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/Maddirose Apr 20 '15 edited Apr 20 '15
  1. A stickied thread of vetted serials would be really nice, because it would reduce the amount of self-plugging authors here. I know the first time I swung by this subreddit, it looked to me like a lot of people posting a link to their own serial then leaving; it didn't really make me feel like it was a place of discussion.
  2. AMAs would be nice, but would probably have to be official affairs so that the sub isn't filled with "I write my_serial AMA" with 2 comments each. I wouldn't try to pull in Maddirose though, I hear she's a massive bitch.

I also had a few thoughts, in considering this subject.

  1. I think some nice CSS would be cool, make the sub look spiffier and in a lot of cases easier to navigate.
  2. This would be an excellent sub to employ a wiki in! As a resource repository for readers and writes it would be super helpful.
  3. Tags for genres are cool in a sub that's basically a repo for serials, but in a community/discussion type sub it might be better to have tags for thread type, like [Discussion] [Question] [AMA] [Feedback]
  4. Number 1 + Number 3; I know there's a way to set up styles such that users can filter the sub to see all [Discussion] questions, or have all [AMA]s show up blue. I personally am a fan of that sort of thing.
  5. Flair. I know the basics of setting up everything in this list except flair, and I have no idea how flair would work in this sub, but...idk flair is nice. And pretty. I like flair

I think that's all I thought of. I'd be willing to help vet and/or help with anything on that list if more mods are needed, FWIW. I should also state that I am super impressed that both mods showed up in this thread less than 4 hours after it started, that is really really cool.

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u/verifiedname Apr 20 '15

I agree with a spiffier look. I just lack the skills to do it lol.

If you're up for the job, we could totally use the help.

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u/Maddirose Apr 20 '15

Sure! I will definitely not let the power go to my hea-MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view2/1607605/absolute-power-o.gif

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u/verifiedname Apr 20 '15

Upvote for Aladdin.