#and some of the things folks say are just so slfkjsa um motivating

[not-poignant]

What's more important to you, a reader adding your story to their bookmarks or a reader subscribing to your story?

Hi anon,

I mean what's most important to me is people using AO3 in a way that's most comfortable for them. Subscriptions and bookmarks are for the readers first, not for authors. That's why authors can't see the subscription count (on the story page) or private bookmarks (at all).

That being said, I don't track subscribers of stories at all. I will occasionally, once or twice a year, look at broad author subscriptions, but they don't really mean much to me. (Partly because people will subscribe to a single chapter already marked as complete, you kind of never know what's going on sdlkfjas). I almost never look at story subscriptions (partly because I have to scroll through a bunch of stuff and I find 'private bookmarks' more entertaining because the more taboo smut there is the more private bookmarks there are and that just amuses me).

I do like public bookmarks when folks use them to post nice things about the story / use their public bookmarks to rec stories to someone else. I don't like them when they're used to be like 'this was shit and I hated it.' (Again, it doesn't matter, because how people use bookmarks is up to them). My least favourite way of using bookmarks is that one person who constantly posts spoilers in the bookmark, so any new readers who find my fics and don't want to be spoiled just...be careful lmao.

In terms of which one I pay more attention to, it's bookmarks. But I know that a lot of people use bookmarks either a) to mark what they're up to reading and not necessarily as an endorsement and b) not to actually recommend fics, so I take it all with a grain of salt.

Ultimately what is most important to me are kudos and comments! Subscriptions and bookmarks are first and foremost for readers, and not actually really about the authors at all. I actually have no idea how many subscriptions any of my ongoing stories have because I haven't checked that specific metric in well over a year! I don't get notifications of who subscribes, when someone subscribes, and the number is tucked away on AO3 itself. Public bookmarks at least, I can go right in and see them on each story, because the link is right there!