## [Q][D] Would anyone be interested in a serial fiction platform?

* Author: u/somnicule *
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2dp7h5/qd_would_anyone_be_interested_in_a_serial_fiction/
* Score: 15

* Created: 2014-08-16T04:58:14

### Post:

There's wordpress, and if that's good enough for everyone's purposes then I'll leave this project as-is, but I'm thinking features like:

* Version control

* Various pricing options (subscriptions, patreon-like systems, free samples + purchase, donations, etc.)

* Merchandising (i.e. quotes on mugs, t-shirts, posters, etc. Perhaps help connecting users with designers for other stuff like icons and logos?)

* PDF, epub, and mobi downloads

* Genre tags 

* Recommendation systems

* Updates via email (and other channels?)

* RSS feeds

* Custom CSS

* Custom domain names

* Author's notes

And anything else you can think of. It's just an idea at the moment, and mainly a way to see if there's demand. Cheers. 

### Comments:

> **u/None** [+8]  (10 hours later)
> 
> A number of us have been demanding the creation of a LessWrongFiction site for a good while.  It would centralize our craving for stories about hyper-intellectual nerds like ourselves.

>> **u/Rhamni** [+3]  *Aspiring author* (16 hours later)
>> 
>> That would be very practical.

> **u/Nepene** [+2]  (21 hours later)
> 
> I would, as long as it was selective to high quality rational fiction. Like an online magazine of rationality. Eagle and Alexander, selected other high quality authors.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+1]  (6 days later)
>> 
>> I'm flattered. :)

>>> **u/Nepene** [+1]  (6 days later)
>>> 
>>> Your weekly supply of rationality and munchkinnery is one a lot of us really enjoy.

> **u/rdalex** [+1]  (4 hours later)
> 
> If you have the time and skills for a project such as this one, maybe you could contribute to (or fork, I guess) efiction.org and add the features you feel are lacking.  It's already widely used by fiction archives, and it's also well-known by ebook managing tools such as Calibre (by way of the FFDL plugin).

> **u/lehyde** [+1]  *Nudist Beach* (a day later)
> 
> Archive of Our Own is pretty great. It's only for fanfiction but the code is [open source](https://github.com/otwcode/otwarchive).

> **u/cartazio** [+1]  (2 days later)
> 
> sounds like one element would be well served by a content engine that at least internally use something like pandoc johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/
> (ignoring the community management and ecommerce elements)

> **u/comport** [+0]  (2 hours later)
> 
> I think any demand for this that exists is satisfied by Fictionpress.com and Faniction.net right now. They don't have all of those features, but they do have a lot of users and stories already.

>> **u/eaglejarl** [+5]  (16 hours later)
>> 
>> Yes, although they also have horrible interfaces. I would like to be able to edit a document and then click "update chapter" (or just have it update automatically) instead of having to:
>> 
>> - go to publish options
>> - go to Manage Stories
>> - go to relevant story
>> - go to Content/Chapters
>> - go to Replace/Update chapter
>> - select chapter in drop list
>> - select document in drop list
>> - click submit
>> - wait for full page refresh
>> - wait up to 30 mins for change to be applied
>> 
>> Other things
>> 
>> - The ability to respond to reviews, in threaded format
>> - The ability to search PMs or look for all messages from a given user 
>> - The ability to review a chapter multiple times, for when I reread
>> - The ability to f'ing copy/paste from a story, for when I want to include a snippet in a review / PM. If they're worried about copyright / people stealing other people's work, it's not like they can prevent it -- turn off JavaScript, download page, view source -- lots of ways. 
>> - Their goddamn link mangler has got to bloody go. There is no possible way that it provides more value than irritation. 
>> 
>> In point of fact, FFN is a seriously craptastic platform. It just happens to be one of the best known and probably largest

>>> **u/None** [+2]  (19 hours later)
>>> 
>>> [deleted]

>>>> **u/eaglejarl** [+2]  (19 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Huh. Wish I'd started writing there, then. :(

>>>>> **u/lehyde** [+1]  *Nudist Beach* (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> You could start by cross-posting your work there.

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