Reading Habits / Rant

[amalthia]

My friend lovesrain44 I think is tired of hearing me whine about fandom stuff and she said I should instead post to my LJ.

So this post is entirely her fault!

Basically, here's what's going on. My work has cut off LJ and now gmail. In order to read any fan fiction I add it to my ebook device and read during lunch. (this is where 80% of my reading happens during the week) the other 20% is sometimes off my usb stick. They haven't disabled usb mass storage drives at work yet but I would not be shocked if it happens sooner rather than later. And I do read on the weekends but not as much as I'd like.

I sometimes at night only have maybe 30 minutes to an hour online to check my email, go through LJ and DW to see if any new stories are posted. As anyone who is following any of the big bangs knows Supernatural is releasing about 5 stories a day (each over 20k words long) the tardis big bang has posted their stories. I think the Merlin Big Bangs are coming out soon??? I have favorite authors posting to each of these story fests. And I'd love to read their fics.

I noticed this week, and previous weeks for that matter, that with limited time it's really nice to be able to save a story onto my usb device so I can either format it to read on my ebook device, the next day at work, or read it on my work computer through MS Word.

As you can imagine this isn't easy because 99% of the authors (that write fics over 20k words) post their fics in chapters. And a whole bunch of chapters at that. For the 1% of authors that do post to Dreamwidth in a single file or to a website/archive I LOVE YOU!!!!! and I read their stories first. The rest I try to save and merge myself at a later date. I've been lucky to find a few other friends who have more time than me to merge fics and we're swapping fics as we merge them so we can read them on our devices.

What I want to know is what do fans with children, jobs, and husbands do to read fics?

Truly, writers of the Tardis Big bang that opted for Chapters...I'd really like to know why? It's not like it's easy to comment on each chapter (their site isn't efiction based or LJ based). There were no limitations on how much story can be posted. LJ has it's 10k limit. So I can kind of get why a person can't post 50k words at once unless they go to Dreamwidth.

This is 2009. I think most people who have internet have mostly high speed internet and or 56k modems which trust me it's still easier to open one big html file than 5 or 8 mini-html pages. People are not always reading fan fic on their computers anymore. Or they have time to read but not at home and with work places closing shop on blogs, LJ, rottentomates, and gmail, yahoo, hotmail. It's not like everyone at work can access your fic when they do have time to read it. (like me!)

The ability to save a fic quickly is very very nice for the readers. If you want to set your story apart from others in a big way, make your story easy to save. If you want to give your readers more options post to an archive that allows the reader to choose between chapter viewing or single file viewing. Or offer both options when you post your story. Many fans out there are willing to host fics (I'm one of them) But at the moment only 4 SPN big bang authors have asked if I could do this for them. that's 4 out of 255 stories. Some authors were cool enough to post their fics to Dreamwidth so I didn't have to open 20 10 separate html pages to save their stories. (which btw, those will be read last if at all) I'd think as writers/authors you'd want to reach a wide audience. I know I'm just one reader who is saying I'm not doing it anymore. But I have a hard time imagining there aren't more out there who say nothing but skip along to something else based on similar criteria.

If you post a story that's over 8 chapters of html pages and I can't get it in a single file from the author directly or from a friend it's not going to be read. Let alone recommended by me. I don't care if God himself comes down from above and says it's the best story in the world you have to read it.

I have a ratio I kind of work with. I expect 10k words per LJ post. So yeah if the story is 80k words I can accept 8 LJ pages. but if it's only 28k words and there are 8 pages forget it mister. That story should have only been 3 LJ pages at most.

For the Tardis Big Bang stories. What's most annoying about those is you don't even have all the links to the chapter at the top. You have no way of knowing how many chapters are listed. So yeah, I think I'll stick to the authors that posted in a single file for now. Maybe over 4th of July weekend I'll see about downloading the chapters. But truly, no one should have to do that.

Also, single file PDF sucks. really really sucks. I think I know of only one PDF expert and even she does not recommend PDF as a format for ebook readers. PDF does not convert easily to other formats, crashes computers, and does not work on the Kindle and barely on the Sony PRS, let alone iPhones or Ipod Touch. When I say single file I mean single HTML or Word Doc. Unless you've read the Sony PRS manual on how to create PDFs specifically for 6 inch screens it's a format best stayed away from.

There was no specific story or author that prompted this post because as I stated 99% of the authors I run across post multiple chapters via LJ. the 1% of those that don't know who they are and probably already know how much I appreciate them thinking of the readers. And if they don't this post should tell them I do appreciate it.

The other 99% percent of you guys. I get your reasons for posting to LJ. Finding an archive you like is hard, making your own website is even harder and yet you want control over your fic and LJ seems like the best of both options. LJ is great for short stories but it does have it's limitations as anyone that posts long stories should know. So truly I get it. I do. I just wish there was something better than LJ (or even Dreamdwidth) though I will say Dreamwidth with their 50k word count limit went a long ways towards making itself better than LJ. (though a few kinks still need to be ironed out)

I'm not discounting the difficulties of posting single file fics. But there are ways if you don't have your own web hosting space. I've seen authors use megaupload, sendspace, friends who do have websites, and a whole bunch of other ways. Hell even google docs.

Comments

[chase_acow]

I agree like a million percent. I mean, I kinda get some of it -> books have chapters and fanfic writers want to be literary. It annoys the crap out of me though, and I too give precidence to fics posted in as few parts as possible because I don't have internet at home, I save to my desktop, read, and then comment the next day when I go find internet at the library.

[amalthia]

Oh man, I do not miss the days of only having internet at the library. For a period of time. The trailer I was living in didn't have running water, cable, or internet or telephone lines so to check email I had to drive 10 miles to get to the nearest library. I was saving fic to floppy disks and that'll be all I had until the next time I had to go grocery shopping and had the chance to hit the library. It was an interesting summer. I do'nt think I ever wrote so much fan fic in my life because all I had was my tiny tv from college and my anime tape collection and lawn chairs. My computer was set up on plywood and cinder blocks and the tv stand was the ice chest. It was like camping in a lot of ways, including outdoor showers with water hose. (at least until I figured out my student card would let me use the gym showers on campus) so um yeah I sympathize. Especially when the library computers are slow!

[chase_acow]

Oh wow, that must have been awful! I thought I had it bad back in the day living in a trailer with no a/c, cable, or internet. At least I could soak in a cold bath in the middle of the day. I generally get out with my laptop once a day or so. I can walk to my university campus, but it's sooooooooooo hot, so sometimes I drive down to the public library.

[amalthia]

It wasn't so bad because while we may not have anything else we at least had electricity which ran the AC which is incredibly important in Texas during the summer. My sister was there with me so it was fun and we had a BIG party because we didn't really have anything else in the place and it was 30 miles from San Antonio. So that was fun. :) Plus I was in classes during the week and worked at the boy scout camp every other night...

But yeah I'd totally drive too instead of walking. Laptops are kind of heavy sometimes especially when it's hot.

Man, I miss the heat. I don't think it's gotten to 70 in weeks and we're almost to July! I hear Fairbanks gets hotter in the summer.

[landshark]

I don't have any outside issues to deal with in order to read fics, (especially in summertime) but I still like a single large doc way better than multiple chapters.

Also, I used to open up a bunch of tabs on my laptop at home and then read fics in my car while I waited in line for the newspaper truck to arrive and I had to start delivering. I never knew how far I would get into a story, or which one I wanted to read first so I would end up spending a lot of time scrolling and opening, scrolling and opening...Then later, when my 30-tab window would crash, I would be stuck with solitaire. D:

[amalthia]

Oh man, I sometimes get to 80 tabs and then my laptop starts choking and then crashes.

[torachan]

The only time I mind multiple chapters is if people don't put a total word count and I'm forced to do one for each page and add them all up. D: That happens way too often. (At least all the Big Bangs put the total in the headers.)

I don't have much time for fanfic-reading, but I only read on my laptop, so I don't need a special format to take along with me or anything. I just open a tab and keep coming back to it when I have time.

What I hate most is when people post a finished fic all at once in chapters and each chapter is a separate post, even if they are way shorter than the length of even an LJ post. Someone started to post a fic to lgbtfest that was like fifteen chapters, each of which was only a few thousand words. I caught them halfway through and asked them to please just make one master post to the comm rather than spamming.

[amalthia]

Okay that would be annoying.

[elf]

PDF for fanfic would work just fine if it were formatted in Sony page sizes (3.56" x 4.6"; .15" margins all around). (I wonder if we can push for half-letter-sized pages with quarter-inch margins? Which still isn't great, but a hell of a lot better than trying to read letter-sized pages on a 6" screen.)

If it was made from a Word or HTML file, it's fairly easy to save it back out and reformat it; the formatting mostly stays. The problem PDFs are the ones made in InDesign or really obscure formatting programs.

[amalthia]

Yeah, the thing is I've never seen anyone make a pdf sized for ebook readers. Not saying it's not going to happen but for the regular person will they know how to change the margins of a Word doc before converting to PDF?

I'm not sure if a push in any direction would truly make a difference. :(

[elf]

I wish I spoke code, and could write something that would allow:

Upload a PDF to a webservice, which
Converts it to Word,
Reformats the Word doc to Reader-sized pages,
Removes the lines between paragraphs, adds 1/4" indents, and
Reconverts it to a PDF.

Unfortunately, it'd result in a lot of scrambled PDFs from the screwy programs. I've seen what happens when I thrown an InDesign'd PDF into Word without extensive, careful reformatting.

But for the basic "I pasted my LJ entries into Word's default settings, and clicked 'Create PDF'," it'd work great.

I've been considering offering Reader-sized PDFs for fanfic authors.

[amalthia]

I've been offering to make LRF and Mobi files for authors. It seems like more and more fan fic peeps are using the Kindle and except for the new super sized Kindle I don't think it supports pdf yet.

I also wish I knew how to code. But yeah, well formatted PDFs made just for the screen size can and do look nice. I made a pdf of Watership Down and it looks good. Just can't figure out why it's using up more of the margin at the bottom. really I'm baffled as to how the device reads these formats.

[elf]

Kindle doesn't support PDF; I want to find someone with a Kindle and ask 'em to send a Sony-sized Kindle to it, see if the page size comes across smoothly. (Also find someone w/a DX and find out what happens when a 6" screen PDF is sent to the larger device... does it just expand out to fill the page? Which would maybe be okay.)

I think there'll be more interest in ebooks or at least single-page html fanfic as more people get mobile devices.

[amalthia]

I'm also curious to see what happens when a pdf sized for 6 inch screens gets moved to the larger Kindle screen.

[concernedlily]

I've been surprised not to see more use of DW in the spn big bang postings - it seems to me to be a huge advantage DW has over LJ, perfect for this kind of challenge, and for the writer as well as the reader. I posted on both and it was very pleasant to post a long story without having to faff about doing all the internal linking.

It would be interesting to look at to what extent preferences for single document files correlates to people who've used small readers for fic: I have good internet access now but for several months I lived abroad and did all my internet surfing, including reading all fic, on a mobile phone screen about 1 inch tall, and I much preferred one file rather than wondering if my connection would hold to load all the parts - maybe a single file will become more popular as Kindles and iphones etc become more widespread.

[amalthia]

I was also surprised more authors didn't take advantage of DW posting limits because yes it does seem like a lot less work to post 1 time without having to link to all the chapters. Every year someone messes up and links to chapter 4 twice (just an example)...Not sure if it's happened yet but with 255 stories getting posted it's bound to happen. I think someone pointed out with DW still in beta and with the lack of friend groups? not everyone has taken an account. But I've also seen people with DW post like they are still at LJ?

I think Kindles and Sony readers and Iphone reading is really taking off. at Mediawest I did an ebook reader panel and a LOT of people showed up to see what the e-ink screen looks like and many people expressed an interest in both. Luckily I'd studied the Kindle about as much as I studied the Sony version. :)

[grey853]

I really hate places like fanfic.net where everything is in chapters instead of a single file. Like you, I much prefer the one file. It takes so much time to merge all the chapters to one document. So, unless I know for sure that it's worth it, I usually give those a pass or save them for later.

I don't have an efiction reader, so I usually save things to my computer and read off line or print it. My printer is limping right now, so almost everything is read on the computer screen.

Fanfic compilers

[elf]

The Fanfiction Lightweight Automated Grabber--FLAG--will take all the pieces of a Fanfiction.net story and throw it into a single HTML or RTF file for easy reading.

There's also the Fanfiction Downloader, a program that will grab all the parts of a story from the following sites:
· fanfiction.net
· FanFicAuthors.net
· fanfiktion.de
· checkmated.com
· portkey.org
· adultfanfiction.net
· Animexx.de (test)
· Fictionalley.org (schnoogle, astronomy....)
· Fictionpress.com

Unfortunately, nothing will grab stories from the Archive At The End of the Universe or Skyehawke.

Re: Fanfic compilers

[grey853]

Thanks so much!!!!! I knew there had to be something to do so much of the work. *g* I grabbed the fanfiction downloader and used it already. I really appreciate the link.

Re: Fanfic compilers

[amalthia]

Fanfiction downloader 4.04 has skyhawke listed on the dropdown. But not the Archive at the end of the Universe.

Re: Fanfic compilers

[amalthia]

Oh, I'd forgotten about FLAG! thanks for posting the link. :)

[amalthia]

Fanfiction Downloader is a true life saver. I think elf already posted the link. For some stories the formatting comes out a bit wonky but overall it just works.

[grey853]

I've already downloaded several long stories from fanfiction.net. Most of the stories have decent formatting if I save them as a rich text document, but html often puts little squares in for the quotation marks and apotrophes. Strange.

Still, it's wonderful to be able to read the long stories without having to put them all together on my own.

[amalthia]

Ah! I figured out how to get rid of those weird squares. You have to open the html doc in Notepad and use UTF-8 encoding and resave the document as html. That worked with some other fics that gave me the boxes instead of quotation marks and apostrophes. If that doesn't work then I'm not sure what is going on. (though I suspect smart quotes may be responsible)

[grey853]

You lost me. I have no idea what you said. *g* UT8 encoding?

I'm a techno novice when it comes to this sort of thing.

I've been thinking about getting an ebook reader, but there are so many choices and then there's the money part.

Decisions, decisions.

Still, I'm glad I now know about fanfiction downloader. It's going to make my life so much easier.

[amalthia]

Um I think it's just how the characters are encoded? I don't actually know myself the technical details. :(

Well there is an ebook matrix http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix that should give you the lowdown on all the devices.

However, the two real choices seem to be the Kindle and the Sony PRS-505/700 (I have a PRS-505) I like it because it supports more formats and I don't buy ebooks ever so I don't need access to any ebook store.

[grey853]

Thanks for the link.

I doubt I can afford one, but it's nice to look and see what's out there. I keep hoping the prices will go down. In the meantime, I'll likely keep reading off the computer screen.

[amalthia]

The prices kill me. :( I don't get why they are in the 250 dollar range and up! I get that it's new technology but still...

[saekhwa]

I have to admit, it is a struggle for me to read fic these days, and I often find myself falling woefully behind.

My job also blocks LJ and Gmail (but not Dreamwidth. Yet.), and I do not have Internet access at home. Single file formats are the best things ever, and I'm more inclined to read those first.

My only explanation is that some fic authors aren't aware of the many options available so that they can post their fics in a single file or they're simply not aware that their readers prefer it.

[amalthia]

oh man, and I thought I had it bad. I think the problem is that just as there are people who prefer single file fics there are also a whole bunch of other readers who also really like chaptered stories. But I think for people with limited internet access the ability to save a story to read later goes a long ways towards helping the reader access the story.

[saekhwa]

I agree. When I had internet access, I didn't get whether it was in single file format or chaptered. As long as it was good fic, I was there.

These days? Not so much. I would just prefer options, but I also realize it's probably more work for the author, and he/she might not feel like putting the effort into it. And for those who do, I thank them. A lot. ^_^