Talk:Web fiction

History Missing

Web fiction is predated by usenet fiction serialized in usenet messages. Theme oriented text mode BBS - Buliten Board Systems - had fan fiction too. This predates the internet and is at least from the 1980s if not earlier. Prior to that were photocopied fanzines with fiction stories. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:D591:5F10:51:C194:2471:D8AD (talk) 07:26, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Untitled

I write two Webserials, would it be okay if I linked here?

- Ginja

Unless they're two of the most popular Webserials ever, don't. It will be taken as spam. You can, however, post links to my Talk page if you'd like, and I may take a look at them. :) Runa27 00:52, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Well without any actual examples of the medium the article seems a little pointless.

- Ginja.

• 1.) So find some examples that aren't your own work. If you link your own work, it'll come off as spamming, and will most likely be removed by other editors.

• 2.) The entire article seems pointless? Hardly. Just underdevoleped; there's a difference between that and "pointless", my friend. Additionally, webserials are actually more common and probably more popular than this article implies - for instance, it's one of two preferred formats (the other being a text-format "one-shot" story) for western fan fiction, and there's thousands, perhaps millions of webserial-format fan fiction stories online (I know there's millions of fan fictions online, a large segment of which is hosted on fanfiction.net; the question, however, would be how many of these were "one-shot" stories, which would by their very definition not be a serial, versus how many are serial works, since many archives that boast about the number of stories they have do not differentiate between one-shot and serial works when counting how many stories they host).

In fact, I can't help but feel that there should be mention of it being one of the preferred formats for fan fiction in the west (printed fanzine/manga format is possibly more popular or preferred in the east, especially Japan, where such works are referred to as dôjinshi). I'm going to add that in. And perhaps I'll seek out some popular webserials to add mentions of to the article. Runa27 05:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I originally had several webserials linked here, actually, until a user deleted them saying to keep the links 'informational'. The last draft of this page that still had the external links can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Webserial&oldid=46069226

I think I'm going to add some of them back in, to be entirely honest - whatever comes up high on the Google for webserial. --GlitchBob dbug 15:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Pat Powers 06:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC) On my now-defunct website Jolly Roper (www.jollyroper.com) I made about $16,000 over the years 1996-2000 (or so) selling mostly serialized versions of my novels Karg, Siren7, Riverbeast, Jetta 3000 and other stuff (mostly short stories) in chapter-by-chapter installments, charging users a fee to view them. Would that qualify me as a first among web serializers? And would that be useful content for this article, or self-aggrandizement? (I'm going to be actively marketing them as ebooks in a few weeks.) These were not fanfiction, but were erotic novels, though "The Kink Files" and "Just Do Me" short stories would probably qualify as fanfiction.

You can verify the content of my site through the Wayback Machine, and I can prove my income through tax records.

Seeing as the term "webserial" comes up with about 14 million results I removed the sentence that said it came up with less than 1,000 results. Also, there is a massive list of people pointing to their own webserials. That's ridiculous, it's just advertising and it contributes nothing to the article. I'm just going to wipe that if no one minds. Noodle Guy (talk) 19:32, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I just added more history and added footnotes/references...which are the only sources in the whole article! It's a useful article but much of it seems like original research to me due to lack of cites. I could be wrong tho. I also included a couple of external links (that don't belong to me) that seem historically noteworthy. I didn't delete any links, but I am curious as to the rationale for including the three links currently at the bottom of the list. The ones which are just described as "original serial fiction" and don't appear to have any particular noteworthiness. Similarly are the publishers of especial value, do you think? I'm new to Wikipedia so I don't want to be presumptuous and remove too much. SophieTorkleson (talk) 21:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Me again. I was surprised by the removal of a link that I believe was the first directory and community devoted to webserials and other web fiction / webisode sites (Epiguide Magazine). I know it's mentioned in articles from 1998 and it is linked on many webserial sites too. I wasn't the one to add this link originally but I do think it belongs here, as it has more history & just as much content as the other two directories AFAICT.

Still not sure about those publisher sites though. What is the rationale for keeping them but not major webserial sites themselves like John Dies in the End (a hugely popular site), Tales of Mu (another massive serial) and Footprints (the longest-running continually published serial)? Just trying to understand the reasoning. SophieTorkleson (talk) 09:48, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: list of english-language web fiction websites

This could be its own article.

I think this article could benefit from a list of popular sites for web fiction. listing name, url, purpose/niche of website, and popularity/unique visitors to the site. That way people can use this as a reference for where to find web fiction. This would only include sites that host web fiction, not people's blogs or whatever.