Maybe do some trades - trade stories with another writer, or trade stories for art? And, as suggested above, commission an artist or call in a favour to get some work illustrated. That way you have other people posting their own stuff with a link to yours, and you’ve got another potential source of readers.
We’ve already talked about this a lot Rechan, so I won’t repeat myself too much here. 
I know that Yannarra reads stuff on FA because it’s serialized. That’s pretty much the only time I see her reading stuff on there. So consider doing something like that. If I was to concentrate on putting stuff out there, I would be doing much the same. Interesting character, a world I enjoy, and I would be doing it between my other projects.
I also agree that submissions with a picture is significantly better than just posting as is with FA’s generic icon.
Also, try writing for con anthologies, such as RFs. They are cheaper to purchase than full on novels for readers, and people will generally collect them time and time again. This way, your name gets out there and people will be reading your work.
Networking is important also. For example, on the last episode of Fangs and Fonts, we had someone email in looking for non-Kyell Gold authors to read. Both Mary E. Lowd and you were mentioned as writers that people should check out. You were mentioned (by me) specifically for your slice of life work, as very few furs write it and do it well. My point with all of this is, getting out there and meeting/contacting other writers means that your name will be mentioned in writing circles and people WILL suggest your stuff to others.
Anyway, just some points.
Oh yeah, stop worrying about annoying people. You are not annoying by asking them once. It only becomes annoying if you ask every day, every second day, or eight times through different media. Some people won’t write back, that’s a given. Just accept it and move on.
I agree with what Voice has just said – the tone of these replies seems to be one of commiseration. We all want more fans of our writing. How do we get them? That’s the question.
The biggest thing I’m seeing people say is not to give up. The marketing books I’ve read talk about “tipping points.” Eventually something happens that will take your readership to the next level. The frustration is figuring out what that “something” is.
I recently read Chuck Sambuchino’s Create Your Writer Platform. One of the pieces of advice I found helpful is the idea of offering something of value to your readers so they will want to come back to your FA page or your blog or whatever. Yes, the trick is figuring out what that thing is. But what is that thing you can do that no one else can? Don’t give up on trying to find it. And come by FWG any time you want a sympathetic ear. As far as I’ve always understood it, FWG is meant to be a support group for us all – as well as a place for all us awesome writers to hang out.
Along the lines of this thread, I’m curious if people have found whether commenting on other people’s FA stories has earned them more readers in turn… (Dare I say that I don’t currently have an FA account?)
I find it funny that people gripe about other people not watching/following them and no one reading their stuff when they don’t do the same to other writers.
So I have commissioned an artist for a pic to go along with a finished story I’m taking from the collection and posting online instead. We’ll see how that works out.
Serials… are trickier. My best writing is short, one-off stories, very tight and lean. I don’t know how to write long stories, much less multiple ones about the same people. I have a few rough ideas, but I would prefer to have readers vote on which. However if they’re unresponsive, then how do I even get them to vote?
I for one watch quite a number of writers here in the Guild. I don’t comment often, I focus my reading on published works rather than online material. I do however often link to other people’s materials.
You could always try offering cameo spots in your stories. Flurries love to have their ego stroked.
Flurries, eh? ^.^
This is an actually a fun idea and one I’ve toyed with, though in the end I’ve always been too worried about the person reading and saying that they wouldn’t behave like that (even though yeah huh).
Anthropomorphic blizzards, of course!
Yeah, another issue is that some furries have…complicated characters. I’d be hesitant to open cameo spots for fear of people offering up their unicorn-dragon-robotwolf hybrid with ten thousand piercings and tattoos.
That and some (most) people don’t handle it well if their characters aren’t flat, boring, and Mary Sues.
On FA, at least, I can think of one litmus test which I personally use… .txt format.
Seriously, on FA, there is zero point in using anything other than .txt format. You can use BBCode for those rare occasions you need actual b/i/u formatting. Other than that… just use manual indenting and an extra space between paragraphs.
And I, personally, will never read anything that I have to download first. I don’t care if you are the next Ann McCaffery, I will not read your story on FA if it is not in .txt format.
Obviously, this only applies to FA itself. But I doubt I’m the only person like that.
Another bit of advice to writers on FA… TAG IT! Use tags, don’t use tags that aren’t used. This goes tenfold in any ‘niche’ sort of environment where people who are fans of that niche are rabid to find a new story written on that topic. The more extreme it is, the more it needs to be tagged.
The search function on FA looks for tags. Make sure your story is able to be searched. This is akin to ‘search engine optimization’, only a lot easier.
To add on to this: Word WILL preserve indenting if the document is set to automatically indent the first line. Once it’s saved as a .txt file, it converts those indents into (I believe) 10 spaces, so they get preserved when posted to FA as well.
Just be careful of the special characters which can cause those inverted question marks, which can also get preserved. I wrote a document about that here
Yeah I for one do both the .txt document and tags. I’m going to try customizing thumbnails.
Man, someone needs to make a writing-specific furry site. FA is such a horrid, horrid platform for it. The best we have is SoFurry and that’s not saying a lot.
This is the idea that made me think about putting a section within the forums to post work, whether it be a designated forum area or an actual uploader. The former could be implemented within minutes, the latter requiring me to find someone who knows what the hell they are doing. ESSENTIALLY it would be what Furrag has, I’d picture.
I don’t want to discourage ideas, but anything like that would be little more than a place for authors to link/cross-post to their FA/SF/etc accounts when they upload a new story. That’s what it would amount to be Unless it’s built to specifically be a site the general public would come to in order to read stories. IMO a writer’s site needs to be dedicated and go full out, with all bells and whistles with a driven staff, or it’s going to come off as just tacked on and not that useful.
Pretty much the reason the idea was abandoned.
What’s this you say about weird hybrids?
Yours is actually a whole lot more interesting and subtle than some of the ones I’ve seen on FA. I like yours! I’m talking nonsense like cats with out of place robotic neon green dragon wings.
A cat with robotic neon green dragon wings sounds awesome.
On the web the way to get people to look at your stuff is to get people who are already being well-read to link to your stuff. There’s no magic bullet to do that, I know, but it’s far and away the best way to get clicks. Get links out in as many places as possible.
Also: use Twitter. Ideally, get into using Twitter, being generous with retweets and follows and favorites. Build up a base of people who will see a link you post and maybe, if they like it, retweet it. Also, as annoying as Reddit may be, do not underestimate how much exposure you can get there. (For Claw & Quill’s launch today, 13% of the traffic has come from Twitter, and 15% has come from a link on Reddit’s /r/furry subreddit.)