Wattpad and the Future! (Potential Patreon Soonish) · 11:58pm Mar 10th, 2020
As the MLP Fandom is "winding down", I have felt it was a good idea to port the story and its side stories to another site to host them there as a secondary source. Keep in mind, this is not going to replace FiMFiction, and chapters will still release on Fridays here first and foremost. This is merely intended as a second place for people to read and as sort of an "archive" should anything ever happen to this site. I am porting the story to Wattpad currently with illustrations intact, along with edits, revisions and new author's notes. All of which (except the author's notes which will add more background info about the writing of the story) will also be done here as well.
Currently, only the first two chapters and the prologue are available but I intend to update this list periodically until we are up to the current chapter of Shadows Cast Over the Sunset and its side stories. The end goal will likely to release on Wattpad a few hours after the FiMFiction release.
This doubles as also a way to expand the audience of the story and give people other places to read the story and converse about it on a platform that some may be more familiar with.
Possible Patreon, you say?
Yes, I've considered it. I am not really sure what the rewards would be yet, but I know a Discord server would be in order at the very least. Likely some people would gain access to reading chapters before they release, or possibly see concepts that was changed or scrapped. I'd like to hear input on what people would want to see and if you think a Patreon would be a good idea.
Regardless, I think a Discord server for all even non-doners would be in order, but patrons would gain special access and privileges, naturally.
I might even do requests from time to time.
Lemme know if any of this is something you'd like to see.
Just so you know, FimFiction isn't likely going anywhere. Knighty intends to expand it into a general fiction site in the future (with subdomains for various fandoms), and FimFiction will still be a part of that.
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That’s assuming he can leverage FiM Fiction’s user base now that the fandom is dying down. Gen 4.5 is a shitshow and G5 might not even happen. The time to launch GenFic was three or four years ago while we were still getting new authors daily, not now that so many have left never to come back. The time to launch GenFic was before Space Battles decided to start getting their shit together and made it halfway usable, before Royal Road started getting popular, and before Reddit screwed the pooch with their ToS changes and spawned a different story hosting site for each writing‐focused subreddit. And the longer Knighty waits to launch GenFic the more of an uphill battle it will become, when before it would have been a certain success.
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Yeah, but in the past, the issue we've always seen with fan sites is attempts to "expand" don't always work or seldom do as it becomes harder to maintain the original audience as part of why people use a dedicated MLP Fanfiction site is that it ensures MLP related fanfiction garners more attention. When you go for a more "generalized" approach you get to that point where it becomes "what are you offering that others aren't?" Other sites already have larger followings so they will instantly have an advantage out of the gate.
I would rather not put all my eggs in one basket as I've been through this song and dance before with fandoms and stuff like this either rarely works, or it ends up having very little success. Precaution is better when you're basically risking something you've work on for years being lost forever if you don't put your eggs in multiple baskets.
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That's the main concern. If Gen 5 is a huge turn off to fans, you will likely lose a lot of users because they will simply "quit" the franchise entirely. Now I am being optimistic about Gen 5, but yeah the other issue is trying to get a major revision like this off the ground this late in the game is already a gamble.
Let's not forget how Mane6 could not convince MLP fans to get on board with Them's Fighting Herds after their rebranding. The game was a market flop and struggles to get more than a few hundred users online at any given time. Even Lauren Faust and Tara Strong's endorsement wasn't enough to convince people.
I think you may be partially right here xoid, as essentially what's happening here is trying to capture lightning in a jar. FiMFiction came at the right time, in the right place. Trying to "recreate" the scenario necessary for a new site to take off is not going to be so simple and there is a chance it could fail.
Do I want it to fail? No way. I want it to work because it would be nice to have a more robust fanfiction site out there for other genres, but at the same time part of what made this site so special is that it ensured everything on it would get moderate attention. When you look at sites like FF.Net, if you basically are not writing for one of the "popular" animes, mangas, shows, etc. you will gain 0 traction. On top of that, you will be competing with tons of other fanfictions from other shows/etc. for views. Here on FiMFiction you don't have that.
At the end of the day, the biggest issue is there is a chance that GenFic will fail. I don't want that to happen, but many of us would be foolish to not start backing things up in other places. There's no telling what tomorrow will bring. I wish the team at FiMFiction luck, but I am not going to have blind faith, I'm going to prepare for any potential storm that may come.
Furthermore... This site's traffic has ALREADY declined significantly, so there's that. If you look at the site statistics, user registration, stories approved and even blog posts are about half of what they were in 2012. I believe the site's Alexa rating is down significantly from then too, and it's been on a steady decline for years.
The reality is that the "mania" phase of the fandom is over, and so sites like this are going to have a hard time keeping the doors open when time passes. Rebranding into a more "general purpose" site is often the first major move of trying to stay relevant, and it does not always work, in fact... It seldom does. Again, no disrespect to Knighty and them, I'm thankful for what they have done for all of us, but I do have to keep it real.
I want him to go forward with GenFic, but there is no certainty it will work.
Posts like this just remind me that the fandom is basically on its' last legs. =(
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Not inherently, but we're in a "transitional" phase right now. Where we're going from one generation to another and there is no certainty what that will bring. I'm not trying to scream "doom and gloom" but I am trying to be realistic in my recourse.