Snaco Exchange statistics

[swissmarg]

Lots of holiday fests means lots of holiday statistics! Whoo! snaco_exchange is the next one up, with their reveals and master list here.

Fest community: snaco_exchange 
Fest type: Anonymous exchange
Premise: Snape/Draco
Ratings restrictions: None, all ratings allowed
Word count restrictions: Minimum 1,000 words, no maximum
Creation period: 2 months

There were 14 fics and 6 artworks created for this exchange.

Art to fic ratio: 43%

Total words written: 119,357
Mean: 8,525 words
Median: 6,000 words
Mode: 2-3K, 4-5K

By rating:

FIC
PG-13 - ii
R - iiiii i
NC-17 - iiiii i

ART
G - i
R - ii
NC-17 - iii

By word count:
The shortest fic was 2,356 words. The longest fic was 19,000 words.

2-3K - iii
3-4K - i
4-5K - iii
7-8K - i
9-10K - i
12-13K - i
13-14K - i
15-16K - i
18K - i
19K - i

Some thoughts: The art ratio was quite high, with nearly half as many art pieces as fics created. This may be due in part to the fact that one artist, ships_harry, acted as a pinch-hitter for 2 pieces that might otherwise have ended up being fics.

Given the creation period of just 2 months, I was surprised at the number of longer fics written for this exchange. The average of over 8,000 words and median of 6,000 words are both quite high, compared to other fests. The H/D Glompfest (link to my statistics) for example, although it produced several fics over 15,000 and one fic of 25,000 words, had an average word count of only about 6,500 and a median of 5,500. This exchange may not be as popular in terms of numbers of participants, but based on the word counts, Snaco fans are just as dedicated to and inspired by their pairing as any other, more popular fandom pairing.

I also found it interesting that the lowest word count exceeded the minimum required word count by more than double. No one took advantage of the 1,000-word minimum and wrote a fic just at or over that length. Rather, all authors wrote much more than that, indicating again the high degree to which this pairing inspires its fans.

The ratings were generally high, with 85% of the submissions rated R or higher. Unusually, even the art was rated high, with just one piece rated below R. This leads me to the conclusion that most Snape/Draco fans see their relationship as being mainly about the sex.

Edit: As ravenna_c_tan pointed out below, this exchange does not necessarily represent all of fandom, or even all Snape/Draco fans. Therefore, a better conclusion based on the high ratings for this exchange would be that most of the participants saw this exchange as a prime opportunity to explore sexytimes with Snape and Draco. ;)

Comments

[ravenna-c-tan.livejournal.com]

Fascinating stats! Although I will take issue with your conclusion "This leads me to the conclusion that most Snape/Draco fans see their relationship as being mainly about the sex." Although that may be true, it is also just as likely that Snape/Draco shippers see our fandom, or fest participation, as being mainly about the sex (& resulting squee), which is not the same thing as the relationship. Also with a sample size (and ship) this small, all it takes is a few high profile shippers to set a tone that influences the whole fandom. Myself, Slashpervert, and a few others in the fest are known for never writing fic below NC-17, and many of the "canonical" Snape/Draco fics are NC-17, which sets an expectation. You can't draw your conclusion based on the numbers presented here when there are so many factors not isolated nor represented by these stats.

[swissmarg]

Point taken, and you are right. The statistics only say something (if anything) about the participants in this fest, and not about the fandom at large. Mea culpa. So, can we agree instead that the majority of the participants in this fest took it as a prime opportunity to get Severus and Draco down and dirty? ;-)

[ravenna-c-tan.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, definitely. :-) And thank you so much for doing these.