It arrived (beer prompts musings on fandom)

[inverarity]

Inverarity, hard at work getting the next chapter of AQATSA ready to upload...

I hope you are enjoying Alexandra Quick and the Stars Above. I read every review and comment. I note the praise and the criticism and take it all in. Sometimes I want to say "But..." or "Just wait..." but I don't think an author should try to influence how a story is perceived, at least not while it's being read. So you may have noticed I don't respond too much to any of the discussions. I'll withhold any author's notes until after the last chapter is posted.

I can definitely perceive the decline in HP fandom if the number of hits and reviews between book three and book four is anything to go by. (That's not a complaint, just an observation.) I expect that by the time I do finally roll out the final Alexandra Quick book, there will only be a small, hardcore fanbase left. But that's okay. The fact is, as much as I enjoy writing Alexandra Quick (and I do still have it in mind to write a sequel to Hogwarts Houses Divided someday), it's about my only connection to fandom nowadays. I don't really read much in the way of other fan fiction any more, and only occasionally cruise through one or two forums. Most of my future writing will be devoted to original fiction. But Harry Potter will always hold a place in my heart, and I will finish the Alexandra Quick series.

Also, thanks for the beer! :)

Comments

[david kotsonis (from livejournal.com)]

Cheers, sir. I intend to be reading through the end.

[wodcdre.livejournal.com]

HERE! HERE!!!

[shinygobonkers.livejournal.com]

your bookshelf is awesome :]

[thirdgorchbro.livejournal.com]

I'm terrible about leaving reviews, but I absolutely love the AQ series and will read every bit of it. And I certainly wouldn't mind a HHD sequel either. :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_silverfox/]

Same here. Plus I recently convinced a friend to read it and it looks like she might stick around until the end as well. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

You are a good man.

~DarkSov

[aisaacs.livejournal.com]

Thanks for taking the time and effort to write the series :)

Well Done

[(Anonymous)]

I can only say that I appreciate your effort and talent.

I hope you're considering more than one sequel to HHD. I love Violet. I think she is an extremely complex character.

If I had my way, you'd never stop writing these stories. I wish I had the talent to do it.

[lunacorva.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I plan to wait untill I've read the whole book before reviewing, I can already see a few things that need improvement, but since you've already written the entire story, there's a good chance these improvements will occur in later chapters, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and refrain from critiscising untill I've read the whole thing.

Don't get me wrong though, I think Book four is your best work yet and Alex was awesome last chapter, Talking down Mary and using Larry's own pride to get him to cover for her.

Her dad would be proud.

Lunacorva

anon jane

[(Anonymous)]

I intend to read AQ until the end.
I've also noticed the general decline.
Your dedication to finishing this series speaks to your success as a future writer. A great person must finish what they have begun.

[tealterror0.livejournal.com]

It's not surprising the fandom is declining, considering how the last movie came out and that was pretty much the last thing to wait for. That said, if/when Rowling publishes something new, that might revitalize it. You never know what might happen.

In any event, assuming I don't die or anything, I will be following the series to its end. I've invested too much time into it not to. ;)

anon jane

[(Anonymous)]

I hope this wasn't lost after the time I took to compile it!
____FF: __Mugglenet:
AQ1_282___163 =445 (29 chapters)
AQ2_517___274 =791 (37 chapters)
AQ3_417___179 =596 (31 chapters)
AQ4_137___15 =152 (as of 12 chapters)

Keep in mind that since Ch. 9 in AQ4, Mugglenet was not updated for over a month.


I'd say the reviews correlate with the number of chapters. Your fandom is pretty stable at this point, unlike most which are declining.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't see HP's fandom going down . . .

[(Anonymous)]

I think declining stats are to be expected, but they may also mask more complex trends. I for one, intend to stick around through the end of the series, but I have been commenting far less, and have not left any reviews recently, partly because I am busier, partly because mnff has been harder to use, since, for a while, it was reported as hosting malware, which may or may not have any relationship to fact, but surely makes it harder to access, and because they have been late uploading chapters.

So I became more of a passive consumer, showing up in the hit count, but hardly in the comments and reviews.

How many readers read directly from the fanfic sites, rather than coming here, first?

--Geneva

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

I think only a small percentage of my readers ever visit this LJ.

MNFF has definitely been having problems, and I hear through the grapevine that a lot of the big HP fan sites are pretty much run by a skeleton crew now, which is why whenever there is a server issue, it takes a while to get fixed, and more and more things are staying broken.

[jenstar85.livejournal.com]

I don't tend to review, but I read! I only found your livejournal site a few months ago when I was wondering if the new story had been started or not. And I not only plan to read through to the end of the Quick series, I plan to read any HHD sequel as well.