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[evil_plotbunny]

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Fic Corner 2018

We ended up with 36 stories in 26 fandoms. Thank you to all the participants and pinch hitters who made this happen.

I am at the point where I'm trying to decide what to do next year. We've shrunk so much from the first year that it's become much more difficult to match and to find pinch hitters. If anyone has any thoughts feel free to share them in the comments.

Comments

[cat_i_th_adage]

Thank you for all your hard work with this :-)

[lirin_lirilla]

Personally, I really hope you continue running the exchange, as it's one of my favorites every year.

A couple of random suggestions/observations that may be completely inapplicable since I don't know what this exchange looks like from the mod side:
One possibility might be to require that at least one requested fandom is in print & not a series? Although it looks like most of the last-minute pinch-hits already fit that description, so I'm not sure how much that would even help.
Another thing I noticed is that with the exchange opening on a Sunday, by the time it got down to the last few days where I started thinking I should try to pick up one of the last pinch-hits' fandoms, it was the end of the week, which is when my nearby libraries have shorter hours. But I don't know if that's a difficulty that generalizes to anyone but me...

Anyway, I hope that wasn't completely unhelpful. I do hope that you keep the exchange going, although of course if you have to make the tough call that's understandable.

[graycardinal]

Two suggestions:

First, you might consider reaching out to a few of the more organized specific-series fandoms -- I am thinking particularly of the Tortall and Young Wizards readerships, but there may be other appropriate groups -- with the idea of co-sponsoring the exchange as a means of generating additional participants.

Second, running in a totally different channel...one of the main ways to attract people to any comm is with content, and one of the challenges for any smaller exchange is what to do with the community during the six or eight months of the year when the exchange isn't actually happening. So here's a thought: suppose there were regular posts to the comm during the "off" cycle -- at least twice a month, ideally once a week -- discussing authors/series/specific works that the poster would like to see (or see more of) in the exchange? Clearly a high percentage of these would need to be for material that's relatively accessible (i.e. in print, whether electronically or in dead-tree form), but at least a sprinkling of older material could also be featured. The ongoing posts would be a means of keeping interest alive, growing the comm, and generating additional fandoms for the exchange.

That proposal, of course, would potentially involve a fair amount of work, but having made the suggestion, I'm willing to back it up. I would happily commit to providing several posts for such a project and to creating or helping to create a guide/FAQ for other prospective contributors. I could very well also be talked into acting as editor/co-mod for that side of the ongoing project, if the project itself seems like a good enough idea to test-drive.

[fawatson]

The other specific-series fandom to consider reaching out to would be the Sutcliff fandom (Eagle of the Ninth, Frontier Wolf, Lantern Bearers, etc) who also have their own very small fic-exchange in the Spring and might be interested in Fic-Corner in summer as another way to promote their own fandom.