What do you think?

[shivver]

I need some opinions here, for something I've been considering for a while. Fanfic-related. Well, writing-related, not story-related.


If you've ever seen my AO3 or ffnet lists, you might notice that I have three collections of short stories - Calling the Doctor, A Teacher and a Housemaid, and Short Fiction. This is the way I created them on ffnet, because ffnet is really rather limited, and I followed suit on AO3. However, what I really should have done on AO3 is publish all of the stories separately and put them into series.

So, the question is, should I rearrange my AO3 archive and republish all the stories separately and put them into series the way they probably should have been?

Advantages:

• My archive will be better organized.
  
• It will display a better indication of how much I've actually written. This will add probably two pages onto my list.
  
• People will be better able to give feedback to individual stories. Right now, if you've kudoed one, you can never kudo again.
  
• I think that few people read the individual stories in the collections, because they look just like chapter updates.
  
• Future stories will be organized correctly.
  
• I actually write a lot of Martha, but you can't tell because they're all under one title.
  

Disadvantages:

• It's already set up this way. It's a lot of work to change it up.
  
• People who know my work might get confused about all the changes. (Granted, that's a tiny number of people.)
  
• I'll lose all of the comments that already exist on these stories.
  
• If I can't get the publishing dates set up correctly, my "recent" list will be spammed with old stuff.
  
• I'm afraid of change. :)
  

What do you think?

Comments

[bas_math_girl]

Could you not sort of do both by renaming your original posts with a 'all lumped together' title and then reporting the components in separate bits to form a series. I'm sure you could name the series the same as the original umbrella title. That way your readers get the best of both worlds - all together or in snippets, as it were. It wouldn't be classed as anything awful like plagiarism but instead a reorganisation.

Or is that too daft to consider? Worth trying out with one of them, surely.

[purplecat]

My inclination would be to make the change - it it were me, it would keep bugging me until I changed it anyway and the longer I put it off the worse it would get. Maybe with a boiler plate note at the start of each story explaining this is a repost due to reorganisation. I'd also be inclined to keep the collected version (maybe just deleting all but the first chapter) in order to preserve the comments (maybe again with a note at the top about the reorganisation).

An alternative would be to make the change going forwards - i.e., put the current "collected stories" as the first in the series and publish the new works in the series rather than as chapters to the old work.

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

The change sounds good, if you feel ready to tackle the work! ;) It sounds to me like the gains in organization would be substantial and the losses not too much. Although an alternative third way like what your other friends suggested also sounds fairly good :)

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

I honestly hadn't thought of keeping the original while also posting them separately, probably because other sites like ffnet or Teaspoon would never allow duplicate posting like that. But that sounds awesome. Thanks!

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, both about keeping the original and about doing it sooner rather than later. I hadn't even considered the fact that I could keep the original. :/ And yes, the longer I wait, the worse it gets. Thank you!

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think I shall, but in small chunks. Or perhaps when I'm bored at work. :D Thanks!

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

Oh god, now I have to come up with summaries for each story. Bleah. :D

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

Sounds good! :D And you're welcome!

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Could you just link them as a series and change the titles a bit so they are part of a series (it can be a bit more work, but worth it in the end!)

*HUGS*

[arcanetrivia]

I would do it, but then, I'm a Virgo. ;) I think, as louisedennis said, that if I didn't it would just keep bugging me that it was "wrong".