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Readership on AO3 vs. Fanfiction.net
Jan. 21st, 2016 09:45 amI just finished a multichapter fic that I've been serializing over the past month on AO3 and Fanfiction.net (FFN). The story is about a crack pairing in a relatively small fandom, and it's 100% self-indulgent. Still, it's always nice to know that I'm not just talking to myself, and I've been thinking about the differences in readership across the two sites.
In the 35 days since I started posting the fic, it's gotten 220 views on AO3.
To give a comparison, it's gotten 2,491 views on FFN.
As the above sceencaps indicate, the story has gotten more kudos on AO3 than story faves on FFN, but it's gotten more reviews on FFN than comments on AO3. This is primarily because the interface of AO3 facilitates leaving kudos (which is as easy as clicking a button), while the interface of FFN facilitates leaving reviews (which are expected to be short, usually no longer than a sentence). Based on my experience with this story, FFN seems to net more exposure, while AO3 produces more interaction.
What I'm interested in are the anonymous readers. Six of the nine reviews on FFN are from unregistered users, and 20 of the 25 kudos on AO3 are from guests. I suspect this is partially because of the nature of this particular pairing (which people might not want their usernames associated with) and partially because a lot of us read fic on our phones and work computers (meaning that we don't sign in to our accounts).
My hypothesis, however, is that many of these anonymous readers are coming from Tumblr, which is where fandom seems to have converged. I'm therefore wondering if perhaps Tumblr itself is starting to become the preeminent platform for posting fic.
When I showed this data to a friend of mine, she offered the reasonable assessment that AO3 and FFN function primarily as archives, while the main benefit of Tumblr lies in exposure. This is true, of course, but I don't think it's the whole story. The model of fandom I've seen emerging in the past twelve months is skewed toward more of a "media mix," and Tumblr excels in supporting the associated interactions. I will probably write more about this later, but for now I think it's safe to conclude that (a) each platform has its benefits, and (b) Tumblr is not killing fandom but facilitating it.
In the 35 days since I started posting the fic, it's gotten 220 views on AO3.
To give a comparison, it's gotten 2,491 views on FFN.
As the above sceencaps indicate, the story has gotten more kudos on AO3 than story faves on FFN, but it's gotten more reviews on FFN than comments on AO3. This is primarily because the interface of AO3 facilitates leaving kudos (which is as easy as clicking a button), while the interface of FFN facilitates leaving reviews (which are expected to be short, usually no longer than a sentence). Based on my experience with this story, FFN seems to net more exposure, while AO3 produces more interaction.
What I'm interested in are the anonymous readers. Six of the nine reviews on FFN are from unregistered users, and 20 of the 25 kudos on AO3 are from guests. I suspect this is partially because of the nature of this particular pairing (which people might not want their usernames associated with) and partially because a lot of us read fic on our phones and work computers (meaning that we don't sign in to our accounts).
My hypothesis, however, is that many of these anonymous readers are coming from Tumblr, which is where fandom seems to have converged. I'm therefore wondering if perhaps Tumblr itself is starting to become the preeminent platform for posting fic.
When I showed this data to a friend of mine, she offered the reasonable assessment that AO3 and FFN function primarily as archives, while the main benefit of Tumblr lies in exposure. This is true, of course, but I don't think it's the whole story. The model of fandom I've seen emerging in the past twelve months is skewed toward more of a "media mix," and Tumblr excels in supporting the associated interactions. I will probably write more about this later, but for now I think it's safe to conclude that (a) each platform has its benefits, and (b) Tumblr is not killing fandom but facilitating it.
