How To Get People To Read Your Stuff · 6:26pm Oct 28th, 2015
Hey, you! Yeah, you with the good story nobody reads!
Are you tired of putting your heart and soul into a story only to have it shunned by the masses? Are you sick of seeing all your stories go down into the depths of fimfiction, never to see the light of day? DO YOU WANT TO BE FRIGGIN' POPULAR!
I can't guarantee the last one, but if you answered yes to either of the first two questions, than look no further! I'm here to help.
Today, I'm going to cover just a few areas that I know will be of use in your efforts to get your story out to the masses. These areas are:
Keep It Fresh
Write Like You Can't Do No Wrong
Advertise. Advertise! ADVERTISE!
KEEP IT FRESH
How many times have you looked at the new story list and absolutely nothing catches your eye. It was probably something like this:
1. Random clop.
2. Grammatically sinful ship fic.
3. Story based off new movie and/or episode.
4. Generic OC story.
5. Poorly written crossover.
You log in, you see that and you go about your business, scouring for something interesting to read.
Now, what was wrong with the aforementioned stories? They are nothing new! Been there, done that, you did its sister than forgot to pay the child support. You want something new. Something... fresh!
So, if you write something that's been done a million times before, why would anybody read it? Answer: they wouldn't. The idea is to write an idea that people haven't already seen a million times.
For example, why write a boring old VinylxOctavia ship fic when you can write about those two characters getting stuck in prison together? Or why write a story about your OC getting with one of the show characters when you could write about your OC getting hilariously rejected by every character in the show?
The point is that if you want people to take a chance and read your stuff, you gotta give them a reason to. Make it stand out!
Write Like You Can't Do No Wrong
Okay, other than being a poorly worded pun, what does that phrase mean? Let me explain.
A lot of us have what it takes to write a great fic. We have all the talent, the perfect idea and plenty of people waiting to read it. But, what holds it back is our own fear of failure.
More than a few times, I've seen people refrain from publishing something because it wasn't perfect. They didn't have every error corrected. They didn't know how people would react. They were afraid of having negative criticism on it. Perhaps you've been there?
Now, what are some ways that you can help get over that? Well, that's where the subtitle comes into play.
The simplest way to get over this particular problem is simply... to write. Yes, just write. Nobody has a perfect story. Even millionaire authors have issues with show vs tell, boring narrative and awkward dialogue. But here's the deal, they at least wrote their story and plenty of people loved it! That's the key.
As opposed to writing your story and stopping every five seconds to fix something or just abandoning it altogether, ignore all the mistakes and just write your story! Get it on paper. Then, when you're done, fix it up, and at that point, even if it doesn't feel perfect, get it out there! Odds are its not nearly as bad as you think it is, and getting people's opinions on it will help you increase your skill.
Besides, the last thing you want to do is avoid writing your perfect idea out of fear, then see someone else write something similar and get super popular because of it. Jump on it, man, and JUST DO IT!
Advertise. Advertise! ADVERTISE!
Okay, in the world of business and product, advertisement is the most important part of the equation. It doesn't matter how good your product is if nobody knows about it! If you want to get your product to the masses, make sure they know about it. Here are a few ways I do it that might work for you:
1. POST HYPE BLOGS: This is a big one. When you have a release time for your story ready, start letting your followers know about it. Let them know when its coming out, give them a few short excerpts from it to get them curious about what it's about, and most importantly, SELL YOUR PRODUCT! Make it sound like something they're going to want to read.
2. GROUPS!: As soon as that story hits the market, post it to every group it can possibly belong in. Posting in groups is similar to putting your products in stores. If you want people to buy it, it's gotta be in a place where they can find it, first. The more, the merrier.
3. Ourtside sources: Now, this one isn't for everyone, but I found great success. I don't stop advertising my big fics just with fimfic. I post videos on youtube, I hit up Twitter, get fandom musicians on board to advertise, i tell my rl friends to read it, i tell my workmates. Heck, I've even had professional, record label metal bands advertise my stories on twitter and such. That generates views, views generate heat, heat generates popularity. Roll with it, man.
4. GET OTHER USERS ON BOARD: Maybe your not super popular, yet, but maybe you have a friend who is? Why not ask them to advertise your story for you? Getting a bunch of your friends on board to advertise your story will seriously boost your odds of people seeing it and will definitely give you a leg up on the competiton.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Alright, what did we learn today?
1. Write something interesting.
2. Don't hold yourself back and just write.
3. Get your story to as many people as possible!
Now, there's no guarantee that these tips will work for your, but they work for me on a regular basis so it's at least worth a shot, right?
Anyway, that's all for now. Peace, and good luck with your stories!
(P.S. You could just write somewhat coherent porn and random nonsense and ignore this blog. 
)
The only caveat to 3 I can think of is to make it worthwhile to people once they get there. It does you no good to advertise like crazy until you're sure you've gotten it as good as you can get it.
You should totally advertise my story whenever I get around to publishing it on here
I dunno about this one; most of the MarbleMac stories that popped up within a day of episode rode the Feature Box for more than 48 hours... EQG stuff immediately following Friendship Games did the same thing, and those are just recent examples.
Writing about what's hot at the moment actually seems like a pretty good way to snag people's attention,
tl;dr git gud
I have great ideas.. I have a Bon-Bon/Sweetie Drops James Bond kinda thing in the works (in my head mostly and a private story template at the moment) where Spike is tired of being left behind and treated as a kid. He starts hanging out with Bon Bon not knowing she is a secret agent.. When he is the target of an assassination attempt at trying to ruin Twilight Sparkle... it falls to Pee Wee (who just for the fuck of it decided to make female) and his new friend (and maybe more) to keep him safe and grow up a little along the way.
The problem is, I have horrid procrastination issues and can't hold myself to a deadline to save my life. I was terrible at it in school, and it carried with me into the real world. When I forced myself to write in the past, I would have fun, but video games are also fun and that takes my interest. Thanks for the blog... I will try to keep that in mind.
Boobs
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I needed this soooo much. Thank you. Thank you so much!
3843797 Thanks for checking it out! I love writing these blogs.
3502918
I'm not saying it won't get popular, but stories like that also aren't particularly memorable. They're just run of the mill, almost.
Also, two-year late reply!
3503220
Vagina.
3503060
Did you ever write that story?
4898357
I started it, and it was heavily Spike based! Like here he was a sarcastic badass with a female phoenix by his side, and then I ran into procrastination and it fell off into the abyss. I get it is fully my fault, but I would much rather play video games than write, and I accept it as a valid excuse for why shit doesn't get done around here! It's the only Spike story I have in my brain actually.
4898367
Spike is a fickle beast.
But, to be fair, if you like games you like games. It is what it is. I personally love going to concerts and hanging out with friends so writing takes a backseat a few days a week. We gotta do what makes us happy.
4898354
This is true,