Membership How to attract players that can't see directly your stories?

[RaWolfe 43]

Hey all!

 

While being in this field of writing now more than 15 years, I have come to notice for the last couple of years that recruitment is getting more and more difficult. While my writing group is Star Trek, I made it even more unique that it is only a Cardassian character play by (specific species in Star Trek). While I get praised for trying it, the recruitment for it is quite difficult. Now the most common thing I noticed is that players simply reflect my website as "Oh it's not active, the last story posted was a few days ago", while behind the screens (when you need to log in) there are a few stories being written. 

Now my website is Nova based, but I bet this problem also occurs on forums and blog software sites. What is your approach to tackling this problem?

[Rune 1,099]

You could maybe have a "Currently being written: ##" tracker that you update casually. Or a big "Reminder: Stories are posted when completed!" If that's a thing you do. I'm not familiar with Nova so I can't offer much help! 

[Morrigan 1,826]

I've actually seen very successful sites that make no effort to show their actual posts to non-logged in members. The only thing you could see if you weren't logged in was the OOC areas and the information areas. I think a really good person to ask is going to be @Stormwolfe and @Death Kitten they both have and do run Nova sites.

 

I think the important things to do is possibly include things that show activity where you currently may not have that ability with pending "stories" and "plots". A Tag board or an Active Discord that shows "responded, you're up" sort of things may help significantly.

 

Also, a notice somewhere that says exactly what you did. "Our stories are posted to the public upon completion. While you may not see a story that was posted in the past few days it doesn't mean our players aren't writing. Have a question ask us about it HERE!?" and the here is like your discord or a contact us or something. Be transparent with something like that.