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[FrickingKaos]

Good question Julie. For me personally both my canon and my AU stories get about the same amount of reviews, depending on what the story is about. Like Figured You Out was canon and had so much feedback (because it was a suspense) and Weird World is sci fi....WW doesn't get as much but it does get some. Some of my one shot AU did decently, like the one where Nick's a gynecologist (hehe), I think it all depends on the type of story since some genres are more popular than others.
My Nick romance AU series does VERY well review wise. Some of them have 100+ reviews.

[RokofAges75]

I was gonna say, I bet Nick romance AUs still do pretty well, even if other genres of AU don't as much LOL.  Song for the Undead has done really well with reviews, for not being a Nick romance, so can't complain!

[Rose]

Yeah, Undead definitely shocked me with how well it got received. I really expected it to not get much attention because of the fact it's an AU Group Horror/Angst story lol.

[FrickingKaos]

Yeah in the Nick AU romance series I do, 2 of the four stories have 100+ and the other two have about 30-40 each. The read count is higher. I used to be so disappointed with review count but when I stopped caring so much about how many I got and looked at the read count...I'm just glad someone is reading. For me I just want feedback, it isn't so much about the amount of reviews anymore. One of my stories has over 10,000 reads so I can't complain.

[usako]

Tonight's question:

Do you enjoy reading and or writing AU fics? What is it about them you like or dislike?

Yes and yes. I love reading AU but I don't know what it is the makes me love them. Maybe it's the curiosity to see the guys in a world that it isn't their or see how they act if something different happened to them.
As for writing, currently I'm writing an AU and I'm literally loving it. As it being said, it's the creative freedom, the fact that you can create your own world. Another AU that I've started (and still has to be finished) is one where Brian is half angel, with wings and such, and the most interesting thing about that story was creating and plotting the whole angel's world and their people.

[RokofAges75]

Yeah in the Nick AU romance series I do, 2 of the four stories have 100+ and the other two have about 30-40 each. The read count is higher. I used to be so disappointed with review count but when I stopped caring so much about how many I got and looked at the read count...I'm just glad someone is reading. For me I just want feedback, it isn't so much about the amount of reviews anymore. One of my stories has over 10,000 reads so I can't complain.

Yeah, read count is always higher.  One reason is because it counts every view, so anytime a person goes back to reread a chapter or just clicks in and clicks out again, it ups the read count.  But with any story, you're going to have lots of people who read and just don't review.  Take the number of reviewers you have and multiply it by ten, and that'll give you an estimate of how many people have probably read it.

[FrickingKaos]

See that's what kinda bugs me, people keep saying "just look at your read count" but since it counts when someone just clicks on a chapter (maybe they didn't read it), its a bit frustrating because you don't know. Back when I first started I know I was a bit whiny about that whole thing, I didn't understand then. Took me a while to figure things out

[julilly]

Those of you who write both AU and canon BSB stories, do you find that your BSB ones are more popular than your AUs?  I've only written a few AUs, but I tend to get more feedback on my BSB ones - then again, that could be because most of the recent BSB ones have been Nick-centered, whereas the AUs are about other guys or the whole group.  But seeing as how most of us have said we prefer reading about them as BSB, it makes sense.

My AU definitely has less reads/reviews than canon stories.

Here's my thing though... what makes something canon, really? I can say that Hawk and a Handsaw is canon because the Boys are "the Boys" but they're not, really. Nick is dead, which he obviously isn't in real life and the band is no more, which isn't true either. Does that mean it's actually AU or does it still qualify as canon just because they're singers?

[kevmylove]

Tonight's question:

Do you enjoy reading and or writing AU fics? What is it about them you like or dislike?

I personally love writing AUs because unfortunately I'm not as big of a fan as I used to be and I don't have the patience or time to keep up with the BSB world. lol. Plus, I have so much more fun making the guys something out of the ordinary.

Although most of the stuff I have written in the past few years has been AU I still get a good amount of feedback and reads. I had a lot of fun making Nick a UFC fighter in Fight Me and Nick (pretty much) an underwear model in Just One Kiss. I don't think I change their personalities much when I write them in AU, I'm not sure tho.
I also like reading AU although I don't read as much as I wish I did. I suck! 

[FrickingKaos]

Yeah and if you replace the wives etc with fictional people but keep them
BSB does that make it AU? I've always wondered that myself.

[mare]

I always considered my story Separate Ways as an AU because of the fictional family I created for him. Even though he's a BSB that's the only thing that was real in that one & since that's the crux of the plot to me it's what made it an AU. But I think I didn't label it that because I knew it was only AU in my head lol

As for reviews, my AUs get far less reviews then my other stuff.

I have written two AU series and they were fun but I think overall I enjoy reading and writing the non AU stuff more. Since what draws me to read fanfics about the boys is their brotherly bond so I tend to only be interested in reading AUs where the boys are brothers or related etc... On the Rails is the one exception for me. I LOVED that story! And wish it would be updated one day lol

[RokofAges75]

I would say anytime you're making major changes to the canon, or the way things are in real life, besides the fictional plot of the story, it could qualify as an AU.  In any fanfic, there are going to be things that aren't really true or haven't really happened to them - Nick didn't die and come back as a ghost, neither did he get kidnapped by a psycho fan, neither did Brian carve MINE into his flesh, neither did they all get into a plane crash and pick bot flies out of Jordan Knight's brain - but that's what makes it fiction.  In all of those stories, they were still The Backstreet Boys, and the rest of their universe was pretty much as it is in real life.  Even when you're writing about real events, like Steph with Running Up That Hill or Hannah with Borrowed Time, you're still taking creative liberties on some things, fictionalizing conversations and scenes that probably didn't really happen because there's no way to know how it all went down exactly.  But the guys are still clearly themselves, the Backstreet Boys, in those stories too.  I don't consider any of those AU.

Obviously, if they're not famous singers, that's AU, but I agree with Mare that even if you keep that aspect, but make huge changes in other aspects of their lives (like making them all brothers), that could be considered AU.  With Tracy's example of replacing their real families with fictional ones, I think that could be considered AU too, but it's definitely walking a fine line.  In Steph's story Rewind, Nick had a fictional wife and kids (but he was also older, so that was Future Nick's family), but his past fit the canon, so I never thought of that one as an AU.

[RokofAges75]

Also, I use the word "canon" for lack of a better term, but I think "canon" is really a term that better applies to non-real-person fanfics.  Real people's lives are always changing, so the "canon" changes constantly too.  I think it's easier to know what's considered canon and what's not when there's only a set amount of material to base it on, like with a book series, TV show, movie, etc.  It either happened, or it didn't, so I think it's easier to decide whether something qualifies as AU or not.

For those stories in our fandom where it's hard to decide, it's just down to however the author sees it and chooses to label it.  There's really no right or wrong answer; it's a matter of interpretation .

[FrickingKaos]

Thanks for the explanation Julie I was wondering because in Weird World I gave Brian a fictional girlfriend and Nick one. But I think that should be ok cause Brian wasn't married yet.

[mare]

Yeah, I think AU is really in the eye of the beholder. There are some stories that aren't labeled as AUs that in my head I see as an AU like Hawk and a Handsaw, Julilly. I do see that one as an AU for some reason lol I also kind of see Ritz's Other Side one as an AU too. Ones that the plot outweighs the realism of the BSB just being five guys in a group that have random things happen to them.