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Hello all!
Welcome to the tutorial on how to post a new work to collections! Please note there are a few differences between this and a challenge. We will be posting a tutorial on how to post into a challenge at a later date.
Now, some of you may be asking what exactly is a collection? How does it differ from say a series or a challenge?
A collection is a compilation of works that share a common theme. This could be a trope, a fest, a particular pairing or even a certain tag. That is up to the collection owner to decide.
Think of it this way, your bookshelf contains the completed works of a particular author. (I’ll use Tamora Pierce here as my example) That author is the theme of your collection. But not all of those books are written about the same characters or plot.
A series is a selection of works that follow the same plot. So for instance, in my collection of Tamora Pierce books, I have the series quartet of Alanna the Lady Knight. This is followed by a second quartet series of Daine the Wild Mage. Now, if I were to put these books onto Ao3, I would post as two separate series, that I would then collate into a collection.
(I hope you’re following so far. If you have questions, please drop a comment.)
A challenge differs as is something that is prompted by an Ao3 user. Which you would then accept, and you cannot change. The challenge can be extended through Ao3 itself or through an outside source.
Now, there are a couple of ways to do this and the first one we will step you through is by far the easiest.
~*~*~*~*~*~ TECHNIQUE 1 ~*~*~*~*~*~
- Click onto the link provided by your fest/collection admin. This will take you to the Ao3 page that is hosting the collection.
- There will be three buttons on the right-hand side. “Profile”, “Post to Collection” and “Join”. Go ahead and join first.
- Then, click “Post to Collection”
- This will take you to the “Post New Work” page. This will look like every other “Post New Work” page except for the ‘Associations’ box. If you scroll down, you will notice that the “Post to Collections / Challenges” field has been pre-filled for you with the collection you are posting to.
Fill in the details of your work as normal, and once you are happy, Post your work.
Voila! You are done.
~*~*~*~*~*~ TECHNIQUE 2 ~*~*~*~*~*~
This next approach is a little trickier, as you must have the details ‘exactly’ right, there is no google ‘did you mean’ and the suggestive field isn’t always on top of things. But! Onward we go!
- Go to your Ao3 and hover over “Post” then click “New Work”
- Scroll down to the ‘Associations’ field and fill it in with the collection name.
Now, the collection name is not actually what the collection is called, it is the name that will be used in the URL for that collection. Which means, no spaces people. Once this has been filled, hit enter and the collection name will appear just like a tag would.
In this example, we are using the collection: Hermione’s Nook Love For All Fest.
The Ao3 collection name for which is: Hermiones_Nook_Love_for_All_Fest
As you can see, the autocomplete field did work for us this time. This will generally happen for collections that have had a bit of time to make their way through the servers. Newer collections may not have made it to the autocomplete fields yet. If that’s the case for you, don’t stress, just put in the collection name in full and you’ll be set.
Do take note, however, that if you are using this technique and have not joined the collection, you will have to wait for your story to be accepted by the Ao3 user before it will appear in the collection.
You may be asking, “But what If I have already posted a work and want to add it to a collection?”
Never fear! You simply need to open that fic, select the “Edit” button and then complete ‘Technique 2’
Now that you have this knowledge, go forth and post to that collection!
Your loving team at Hermione’s Nook