Now I Get It!

There's a science behind a successful story here on FimFiction! Let me explain.

So, I've noticed time and time again that people are very particular about what stories they read and when they actually read them. I've also noticed that this site becomes more active around 12:00 all the way till 8:00 or 9:00 PM American Western time. During 8:00 and 9:00 PM, the site's usual users are logging off and are done for the day. They're tired, but those are the American users.

For this next example, I'll use my good friend BloodSweatAndTea. She lives in the UK. So, for my timezone, she's 8 hours ahead. So, when I go to bed, she's probably just getting up or already up. Given the fact she's a Brit and there's a lot of Brits on this site, that means there is what I like to call a Nocturnal Audience. (For us Americans anyway) For the British or any other country that's awake when the US is asleep, they read what the American users have written.

So, what does this all have to do with story performance? Well, just listen. Given the fact that there's two different audiences with two different time zones, we authors need to find the right time to publish our stories. Now, I repeat this is for American writers. If you're in a different country with a different timezone, I can't help ya.

Anyway, I believe the perfect time to publish a story would be... 1:00 to about 4:30. You don't want to post it too early because the Nocturnal Audience is emptying out, leaving only a small number of non-American readers, and you don't want to post it too early because American writers/readers aren't usually awake or are just logging on.

Then comes what I call, Flash Flood. Where American writers here on FimFiction are publishing their stories early in the morning, having a mindset that they have a whole day of likes and follows to look forward to. That's not true. Any one of our stories could be over shadowed by another story equally good just because it came out a few hours later than yours.

Then you don't want to publish it too late, say 8:30. Going past the publish deadline. Because then the Nocturnal Audience, even if they read the stories that are most recent from the American users, that doesn't mean they have stories of their own they'll publish.

Which causes another Flash Flood. This time, with other users from foreign countries. So, when an American writer wakes up to check on his/her story, they find a lot of British or other country written stories. Easily over shadowing their works.

But that's what groups are for! I've come up with a rule starting today. I can only add a story to a groups after 24 hours of it's release. So, I must wait a whole day before I can submit it to groups. Now this is the important part. Remember when I said to publish your story between 1:00 to 4:30? Well, you'll have to do that again, but with groups. That way, the last of the American users can see what you've added, then the foreign countries could see them as well. They'll obviously add their own stories to the groups at this time, but as far as my research goes, there's no solution for that.

In short, there is a specific scheduel when it's OK to publish your Clopfic between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, or whatever story you wrote. I hope this was helpful in some way and if you have suggestions of your own, I'd be more than happy to listen.