Straight from the Human's Mouth: Author Help Groups · 5:15am Nov 13th, 2014
OR: "BP Promises to Maybe Come Up with a Better Name for the Series Later, Post the 1st"
Okay. Alright. First attempt at a blog post that isn’t just an update on me. Let’s see how this goes, huh?
I know the idea I put forward was that I was going to maybe start a series of author help blogs. For this first one, though, I want to talk a bit about author help itself. If you’re aware of me, chances are that you’re also aware of some degree of my presence in groups that deal with reviewing and other author help–related fields. If that’s not something you’re aware of, allow me to deliver a brief history: I was one of the more active members of SALT before that fell through, I was one of the founders of WRITE and continue to be its most active administrator (and one of its reviewers, which I’m less active about), I was brought on late to try and save TECS but ultimately failed, I’m a reviewer/admin for SA, I help judge applicants at TRG and was vaguely involved in fine tuning the group before it went live, and I am technically a reviewer but am utterly inactive at TCA (though I’m far from the only one). I’m also a member of and/or stalk a good many others.
With all of that going on—all of those successes and failures—I feel I’ve built up enough experience to be confident when talking about what does and doesn’t work when you’re looking to create and/or manage an author help group. That’s the gist of what I want to cover in this blog.
Now, if you’ve already got a group that provides some service like editing, pre-reading, proofreading, reviewing, and possibly featuring, and your group is having or has had issues, I bet I can guess the chief one amongst them: a lack of active staff. With each of the groups above that have failed, shut down, or otherwise gone dark, a lack of active staff was the “cause”—the thing that was blamed as the reason, in the end. Now, that’s a mindset I encounter quite often, the one wherein it’s believed that staff issues are a root cause. And sometimes they are, mind. In my experience, though, it’s just a symptom of a related issue.
What that related issue is (or what those related issues are, as the case may be) will vary. At SALT, a big issue was the disconnect between it and FiMFic—like, I have good odds that you’ve never heard of the group outside of hearing me talk about it, if that—as we were so unknown that new members rarely appeared and new work flowed in so slowly that many of the people who were on staff drifted away because it felt dead. TCA is similar in the sense of a lack of renown and clientele, but add to that a very insular sort of membership structure wherein it seems like you have to know a reviewer there to become one yourself (I was invited by a founder who’s a friend, for example). At TECS, along with a laundry list of other issues, there was something of the opposite problem that SALT and TCA have suffered: TECS became far too popular far too quickly, and was (and actually still is) tied to a backlog so gigantic that applying there essentially feels like a guarantee of a crazy and pointless workload. TRG is going TECS’s way in that department, but add to it some issues it had with member policy and morale nearly from day one.
There’s a big problem with the author help community in general that feeds into staff issues, too. Specifically, the community itself is very small compared to the number of authors out there seeking help (which doesn’t even factor in the great many who need to seek help but don’t). Smaller still is the number of folks involved with author help who actually know what they’re doing. Moreover, it sometimes feels as though more author help groups are being created than there are people breaking into and sticking with helping authors! We’re spread very thin, many of us in multiple groups, so it can be tough to get us to join any additional ones, and even if we do, our work in general (or perhaps just in the newly joined groups) can suffer with our time so split. That’s the story with me and TCA; I’ve all but abandoned the thought of doing anything for that group with all of my responsibilities elsewhere in the community, let alone life outside my computer.
With all of these obstacles before you and missteps just waiting to be taken (tips for specific issues will come later), it can be tough to know where to start when making an author help group of your own, especially the first time out. My advice on that would be to, first off, familiarize yourself with some of the bevy of groups already out there. Really examine what it is that you want your group to do, and be ready to admit to yourself that a group out there might be doing it just fine already (i.e. pretty active, doing what they say they’re there to do, etc.). If that turns out to be the case, do consider joining up with the group you found instead of making one of your own—recently there’s been a great deal of redundancy in what some groups are here to do, to the extent that some of them have even been merging together! It’s up to you, of course, but you probably don’t want to add to the pool if someone’s already swimming around in it, doing the same strokes you want to. Though, if it happens that the big motivating factor for you is actually that you want to lead a particular sort of group and a fine one already exists, then I would recommend that you put yourself forward to that group in that context; tell them you want to help administrate and let them know what makes you qualified. Do good work, make friends (read: “connections”), and improve the group, and I bet you it’ll all turn out better than if you had tried to make yourself that group’s competitor. Of course, if you join and it turns out the group isn’t as good as your original assessment made you think, then it’s probably time to revisit the idea of making your own.
Above, I said to “really examine what it is that you want your group to do”. Let me go into a bit of detail here. Like I said, we’re currently inundated with author help groups—in some senses, though, there’s good reason for it. Though some groups are all but copies of one another, you’ll find that many out there do similar things but in different ways, i.e. they’ll have one or two specific focuses in common, and it’s just their executions that differ, and differ enough that both groups have a unique niche. For example, SA and the RCL are both groups focused on featuring quality fiction, and are similar in other senses like their siteposting status and the fact that the onus is on the guys running it to find the fics (though both also accept recommendations for consideration). However, where SA has a number of reviewers giving you thoughts on the (multiple) fics they’re delivering to you, RCL features one fic per post and gives an interview with its author rather than reviewing it. In that and other ways, the two groups fill different roles and invite different perceptions: SA is the bunch of guys looking to give you a variety of decent or better fics to entertain you for the fortnight, whereas RCL is the bunch of guys looking to give some individual attention to the best of the best in terms of both fics and authors. Essentially, unless you’re innovative enough to come up with a service nobody else is offering in any form, the bulk of it is going to be finding your niche.
It’s at this point—after you’ve already asked and answered the question of what service you want to provide, but before answering the question of how you’ll provide it—where you’ll probably want to start forming the core of your admin team. And that’s a key thing: in almost all cases (potentially excepting ones wherein the service provided is just that simple), a team of admins is going to be the way to go, as being an author help group on FiMFic pretty much means either you’re going to fall flat on your face right out of the gate or you’re going to get more traffic than you’d been prepared for. Anything else and you’re either very lucky and/or experienced, or you’re probably less an author help group and more a small team of folks helping out a small set of recurring clients, in which case many things in this blog probably won’t apply. Assuming that’s not what you’re here to shoot for, though, yeah. Admin team. If your group is going to have an active forum, you’ll need moderators. If your group is going to have an application process, you’ll need people to make and judge the applications. If your group is going to have any sort of off-site documents or spreadsheets for organizational purposes or the like, et cetera, et cetera, you get it. That all comes later. For right now, assuming you’re not immediately sure how you want the group to be structured and the niche it will have (and probably even then), you want to get together a nice group of people who are (preferably) experienced with the general service you’re looking to provide, consult with them, and work out the specifics. Ideally, most or all of these folks will be willing and able to contribute more than just ideas once the group actually goes live, but until then, ideas are what you need—that and people with ears for what could work. I can’t be of much help in this stage, given that the possibilities are—as they say—like, endless, but hopefully you’re at least well connected enough to get such a conversation going. If not, what can I say? Maybe run your idea past an existing group in the same branch of service. I know that if anybody ever came to WRITE asking for advice on structuring a reviewing group, we’d be more than happy to accomodate.
After you’ve got an idea of your niche and the basic structure, that’s when you start doling out responsibilities. If need be, gather up some outside folks looking to administrate (you know, “Hey, we’re wondering if you’d be down for Xing at a Y-type author help group, because we like the cut of your Z.”). If a lower tier of staff is called for—and it probably will be—that’s where things get a bit tricky. If your group depends on quality (not all do, and that’s fine), you’re likely going to want at least a preliminary version of that application process worked out. Nepotism is generally bad, folks—many’s the time I’ve seen people brought into a group at the start just because they were friends of the creators (as in the normal/later to be instated applications policy was waived), and it wound up being the case that they couldn’t or never bothered trying to pull their weight. In that vein, make it perfectly clear to people what they would be getting into if they joined your group as staff. Policies have room to shift as you get a better sense of your group’s needs, of course, but if what you have people doing doesn’t line up with what they pictured when they applied, there’s a not inconsiderable chance that they’ll leave or otherwise go inactive. Finally, I’d recommend that you resist the temptation to go live the moment you get a few people on the staff. You really can’t have too many folks on hand to start out with, since it’s very possible that the time around when you unveil the group will have its largest surge of activity. Handle it, and make efforts to grow your team proportionally to the growth of the group at large and/or the activity it sees, and you’ll be on sure footing.
That about covers what I have to say on the basics (for this blog, at least), so I think I’d like to shift into some specific, point-by-point tips.
“BP, what do you think I should do…
…in terms of organization?”
It will ultimately depend on what your group is all about, but the best tip I can offer here is to keep things simple while still having what you need. Don't add redundant bookkeeping to the list of things your admins are responsible for, essentially—my buddy has a horror story he loves to tell about a certain group founder who wanted admins to track every single member that joined and left the group, for no other reason than to ask them why they left. If something doesn't serve your group's function or is redundant with systems already in place, and it requires work to maintain, definitely ask yourself why it's present.
…in terms of how to treat my admin team?”
As equals. If you're looking to be an actual leader, don't ask anyone on your team to do anything that you yourself would not be willing to do (if you had the knowhow, assuming you don't), don't condescend, be understanding, and all of that HR jazz. That said, if an admin isn't fulfilling the role they agreed to fulfill, don't be afraid to confront them—just don't act like you're paying them or otherwise deserve their labor, because there's no quicker way to drive a person off here in this community of volunteers. If it happens that they're no longer able to fulfill their role, ask them if they want to continue in some other capacity (rather than dropping them outright), or even if they have any suggestions for streamlining their role, if they feel it needs it. Mind, much of this goes out the window if they're just a tremendous ass. A serious group requires relatively mature administrators.
…if a backlog is starting to form in my group?”
If there was one single, solid answer to this issue, it would certainly be classed as a miracle. The most I can say is that you have a number of options, but none of them are all that attractive. Presumably, you have this backlog either because your staff is too inactive or your group gets too much traffic for the size of your staff—there's some negative disconnect between the staff and the traffic, at any rate. With a thing like a backlog, you have to act decisively; it represents a trend that can only be ended with some change to the group, so recognize that there's no reason for you to make the change later rather than sooner. Here are some potential changes to consider:
a. If the problem can actually be traced back to singular members of your staff—your group is structured in such a way that a lot of work is bottlenecked through one overworked admin, for example—you're probably in a relatively fixable position. Try either give that person's position to someone who can better handle it (if the fault seems to lie with the person) or splitting that person's workload/duties between multiple people (if the fault seems to lie with the position). One specific example I can come up with is how WRITE's review requests all used to be PM'ed to a single one of our admins, so we wouldn't know anything was coming in if that admin was unavailable. To fix that, we made a group account that all relevant admins have access to, so any of us can handle the incoming stories. A group account can actually come in handy in many more ways than that, so I tend to suggest them as an organizational method. Consider it suggested.
b. If you're lucky, the difference between your group's current input (stuff submitted to you) and output (stuff handled by you) is small enough that it can be overcome with by pushing your staff just a bit harder. If you're stupidly lucky, doing said pushing won't burn anyone out—if you're not picking up what I'm putting down, I'm saying that this option is very risky and isn't really a long-term solution, given that to stay above water would require both that nobody quits and that the staff continues to work at this elevated level. This can work as a band-aid while you figure out a longer-term solution, though. It's just still risky. Caution caution asterisk yield.
c. Use something like what TL has going, i.e. take input until you reach a backlog cap, halt the flow of input, work through the backlog, and repeat. This comes with its own problems, of course. If you're as popular as TL, you can hit that cap in a matter of minutes, so member satisfaction will suffer in that it becomes difficult for members to make any use of the group. Smaller groups could probably use this method to good effect, though.
d. If the kind of service you offer can survive it, consider shifting your group's policy regarding how it handles input. If you're not obligated to handle every story submitted to you, then maybe you shouldn't. If the nature of the group does obligate you to handle every story submitted, consider instating some policy that allows you to, for example, handle a certain class of stories differently. Like how TRG has an early pre-reading tier where they have a single pre-reader judge whether a fic has really obvious and systemic problems, so it gets rejected relatively quickly. Just be careful that you don't wind up making your group structure too complex with all of the conditional rules.
e. If you didn't act quickly enough and your backlog is gigantic already (i.e. even after halting the flow of input, it's not something you're going to be able to work through in a reasonable amount of time), you might consider tossing it out and starting fresh with a new method. It's going to tick off some people who had stories in the backlog, but the status quo has you failing to provide any service to newcomers. This is probably what you want to do if it becomes clear that the size of your backlog is pretty much the reason you aren't finding anyone willing to come on as staff and/or why your current staff is leaving. A giant backlog (even if it's now static) combined with a shrinking staff comes out to a death sentence.
f. If all else fails, it might be worth it to revisit your group's services. Maybe there's some layer of complexity to the work that your staff does which could be pared away while still holding on to the heart of your group? With morale, everything is linked, so simplifying can make things go faster can make staff happier can get them pumped to work a little harder on top of it all. Fiddling with your group's niche can risk removing its individuality, of course, but if your group isn't viable in the long term, it could be a gamble you have to make.
There's definitely other options out there for how to handle backlogs, but these are the ones I recall offhand that I've either witnessed some measure of success with or that I'd at least be confident enough in to try. Still, not a comprehensive list, so talk over other solutions with your admins if none of these seem sensible to you, or if you want to try more in addition.
…to go about getting some new staff?”
This is the eternal struggle. If I had a real solution, I would be king of groups.
If your group has stringent standards regarding its staff, I think the best you can really do is to make the work that your group does be something important. That's a good way to attract the more experienced folks in the community and/or the folks with fledgling talent looking to improve themselves—the best kind of folks. A strong and apparent work ethic, a good reputation, known talent already on your staff, and other things in those veins help, too. Of course, if you happen to have direct connections to the hard workers in the community already, you don't need me to suggest flat-out asking them if they'd consider applying.
If your group is less stringent, you've got extra options. Put the call out to regular members. Put the call out in Skype chats and the like. Get permission from other groups to put the call out on their forums. The oyster is your pearl, you know what I mean?
No matter what, though, you're going to want to make it clear (on your front page and probably elsewhere as well) that you're open to new applicants. Still, I imagine that's just common sense. I'll have a more insightful answer for you all when I do indeed manage to become king of groups. Though I'll likely be unwilling to surrender it, at that point.
…to get my group some attention?”
A nice first step would be to introduce your group on one of the monthly Groups Posts that Eldorado currently handles for the site. To quote the instructions he tacked on to the most recent one,
If you'd like your group advertised next month, send me a PM with a link to the group and a brief description of what the group does and why people should be interested. Whatever you send me will be copy-pasted directly into the post, unless there's a case where I want to change something for some reason. I'll accept anything up to ~250 words.
It's also worth mentioning that a lot of author help groups advertise one another on their front pages. You might consider asking to trade advertisements with groups such as those. Beyond that, it's pretty much going to be up to word of mouth, so start talking.
That'll be that for this blog, I think. I've got more to say on the subject (I could write a book on the fall of TECS alone), but this should be enough for now.
How'd I do? Ramble too much? Thoughts on the title? Still interested in an actual author help blog series rather than a dinky blog on author help itself? Like, comment, and subscribe.
Very useful blog, I think. Considering Ferret's planning to pitch a Bronycon panel about Author Support, I think we may have found a script
Any plans to do more in a similar vein? Editing, perhaps?
2591726 I think I've got a good deal to say on the topic of editing as well. That could definitely work.
Helped co-found WRITE. Can confirm.
I can't quite remember the exact order of events, but I think I discovered this after re-organizing all of their other documents. It was also pretty late at night. I was not a happy camper.
I was the guy he was referring to. Can confirm group accounts are amazing.
Content was good, rambling was minimal, the title was cute, and yes.
How do like blog? Pls send help.
2591741 [i knew you would appear to claim all relevant credit]
2591757
You know me too well, bby
PLS
2591759 I believe that all happens automatically when you follow me, so you're good.
2591771
Oh, okay. Woot.
Hmm, I never thought of different groups as filling in different niche areas, but it kinda make sense now that you mention it.
Nice blog post! Suggestions? Maybe divide the information up into a few bite sized posts instead of one long one, so it's more attractive for the passing reader.
I didn't know you could 'like' blog posts. How do you do that?
I've got a question for you:
What are the most active review groups on this site? The EQD pre-readers keep sending people to a few select groups, but given that we can generally rely on one another for feedback, I often feel like we're way out of touch with who exists, who's good, and what's what.
2592123 See, this is a tough question. There are a lot of review groups I'm aware of, some active and others not, but the thing is that the majority of them seem to double as feature groups or otherwise focus less on the improvement of the story. I'm sure I'm wrong, but WRITE is the only one I'm aware of where the reviewers are essentially there to be pseudo-proofreaders/pre-readers, encouraged to be entirely thorough and able to provide a guide for the author to improve the fic, or at the very least, a roadmap for an editor. I just don't think that that kind of service is common to review groups, and it's the sort of service I'd think people coming out of an EQD rejection would be in need of. It is the kind of thing I think would be common to pre-reading/proofreading/editing groups, but I'm far less familiar with them—I couldn't say which of them is the most active, especially since the most I ever tend to hear about any is how dead they've become.
But yeah, specifically review groups, I think WRITE is what you want, biased as I am. We haven't been getting the level of activity we're equipped to handle for a while, but we're not dead. Just waiting. For pre-reading/proofreading/editing groups, I'm no help, but I'm sure someone out there has the kind of experience with them that I have with review groups.
2592532
Well, at least WRITE isn't the wrong choice, then...