Z4MU

Having Fun is Not a Waste of Time

Ooof, anon, I think you’ll hit every writer and content creator right were it hurts with this one! It’s something I think everyone goes through, so in short, yes, it does hurt. You put hours and hours into something, you check your grammar, you check the flow of the story, the pace, the characterisation, the dialogue, and then you hit post, and then… nothing, maybe a dribble of likes. It’s so demoralising. But don’t give up because half of that problem it Tumblr’s algorithms.

If even one in ten people who enjoyed a story reblogged it, it’d be seen by so many more people! It’s that whole ‘circle of influence’ thing. If the people who already follow you only ‘like’ your work, or even just enjoy it passively without bothering to leave anything behind grr then you’ll never attract new followers and your work will never get seen beyond the people who already follow you.

This is why reblogs matter.

Two(?) days ago I posted a story. It got a few likes. Then it got reblogged. New people (people who weren’t already following me) saw it. It got new likes. It got a few new reblogs. I got new followers. People followed the link at the bottom to my masterlist, and I saw like, a ripple effect. Not only were people finding and liking the new story, but they were finding some of my old stuff too, and that was also getting brand new likes and reblogs, and earning me new followers.

This all rapidly accelerated when @monstersandmaw herself reblogged my story, in part because of her followers, but also because she took the time to say nice things about the story in the tags. (When you say why you’re reblogging a story, it makes people more likely to look at it. It also helps the creators know what they did right.)   

But the ripple effect has continued long after that. I’ve gotten something like 60 new followers because people are liking and reblogging my stories. That means new people who haven’t seen my content before are seeing it. 

Reblogs are huge. 

Comments make content creators feel nice, and when you folks say things in the tags, many of us see. (I know I’m not the only person who checks reblogs to see if people have said things.) But reblogs help us so, so much.