We've had a facelift!

Hi everyone,

Firstly, I want to take another opportunity to say thank you for being here. The site simply wouldn’t exist without our wonderful authors sharing their stories and all of you lovely people coming here to read them.

For each of the last five months, stories on the site have been viewed more than half a million times. Half a million! I still can’t quite get my head around that. It’s incredible, and I’m so grateful to every one of you for being part of it.

Over that same period, I’ve been busy working away on a new version of the site. There have been lots of changes behind the scenes, as well as plenty you’ll be able to see. I hope it all makes reading, writing and discovering stories a little easier and a lot more enjoyable.

A big part of this update has been giving the site a sturdier foundation for the future, while keeping everything that makes it feel like home. It should now be faster, easier to use and better prepared for our growing community.

Of course, big updates have a habit of creating the occasional bug and there has only been me testing it. If you find something behaving strangely, please let me know and I’ll do my best to persuade it to behave.

I love working on the site and want to keep it open and welcoming to everyone. As it has grown, though, so have the costs of keeping everything running and it's only due to the wonderful Patreon supporters that I can keep it going ad-free, which was always my dream for the site..

I also wanted supporting the site to feel a little more rewarding. So, as part of this update, I’ve added some extra features as a thank-you to the people who are able to help keep the lights on.

Depending on the level of support, these include more reading themes, saved searches and alerts, story downloads, and the chance to vote on future writing challenges. Authors who support the site can also unlock a few more ways to make their work and profiles their own, including custom story covers, profile banners, pinned stories and extra insights into how their stories are being read.

These extras are not meant to take anything away from the experience everyone already has, I'll never take anything away from normal users, they’re simply a small way for me to give something back to those who help with the cost of running the site. There’s no pressure at all. Reading, writing, sharing stories and being part of the community are every bit as important.

If you’re curious, you can find out more about supporting the site and the little extras that come with it here: https://thefetlibrary.com/support

Most importantly, thank you for making this such a lovely community. Whether you’ve been here for years or only wandered in yesterday, I hope you enjoy exploring the new site. I’m very excited to keep improving it with you.

Lois xx