So I make small, niche mods so I don't expect thousands of people to sub to them. I am however a bit annoyed when, at least in my mind, someone else's mod that "fixes" the same issue but in a less elegant way gets more subs than me. Should I just let it go or is there a way to better promote my mods?
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Just make a bunch of cheat mods called something like "Junassa's Ultra Powerful God Character mod", those always get crazy popular on the steam workshop and you will build up name recognition 
kidding, kind of.
kidding, kind of.
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To start, post your mod here and talk about it, you didnt even mentionned what it is
To start, post your mod here and talk about it, you didnt even mentionned what it is
I think I've actually already posted the specific mod I had in mind when I made this post. I have about 5 I think deserve more attention. Do you think I should make a separate post for each or just one for all of them? As I said they are small and niche (most of them are for pagan and specifically African).
Nothing wrong with small/niche mods. Sometimes I just want to play in a specific region, and I'll search the forum and steam for e.g. "India" to get some extra flavourful mods. So go ahead and make your threads. Though maybe put a couple days between them, so they each get more exposure.
I noticed none of your mod having a banner pic.
If I was a normal user I'll just ignore them or treated them as unfinished.
As a modder, who should create a banner picture, or at least put some screenshots with text/slogan if you are unable to draw fancy arts.
You need some eyecandy to bait users clicking, the initial step.
Make your description short and brief. An one-line summary is better. People just don't read.
As for "elegant way"? blah.
If I was a normal user I'll just ignore them or treated them as unfinished.
As a modder, who should create a banner picture, or at least put some screenshots with text/slogan if you are unable to draw fancy arts.
You need some eyecandy to bait users clicking, the initial step.
Make your description short and brief. An one-line summary is better. People just don't read.
As for "elegant way"? blah.
Not as overrated as you think, plenty of times I have seen people do shit like include the entire defines.lua file (which is going to break compatibility with a ton of stuff) to change a single value rather than use the override feature already in the game.
Here comes the difference perspective of coders and users.
Using elegant nest struct scopes to reduce redundancy, minimize the files affected, making events rather than edits history files directly, special arranged file order to maximize compabilties, scripted_effects rather than non-reuseability scripts, workarounds for third-party code and many many hack a good mod being...
None of these promotes mods, if any, very little.
Users simply ask you "by any chance you made it compatible with CK2+(hat off)", "Is it HIP(pay respects here) compatible?". Oh that's another matter.
Anyway, to keep scripts clean and elegant is the modder's duty. And writing down your efforts in description might help people understand more, or not.
I simply suggest you put a 12-point-size BOLD XXX_MOD COMPATIBLE. It gives you more clicks.
Using elegant nest struct scopes to reduce redundancy, minimize the files affected, making events rather than edits history files directly, special arranged file order to maximize compabilties, scripted_effects rather than non-reuseability scripts, workarounds for third-party code and many many hack a good mod being...
None of these promotes mods, if any, very little.
Users simply ask you "by any chance you made it compatible with CK2+(hat off)", "Is it HIP(pay respects here) compatible?". Oh that's another matter.
Anyway, to keep scripts clean and elegant is the modder's duty. And writing down your efforts in description might help people understand more, or not.
I simply suggest you put a 12-point-size BOLD XXX_MOD COMPATIBLE. It gives you more clicks.
Well in this sense when I say "elegant" I don't mean in terms of clean, concise coding (which I'm quite certain is not the case for some of my mods) I mean I think I came up with a better solution for a feature/event than what the other person did, but the other mod has more subs. I don't want it to look like I'm calling someone out so I'm not going to say publicly which mod I'm referring to.
Small mods and fixes will often exist in multiple versions by different modders.
In addition to what has already been said - add a banner, write a small description, mention "highly compatible with everything" - you can also make a collection or two with your mods. You can call it something like "Junassa's collection of fixes and adjustments" or something like that (or "Junassa's fixes" and "Junassa's enhanced gameplay"...).
That way, if someone finds one of your mods they may be interested in adding all your fixes at once through a collection. It's true for small mods in general. It will also make people aware that you are a mod creator, so it may be worth it to follow your work.
Personally I never susbribe to mods that address single issues without being part of a collection or don't mention that they are heavily compatible, because I don't want to bother looking into each one of them everytime I launch a new game to verify that everything will work or that they are all updated.
In addition to what has already been said - add a banner, write a small description, mention "highly compatible with everything" - you can also make a collection or two with your mods. You can call it something like "Junassa's collection of fixes and adjustments" or something like that (or "Junassa's fixes" and "Junassa's enhanced gameplay"...).
That way, if someone finds one of your mods they may be interested in adding all your fixes at once through a collection. It's true for small mods in general. It will also make people aware that you are a mod creator, so it may be worth it to follow your work.
Personally I never susbribe to mods that address single issues without being part of a collection or don't mention that they are heavily compatible, because I don't want to bother looking into each one of them everytime I launch a new game to verify that everything will work or that they are all updated.
When you say compatible do you mean if my mods are compatible with each other or compatible with the bigger mods? I think I've asked this before but is there a quick way to verify compatibility with other people's mods? It took forever for me to make one of my mods (pagan ancestor) compatible with 3 other mods.
Take it from a seasoned Paradox modder. The sooner you start not giving a f**k about subs, the sooner you will find inner peace.
Just by not posting my mods here I lose about half of my potential subs...yet I don't care.
Just by not posting my mods here I lose about half of my potential subs...yet I don't care.