Please post links to other posting sites and apps which help with writing or reading fanfic! Also, if you know of fandom-specific fanfic magazines/communities, comment with a link to those to be added here.
Also, leave your opinions on all of the links here, so people who are not familiar with them can read what our community thinks.
Signed up for FFN during the week & cross-posted a couple of stories to see how it compares with AO3.
It's a bit...uh, retro in its interface. The two-part process of uploading/pasting a document which you then publish from a separate page feels unnecessarily clunky. Editing is awkward - double spaced paragraphs & it doesn't recognise breaks like horizontal lines at upload - why? 🤷♀️
The mobile site seems to be designed completely around reading so there are no writer features, either publishing or stats related. Something I find really odd, since FFN seems to be a younger audience from what I've heard & what modern day pre-teen or teenager favours a desktop over a phone? (showing my age! 😂)
The code of conduct is weirdly finger-wagging regarding spell-checking but doesn't seem to be too pushed about trolling/harassment/generally not being an asshole on the internet.
Overall, if I was new & looking for a site to publish on, AO3 seems a much easier option, given that the mobile site is as good as the full-day desktop version. And the rich text vs HTML editing means you can get everything just how you like.
I had totally forgotten about the two step process of uploading docs. Didn't think much of it at the time. From what I hear the interface hasn't changed too much in a decade or more, so I'm not surprised it seems "retro".
I've never downloaded the app before, so that's good information to have.
Thanks for following up on this! It's great to have a first person account on what it's like.
One thing I do like more about FFN than AO3 is the stats breakdown. It reminds me of blogging sites like WordPress because you can see stats per chapter, country of origin, date of view.
But after posting a few stories, I'm missing the tagging ability from AO3. And the summaries are shorter too so pitching stories is more difficult if you don't have a good hook..
I do miss the stats per chapter. (As much fun as seeing the country of origin was though, I'm fine without that. It's less invasive towards the readers.) Without knowing hits on chapters though, the hits stat on AO3 means nothing to me. Because unless it is a one-shot, there is no way of saying anyone clicked on the story and continued.
With one-shots you don't know if anyone actually read it to the end either. But I'm a little more invested in knowing how many people actually moved to chapter two in my multichaptered fics.
If this were about personal opinion, I wouldn't have included FFN either. It's nothing like the site I first used at fifteen. But some people swear by it. The same with Wattpad. I think the best thing to do would be for people who have experience with these sites to post pros and cons.
I can't give a personal opinion on Wattpad, because I tried it once as a reader. Couldn't figure it out. It would be unfair of me to shame something I haven't put any effort into. Even if the fault was the website's and not mine. I can't start a precedent of parroting bad things I've heard, but have never experienced myself.
If you don't mind me asking, do you think FFN is worth signing up to now as a writer? Like, is it bad or just different from what it used to be?
I've read on FFN in the past but only post on AO3 at the moment & I'm half considering cross-posting on FFN to see how my stuff goes down there. On the other hand, I pretty much only write explicit fics & FFN's written rules seem to be against that (although there's plenty of explicit smut on the site so maybe the written rules aren't worth much).
It depends on certain criteria: starting with what your fandom is. I would check your fandom on FFN first to see if there is any audience there. If there isn't, it might not be worth figuring out if the rest of it is worth your time.
I'm against FFN these days because they inject ads in the middle of a work. Not at the side, beginning, or end. In the middle. Not like I see it with my ad blocker, but for me it's the principle of the matter. Also the staff are nonexistent these days. If you needed help because of something (review harassment or plagiarism), you aren't likely going to get it. That includes enforcement of their own rules.
People say FFN is going to die any moment, but it hasn't. At the same time, the reason they say it is because of a lack of transparency on FFN's end. I don't know if FFN still has as many issues against homosexual relationships as it used to, but those issues are part of a reason AO3 exists.
Some people prefer the more elaborate stats chart there. I remember enjoying it a decade back. PMs are a thing. Outside of that, I'm not sure what the upsides are. There are people who are against the tagging system of AO3, but you can do minimal tagging there anyway so I'm not sure what the issue is.
Thanks for answering my question. I hadn't realised about their approach to ads (yay, adblockers) but it sounds obnoxious.
The bigger issues for me would be the homophobia & lack of a structure of support in cases of harassment, etc. That gives me a bit of a yikes! reaction. I'll sit & think on it for a bit but I suspect I might just stay with AO3.
I'd rather not take everything from there (because first I would have to go back to Reddit). Ignoring that, I recall some of the links had a warning that meant they were not vetted. I would rather people here say what they use/know of/recommend or go off what I can find myself so I can double check all the links.
Because r/fanfiction didn't leave Reddit and take over, I'm no longer hoping to recreate the exact same community. I had wanted people from there to come over so I could hand this to them. If the issues over there aren't important enough to move people, it is really time to make something new.
Very true. It's sad how many people just won't move. It gives people like Spez the impression that most people agree with his tactics.
As for re/vetting, should we put warnings for certain sites? Because Tapas and Webtoon will arbitrarily decide which comics get to break their rules. And their search functions are amazingly poor regardless if you are making fanwork or original.
I added a tag for people to read the comments and leave their opinions on different sites in the comments. If we ever get enough people doing so, I can summarize it in the main post, but until then I don't want to personally post opinions on sites and such I haven't used or that I'm not personally familiar with the issues of.
I might be biased but I enjoy what this community is becoming...especially if the previous one didn't really make space for comic formats.
Also vetting and re-vetting links from time to time isn't a bad idea. I've seen professional bog posts where the previous links no longer direct toward the original content...and well... it can get interesting. XD
It's small, but it's been friendly so far! Which is good, because I'm not good with any form of aggression.
So many links have died! If this particular post does remain as the pinned resources, I'll have to figure out a good system to make sure to check everything works every so often.
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