rachelhaimowitz:

cannibalcuisine:

specterqueen:

So I was just told that someone loved a (somewhat long) story I wrote for my previous fandom. I literally gave up on that story due to lack of response.

And this person read it many times and loves it…and never left one comment or even let me know they enjoyed it at all…not even a “I like it”…..absolutely nothing….

I mean….what the…..actual….??????? O.o

For the love of all that is sacred if you like/love a story LET THE AUTHOR KNOW.

This is important. If you like a fic, PLEASE LET THE AUTHOR KNOW.
Sometimes authors feel discouraged by lack of response, and stop writing amazing stories. Sometimes there are many people who love the story, but they never say anything and the author thinks no one is reading or enjoying it.
Please let us know.
If you feel too shy to leave a comment, send an anonymous message on tumblr, like, “hey I love your fic *insert title*”. This is enough. If you want, tell them why you like it. But say something. Please.
When you do this, you make the author want to write more of the story you love. You make an author smile, and they will probably give you more chapters/fics. Win-win.

I’ve just started posting the first fanfic I’ve written in maybe eight or ten years. I’m absolutely shocked by the AO3 stats; the number of hits the fic has gotten are more than ten times the number of kudos its gotten (which, like, literally all you have to do is click a button to leave kudos, it couldn’t possibly be less work-intensive??), and looking at other fics in progress, I realize that my sad percentage of kudos-to-hits is actually uncommonly high. Comments are even lower. To say it’s discouraging is an understatement, especially since the last time I posted fic was in LiveJournal’s heyday, when there were no kudos (and frankly also not more fanfic than you could ever read, so people were really supportive of writers in their fandoms) so comments were really common.

So yeah, wow man, I am so sorry to every author whose fic I read without leaving at least a few words. I’ve been trying for the last couple years to be really aggressively good at leaving kudos, at least, and comments on every fic if not every chapter. But yeah, it’s kind of shocking now that I’ve got experience on the other side of the table, and it makes me want to try even harder.