# Whats a writer got to do to get noticed?



## steamtrain (Jul 21, 2010)

I ask myself and any other writer on here, How do you get people to notice your work?, I'm pretty annoyed with it and kind of feel like smashing something.


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## south syde dobe (Jul 21, 2010)

that I dunno, I guess make friends with alot of people and try to get a fanbase going and see if they can spread the word of your amazing stories ^^


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## Lobar (Jul 21, 2010)

Writers have it tough, because you can't really make a thumbnail of your story. :|


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## furiana (Jul 21, 2010)

Could you create images to use as thumbnails for your stories?


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## south syde dobe (Jul 21, 2010)

furiana said:


> Could you create images to use as thumbnails for your stories?


 that can help get views ^^


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## Shouden (Jul 21, 2010)

creating thumbnails is good. And, if you write porn, that's a plus. 

I've been trying to get character art done, which also helps.  but I don't know. I think it's hard to get a story noticed on a mainly art-site.


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## steamtrain (Jul 21, 2010)

would love to, but i suck at drawing

but isn't literature an art?

god im so stupid


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## south syde dobe (Jul 21, 2010)

dude it's ok, just see if you can get a few requests or comissions done so you can use it for the thumbnail ^^


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## Asswings (Jul 21, 2010)

I'm sure if you offered to write someone a story in exchange for a piece of art that you can use as a thumbnail, someone would be willing to do the trade.


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## steamtrain (Jul 21, 2010)

the only problem is most artist want a ref sheet

that's actually a great idea. thanks


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## Shouden (Jul 21, 2010)

Also, if you keep multi-posting like that, you're gonna see the wrath of the mods. If you've got something else to say, edit your previous post unless someone's already commented.


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## RipfangDragon (Jul 21, 2010)

People are lazy.  No one wants to _read_ anything.  It's so much easier to look at art, and takes less time.

I wish I knew how to help.  Both my fiance and I have this problem.  What I do (on deviantART), is advertise in the thumbshare forum where people are looking for literature.

; ;  I'm sorry you're having a hard time finding readers.  Good luck!


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## steamtrain (Jul 21, 2010)

I agree with you, most people don't want to read about something and use their imagination, they want to see it.
I myself have reasonable success on Devintart, but with this site their just doesn't seem to be much point.


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## TakeWalker (Jul 21, 2010)

Step 1: Realize that writing is not very popular around here.

Step 2: Get over it and stop whining.

Step 3: Try participating in the Thursday prompts. They're on hiatus right now, but once they're back up, it's a great way to get people to read your work in short order.

Step 4: If Step 3 is too long-term, then just try reading works by other authors and leaving feedback. The only way to get people interested in you is to show that you're interested in them.

Step 5: If all else fails, write porn, especially niche fetish porn.

That's pretty much all there is to it.


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## steamtrain (Jul 21, 2010)

porn is my selling point, its all i write


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## Enwon (Jul 21, 2010)

Just write like this and everybody will love you.

I kid, I kid...

If you want people to notice you, you just have to offer writing that is both unique and well-written.  Then, you just have to hope for luck- you really won't have much control over whether your fics get popular or not.


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 21, 2010)

Self-promotion has a lot to do with it.  If you do a good enough job advertising yourself (not even your work, necessarily, but *yourself*), people will catch on and you'll gain a following.  But it's a lot of work.  You have to watch a bunch of people, read their stuff, comment on it, keep putting out loads of material on a regular schedule, and advertise.
Anyway, fact is, even my art doesn't seem to reach most audiences on this site, so there are clearly a lot of factors at play.  This may be an art site, but I seem to have trouble getting even 150 views on something I've drawn.  With writing, it's the same game, just a bit more difficult because reading is a bit more of an effort than just looking at a picture.  You just have to learn how to play the game and work hard.

And yeah, please use the edit button from now on if you have something to add.  I'll go ahead and merge your posts.


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## Tanzenlicht (Jul 22, 2010)

Write well.  Upload txt files.

I don't know if the first is true because the second is not.

Edit:  These things being true will not make you popular.  These things being untrue will make you less popular.


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## bloodbirds (Jul 22, 2010)

I'm guilty of skipping over stories, and when I click a thumbnail image without realising it's a story i rage a little 

It is hard, I guess you just need to plug your stories and get feedback. If people like what they read, hopefully they'll tell some people and, hopefully, you'll eventually have some sort of following


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## Poetigress (Jul 22, 2010)

Um, OP, unless you post your writing under some other account, you have nothing in your gallery, nothing in your scraps, and you've only been on FA for less than 2 months.

I would first suggest patience and uploading some of your work (or reuploading, if you deleted everything for some reason). 

Otherwise, I echo TakeWalker, M. Le Renard, and Tanzenlicht on their advice. I think they've already said everything I would have.


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## TakeWalker (Jul 22, 2010)

I'll amend my advice to add: Patience.

If you write porn, and if, like Poey says, you've only been here 2 months, things will fall into place on their own. I'd be surprised if I had any watchers after two months, myself.


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## panzergulo (Jul 22, 2010)

steamtrain said:


> I ask myself and any other writer on here, How do you get people to notice your work?, I'm pretty annoyed with it and kind of feel like smashing something.


 If you're writing to get noticed, you're writing because of wrong  reasons.

I wrote (yes, past tense) because I found it entertaining. I liked storytelling. But writing  because you want to get noticed is folly. Because you won't get noticed. There's something really off if a writer "gets noticed" in FA.

If you get noticed in FA it's because you write porn. And then, you've  already sold your soul. I don't give much credit for porn writers. I don't think they are writers at all. They are just... scum,  rollicking in mud...

/angst

You have some great answers here already. Bloc can be surprisingly  civilized compared to FAF as whole, am I right? ;Ã¾


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## steamtrain (Jul 22, 2010)

yes


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## Fenrari (Jul 22, 2010)

From personal experience...

(Be a sell out and write yiff, people will flock to it sadly  )

alternatively post information about stories in a FA journal entry and ask people to pass it on for a prize or something like that, maybe an indepth character sketch or a short story.


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## Kindar (Jul 22, 2010)

find patience, lots of it.

Write.

post said writing.

repeat, a lot.

and eventually you will be noticed by one or two people.


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## quoting_mungo (Jul 23, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> If you get noticed in FA it's because you write porn. And then, you've already sold your soul. I don't give much credit for porn writers. I don't think they are writers at all. They are just... scum, rollicking in mud...


So Kyell Gold, spotlighted on Wikipedia's front page back in May, isn't a writer? That's a very... interesting definition of 'writer' you have there. 

Best way of getting noticed is to use good thumbnails and actively networking. This is true for _any_ creative endeavor. Networking measures to try include reviewing/commenting on other writers' work, being active in communities about writing, such as this one. Using good keywords (and by 'good' I mean 'accurate') can also help. 

Thumbnails don't _have_ to be art (though it can help) - a tastefully-done single-color square with a short to-the-point description or collection of keywords is better than the default story thumbnail. Something like "rabbit and fox take a walk in the park, slice-of-life, 3283 words" will give the potential reader a good idea of what they can expect.

Also keep in mind that FA is not a very good medium for stories. Most other sites that allow for story uploads have a superior reading interface.


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## Kittyoffandomdoom (Jul 25, 2010)

I tend to get artwork done to tie in with the story I am currently working on.  I did such recently, and I expect a good return of views and faves due to such.


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## panzergulo (Jul 25, 2010)

quoting_mungo said:


> So Kyell Gold, spotlighted on Wikipedia's front page back in May, isn't a writer? That's a very... interesting definition of 'writer' you have there.


 You haven't been long in FAF, have you? Or, have I become so infrequent commenter in the Bloc that people can't remember me? It's my type of humor. I have nothing against any porn writer or this... Kjell Gold character you talk about...

But, if you are a "popular" porn writer in furry fandom, you can't be really sure if people read you because you write good or because you write porn... just saying... as a (former) writer who's pretty much stuck in the limbo between "a bad writer" and "a popular writer", I can talk lot about the frustration and angst that I feel when I see a writer with only a fraction of the skill I have getting tens or even hundreds of times more attention than me... just because they write bad but extremely popular fanfiction fetish porn or something along those lines...

Just saying... when you wander away from the general zone, you can't be sure if your readers are attracted to you because of good writing or porn. I have written my fair share of adult material, but never really become popular because of it... so I guess my erotica was never "fetishy" enough for FA.

But yeah... I am a jealous insecure frustrated little bastard... ask any old Bloc regular... and I hate when no-skill hacks get the attention they don't deserve just because they happen to write something that is "popular" by default.

Yup. Promoting quality writing, not "popular" writing. People should do that more often.


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## buni (Jul 26, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> If you're writing to get noticed, you're writing because of wrong  reasons.
> If you get noticed in FA it's because you write porn. And then, you've  already sold your soul. I don't give much credit for porn writers. I don't think they are writers at all. They are just... scum,  rollicking in mud...


 
Enh. I write porn. I write non-porn. The porn gets more attention, the non-porn gets more interesting feedback. Not that either gets much notice, but they both attract attention.

Kristy


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 26, 2010)

If this thread becomes another porn vs. non-porn argument, I'm infracting panzergulo out of principle for accidentally starting it.  I just wish it was completely off-topic so I could infract him now.
;-)


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## SushiFox (Jul 26, 2010)

I know how you can get your writing noticed dear.....think of poe.....it is the starving artist syndrome hun.....NONE of us artists ever get credit until we are DEAD....d-e-a-d DEAD! and it stinks....or I would be filthy stinking rich with my 60+ poems -.-


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## panzergulo (Jul 26, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> If this thread becomes another porn vs. non-porn argument, I'm infracting panzergulo out of principle for accidentally starting it.  I just wish it was completely off-topic so I could infract him now.
> ;-)


 ;Ã¾

I won't fuel that line of conversation anymore... I promise.

On-topic advice: All advertisement is good advertisement. Be a personality. Even if you step on someone's toes, people will remember you. I am sure there are some people who don't like my personality at all, but on the other hand, there's quite a few who are following me... despite my personality. Gray mass and "yes men" are boring. Have interesting and well stated opinions, and people will remember you. I had a long debate about something in another thread with one person, who has been since banned, and they actually read something of mine, even if we disagreed very deeply about things.

So yeah... it takes time and effort, but being around in FA writing circles and FAF's Bloc will make you stand out better. You will become a "personality" and not just "that username".

Are we happy now, Mister L.R.? ;Ã¾

Off-topic: Firefox spellchecker claims "infract" is not a word. "Infraction" is a word, on the other hand. Funny, is it not?


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## steamtrain (Jul 26, 2010)

okay so if i die....?


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 26, 2010)

You only get noticed after death if your writing reflects the reason you died.  Like Hemingway... he was a lousy drunk most of his life, horribly, hideously, unbearably depressed, and then finally he shot himself.  So people read him because a lot of that sentiment is present in his writings, and people are fascinated by that sort of thing.  There's a funny analysis of this in _The World According to Garp_.
I can't remember what Emily Dickinson's deal was, though.  Her poems were all about sex and death, the most popular subjects imaginable for poetry, but they still didn't get picked up until way after she kicked the bucket herself.  I feel like she didn't show them to anybody, or something of that nature.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, suicide isn't a guaranteed way to make your writing popular, so that's probably not a good option.


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## steamtrain (Jul 26, 2010)

I'll keep that in my mind, Emily Dickinson by the way suffered a lot of trauma all through out her life and never really went outside, no one would read her poetry cos she was a woman, so she used a pen name and sent her poems to another poet (whose name i can't remember) and he liked them and he made sure they were published after her death.


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## LolitaOfTheVoid (Jul 27, 2010)

Honestly my stories that are yiff-less get more attention than the yiff. So, if porn isn't working, then write something else.


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## jinxtigr (Jul 28, 2010)

Write more.

Seriously. More. Work on the grammar and capitalization- you don't have to talk like a schoolteacher, but if you talk weird in text it should be on purpose- but mostly, write more.

I've just got my eponymous site together to contain all my writing- it's a Wordpress/Comicpress site, and I think the more professional-looking layout will help.

There's a way to look at categories, and everything was under writing- turned out I could hit the wrong button on the site and have a page that listed EVERYTHING in one page. All the chapters of all my books, concatenated. I did a word count, since there it was, waiting to be counted most conveniently.

Over two hundred and seventy-nine THOUSAND words, a hundred thousand since January when I started writing daily. A quarter million FINISHED words not counting everything else I've ever written- novel chapters alone. Not far from a third of a million words.

*Write more.*


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## skunkspray03 (Jul 28, 2010)

a few words of wisdom: content warnings

you put them up, lots of interested people come to see what it's about. 

But be truthful, though.

What I would do (and probably should do) is write a bunch of stories involving most of the fetishes on FA. You'll get noticed eventually, hone your skills, and possibly learn something new.

Also:

keywords, keywords, keywords! Include as much as you truthfully can about your story for everyone using the handy search feature.


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## Fere (Aug 1, 2010)

I guess it depends on what one means by 'being noticed'. You can attach varying degrees to this. And regardless of the degree, it will seem different to every single writer writing at the moment. It's all relative, and depends on how much one craves fame.

Being relatively prolific with good quality, realistic, exciting reads is a good starter. Bearing in mind of course that pornographic/yiffy stuff is only worth the read (and hence will only rack up the hits) if it's pure 'standing-right-there-witnessing-this' quality. No tat, no cliche... just bloody good atmospheric realism.

Spending time noticing others is a good start too.


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## quoting_mungo (Aug 2, 2010)

Fere said:


> Being relatively prolific with good quality, realistic, exciting reads is a good starter. Bearing in mind of course that pornographic/yiffy stuff is only worth the read (and hence will only rack up the hits) if it's pure 'standing-right-there-witnessing-this' quality. No tat, no cliche... just bloody good atmospheric realism.


I admit I've not done much reading on FA (why do people insist on uploading Word documents? I don't want to download shit!), so my experience is limited... Is this really true for the state of writing on FA?

I know on Yiffstar, I saw some pretty atrocious writing racking up high ratings, comments, etc, just because it had the "right" kink. Lion King fanfic was maybe especially bad for this. Maybe not quite enough to hit the "most popular" lists, but not far from.

I'm just curious how the audiences on the two sites may differ.


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## Fere (Aug 2, 2010)

quoting_mungo said:


> I know on Yiffstar, I saw some pretty atrocious writing racking up high ratings, comments, etc, just because it had the "right" kink.



I guess it all comes down to personal preference and that we're all looking for different things in what we read and when we read it. In this respect, "atrocious writing" would be passable for the fact that it has the right trigger words and phrases. It's not necessarily designed to be a long good read. 



quoting_mungo said:


> I'm just curious how the audiences on the two sites may differ.



Personally speaking, I see the two sites in very different ways. Yiffstar (or SoFurry as it is now apparently known) is generally for the quick fix, particularly in the pornographic genre. This of course doesn't apply to all the stories on there atall. But I feel it has that explicit edge that FA doesn't.

FA has a more refined and wider range, dealing with extended, technical storylines in the most part, but concentrating on the art side of things. I've always seen FA as the arty partner to the more literary and explicit YiffStar. I don't know... maybe I'm wrong. I enjoy both sites myself, but prefer FA.


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## A10pex (Aug 3, 2010)

I realized that you probably want a thumbnail as some other people have said, I myself can't draw either but to get them I try to find pictures that relate to the story on google or something. It won't get you immediate attention (I'm still working on it) but it might help.


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## quoting_mungo (Aug 3, 2010)

A10pex said:


> I realized that you probably want a thumbnail as some other people have said, I myself can't draw either but to get them I try to find pictures that relate to the story on google or something. It won't get you immediate attention (I'm still working on it) but it might help.


Even if you don't use a picture, you can always use a graphics program to make a square with a reasonably eye-pleasing background color and write in the most relevant keywords and other info in it. Chances are anything you do is going to be better than the default boring thumbnail.

I mean, look at Jeeves. He just puts text over his user icon with a general idea of what the story is about.


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## mrs.ferdo (Aug 4, 2010)

Enwon said:


> Just write like this and everybody will love you.
> 
> I kid, I kid...
> 
> If you want people to notice you, you just have to offer writing that is both unique and well-written.  Then, you just have to hope for luck- you really won't have much control over whether your fics get popular or not.


 
I can't stop laughing. 
It's STILL hilarious. XD


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## Jeevestheroo (Aug 8, 2010)

One reply in particular already spoke of my sentiment on the matter. Practise and consistency; post regularly and often, not just because it gets people to recognise your name and thumbnail (thumbnail images and formatted .txt files really do help, too), but because it also allows you to practise and improve your own skill. :3 

I write a lot of adult stuff, and maybe that is the main reason why I do have a fair few watchers. But back when I first started posting, even the smuttiest of my works didn't get many views or comments. I've been on FA for years now, and posting on other sites in the fandom since 2004. Only in the last year or so have people really started to notice me, and while it may be because of my adult work... I'm still writing what I enjoy, so if you do the same, I hope you'll still get some pleasure from the furs who do comment on your work, however many or few. So... yeah, patience and practise!


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## Warnndog (Aug 9, 2010)

Kyell Gold talk about this at Furry Fiesta, and he was a big advocate of self promoting. Personally I really don't care at this point. I'm just writing to write and eventually if you keep writing and make enough comments and keep getting yourself publish people will notice. So don't worry, everything will come in due time. Just don't give up.


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## GraemeLion (Aug 25, 2010)

If you want to be read, submit to lots of markets and get your name out there.  Heck, talk to writers, lead panels, do things .  Kyell's arguably the most popular furry writer out there, but one day about four years back he wasn't.  If you look at how he got popular, it's because of submitting things, taking pride in his craft, and getting published.

Ultimately, if you're making money for people, you're going to be pushed by them more than people who aren't.

And if that's selling out, oh well   I call it "getting in front of my audience."


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## Chimmey (Nov 22, 2010)

I've made a blog for my stories. And I announce it on my furry facebook account. Also I have some of them on my FA profile.


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## Harlequin Raven (Nov 22, 2010)

It truly is a problem on art sites like FA and DA (though I am apparently a dumb bird at the moment, and I cannot figure out HOW to actually upload anything to FA...). I write poetry and stories, and I get very few, if any views and watchers. Most of my watchers and views come from my emoticons, photoshop, and resources. A few wander from there to my writing, but it is fairly rare.


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## Chaoman16 (Nov 22, 2010)

If you can...get a picture done that has relevance to your story...then in the artist comments, place the story there, and credit the artist for the picture at the END of the story. This will get some folks to get sucked into the story while they scroll down to figure out who the artist is.


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## M. LeRenard (Nov 24, 2010)

This thread's a little past its prime.  If we're all done here, I'm going to go ahead and close it.
Which is to say that I'm closing it.


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