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Post To A Collection

Posting to a collection (one owned by you or someone else) is an easy way to group works with like themes or events together. Collections can allow someone who wants to read about a certain ship, trope, or type of character find more works they'll enjoy.

There are two ways to post to a collection:

Posting From The Collection​

  1. Once the collection is created, navigate to the collection dashboard or profile.

  2. Click the Post to Collection button.

'screenshot from AO3 of the collection page with the Post to Collection button highlighted'

  1. Create your new work as usual!

Posting With A New Work​

  1. Click New Work.

  2. Under Associations, click in the Post to Collections/Challenges field and type the shortname of the collection. Sometimes, the collection will appear in a pop-up. If so, you can select it. If not, hit tab. 'screenshot from AO3 new works page with the Post to Collection field completed'

  3. Complete the other fields as normal.

Collections FAQ​

Isn't posting to a collection dangerous?​

Not really. This belief is held over from before AO3 had good controls for collections.

First, as long as you go to preferences and uncheck Automatically agree to your work being collected by others in the Archive. your works cannot be added to collections without your knowledge. If someone wants to add a work to a collection, they can email you for your approval. Your work will not go into a collection without you approving it or intentionally posting it there.

Second, you can remove your work from a collection at any time. Simply go to the work, click the X next to the collection name and save.

Collections can be set to "unrevealed", which can hide your works. In most cases this is desirable! It's often used for gift exchanges so that people can post their works before the deadline, but gifts can still be secrets. Moderators then reveal works all at one time.

If a collection is set to unrevealed when it used to be revealed and your work is in the collection, you will receive an email. You can then remove it from the collection.

So long as you make sure your email information is up-to-date and your preferences are set as you want them, posting in a collection is relatively safe.

Help! I can't find my work!​

If the collection is unrevealed and you can't find your work on your works page, it will always appear on your stats page. Simply go there, locate the work, and click in to edit it as normal.