WIPs. What do you think?

Comments

[ruuger]

No, not anymore, I think. They will show up on the top of the list when it's sorted by Date posted instead of Date updated, and as far as I know, they will also appear of RSS feeds and subscription notices even though they're backdated.

[yourlibrarian]

This is what I was also wondering, how the dates would affect the feeds. It can be a bit puzzling as to what attracts attention and what doesn't. It could depend on the words someone's using to search, the day of the week it goes out, what sort of tags it has on it, etc. On a site as large as AO3 where you've got many thousands of people using it a day (it has nearly 200,000 registered users now but tons of people read on it who don't have accounts) stories can get hits for quite random reasons.

LJ has never worked in a search-oriented way so people who ended up on a story usually got there for a reason, such as a rec, friends-of-friends, a community link, etc. But people could be coming to an AO3 post for fairly unrelated reasons.

[shapinglight]

Interestingly, I have gained more readers for my stories on A03 since sticking multiple tags on them.

I've also found that I only have to mention a story on LJ as not having many readers and it mysteriously gains more.

I don't know what to make of that. Does it mean more people are reading LJ than it seems because few of them actually comment?

[shapinglight]

Interesting. So I don't need to alter all the dates on the stories in a desperate (and sad) attempt to gain more readers, then? ;)

[ruuger]

No you don't :) People who subscribe to the fandom or pairing will see it either way :)

[shapinglight]

:)