No seriously guys, comment on peoples fic.
Writers as desperate for comments. Desperate.
I’m in a writing group with around 40 people and one of the common reasons people don’t post their work is because “no one ever comments on it, so no one is reading it” which blows because their work is amazing and instead it’s sitting in storage.
Comments lead to posting more fic. Trust me.
leupagus’ spot-on tags:
#gonna reblog these every tiiiiiiiiiime
#because seriously bros why do YOU think the amount of fic has plummeted in the last five years
#it’s because fic readers forgot that this is a fuckin’ barter economy
#and started thinking of their comments as favors rather than obligations
#COMMENT ON THE FIC YOU LIKE PEOPLE
#Y’ALL SURE AS SHIT AREN’T PAYING WRITERS WITH ACTUAL CASH MONIES
Yes AND I really do think there is something to the decline of LJ. The fic communities there and the much stronger ability to even become at least acquaintances with people, if not friends, in a way that is much harder in tumblr has led to a decline. There literally isn’t a common gathering space for fandoms any more. Exchanges sort of do it on AO3 but they are only as good as the length of the exchange.
Also, get off my lawn a little bit there, fanfic and growth/expansion/shrink is a very well known cycle. But honestly right now it’s the fracture of fandom onto something like tumblr. Mailing lists were the first place online (for me really, yes there were newsgroups too but let’s not get distracted here) and they built some pretty tightly knit groups – if you knew where to find them – or someone was allowed to advertise off-topic. Eventually there was a shift to LJ which led to the ‘oh my god there isn’t as much fanfic on lists’ and LJs primitive archive-ish feature and rec lists. Eventually we got A03 and tumblr. AO3 comments can come close to some of that but again, it’s per fic and you have to dive into those per story to do it. It’s not easy to really get into without some fairly savvy tag surfing to find a pairing and a trope, for example and comms used to make that a heck of a lot easier.
Oh and that one tag – fic readers forgot the barter economy? Yeah no. As someone who has run an archive for 15 years the ratio of likes/kudos to comments has pretty much stayed 20 to 1. What I think you are missing here is that when a fandom is brand new and shiny there is a lot more energy and squee and ‘I have found my people and they like my pairing and they saw it toooooo’ going on.
Also? Stop with the shaming. That’s bullshit crap and is going to DISCOURAGE people from commenting because sometimes we don’t have the spoons for that. Click the kudos button if that’s what you’ve got the social energy for. Those are awesome too. And there are some great ‘here is how I leave comments so you have a formula’ posts going around if you want to know how to leave comments but dude. There are days I have energy for comments or you know, long screeds like this one and there are days when I have to put that energy into the rest of my life and fandom is my escape. I appreciate the stories. I am a writer. I love comments too but I also get a little squee when I get a kudos email.
Tumblr Exodus 