You know, I voted AO3 in the poll, because I just find it's the easiest and most intuitive platform for posting fics. I love that you can download fics to .pdfs, and I really love that you can go back and edit a chapter of anything, any time - you don't have a set storage limit, like there is on FFN, and the platform is friendly for really long fics than LJ (where users automatically see the most recent entries, rather than the first ones - makes posting longer fics a problem). But your question asks what forum is "better," and that could include questions like readership, too - the readership on the three platforms I'm most familiar with (A03, ffn, and lj) is quite different in each case. I almost never get a comment on a03; I get comments on lj only from my f-list or, very rarely, if I post something to swficchallenge; on ffn, I don't get a lot of reviews, but faves-listing is kind of a free-for-all. So "better" kind of depends on what aspect of ficcing you're most interested in.

On another note, I don't know how you'd feel about this, but I think it would be awesomely interesting to post a multifandom version of this as a discussion question on fanlit_project. You know, if you ever get bored … :)

The storage limit on ffn is only a problem if you try to edit lots of chapters at the same time, and I mean lots. ;)

I've noticed it's something of a tradition on LJ not to comment on non-friends' journals, a tradition I've always found baffling and have broken many times.

What's "better" depends on your goals for posting s story, which for me is to maximize my "influence" in the fandom and therefore the number of readers, and reviews are nice too as evidence that people are reading and occasionally priceless glimpses into outside perceptions of my writing.

Edited at 2011-08-06 01:58 am (UTC)

I like FF.net because the format is easy to read and to change the style to suite one's own eyes and if you are the writer uploading is fairly simple as well. I also voted LJ (personal journal) because I like that as long as authors post masterlists. I also voted Archive of Our Own because sometimes being able to download fics is nice.

But you can download fics from fanfiction.net as well - you just need a program like this one. I do like the tagging system on AO3, but the Star Wars fandom has very little presence on that site and from what I'm hearing, it isn't the place to post if you want to get reviews.

There aren't programs like that for Mac, though.

Also, your icon is epically awesome. Bail is one of my favorite characters.

Yes there are. But I haven't tried it and can't know if it works.

Thanks. Bail is one of my favorite characters too, being the kind of politician I respect (but could never be) in real life.

Oh, cool. I just knew of one downloader, the one I used to use when I had a PC. I just switched to Mac a few months ago and hadn't been able to find a new downloader.

I voted for AO3 and FF.net. AO3 has the best system of tags, you can list as many different genres and characters as you want, and from a reader's perspective, you can either search for what you want to read QUITE specifically (I like that the OT and PT are listed seperately, for example, but fics that draw on both can be listed that way too), OR on the other hand, you get things like crossovers listed right alongside non-crossovers, so you may find a real gem in a category you didn't necessarily think you were interested in.

But FF.net has the advantage of being able to upload directly from file, usually without losing MUCH of the formatting (much better than copy-pasting to AO3), and of course the big advantage there is a larger readership. I mean, the same story has 58 hits on AO3 and 12,000+ on FF.net, and where I have no comments at all on AO3, I've gotten some very helpful and/or encouraging reviews on FF.net. It's also nice to be able to look at the favorites on people's profiles...if I see the same name pop up reviewing fics that I also like, chances are I'll like that person's other favorites too...so, it's harder to search but you can get those kinds of indirect recommendations.

I like the tagging system on AO3 - very convenient for those who have specific reading 'kinks', for example. I suppose it depends on your goal when posting a story. If you want to maximise exposure and reviews, AO3 isn't the place to go, at least for Star Wars fics.

Thanks for your comment. It confirmed what I only suspected, never having posted on AO3.

I agree about the quality of the fanfiction on theforce.net. It's almost astonishing, though Star Wars fanfiction in general tends to be better written than the average fic in many of the other fandoms I'm familiar with.

LiveJournal is confusing and inconvenient for posting multchapter fics, even with a good use of tags, something many authors don't bother with. And there is no Star Wars community on Dreamwidth as far as I'm aware, but I'm thinking posting fics there and publicising them on LJ, while allowing Anon and OpenID comments, may be worth considering if you care about Dreamwidth's advantages, like no ads and a very tolerant TOS regarding written content.

Thank you for commenting.

Edited at 2011-08-06 02:05 am (UTC)

When I wrote in the Harry Potter fandom, I posted on ff.net and FictionAlley. I got ten when not thirty times more reviews on the former, but the latter is where I got more detailed reviews and concrit. Almost all the reviews I got on ff.net were variations of "great chapter; update soon". The Star Wars fandom doesn't have an equivalent of FictionAlley, though. The TFN boards contain plenty of great fic, but are obnoxious for reading them - you have to get through all the reviews to get to the next chapter.

Personal websites mean a lot of annoying ads unless you're paying for them, and I'm not willing to waste (even more) money on putting my fanfiction on the internet - it's enough of a waste of resources (time, mental focus, paid LJ acount, etc.) as it is; I really don't know why I'm bothering. The fun, for me, is in thinking up the ideas and finding the words.