The details · Readers
Looking for signals in fan fiction raises a fair question about who should be counting it.
I counted totals only, never who wrote what.
- From
- Case study · CS-001 · September 28, 2026
“Fan writing is made by fans, for fans. Should anyone be counting it?”
What I found
Fan writing is made by fans, for fans. On AO3 I counted only the total on each public tag page, by hand, and opened no stories. On Wattpad I read story cards and the publish dates of 22 stories. I recorded no names, "and I never will."
So do this
If you write fic: nobody here recorded your name, and on AO3 nobody opened your work. If you're an author looking at fandom data: count totals, not people.
Source: A question I want to ask out loud first; How I countedCS1-137
Read the full case studyLast on Goodreads, first on AO3 for its size: what fan fiction saw in Heated RivalryThree adapted romances, two ways of counting readers, and a theory about books that leave room.Case study · CS-001 · 9 min read · 5 posts come from it