Tips on Making Your Story More Popular

I try to write stuff with some kind of message for what I believe in, even if the message is subliminal. Even my fanfictions usually have some kind of message. My most blatently obvious one is my new story, Tights, a true story I wrote about self esteem and reasons for it suffering.

^ I sort of do that too with my original fics, but usually, I just... write. I write whatever the hell I want to write. But I think updating consistantly helps a lot, because when I was working on Music Girl for NaNo and updating like mad, I got a LOT of readers, and now that I'm not updating it as much, I don't get near as many.

But I guess the most important thing is to write things that are interesting, at least that are interesting to you. And make yourself known, 'cuz then if people know you, they're more likely to read your stories.

I tend to post some of my stories in the Pimping & Reccin thread. But I rarely do it. I kind of just rely on either friends reading them, or people stumbling upon them when they search.

It's rare my stories get read, but hey, whatever. As long as I'm posting & writing, that's all that matters. People will either find it on their own, or read it because I've discussed it with them.

I think a lot of people tend to not read mine, 'cause of who they involve etc. And that kind of bothers me at times.

I post it the P&R thread every time I post a new story.
I post in whatever threads in this forum it's applicable to.
I tend to play the S/R game every other story.
And I also whore my stories out on Tumblr & Twitter after I post them.

One, I try to give it an interesting title.
Example: I have a current story titled, "Death Isn't the End."

Two, when choosing a banner for my layout I pick one that matches the theme of my story and the background of the layout.
Example: For "Death Isn't the End" I have a girl with bloody hands as the banner. Kind of catches the eye.

Three, I attempt to have a good summary. You don't want to give away the initial plot and give your readers a history on your characters. You want to give just enough to capture attention.
Example: In DItE I mention that my main character see things after her parents brutal murder and finally after years of thinking she's insane she meets someone with the same secret.

Four, proof read proof read proof read. It doesn't matter if you're confident there are no typos. Chances are, there is. If you don't want to proof read then ask someone here I cannot stress how many times I will read entries for my contests and am shocked by how many spelling errors there are. That is one thing everyone hates.

Five, I go to the story comment swap there here all the time. Someone reads your story (maybe even subs) and a bonus is you get feedback on how your story is and what you might need to improve on.

That's all I do.
:D

Why don't we just link the story to our signatures?

Lately with my oneshots, if I already have a oneshot that's similar to the one I'm posting (same pairing, same situation, etc), I'll link it in the newer oneshot's A/N, sort of like amazon.com, "if you enjoy this, you may also enjoy this..."

I also try to pick unique titles as often as possible. If I have a title in mind, I'll story search that title to make sure there aren't fifty million stories already named that.

Well-made, high-quality graphics if you have banners and such. Personally, nothing turns me off more about a story, at first glance, than if it looks like you made it MS Paint, and/or saved it as a low-quality JPEG rather than a png.

Comment swaps definitely get your story out there. They're a bit of work, yes, and not everyone who comments sticks around but not only do you get it out there, people who don't like it will probably mention what you need to improve on, which with less kinks will gain more readers.

You can find a list of ways to get more readership on your stories here.

It's funny, because a lot of these tips actually involve making friends, or at least acquaintances, and that is one thing I am not good at, even over the internet! I was almost too shy to even post in this. I guess I'll just have to work on that...

A tip I guess I could throw out there is that I find layouts very important. It's basically your story in one glance - no pressure, right? It's like how people judge a book by its cover. I definitely judge mibba stories on their layouts. So I try to make my layouts pretty. :3

i saw sparks:

Lately with my oneshots, if I already have a oneshot that's similar to the one I'm posting (same pairing, same situation, etc), I'll link it in the newer oneshot's A/N, sort of like amazon.com, "if you enjoy this, you may also enjoy this..."

I also try to pick unique titles as often as possible. If I have a title in mind, I'll story search that title to make sure there aren't fifty million stories already named that.

^ that. I definitely do that - except, with stories instead of oneshots. But definitely true for the title thing. Especially don't use song lyrics as song titles. Try to be more original than that. But also, don't make the title so excessively long. Every word should be capitalized, don't add periods, and don't use such cliche phrases or titles that gives the entire story away (Example: "I'm the only girl at an all boys boarding school?!" Cliche, I know, but don't we all hate those?) And we're not in our quizilla days anymore so no more ~+title*~ decorations or adding the (say, band member's) name right into the title. That's what the short summary is for.

Yeah, I sometimes totally decide whether I want to read a story or not based on the title.

eight letters late.:

A tip I guess I could throw out there is that I find layouts very important. It's basically your story in one glance - no pressure, right? It's like how people judge a book by its cover. I definitely judge mibba stories on their layouts. So I try to make my layouts pretty. :3

100% agree with everything about that. The same applies for banners. I totally turn away from the layout if it's the slightest bit unreadable, and if the banner looks like you just slapped together a few pictures using Paint.

It all starts with the title. Sometimes titles may be misleading, but they will catch the persons attention. On this site I've noticed the most popular stories have anything dealing with sex, romance, death, and slash.

ayanasioux:

It all starts with the title. Sometimes titles may be misleading, but they will catch the persons attention. On this site I've noticed the most popular stories have anything dealing with sex, romance, death, and slash.

My most popular story that I've written has had the silliest title. It's called 'Show Me Your Lightsaber'. Sometimes something goofy and silly makes people really want to stop and read it, so I suggest that. There are one too many serious stories. Mix it up a little.

This is all really useful, thanks!
The story which I have the most comments on, I didn't actually get any until the tenth chapter or something - I thought nobody was reading it. So just keep posting (if it's a multi-chaptered story) as people will read it eventually!

I feel like having links to my stories and their respective fandoms in my signature has helped alot. Then posting on the forums or commenting on similar stories has helped gained me more readership.

It really does work! Every couple days when I have time to surf the forums and check out stories, I see a spike in my readers/subscribers.

I also feel like a really well put together layout helps as well, with readable large text and bright colors. I've been put off of reading a story just because the layout was unreadable or it wasn't appealing to the eyes. It might be superficial but people really do notice things like that.

I usually whore out recs for other peoples stories I enjoy then subtly recommend mine.

I do rec blogs, comment swap blogs, and advertisement blogs to get people to check out my stuff, but since I'm somewhat famous for my genre people know to come to me if they want to read science fiction or fantasy. I also frequent the Character Dev thread, the Story Pimping thread, the Rate the Layout thread, the blog section, the story section with an advanced search for Original, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, R to NC-17. (I tend to find authors that write in one genre also love to read in that genre.)

Whoring your story and nice layouts for sure (since everyone's mentioning it, I won't harp on this one). But I think summaries make a difference too. If you don't give the reader anything, they won't know what they're getting into, and if you give away too much, then what's the point of reading on? Also, the summary is the first thing the reader will see that reflects on you as a writer; so if your summary is poorly written and full of grammar errors, they'll assume you're not a very good writer, whereas a well written summary will give off the opposite effect.

I think reaching out to your readers definitely helps.