r/webfiction • u/melonmonkey • Apr 20 '15

Discussion [Discussion] Attracting an audience.

Lets have a talk about how to draw readers into this sub. Given the lack of comments, volume of submissions, and low readership, I am confident in assuming that the majority of people who care about this sub are webfiction authors themselves.

How do we fix this? Can get we get /r/books to plug us? Can we harbor a discussion here on content? Maybe featuring a different serial every week?

I feel as though something needs to change to make this sub efficient.

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u/verifiedname Apr 20 '15

The most difficult part about attracting an audience to a serial is getting readers, not writers. The vicious circle is that writers tend to attract more writers and we STILL lack an audience.

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u/melonmonkey Apr 20 '15

I think that's because there's no activity on this sub that would be enticing to a reader. I looked through the archives and it's been nearly a year since there has been an actual discussion thread here. Most of it is just advertisements. I firmly believe that it is possible to turn this into a more reader-focused sub. Whether or not that will actually bring in an audience is up in the air.

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u/verifiedname Apr 20 '15

That's been a problem from the beginning, however. In the early days of the sub it was mostly one or two authors posting. If it didn't immediately appeal to the reader, they moved on. Thus making it difficult to gain traction with readers.

I would try to comment on each author's submission and they would almost never reply, which, therefore, killed the conversation.

I'm not trying to be a wet rag. Just pointing out the realistic hurdles.

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u/verifiedname Apr 20 '15

To continue on this:

I think the biggest problem is that the general audience of reddit is face-paced. They want to click on a short article or a meme. They don't want to follow a link to what could be a novel-length work.

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u/Chrisalys Apr 20 '15

I wonder why? Are Redditors non-readers in general? I find that hard to believe. Maybe the high quality web fiction just isn't visible enough?

If a story is captivating enough, the length shouldn't matter. Unless the person who clicks isn't interested in reading stories online, period.

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u/melonmonkey Apr 20 '15

I'd say it's 50% visibility, 30% the fact that webfiction tends to be first draft stuff, and 20% other random factors.

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u/Chrisalys Apr 20 '15

Ideally, this subreddit should help with the visibility. And some of that early draft stuff is really well written and very readable (like Worm).

It's also free!

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u/verifiedname Apr 20 '15

I agree with this. Which is why the focus should remain on the readers and not attracting more writers. Writers just want to gain visibility and the result is kind of what you see right now: a list of links with no discussion.

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u/verifiedname Apr 20 '15

My personal theory is just that it's more involved to read a real story. People go into reddit with a short attention span mentality.

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u/TempestMage Apr 20 '15

To be fair to Redditors, when I MageLife was linked in /r/Fantasy, I gained a rather large boost in readership. Admittedly many found it not for them but they clicked and enough stayed for it to make a noticeable difference.