The wow factor

Hello here's me again being random but also hopefully somewhat deep in this blog post.

So I've only been here on AFF for approximately a year and two days. I have 13 stories, five of these are complete and the other eight are still unfinished. I only have 144 subscribers

Now I should be happy that I have at least over 100 but being greedy and all I was kind of hoping for more..

So today I thought about why I only have 144. Am I not showing off what i can offer? Do I have to resort to advertising on people's walls like others have succumbed to? Am I going wrong somewhere? Too cliche or not cliche enough? What's wrong with my stories that makes people have a peek yet look away and not even comment or subscribe. Is it because I haven't been on here for a long time or haven't written a lot of stories. A friend on here told me about her friend who has 1000 subscribers while she herself has 500. Her friend has over 30 stories.

Now I think I may have a reason as to why. None of these have I guess the wow factor. They don't appeal enough to the readers on here whether it is in character, plot development etc. I don't have a story that really is a masterpiece. I am a jack of the genres of fantasy, drama and romance but I'm a master of neither of them. Just plain jane, simpleton, that's it.

Otherwise I would be more popular right?

Hmm I could just be overreacting or I'm being impatient or jealous, whichever you all thinks rocks the boat most.

But I think I know why I don't have a masterpiece. Because I'm still practicing. I'm one of these people who will try hard but still feel they have not reached their goals. I could write 50 stories on here (God knows where I would get that many ideas from) and still not feel satisfied with the number of people I have.

I think most of all my priorities are in the wrong place. I should be writing for myself, not for the people on here. It should be for God, because in the end subscribers do come and go. I don't subscribe to a lot of stories and when I do keep a subscription its for the stories that I like the most.

Maybe in the end, it's not about numbers. It's about the relationship you have with the subscribers. Maybe I will focus on that more than the actual numbers. Being friends with my subscribers probably is my best bet.

Alright that's the weird sort-of rant done. I'm off for the rest of the day.  Bye

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DragonG #1
i agree that it's not a measure of talent, love. not gonna lie, sometimes i feel it's convenience. if you update at a time where lots of people are on the home page to see, they'll check it out. others i'll get subscribers totally late...i still get some for stories i finished months ago! it just takes time, but don't ever doubt your ability
newbiecassie #2
For me commentators are more important, having lots of subscribers is bonus. Well, I've been through some moments when I felt down because lacking subs, to the level where I didn't want to continue my story anymore. But then I thought about my loyal readers and how they boosted my mood to write ^^
So just try your best with the writing, popularity's different with success
ErisChaotica #3
Also, instead of measuring by absolute number of subscribers, I'd say try doing subscribers per chapter posted, i.e. divide total subscribers by the total number of chapters in longer fics+oneshots you've written. That's probably a better measure of success. You can't really compare 30 subs with 300 if one is for an authors with one story with three chapters and the other is an author with ten stories with ten chapters.
ErisChaotica #4
Honestly, success on AFF can be a bit of a crapshoot. You look at two stories of comparable genre, style, and plot, and they have vastly different readerships. You look at two stories of disparate genre, style, and plot, and someone they'll have the same amount of readership and even overlap in readership. It's hard to pinpoint what exactly throws people into success, and I don't think there's a foolproof formula for success (though perhaps dbskgirl4ever is onto something) Don't feel discouraged, just keep writing.

Case study in question could be my friend. She deleted all of her stories and left AFF a while ago and then came back and reposted some of her old stuff and started new works, and although some of her subscribers may be old fans, most of them aren't, and within the course of about two and a half months she's accumulated about the same number of subscribers that I did in eight months. Also, a large chunk (100+?)of my subbers are actually for my advice fic rather than my actual stories, so I don't think those really count...

In the end, while I do care about subs to a certain extent, I don't really write for the subs. At the very least, having more subscribers hasn't motivated me to write more or change my writing habits/content much. My feelings and inspiration have done that more than anything else.

I think the most valuable part of AFF to me has been the interactions with users like you. Back when I basically did nothing but be an author in the most pure and exclusive form of the term on AFF, I had no reason to hang around AFF except to post updates. Now I check daily (more like hourly) to see what new messages, blog comments, wall posts, etc. I get. Story comments aren't much since half the time it's just "update soon" or "good story" (I literally got that comment after someone read 30k words worth of Water's Edge and I was like "...okay =.=). It's the other stuff that's really fueling my desire to remain entrenched in this community and site.
Kay_tea114 #5
It has nothing to do with greatness. If you actually look through my stories, the one with the most subscribers is my JiChae series in which I regret writing them. It pours out cliche. I hated that story.

TabiSan is a popular ship and Daralings will always flock to anything Dara related, hence the high subbie count. AFF readers like snarkiness in the workshop.

I'll be honest; we're just lucky. We're lucky to like a popular idea and group. Sometimes it's just the fans that like the story, not the content.

Do not be sad hun. You'll strike it rich. Someday. Somehow. ^^
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