For writers who want a second home for their work while AO3 is down: get your text back, turn it into pages that read well on a phone, put them on a free Neocities site, and keep a backup. About 20 minutes for a few works. Facts below were checked on 1 November 2026, with links so you can check them yourself.
First, AO3 itself. The OTW's status page (update of 30 Oct 2026) says AO3 is down after a security incident, expected for "a minimum of two weeks" and possibly up to four. It also says "no AO3 data has been deleted. All your works, bookmarks, kudos, etc., are safe."
They can't rule out that the user database was taken, so they recommend you "change your passwords on any other sites where you use the same password as on AO3". Do that before anything else.
Source: otwstatus.org (read 2026-11-01). Your own site is a second home, not a replacement. Your AO3 works are still there.
Use whichever of these you have. Only your own work: reposting other people's fic is exactly what writers are asking people not to do right now.
Best case. Copy the chapter and paste it into Fic Shelf. Italics and bold come along (from Docs, Word and web pages), and so do scene breaks.
Drop an AO3 HTML or EPUB download into Fic Shelf and it reads the title, tags, summary, notes and every chapter. EPUBs you saved on your phone before the outage work too (since Fic Shelf 1.3, 1 November 2026). It can't read AO3's PDF, MOBI or AZW3 files. If that's all you have, open the file in an e-reader app, copy one chapter at a time, and paste it in.
The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine sometimes saved AO3 work pages. Go to web.archive.org and enter your work's address, for example archiveofourown.org/works/12345678 (your number). If there's a snapshot, open it and copy your chapter text into Fic Shelf. Many works were never saved, and an adult-rated work may only have its "this work could have adult content" notice saved. In that case, wait: AO3 says your work is safe, and once it's back, each work page has a Download button with an HTML option.
.zip with a masterlist (index.html, grouped by fandom), one page per work and, if you like, an EPUB of each work for readers.Fic Shelf runs only in your browser. The page forbids itself every network request, so your text never leaves your device. You can check that in its source.
Sign up at neocities.org: pick a site name (it becomes yourname.neocities.org), an email and a password. There's a human check and an email confirmation.
What a free site gets, from Neocities' own pages:
Explicit fic: Neocities' Terms of Service say that material on the service "may include materials that are unedited, sexually explicit or offensive", and they don't list explicit writing as forbidden. Read the terms yourself, and put your rating and warnings at the top of each work. Fic Shelf does that from your work details.
Sources: allowed file types · free vs supporter · terms (all read 2026-11-01). Nekoweb is a similar free host if you prefer it. Fic Shelf pages work on any host.
fic) and open it. Otherwise the shelf's index.html replaces your home page.yourname.neocities.org/fic/ on your phone and tap through a work.The dashboard's upload accepts several files at once and has New Folder (Neocities' open-source dashboard code: files.erb and index.erb, read 2026-11-01).
fic/. When you make pages with Fic Shelf, fill in "Link back to your archive or home page" so readers can find the way back.