User blog comment:PlantyThePottedPlant/Random Topic Blogging III: Blog Harder/@comment-3395649-20130612000334/@comment-1518158-20130612020150

Shipping stories attract readers like crazy for reason, I guess some folks just have a preference for 9 year-old romance or something. Best thing to do is have a romance-sounding title and summary for your story to attract your audience and then pull a bait and switch on them by actually not having the story have anything to do with romance at all! Hopefully your fic is good enough to have the readers hooked from the very beginning so they don't leave immediately upon finding out that it doesn't start with Phineas and Isabella making out.