And I've joined....

[jebbypal]

I can be found over on A03 now.

http://archiveofourown.org/users/jebbypal

And can I just say, that import function is beyond cool! It actually works. I'm impressed.

Comments

[petunia846.livejournal.com]

Hey, so here's a question...you're not on fanfiction.net, right? Out of pure curiousity, what's up with that? You're not the only writer who doesn't post over there, I'm just curious because it seems like ff.net has a much wider audience. Do you not want the big audience? Prefer to be more private about writing? Or is it that ff.net is kind of the awkward, wild west of fanfiction where anyone can post anything and sometimes it's hard to pick out the good from the bad? I know there were a lot of people with that last issue back in my GG writing days. Some people even started a completely independent (and very successful and still active) site just for GG fic where they could screen and approve stories. These kind of fanfic community issues sort of fascinate me...I'll shut up now.

[jebbypal]

Actually, if you look for jebbypal over there, you'll find my old account, though I deleted almost everything off of it. When I started out (circa 2003), I started posting to Fanfiction.net when I was introduced to it (started at fireflyfans.net), and then got introduced to LJ. I enjoyed LJ for the community and the ability to have conversations in comment when you got concrit, but initially kept posting to all 3 places.

However, after I'd started getting established at LJ, FF.net started doing a series of upgrades and rules changes. First they changed how to do coding in the post so I had to do one set of coding at FFF.net, one set at FF, and one set at LJ. It drove me crazy and I eventually stopped posting at FFF.net unless it was something I really thought should have a wider audience...still left me with coding issues between FF and LJ.

Then they changed the code such that the coding on a lot of my previously posted stories got screwed up, and shortly after that also made a rule that you couldn't use quotes/song lyrics/etc in any stories. It just started to seem to be more trouble that it was worth, and I didn't feel like I got enough separate traffic there that I couldn't get on LJ -- though at the time, I was writing exclusively firefly. Plus I had my link to my LJ listed there, so people could follow over here if they wanted.

Eventually the code changes screwed my posted stories enough that I just pulled my fic down instead of taking the hours it would take to fix them.

TBC because I'm worried I'm running out of characters..

[jebbypal]

So that's the short of it...

As to the quality, that is probably what keeps me from just searching FF.net - I got cozy in my corner of fandom, had a lot of great writers here on LJ that we all seemed to go to the same fandoms at the same time, and it just worked. Now, I go read on FF.net only if I see a rec to a story there (though there was a period where I'd just hit the back button because there was a while where my browser and ff.net didn't get along). LJ is my go to for searches for fic - and part of that was also experiencing some viruses from some of the fandom specific archives that are out there.

I sort of resisted the A03 thing for a while, because I felt like I wanted to keep my fic all in one place instead of piecemealing it all around (especially after migrating my fic journal to DW). But after yuletide recs, I got comfortable with how A03 was being operated and their TOS (another issue that I've had with FF.net in the past), and decided to bite the bullet. I don't think I'll ever put all my fic there, but the stronger works that I want to make sure get a larger audience - yes.

Not sure how much sense any of that makes, but that's my experience. Not sure if FF.net has fixed their "site updates with no notice" or other problems that I've had in the past though.

Since I have permanent accounts at LJ and DW, I don't feel like I need the extra place for an archive and it saves me reposting headaches (which is one of the reasons I don't post to a lot of fandom communities anymore either.)

As to the big audience...err, that's the sticky point. I went through what I think a lot of people did of wanting that - for a while it was my goal to get something recced on crackvan. And then my thesis blocked me (2007) and I couldn't write for crap, and got depressed and the idea of getting 3 comments for posting in 5 places fed into it, and so now, I just don't care. I'm writing for me, and also the few friends I've kept for long-periods of time on LJ, and anything else is gravy. So not actively seeking a larger audience is kind of my defense mechanism of falling back into that way of thinking.

[petunia846.livejournal.com]

Very interesting.

I had never heard of Archive of Our Own until I did a google search for BN fic a couple months ago because I was sad there wasn't enough of it on ff.net.

I like LJ communities for the discussion too, but the BN ones seem to be pretty dead lately. Community has a really active LJ community (heh), but I'm not really interested in reading fic for that show. I find it hard to do any kind of searches on LJ, but that might be my own technical incompetence. I used to get a lot of fic in my friends page just because my friends we into the same fandom's I was, but I don't have enough BN friends for that. :(

FF.net is sometimes annoying to post to, but I like how easy it is to find exactly what I want...and I get a lot of reviews over there. :) Almost no one reviews when I post to LJ. :( I should probably go back and reformat my GG stuff that's on FF.net, but I don't really feel like it, so I'm just ignoring that...

[jebbypal]

BN is an odd creature - I have a ton of friends that I know watch it, but very few people actually write much fic for it. Over the years, I've attempted to rectify that by creating challenge communities/fic exchanges for various small fandoms, but overall have been less than succesful -- winter_deaddrop was the only one to get enough interest to keep me moderating actively.

A03 is actually really really new, and still in beta basis. Until yuletide this year (the old yuletide server was breaking, I'd heard), it didn't have a lot of traffic or adoption. More so now. I'm liking it because it's a lot more user friendly than I ever found FF.net to be.

[petunia846.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been trying to pump up interest in BN fanfic over on the USA network boards. I've gotten a couple new people to write and post stories and I've noticed an increase in reviewing too, so I'm pleased. Lots of people say that it's hard to write for the show. I guess I could see that. I haven't tried to write anything that would be like an episode, which I think would be hard, but that's not usually how I write fic anyway.

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

Woohoo! \o/

ETA: Now post your Unit fic over there. I got the tags all set up yesterday, but it felt kind of silly, given that I'm the only one who posted a Unit fic. :P

[jebbypal]

okay, will do :)

[jebbypal]

Done! And poked Lithy to get her too as well.

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

Awesome! :D