Shameless Plug Time

[auronlu]

Okay, while I'm banging away on the Epic Battle chapter of LHaD (coming along nicely) -- stats time!
Chapters: 40 (40 is sitting on my HD being polished)
Words: ~90,000 (ack!)
Started: Dec. 14, 2007
One-shot that started it all: "Alternate Universe" posted on pyre_flies in Apr 2006. 1030 words.

FF.Net Stats: 11,300 hits; after initial die-off ~150 read to the end; 116 comments.
LJ Stats: 425 comments since Dec '07, of which about a third are my replies.

MUCHO thanks to all my reviewers/critics! Your feedback has made it 500% the story it would've been. Especial gratitude to my diehard commenters: trekqueen, cumuluscastle, muggy_mountain, owlmoose, melchar, jlsigman, vandevere

.
Now. Shameless Plug and/or PSA!

The Genesis Awards keeps postponing the final awards for Final Fantasy X, and I'm guessing it's because not enough fics have been nominated in some categories. Partly for selfish reasons (LHaD was nominated, but can't compete if there's no contest), and partly because I absolutely want more of the fabulous Final Fantasy writers out there to get the credit they deserve, I am encouraging everybody to nominate one Final Fantasy X Fanfiction story that they think deserves some notice!

This is the first year the Genesis Awards has recognized any fandom besides FFVII, so I am eager to see FFX fic well-represented. (Apologies for sounding like a broken record.)

Comments

[rsasai.livejournal.com]

We really don't want to keep pushing it back, but without nominations what's the point in having the Awards? I wish the X fandom knew of our existence more... we spam everywhere we can, attempting to get more nominations... it's a bit pathetic, actually.

Thank you for trying! We've decided that no matter what we're closing the nominations on March 31, so if anyone has any fics now would be a very good time to get them over!

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiousity: where have you advertised? I consider myself pretty active in the FFX fandom, but I think auronlu's journal is the only place I've ever seen it mentioned.

[rsasai.livejournal.com]

I advertised in several other forums, every livejournal community that would let me (and you'd be surprised by how many it was deleted from...) and I've been in contact with several BNFs in the fandom, trying to get word out. Unfortunately... no one seems to care.

IF you have any suggestions to other places, a list would be really great. We don't want to run out of steam.

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

ff10 -- I posted a shill there months ago, but it would be better from the horse's mouth, plus I haven't re-shilled since the date was moved.

ff_noticeboard

The most important thing is to have an official post/announcement for ff_press to feature in its daily index of FF fandom. ff_press is watched by over 1000 LJ users.
ff_press will pick up and link to posts on ff10, so if you post something compelling/official on ff10, it'll get seen by lots of people.


Other possible places to shill:
squareenix
ff_het
ffsaffic
ffantasy_yaoi
ff_fanfiction
ff_epicfic

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

auronlu's list is good. I was also going to suggest ff_press, but from a different angle: now that the newsletter links to off-LJ content, I would suggest contacting the editors directly and asking for a listing that goes straight to your message board, and ask them to run it multiple times. I've found that to be a pretty effective method of advertising.

Have you promoted in the other journal communities? There's Final Fantasy Archive on Dreamwidth, and I know there are FF communities on Insane Journal as well. Could be worth checking out. There are also many, many FF fans who don't participate in the journaling communities at all. It can be a challenge to reach people on FF.net or AO3 without contacting individuals directly, but maybe it's worth a try.

The thing is that FFX is an older fandom, and the canon has been closed for many years. So there isn't a constant stream of new people, and the fandom has become somewhat decentralized, and it can be hard to catch a lot of people at once. FF Press is the closest thing I know of to a central location, and even that only gets the people who are on LJ, which isn't everybody by a long shot.

I'm afraid that I was discouraged from nominating the first time I visited for a few reasons: I couldn't tell from the rules whether FFX-2 fic was welcome; fics of fewer than 1000 words being restricted to the drabble category felt really limiting to me; having to register for a new message board was more hurdle than I wanted to deal with. Have you considering allowing guests to post, or having some other method of sending in nominations, like via email?

That said, I will make an attempt to nominate some stories, go through my old favorites and promote a few. I agree with auronlu that it would be good for the fandom to make a good showing. I do appreciate the effort you've gone to here!

[rsasai.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you for your suggestions!

As for the website--we did in fact have an 'open' forum for quite a while until we had to ban a few members for several reasons. Because of this, the offended took advantage of our open guest policy in the nominations categories, using it as a soapbox to spew hatred.

There's also a rule in effect that states if you would simple like to email in your nomination you may send it to Genesis.awards.admin@gmail.com and it will be added to the website. We've implemented it several times already, though I don't know if it's that people don't know it exists or don't want to spend the time doing it. All we ask is for you to fill out the same form "Title/Author/Links/etc." and send them in.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Ah, excellent, I didn't see the part about emailing. I went ahead and registered already, but maybe if you made the email option a little more obvious, it would help you catch a few more people.

Best of luck with the project! I look forward to seeing how it all works out.

[samuraiter.livejournal.com]

*applause*

I am curious: Do you intend to throw a party once you hit the big 100,000? :-)

[trekqueen.livejournal.com]

if not at her house, I'll host it - I just crammed 34 people in my house on Saturday for a baby shower. I think I can manage the auronlu fanbase who decides to come! we can also link in via skype the peeps who can't make it. lol

Heh. Thanks.

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

Assuming that Livejournal/FF.net still exist fifty years from now, sure! :D

Oh, wait, you mean wordcount, not hits.

Nah. I can't celebrate LHAD until it's done. I've never finished anything this long, except for the godsawful fantasy novel I wrote in high school. Thank goodness the net didn't exist in those days.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

I went, registered and voted for 'LH&D'. Yay Au/Lu

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

Eep. Thank you very much!

How about other authors' stories that deserve recognition?

LHaD is already nominated, and I am ever so grateful.

But as rsasai says, awards don't work if there's not enough entries to judge. "Best of a group of one" doesn't mean much. :)

Also, I'm equally desirous of seeing FFX fandom well-represented in general. I don't want the GA judges to survey the scanty list of nominations and conclude, "There just isn't very much good FFX fic out there." I know that's not so!

I've scoured my favorites and memories and poked through some of the FFX category on AO3 looking for worthy candidates to nominate, but I'm sure I've only found the tip of the iceberg.

[trekqueen.livejournal.com]

awwwww I wubs you too! It is a great story and now that I have time freeing up, I shall catch up on where I left off. :D I'll also check out the awards thingie. :D

Places to find Final Fantasy X Fanfic:

[auronlu.livejournal.com]

... for me or for others to browse through. I honestly have been trying to scour for good fic, off and on, but if I'm doing too much nominatin', it'll skew the selection.

Final Fantasy X/X2 fanfiction (http://delicious.com/ff_press/ffx%2Fx2+fanfic) found by ff_press, bookmarked on Del.ici.ous.