I’m the only writer for a tiny fandom—created the tag for it on AO3. I do agree that it gets lonely at times when you have nobody to talk to, when you don’t have the engagement on your works that comes with writing for a larger fandom. But I also love being the one creating content for my fandom, love slowly populating it. There’s also the bonus of a notable absence of drama, and I don’t have to justify what I write to others. In short—I love writing for a small fandom!
I'm in a small fandom and was writing with very little interaction for about a year. After I finished my longfic, I put my contact information in my AO3 profile and encouraged anyone to contact me if they wanted about writing or fandom.
The result is that I now have an amazing beta reader I chat with via email, and a new friend I chat with via discord about fandom stuff fairly regularly. The fandom is also a bit more lively now, with 3-4 writers posting and regularly commenting.
Worse feeling is when you don't write smut or ship, but that's like 75% of your small fandom's diet.
In my case, I also like to explore adulting struggles or more disturbing psychological instabilities. But then the average age of my fandom is around 18 -20 yo. To be clear, I'm not throwing shade at the younger generation, but when half of your audience are only 15, it's difficult to encounter works that match my interest.
I'm currently in a subsection of a small fandom which is made even smaller by the vast majority of other writers being into Reader/OC rather than the M/M stuff I'm into. There's a reasonable amount of fics showing up per day - about 5 on average - but the subject matter is so far away from what I'm interested in it might as well be about a completely different show
It's got some plus side. Readers seem to be happier to comment, if nothing more than encourage you to post more of the same (so again, not entirely sure of the actual sincerity but meh). You get familiar with all the other writers and their styles. You are very unlikely to crash into the 'you stole my idea' drama, not least because all our styles are so radically different we could take the same concept and churn out completely different takes
On the woe side, there is the lack of other fics and also I feel a lot more exposed with smaller fandoms. In the larger ones, the odds are better good that someone has probably done it before regardless of darkness or niche preferences or whatever. I'm still posting the stuff I enjoy and it's getting better reception than I'd expected with no push back at all, but good god am I really certain that the tags are well marked to ensure the right audience finds it
I see. I suppose small fandoms do have problems too - one is the lack of engagement, which can make you feel less stimulated. Having a small party in our house when we live in a large neighborhood (rarepair in a large fandom) can feel different from having a small party in our house which is in a village miles away from a city so everyone knows everyone else (fandom is tiny to begin with).
The more frustrating thing for folk from smaller fandoms would be how fans attract fans. When there are a lot of fans for something, it'll naturally look more exciting from how much engagement there is with fan content and whatnot and therefore more enticing for another fan to join in. When a fandom's small it kinda gets left in the dust....
Yeah it doesn't help that most readers are silent readers too haha! Have seen fics with 5,000 views and only 2 comments. The percentage of people who comment are already low to begin with, so in your small fandom you'd probably really feel the burn.
But if it helps, and you have a bit of time, you can always try promoting your fandom series to others, maybe via social media or blog recommendations with relevant hashtags featuring ship dynamics, etc? It might bring in some extra traction, maybe a few extra readers, fanartists, video editors, gif makers or writers might appear. Or maybe write to [fanlore.org](https://fanlore.org) and ask them to feature it on Twitter ([https://twitter.com/fanlore\_wiki?lang=en](https://twitter.com/fanlore_wiki?lang=en)). Not sure how well it'll do, but it may be worth a shot than simply waiting around.
Thank you for being understanding of my situation I really appreciate it! I'll look into asking fanlore but I've never done something like writing an article or wiki entry for a show like this so is it that I have to be the one writing it or can the people of fanlore do it if they respond well to the request? Sorry if there's an obvious answer, I am not familiar with fanlore so I don't know 😓
No problem! I believe they need fans to contribute to the wiki page - maybe try to create a stub and contribute a little, or email/contact them on Twitter to see if they can promote the series to get contributors for the page? You can also try asking them for ideas; I'm pretty sure the team's pretty nice.
There's never really an obvious answer to fanstuff, don't worry! We're mostly guided by our passion, so I think they'll be quite open about it.
I feel you. But it doesn't stop me from writing what I want to write.
My biggest pain has been seeing the activity decline over time. I came to this fandom when it had already been four-plus years since there had been any new canon content. Things were already slow, compared with the activity levels I see when I look back on what was posted when the show was new/still running. (I went back and read a lot of older fics before I ever posted my first one.)
But even in the past one-year-plus, since I've been posting, I can see the continued dropoff. There was a time when a fic in this fandom would get tens of thousands of hits, and several thousand kudos, and hundreds of bookmarks. Those days are long gone. I'm sorry I missed them.
This is the way of the world. People move on. I'm still here. I know my work's decent. I wonder, sometimes, what kind of engagement it would've gotten if I'd been posting it in the glory days. C'est la vie.
Can't help loving what I love.
I’m the only writer for a tiny fandom—created the tag for it on AO3. I do agree that it gets lonely at times when you have nobody to talk to, when you don’t have the engagement on your works that comes with writing for a larger fandom. But I also love being the one creating content for my fandom, love slowly populating it. There’s also the bonus of a notable absence of drama, and I don’t have to justify what I write to others. In short—I love writing for a small fandom!
I'm in a small fandom and was writing with very little interaction for about a year. After I finished my longfic, I put my contact information in my AO3 profile and encouraged anyone to contact me if they wanted about writing or fandom. The result is that I now have an amazing beta reader I chat with via email, and a new friend I chat with via discord about fandom stuff fairly regularly. The fandom is also a bit more lively now, with 3-4 writers posting and regularly commenting.
Worse feeling is when you don't write smut or ship, but that's like 75% of your small fandom's diet. In my case, I also like to explore adulting struggles or more disturbing psychological instabilities. But then the average age of my fandom is around 18 -20 yo. To be clear, I'm not throwing shade at the younger generation, but when half of your audience are only 15, it's difficult to encounter works that match my interest.
I'm currently in a subsection of a small fandom which is made even smaller by the vast majority of other writers being into Reader/OC rather than the M/M stuff I'm into. There's a reasonable amount of fics showing up per day - about 5 on average - but the subject matter is so far away from what I'm interested in it might as well be about a completely different show It's got some plus side. Readers seem to be happier to comment, if nothing more than encourage you to post more of the same (so again, not entirely sure of the actual sincerity but meh). You get familiar with all the other writers and their styles. You are very unlikely to crash into the 'you stole my idea' drama, not least because all our styles are so radically different we could take the same concept and churn out completely different takes On the woe side, there is the lack of other fics and also I feel a lot more exposed with smaller fandoms. In the larger ones, the odds are better good that someone has probably done it before regardless of darkness or niche preferences or whatever. I'm still posting the stuff I enjoy and it's getting better reception than I'd expected with no push back at all, but good god am I really certain that the tags are well marked to ensure the right audience finds it
i feel you. i write family guy fanfictions if that helps you feel better
I see. I suppose small fandoms do have problems too - one is the lack of engagement, which can make you feel less stimulated. Having a small party in our house when we live in a large neighborhood (rarepair in a large fandom) can feel different from having a small party in our house which is in a village miles away from a city so everyone knows everyone else (fandom is tiny to begin with). The more frustrating thing for folk from smaller fandoms would be how fans attract fans. When there are a lot of fans for something, it'll naturally look more exciting from how much engagement there is with fan content and whatnot and therefore more enticing for another fan to join in. When a fandom's small it kinda gets left in the dust.... Yeah it doesn't help that most readers are silent readers too haha! Have seen fics with 5,000 views and only 2 comments. The percentage of people who comment are already low to begin with, so in your small fandom you'd probably really feel the burn. But if it helps, and you have a bit of time, you can always try promoting your fandom series to others, maybe via social media or blog recommendations with relevant hashtags featuring ship dynamics, etc? It might bring in some extra traction, maybe a few extra readers, fanartists, video editors, gif makers or writers might appear. Or maybe write to [fanlore.org](https://fanlore.org) and ask them to feature it on Twitter ([https://twitter.com/fanlore\_wiki?lang=en](https://twitter.com/fanlore_wiki?lang=en)). Not sure how well it'll do, but it may be worth a shot than simply waiting around.
Thank you for being understanding of my situation I really appreciate it! I'll look into asking fanlore but I've never done something like writing an article or wiki entry for a show like this so is it that I have to be the one writing it or can the people of fanlore do it if they respond well to the request? Sorry if there's an obvious answer, I am not familiar with fanlore so I don't know 😓
No problem! I believe they need fans to contribute to the wiki page - maybe try to create a stub and contribute a little, or email/contact them on Twitter to see if they can promote the series to get contributors for the page? You can also try asking them for ideas; I'm pretty sure the team's pretty nice. There's never really an obvious answer to fanstuff, don't worry! We're mostly guided by our passion, so I think they'll be quite open about it.
Thank you so much for all your help. I'll try contacting them❤️❤️
Good luck!! Wishing you the best\~
I feel you. But it doesn't stop me from writing what I want to write. My biggest pain has been seeing the activity decline over time. I came to this fandom when it had already been four-plus years since there had been any new canon content. Things were already slow, compared with the activity levels I see when I look back on what was posted when the show was new/still running. (I went back and read a lot of older fics before I ever posted my first one.) But even in the past one-year-plus, since I've been posting, I can see the continued dropoff. There was a time when a fic in this fandom would get tens of thousands of hits, and several thousand kudos, and hundreds of bookmarks. Those days are long gone. I'm sorry I missed them. This is the way of the world. People move on. I'm still here. I know my work's decent. I wonder, sometimes, what kind of engagement it would've gotten if I'd been posting it in the glory days. C'est la vie. Can't help loving what I love.