Novelr suggests recruiting web fiction / web lit / online fiction / [insert term here] readers from the 'greater pool' of non-converted potential readers.

I agree with the strategy for the most part there seems to be one strategy that occurred to me and no one else so I figured I'd list it here.

Eros's Strategy for Erotica

[Building a community with a high number of readers who read something vaguely resembling online fiction]

#1 - Develop a platform / community with a high potential density of readers (in my case, play-by-post erotic roleplayers).

#2 - Promote that platform, grow it into something sizable and tangible that is likely to survive minor bumps in the road without your full attention.

#3 - Divert the time to create a weblit that caters to the interest of the potential readers. (e.g. erotic oriented weblit) [Only works if you have actual talent, probably. I'm sorely lacking in that department. I'm hoping practice will make up for it!]

#4 - Feed off the existing user base that has 'bought in' to your platform / community to get a core reader group to give feedback on your (pathetic, poorly edited) weblit to polish it up a bit.

#5 - Publish your (hopefully better) weblit on the same site. Use it as link bait to help with SEO (erotic is part of many terms this site is trying to rank for already. erotic online fiction anyone?) and promote it like you would anyway. This allows you to double dip in the reader pool (converting existing users to webfic readers, converting new users into webfic readers and possibly dragging them into your community).

Of course, unlike Novelr, I'm not basing this off of tried and tested methods...I'm taking a shot in the dark. If it works, perhaps some other lucky individual might be able to duplicate this and use it to grow the WebFic reader pool to the benefit of all. Perhaps not. We'll see.

I know this strategy seems counter intuitive (doing all the heavy lifting of creating a community and marketing it then start publishing weblit). I mainly chose it because my primary goal of this site is not weblit-related. It is building a erotic RP community, using this site as a platform for other projects, and practising the skills of my chosen profession (Computer Science / Information Technology).

That said, I suspect my WebLit would have certainly failed if I adopted a different strategy. Mainly because I tend to lose interest in a single project. A larger project (erotic RP community at its core with its fingers in several pies such as erotica) gives me the kind of variety I need to remain productive and interested.