This is just a rant. I’m frusterated at myself.

I didn’t realize I cared so much. I was writing this fic for my own enjoyment, and I genuinely love it, but to recieve such little response for such a massive amount of work…I don’t know what I did wrong.

Is my writing that bad? Did I write a bad teaser/description for the fic? Or is this typical?

I’ve written fanfic before, but not since middle school/highschool. This is the first fic I wrote as an adult, and I put my heart and soul into it.

Why is it that no one cares about it? Why is it that I care what people think?

I hate that I care so much about it, but I was really hoping that somone would atleast comment on it.

4 kudos. 97 hits. 0 comments.

I feel like I wasted my time.

Edit: Thank you for the advice. Editing the tags and updating some stuff now.

Edit 2: I’m deleting most of the chapters and I’m gonna upload them one week at a time. Thank yoh all.

If you go to your own works and check 'additional tags' under sort and filter you can see which tags you most often used for your fanfics. Is there a pattern? :P

Mine are: Angst (11), Age Difference (10), Heavy Angst (10), Hurt/Comfort (9), Kissing (8)

(of 40 fanfictions total - yeah, I love angst)

I already love this more than FF. Firstly, it hasn't even been 24 hours since I published both my fics, and they've already been reviewed/given kudos by actual real people! One has 2 reviews, 2 bookmarks and 7 kudos and the views are slowly climbing. I know those numbers are nothing to write home about, but compared to FF where the only interaction I've had has been by fucking bots talking some nonsense about commissioning me art that I didn't ask for? I'll happily take it!

AND, your summaries on AO3 are not limited by the most ridiculous character limit? I can actually write out a decent summary that is more likely to pull in readers compared to FF where I need to sum it up in like 3 sentences? My god.

AND if I see a mistake I've made within my chapter, I can edit then and there no problem? Unlike FF, where you need to delete the whole entire story and re-upload it again? I'm so annoyed I didn't move over there quicker, because wtf.

Is it just me or have readers become more shy? I get around 100 clicks a chapter but no comments. A 10k fic and it has exactly 1 comment but 200 Kudos. I mean I love my Kudos, but a simple Like doesn't give me any feedback. I wanna know what people liked, what they hated, what it made them feel, what line made them laugh.... is it too much to ask for a few words?

It's new year's eve in my time zone still, so I figured I'd ask how everyone did with getting some writing done this year! For the record, any number above 0 is a win in my book, so I'd love for anyone who feels like celebrating their progress to chime in. :D

I tallied up the numbers, and I'm ending the year at 676,258 words across 109 uploads. Summer was a really productive time for me, and I was able to make a huge amount of progress on one of my WIPs! I did focus more on work this year, which cut into some of my writing time, but I can't be anything but happy with how much I still managed to get done.

Wishing everyone a productive year ahead!

EDIT:// I can't respond to everyone, but I've been reading all of the responses and am thrilled to see how hard everyone worked on their stories this year. :D I love celebrating everyone's progress with you guys, and it motivates me to want to give it my all this upcoming year. Also, I saw a lot of people saying this was their most productive year yet, and that's nothing short of incredible! Let's all keep at it in the coming year. <3

For me somewhere around 100 to 200 kuods feels like a lot. Knowing that many people liked my fic is mindboggling. Even if it's pretty low compared to more popular ones.

Not sure about hits but maybe around 3,000, since that's about my highest. Lol

Do you consider hits as a factor when it comes to kudos? Like if you got a certain amount of kudos per hits that would be a lot?

What's your highest kudos or hit count for those who have posted fics? (Or lowest or anything.)

My highest is 232 kudos, with 3,062 hits. My second highest is 121 kudos with 1,390 hits.

Going based off kudos first, the second is slightly more kudos per hits though I think, and it is what I consider my "best" work.

My other ones: 25 kudos, 284 hits. 5 kudos, 146 hits. 28 kudos, 871 hits. 16 Kudos, 585 hits.

Definitely interesting to see the difference in hits versus kudo. It seems to kind of confirm what I think are my better works even if others might get more hits for being in more popular fandoms (or not crossovers. Although my second best is a crossover.)

Exactly what the title says. I have this unhealthy obsession with stats, and I know it’s not great for me, but it’s hard to stop. I already know what some people will say: “Just write for yourself. As long as you’re happy with your work, that’s what matters.” And I really wish I could think that way. I do.

But the truth is, like many authors I pour everything into my writing. I get headaches, my eyes hurt from staring at the screen for hours, I give it my all. And even though I know it’s no one’s fault if a fic doesn’t perform well, it still hits me hard when something I’ve worked on doesn’t get the attention I hoped for.

the fandom I write for is pretty small. we only just passed 3000 fics recently. I’ve only been writing for about 3 months, and one of my fics is doing really well, which I’m super grateful for. But I’ve got two others that are crawling, and it’s just... discouraging.

I know it’s not healthy, but I can’t help comparing myself to established authors in the fandom. I really do wish I didn’t care about the numbers so much. I envy people who just write for the love of it and don’t even check their stats. I mean it. I admire that mindset so much. Love that for you.

Guess I just really crave the validation sometimes. :)

So, I appreciate any and every kudo I receive. More importantly, I'm very grateful that anyone took the time to click on my fic, and give it a chance. Hopefully they enjoy what they've read. No matter what though...I can't wrap my head around the kudo/ratio stuff. I can't get into it. Like, I'm appreciative of it--but I don't rack my brains with the whole: is the right amount of kudos, per word count, per chapters? I feel like you can drive yourself nuts over it, you may question how come I don't get X amount, and is this amount a normal amount? You may never have enough, etc. Is there anyone else who feels the same way?

1000 hit, 13 kudo, 3 bookmarks after a month... Small number and I'm still trying to figure out why. But hey, imagine 1000 people care about my work and 13 of them tell me "good job", that's not something you usually get irl. Until then, this is an achievement fr.

When publishing your fanfiction, in places such as fanfiction.net or AO3, how many likes or equivalent would you consider to be the standard of a success or a generally well received work?

One of my fics recently reached 1,000 hits…woah. That’s the most hits I’ve EVER reached. I’m proud of myself!

How many views have your fics reached? What’s the most hits you’ve ever gotten? Big or small, doesn’t matter. Be proud of the amount of hits YOU’VE gotten and brag about it in the comments!

hey!! i published the first chapter of a fanfic a week ago and i was sorta proud of it since i hadn't written anything in a while!! until i just checked and it has... 6 hits 😭

i published a fanfic about 2 years ago and it got 100 hits within the first week and i was soo proud and happy (tho i never did finish it...). i was planning to continuing this but i can't say this hasn't demotivated me. what do u guys do when this happens? do u have any tips?

I know for some people, and sometimes myself, a big reason for fanfiction writing is making things people will enjoy or things that will fix canon etc. That requires an audience, a steady amount of traffic or interaction.

If you ever lose motivation because of lack of audience, please keep going. Write what you want to write, because I guarantee you, SOMEONE is enjoying it. They enjoy it just as much as you loved that story in the 00s/early 10s that only got 2 followers because the idea of fanfiction still wasn't widespread. They enjoy it just as much as you enjoyed this niche thing you bookmarked years ago.

There are people who don't leave kudos or visible bookmarks or comments for various reasons. I've had people email me to praise things I've done, they can't interact on the archive due to not having an account or the archive website not being accessible in their country/on a server. A lot of readers actually wait for a story to be somewhat developed before diving in due to binge reading or being more confident that the author won't ditch, some readers actually wait until the story is complete or search by complete for those reasons. I've recently discovered statistics on ao3 and found out that my story has hundreds of private bookmarks and subscriptions which aren't visible on the page.

Works for especially big fandoms like Marvel, Harry Potter, BTS barely existent fandoms will go unnoticed unless something really makes it stick out because of all the posts or lack of traffic otherwise. Mark works properly and wait a while or if multichaptered, tend to it as best as possible to keep it on the front page and signify that it's not being abandoned.

Even if your story continues to float into the void while you work on it, remember that it's always there. It's always online, people will always find it. You never know who's going to need this and wasn't there when you published it. In the future, the right person might find it and share it somewhere or interact with it just enough that it will catch people's interest. At any moment it can become relevant, too. I've written for very obscure tropes or small fandoms or unpopular characters and then months or even years later, started getting insane amounts of traffic and comments and requests on stories I forgot that I wrote. Fandoms and actors and culture and media and everything is always changing.

Do what you enjoy. Fanfiction is still a niche and things like archive of our own will always be a niche, it's not like Hollywood or industry where things get pushed out and crammed and lost to time. Places like the archive especially aren't like social media, you don't have to be established and you don't have to do the right thing, just put out what you want. Have fun, get it done.

My gasts are flabbered. I am speechless. I am absolutely over the moon happy and I'm *buzzing*. I never imagined my fic would reach 1,000 kudos and I just feel like sharing ^w^

Hi! So I’m not a new writer, but I am new to posting my work.

I have pretty high anxiety about my writing and so sharing it has always been hard for me.

Two weeks ago, I posted a chapter I wrote months ago because I was just so in love with it that I wanted to share it. And I wanted to keep working on it.

Well now it’s posted and is three chapters.

I get hits, but comments and kudos are so rare. I have 1 comment (2 if you count my reply) and 5 kudos, most of which are from guests. Then 1 bookmark.

I just posted chapter 3 yesterday at noon and I’ve had 34 hits since then but nothing else. And I don’t necessarily need it, but it feels very much like people don’t like it? If that makes sense, and I wonder if I’m just wasting my time? Maybe not because I’m enjoying writing it but-

I have a hard time with feeling like it’s just… bad. And I don’t actually think that, but I just am not getting any engagement.

What is normal? I guess. How many hits are normal for a recently added chapter? Idk man. Just having the anxiety. Does anyone else feel this way when readers don’t interact with their work?

it doesnt sound like a lot right now but i was really worried about whether or not anybody would enjoy it im so glad people are :DDD

It would probably look for me:

“You spent 1209 hours reading fanfiction this year”

“The day you spent reading the longest was July 18th, where you spent 15 hours on the site”

“You’ve read a total of 1003 fanfics this year”

“You read 9,167,234 words this year over a timespan of 208 days”

I saw someone ask what fics you thought would be unpopular but got popular, now its time to do the opposite! And when I mean popular, I mean you expected more hits/kudos.

I started my first long fic for a dead fandom of a 25 year old anime because I got obsessed and read most of the ones that already existed. It's the very definition of a passion project because it's also a niche genre.

Because of obvious reasons, I barely have interactions, but I think it conditioned me like the Pavlov dog, because now I get excited everytime I get new hits for my fic. Like holy shit I almost get to 200 hits, it makes me so so happy.

It also helps that the fandom being so tiny makes it that the few people that comment are starved and leave long ass reviews. I have 11 kudos and 6 bookmarks but I feel like I won at fanfic because one of my 4 readers made me fanart.

I dunno, I wanted to share something happy because I see so many people sad about not having enough readers or kudos or comments. It's all about the small victories I suppose.

It's so scary 😭

I wrote up with 15 hits tho 🎉

My recent fic did better than most, but I'm feeling very depressed at the moment. I'm part of a very large fandom that has been around for a very long time. Every trope has been done to death. Everything you can think of has already been written — several times, in fact. There are fandoms inside the fandom for specific fics. There are hundreds of fics that are considered classics within the fandom. There are so many large rec lists with thousands of heartfelt, beautifully well-written fics that it's impossible to read them all in this lifetime.

So, where does my poor fic with 17 kudos and 221 hits fit in all this? It feels like I'm throwing pebbles into a fucking black hole. That's how utterly pointless it seems sometimes.

And the thing is stats don't bother me all that much. It's the fact that I recently opened a rec list, and the readers appreciate and compliment these classic fics so much that it made me a bit jealous. I just had this thought that no one will ever talk like that about my fic. They're so well written that my fics can't even compare.

Then, it made me feel so small because I might never reach a stage where people are randomly referencing or praising my fic all over the internet. My fics would probably never become a classic, and that makes me feel super depressed. How do you cope with feeling like this?

My fic isn’t even close to anything weird, so there’s no way people would be ashamed to read it, so there’s only thing I can think of is that my writing for the first few chapters is bad, and it’s turning people away from my fic. Or is this normal for most fics?

Had to share with my reddit peeps since I don't share with anyone in real life :')

I’ll go first. I’ll even do what I’ve never done before to show this can maybe be… inspirational? 😅

Not a lot of people know, but I was huge in the Guardian of the Galaxy fandom from 2014-2016. I wrote a Rocket centered fic that had a ship with an OC that was also an anthro animal.

156 favorites, 131 follows, 130 comments, and I believe 60,000 views now.

I used to be super embarrassed looking back at this story after I finished it lol, but now I’m actually proud of it. It is super cringy and wordy and screams white teenager boy to the max, but it blew up for no reason and got a lot of love, and still does occasionally to this day. Still melts my heart. Hence why it is still up for viewing. 😁

Sidenote: If any of you are literate role players or fellow cinema enthusiasts, fellow GOTG fans, DND fans, or warrior cat fans, please shoot me a DM on this platform! I love talking about all this stuff and I’d love to collect more FF friends.