burning question about AO3

[snick_backup]

Soon I hope to post recs for the two lovely Yulefics written for me, but for now, this:

Does anyone know of any advantages to posting a longfic using the 'chapter' function in AO3 vs. posting it all in one document, with internal chapter breaks?

I'm trying to figure out how I want to post Seraph.

Comments

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

No clue. I've only posted a couple of short ones so far. Just to get used to how it's done there. Because it's an archive, and many/most of the fics being posted are probably completed and posted elsewhere, I would think all in one document would be the way to go. It depends, I guess, on how many people reading there will be looking for chapter-by-chapter updates, rather than whole fics. I'm anticipating they will be looking for specific fics to read (or specific authors) and would want to have the whole thing easily accessible, but I could be wrong. That might be just me.

[snickfic]

Victory! Turns out that fics are viewable as whole documents or by chapter, which solves the dilemma - I posted it by chapter, and then the reader can choose whichever one they like. :)

[quinara]

Well, chapter-by-chapter means people can decide whether to open up one chapter or the whole work (which could be a pain for several reasons - when my spilt-tea-on apostrophe key is playing up, for example, I can have webpages jumping up and down for no real reason, so the longer they are the harder it is to keep my place). Also, if people want to leave and come back it's easier for them to bookmark a chapter page than have to remember/scroll and find it.

[snickfic]

Gotcha. I understand the appeal of chapter breaks in general; I just didn't realize viewing stories by chapter was an option in AO3. Is it something that's planned but not implemented yet?

EDIT: Never mind, I found it! I just never noticed that handy tab before. :p

[deird1]

I think I'd prefer it with separate chapters...

[snickfic]

My issue was I didn't realize that viewing stories by chapter was possible in AO3. But quinara's comment above implies that it is, so...