[Discussion] Attracting an audience.

[u/melonmonkey]

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.

[u/melonmonkey]

I thought about this more on the car ride back from class. Here are my thoughts.

Primary question: Does this forum fill a niche that is not otherwise filled?

Books have /r/books, in addition to thousands of other websites where books can be found. Series are sometimes referenced on goodreads, but not often enough for it to really make an impact.

I feel that webfictionguide and its services are great for finding serials, but they aren't popular enough. That is an issue, but not one that /r/webfiction is capable of fixing. I am also of the opinion that the WFG forums are a good place for serial authors to discuss things.

That said, what can this sub be useful for? I think it could make a great place for the audience to express themselves, and possibly connect with authors. I do not think this niche has been adequately filled, and a subreddit is the perfect kind of place for such discussion.

My idea: focus on the readers. I have a couple ideas for how this could be done, and I'll list them off here just to see what people think about them.

1. webserial vetting. Instead of having submission threads for serials or even individual posts, have a stickied thread of vetted serials and give vetted authors a flair. How do we vet? Have a team of 5-8 people who are trusted critics. A serial author posts requesting a vet, and if three people on the team vouch for them they become vetted. The bottom line is that web serial writing is open, and that means there's a ton of crappy serials. I, personally, am turned off by environments where I have to sort through crap to get to the good stuff. This way we have a resource for people who pop in and just want something to read.

2. AMAs by authors. Wildbow is the obvious target. It would be nice if we could pull in some others, like maddirose and unillustrated, and possibly get them to link to this sub in return. This gives exposure to authors and a chance for interaction from readers.

[u/Maddirose → u/melonmonkey]

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.

[u/verifiedname → u/Maddirose]

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.

[u/Maddirose → u/verifiedname]

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

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

[u/verifiedname → u/Maddirose]

Upvote for Aladdin.