In Defense of Kudos

Confession- Kudos make me HAPPY.

I keep every story comment and every Kudos email from Ao3.

That one click per reader is a good thing. I’m blessed that they come regularly, nearly every day.  It gives me a lift to see a new person leave kudos on more than one of my stories.  I ‘SQUEE’ and say, for instance, “Hey there, ClockWeasel.  Welcome! Thank you for all the love!  I wish I could hug you right now.”  :)  It tells me they liked one of my stories enough that they looked for more from me.  

It makes me want to finish WIPS and write more stories. 

So, yeah, comments and reblogs are AMAZING.  It’s a dream come true to read a thoughtful question or insight RE a story that I put thought and time and effort into. 

But, Kudos matter, too.

Thank you to every reader who has given me the gift of Kudos!

I started with Kudos. I was always too scared to come talk to people in AO3 or leave comments. Some people won’t get out of that reader stage, and that’s okay too. Because there’s this button that expresses their love for you work when words are too hard or can’t cut it.

I love the Kudos button cause when I have too much in my head to actually interact, I have this option that lets me squee over a fic that I can’t put into words about.

I will write long comments until I’m blue in the face, but having the Kudos button in the beginning of my entrance to Fandom was so amazing. I was overwhelmed with amazing writers and didn’t know what to do or say that I didn’t pick to pieces and think was stupid. Kudos helped me build my voice to the point where I can flail on the keyboard to my favorite writers now. To the point that I actively send messages and now am friends with some of the best writers that I could barely string two words to when I started.

Kudos are amazing when you’re just fangirling so hard words are too difficult or you’re second guessing yourself.

My daily kudo email fills me with joy. I love seeing people interact with my fic in whatever way they can. I love it when my email is SUPER LONG because one person decided that reading all 74 of my fics was the best use of their time that day. I love new names on the list. People who I have never met liked my work. I love names that I’ve seen over and over again. They like it enough to come back. I love kudos.

I didn’t have the “send me an email with all the kudos” button clicked, so I didn’t pay as much attention to kudos outside of my kudos to hit ratio. Then I clicked the button and started getting the emails, and all of a sudden those kudos mattered a whole hell of a lot more than they ever used to. They have names attached, and they told me who went on a binge of my fics. Or who comes back every day or every couple days to read more. They remind me that my older fics are still getting love, so even though I’m not going and checking the numbers anymore, I can still have that moment of joy that people want to go back and read the older things. It tells me that the fics I loved that didn’t get much of a response are still on the radar and new people still find them and love them too.

Kudos matter. If you can’t comment it’s okay, but that little button takes a second to click and means so much to the author.

I save every kudos email, too. I love seeing sudden little bursts of kudos - someone must’ve recommended that fic! I love seeing the same person’s name hooked to a row of my fics - they might be the only person who read/liked five of my older works that day, but they liked one fic enough to keep going through the rest, and that’s…well, that’s a pretty awesome feeling. I even love the guest kudos, because when I started reading on AO3, I didn’t have an account yet, and all my kudos were anonymous. That doesn’t make ‘em any less meaningful. 

A lot of days, the kudos email is the best part of my entire day. So thank you for those. Comments are wonderful, but kudos also mean a lot.

co-signing the “email is long because someone has read your back catalogue” those are good emails to get :)

My favorite is the email indicates someone in some fandom from ages ago is reading my old stuff.

i was juste thinking yesterday: best thing with kudos is, anyone who really wants can give two of them to a work. one logged in, lone logged out.