Advertise your fic as much as you can. Spread the word, and ask readers who like it to tell their friends about it. Posting it in places other than fanfiction.net also helps get feedback, but will actually decrease the amount of reviews you get at fanfiction.net, since the people who see it will respond to it where they see it at.
Well, I did it just by constantly writing. Also, address your reviewers sometimes because it helps them want to keep on reviewing for every chapter, knowing that they're helping the writer of something they like, which means that in addition to any new reviewers, you keep the older readers that have reviewed already. But don't let them take the story for themselves though, just as a warning.
Another tip for crossovers is to work the two things you are crossing over together. Instead of just saying 'what if ____' and going off on that, try to meld the two. For example, there was one very well written Infinite Stratos and Armored Core fanfiction that instead of saying "what if (name) was an IS pilot and had an Armored Core style IS Unit", the worlds of Infinite Stratos and Armored Core were blended together, allowing fans of both series to enjoy it rather than the Armored Core addition taking over and being the main focus.
Make sure that your description of your story is the best you can make it. That little section that people see before they actually click on your story? Put time into making it a really good, attractive representation of your story, not just yet another "I suck at writing these, just read it." because most people won't. You have just a little space to attract people into reading your story, make the most of it. Make sure that you have all the appropriate tags too.
There are two ways that pretty much guarantee you'll get reviews:
1) Get added to a popular collection/community, thereby getting lots of people to click on your story based on someone's recommendation.
2) Find a good forum community with a Review Tag. This is how I have gotten almost all of my reviews on my crossovers. The trade-off is that then you have to write reviews for people who probably only have one fandom in common with you. And unless you're really lucky (like I've been) Sturgeon's Law will be in full effect. The group I found for Mass Effect only has about half the writers who are in the 95% crap category.
Dang it blue, don't go scaring people off my stories now!
Anyway, one way to get reviews is to ASK for them. Sometimes, a simple "I appreciate all feedback, especially reviews!" is enough. Writing for a popular fandom does help, as does not writing crossovers and keeping things rated T or less. Pandering to the audience will also help you get views. IE, write a popular ship, use popular characters.
The most important part though is be good at it. If you are a bad writer, don't worry. There are lots of people out there who can help you increase your ability. Listen to their feedback and keep writing so that your craft improves. When I started writing fanfiction, I got no reviews, my work was horrible and I got depressed and nearly gave up.
Then I scrapped my old work, started writing a new fic and joined a community that supported me and helped me grow as a writer. Now I am much more successful review wise.
I would say just keep writing. I know that sounds dumb, but I believe there's always room for improvement, and I've seen people who have been writing for a long time get better. Once they have a very popular story, people start reading and reviewing their older works. Making your summaries interesting also draws in more readers, especially if you're writing about something no one else has done before. Maybe you should collaborate with someone else.
edited 2nd Jul '13 1:10:36 AM by allboyband
After six months of steady writing now, I think I'll add some more points to my previous post.
3) Update on a regular schedule, not randomly. Whether that's once a week, every other week, once a month, or whatever, make a schedule and keep to it as much as possible.
4) Get someone to beta your fic. Having good spelling and grammar makes it more likely that someone will read your fic past the first two paragraphs. The occasional mistake is ok, but consistently lousy writing is not.
5) Write a good summary. If you can't, ask someone to help you with it. Under no circumstances have a summary that says, "sorry, this summary is crap" or anything along those lines - if you can't write two sentences to describe your story, I'm not going to read two words of it.
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - SilaswIt's a game of self-promotion, i've found. Online writing is like owning a store: you could have the coolest store in the world and still go bankrupt if you suck at getting people in the door.
Like an above poster said, interesting summaries are important. People always want to see certain things in fics (shipping being the biggest draw, which got me trapped in that realm and pulled me rapidly away from Gen), or addressing topics from the story that compel readers (Ensemble Dark Horse with a mystery past, try to flesh it out, etc). If you're crossovering, focus on promoting how different characters from the two sides interact with each other.
Edit: All of this is presuming that your writing is good enough to merit reviews, obviously, but one can observe on FF.net that even poorly written fics, if they're dealing with interesting subject matters, will get reviews. It's the ones with awkward or spartan summaries, or that are clearly focused on uninteresting ideas (even if well-written), that are going to sink you.
edited 3rd Jul '13 11:09:06 AM by Ogodei
Yeah, that's very truthful.
My work is here. Current main fic: Tengen Toppa Gurren SolverniaIt's all about presentation (assuming the story is good). Rule 1: A good summary and a good title. Above all, there shouldn't be spelling or grammar mistakes in either of them. The summary should tell the reader what the story is about, but don't add too many fandom terms there. Rule 2: Never ever write either in the summary or the a/n anything negative about your own work, especially not in the first chapters. It will only make the readers think "well, if the writer isn't satisfied with it, than it can't be good". Rule 3: For multi-chaptered fics make sure that every chapter has at leas 1000 words, without the notes. Two reasons: Shorter chapters don't allow the reader to really sink into the story and a lot of experience ff-readers will just check the overall number of words and the number of chapters and when they see 10 chapters but only 7000 words (or less) they will most likely give your story a pass. Rule 4: Don't beg for reviews. You can write an encouraging note that you are open for criticism, but don't pout about a lack of reviews or hold the next chapter hostage until you have reached a certain number. Writers who seems to be more interested in review than in writing leave a very bad impression. Rule 5: Speaking of a/n, don't go overboard with them. The less you use them, the better. Especially don't do this thing with a fake dialogue about your fic as a/n, many readers see that as juvenile and are annoyed when they have to read through a ton of stuff until finally the story starts. Rule 6: Are there thematic lists in your fandom? If there are, it might be a good idea to ensure that your fic is on the list which fits the theme you are writing about. Rule 7: Just write. If you are good, people will find you sooner or later. If you aren't, you'll learn while you write. Rule 8: Especially for Crossovers: Consider that there might be people reading the story which are not familiar with all the shows you are referring to. Make sure to explain enough about the characters that they can keep up. Hope that helps....
I'm never a guy who gets so desperate I take stories/chapters hostage till an X amount of reviews comes in. There has been only one time in the history (as of yet) of Inheritance of the Slashers I had a big gap between updates. I also review other stories and because of that, make friends with people on FF. net and kindly ask them to check out IOTS, as well as being open to any criticism in my A/N's.
I'm trying to change my summary, since to be very honest, I kind of modeled it after the summary for Turn of the Tides, a Halo/Inheritance Cycle crossover by Captiosus (also one of my favorites). I struggle with making it sound unique, though, without it also having any corny one-liners. Any tips on that?
Maybe the rating (it's M) has something to do with it, but from my point of view, M is the perfect rating for it.
Should I also ask people from all corners of the internet to review? I mean, I am on a fan fiction forum...
"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."Makokam's Precocious Crush in the Kick Ass universe offers a bonus chapter to readers who review more than a certain percentage of the chapters over a certain amount of time. (EX: If you review 8 chapters out between 10 and 25, you get a bonus chapter) It seems to work, considering he/she averages over 20 reviews per chapter.
edited 21st Jul '13 4:08:31 PM by HarryBCDresden
I do not hold chapters hostage for more reviews. And I am not trying to review-whore, I just don't understand how people find it so hard to type a 40-word review, or even something as simple as "cool" or "could be better". Even most of the people who are Favoriting and Following my story don't seem to bother.
5-10% of readers reviewing is lucky.
A whole cluster of views will be people looking at it... then deciding not to carry on. Or getting bored, or reloading the browser - or a dozen other things.
Or you can review other people's stuff.
Wait. What. I typo'd and accidentally created a second profile? Fix it.I usually give really terrible cliffhangers and the promise that people who leave feedback get a preview a few days before the chapter is released. That's worked well for me, most of the time. cliffhangers in general, because readers like to leave a sign of " if you abandon this I'll hunt you down" and "holy shit did that just happen?" and " if you kill of my favorite character I'll cry/ please don't kill (favorite character)"
Got a degree in Emotional trauma via fictional characters aka creative writing. hosting S'mores party in Hell for fellow (evil) writersI find that the number and types of reviews tend to vary on where you post your work. On fanfiction.net, you'll be lucky if you see a single review for every hundred people to view your work. On forums, however, you can expect anyone who has something to say about your work to do so. Spacebattles.com is especially easy to get reviews on. Just don't expect them to put kid gloves on; if people see something they don't like in your work, they can and will tear into it. This has lead to the majority of the retcons in my fic.

Hey, I've written a total of 7 fanfics, and 2 more are coming. The problem is, I've created a new crossover fic called Inheritance of the Slashers, and a fifth chapter is in production, but there are only 3 reviews!
How can I increase reviews for this story of mine? Most crossover fics I see have well over 10 reviews, even the ones with only 1 chapter. Please, give me some advice!
"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."