AO3 hitcount meme

[resonant]

I didn't do this last year because I thought, "Hey, newer stuff will have more hits, isn't it obvious?" Well, it wasn't obvious.

1. Amenable. Sherlock (Sherlock/John), explicit, 6,100 words, posted January 2011. (25,228 hits)

2. Home. Sherlock (Sherlock/John), explicit, 4,000 words, posted January 2011. How did I have so much time on my hands in January 2011? (17,519 hits)

3. Breaking and Entering. Inception (Arthur/Eames), explicit, 8,600 words, posted July 2011. (15,091 hits.)

4. Exactly the Way You Like It. Marvel Avengers Universe (Steve Rogers/Tony Stark), explicit, 2,000 words, posted October 2011. (13,229 hits.)

5. Close Enough. Sherlock (Sherlock/John), explicit, 3,100 words, posted April 2011. (12,680 hits.)

Then there's a big hit gap -- from 12,000 down to 6,000 ...

6. Steve Likes Tony. Marvel Avengers Universe (Steve Rogers/Tony Stark), explicit, 3,100 words, posted January 2012. (6,212 hits.)

7. Accommodations. Marvel Avengers Universe (Steve Rogers/Tony Stark), teen, 3,600 words, posted February 2012. (5,541 hits.)

8. Contact. Sherlock (Sherlock/John), all audiences, 400 words, posted March 2011. (4,458 hits.)

9. Phatic. Stargate Atlantis (Rodney McKay/John Sheppard), explicit, 1,700 words, posted October 2011, co-written with cesperanza. (3,332 hits.)

10. Transfigurations. Harry Potter (Draco/Harry), explicit, 71,000 words (holy shit, really?), first posted April 2003. (2,994 hits.)

Things I expected to see in the top 10 but did not: Higher Education is #12, Advantage is #17.

Conclusions I draw from this:

- They're all in really, really active fandoms except for "Phatic," which is benefitting from the cesperanza effect, and "Breaking and Entering," which came in on the trailing end of a fandom that had once been hugely active and apparently had more eager readers than fanworks at that point..

- Obviously they're mostly explicit, because what else do I write? "Accommodations" got more hits than I would have predicted given its teen rating, but demand for Avengers content is really high right now.

- I don't really understand "Contact" (400 words of G-rated hugging) being in there.

- Fandom likes stories to be of meaty length. My ten stories with lowest hit count are nine with less than 1,000 words, plus one that's het. And yet ... I don't really have anything else Transfig-length to compare, but I'd be willing to bet that an 8,000-word story would get more hits than a 50,000-word story, all other things being equal.

- The huge majority of people looking at "Transfigurations" are still looking at it on In Medias Res rather than AO3.

- All but "Exactly The Way You Like It" are first-time stories, but I'm not sure that's significant, since, again, what else do I write?

Comments

[lalaith_niniel]

I actually have you to blame for getting me into two fandoms: Harry Potter with "Transfigurations" waaaayyy back when, and Avengers with "Steve Likes Tony".

"Transfigurations" was the first and only story I've printed out; I was going to be away from a computer for several days and couldn't wait to finish, back in the days before fancy phones and e-readers...and now I feel old!

[resonant]

Aww! [hugs you]

[isis]

It's awesome that "Transfigurations" is still getting lots of hits!

[resonant]

On In Medias Res, it got seventy hits between April 18 and April 19! Numbers like that actually make me wonder whether there's something generating hits other than actual people navigating to the page -- I mean, the thing is almost ten years old.

[isis]

I have noticed on my own website that there are a certain amount of web-trawler and search engine hits, even though I have a robots.txt file which theoretically disables robots.

[mossybomb]

Your glossy new star status on Goodreads? 'Transfigurations' is brilliant, top of my comfortfic list.

[mossybomb]

Er. Sorry appear to have replied to wrong person. Cannot steer internet.

[resonant]

Hee -- thanks! Sometimes I look at the enormous thing and think, "I did that?!"

[amberfox]

"Contact" wins for being just the fluffiest piece of adorableness I've seen come out of Sherlock fandom.

[resonant]

[hugs you]

[minxy]

I love the hugging fic. I love both of them in it.

Also I just reread all your Sherlock fic (I am in a very Sherlock place right now.)

[resonant]

I want to get back into Sherlock! I do! But somehow I keep developing crushes on other men!

[marycontrary]

When I'm getting into a fandom, I sort starting with largest word count and work down. It's not odd to me that a 50k would get more hits than an 8k.

[resonant]

Huh. I personally like that mid-length -- say, six to nine thousand words -- best of all, and probably wouldn't take on the really big stories unless the author was known to me. but then I'm a lazy slob.

[jetsilver]

Well, I had fun reading them all again. :D

[resonant]

Aww -- thanks!

[anatsuno]

This is a little off topic, but I wasn't expecting to feel as hurt as I was by seeing you mention 'the trail end of a fandom' that I and a few of my friends are still actively in several months (a year? I didn't check when Breaking and Entering came out), heh. You're probably right, it's just that from the inside I hadn't seen it that way. :)

[resonant]

I'm sorry -- that was careless, and it didn't occur to me that it could be hurtful. The amount of Inception content that I personally saw on my friends list seemed to me to have peaked about nine months after the movie, but maybe "slightly less frenzied" would have been a better description of the fandom than "trailing end."

[anatsuno]

It *is* a lot less frenzied, it's true! And sometimes I do worry that this is indeed the trailing end of it, which it probably is. But I didn't like to be reminded of it. *g*
You are entirely forgiven though. I was just having a special snowflake moment. :)

[anitac588]

I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your Tony/Steve stories! I loved your SGA work and now your fics have been a real treasure to discover.

[resonant]

Well, that's cool! Thanks!