hello sire, i am just a low peasant fanfic writer asking your advice for how to spread your fanfiction around πΊπΊπΊπΊ
I'm gonna be 100% honest a lot of it is just plain luck. like, yes there are things you can do like trying to keep a regular update schedule so your fic frequently appears in the recently update tab and self-promoing where you can on other platforms, but the way my fics blew up really had nothing to do with me.
when I was still in the early days of posting clinic and it was relatively unknown, someone made a tiktok reccing the fic. this was when clinic only had like 5 chapters posted or something. the tiktok went viral a bit on mcyttiktok so I got a pretty solid sized boost from that. from there, I made an effort to keep updating the fic regularly to keep the momentum going, and it worked. the fic kept growing. other things that continued to boost it was just community content I had nothing to do with. a lot of people started cosplaying clinic characters on tiktok again, which further boosted it. once I finished the fic I thought the growth was mostly over, but only about a month after I finished it several big mcyttwt accounts started talking about siren specifically, which led to the entirety of sirentwt which is really what catapaulted clinic so high up. again, I had nothing to do with that stuff happening. it was entirely luck.
after clinic ended, I wanted to keep riding the momentum I got from having such a huge fic so I decided on world forgetting as my next big fic specifically bc I knew it would keep a lot of clinic readers on my stuff. it was a similar concept and world but with a darker tone, and I knew that if I had two fics get relatively big in the mcyt fandom space I'd be a pretty established author at that point. so that was a bit of strategy on my end, but again, the biggest boosts didn't come from me. it was just a combination of timing with how active the dsmp fandom was at that time, the concept I had which was an unique spin on the most popular au at the time (while tommy being a civilian healer wasn't unheard of, it didn't become a fandom staple trope until after clinic blew up).
really your best bet for getting your fics to spread is to try and have regular updates and unique spins on popular concepts, but more than anything it's just luck. so don't stress too much about the amount of interaction your fics get and focus on enjoying the writing process yourself. you'll make the best content if you're having fun with it, and that alone will draw readers to your work!
