Thread 24576779

"Chaos Gremlin" Edition

Previous >>24571968

>What is Web Novel General?
A general for readers and authors involved or interested in the growing phenomenon of 'web novels', serialized English fiction posted to websites such as: Royalroad, Webnovel, Scribblehub, Wattpad, Archive of Our Own, Spacebattles, HFY, various personal author websites, and more

>Why read web novels?
Not for prose or tight editing or deep themes, frankly. As a whole, web novels are infamous for content sprawl and pacing issues. If you enjoy having millions of words to sink your teeth into to get to know the world and characters, though, you may be interested. Keeping up with other readers on a weekly basis to discuss the story's events unfolding is another perk, in the same way discussing an ongoing TV show might be.

>Why write web novels?
Ease of access & potential for Patreon earnings. Many successful authors gain an audience on their website of choice and funnel their readers into a Patreon. See https://graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators/writing for an idea of what some are earning.
Also, once an author has earned a fanbase, transitioning into an Amazon self-publishing career is several orders of magnitude easier than starting 'dry'.

> Advice for Noobs!
Running your story like the business it is:
https://www.royalroad.com/forums/thread/116847

On writing webserials:
https://alexanderwales.com/how-to-write-a-web-serial/

Sanderson's Writing lectures 2025:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEUh_y1IFZY&list=PLSH_xM-KC3ZvzkfVo_Dls0B5GiE2oMcLY

Would like to take this opportunity to ask whether, any one of you have published on kindle (unlimited) and if you got any advice for a chap.

>>24576407
5k views in 45 days is impressive all things considered desu. Mine is older by like a week and barely hit 800. Though in my case it was a pre-finished short story.

>>24576804
>The hustle and bustle
Four words in and we've hit a horrible cliché most readers just skip over. Great start.

>>24576863
Post yours

>>24576865
Meant for >>24576473

>>24576867
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/117925/the-yellow-typhoon-and-the-final-waltz

>>24576466
Yes, but it will cost you 100,000 USD and your firstborn child.

>>24576865
But the C02 poisoning...

>>24576927
>First-born child
Anon, please have a seat. There is something I've waited too long to reveal to you...

>>24576779 (OP)
I kinda wish RR would encourage people to comment.
I mean, if you are giving your time to reading something, surely you have something to say about it.

>>24576870
>>24576928
are they in a fucking airtight capsule? a slightly more crowded room than usual doesn't cause co2 poisoning

>>24576977
how would a better incentive system work? there's only so much allure to badges and other widgets

>>24576977
There's reputation, it's useless beyond the little gem beneath your profile pic, authors get to give 5 to 10 (depending on their level) reputation points.

>>24576984
Daily quests where commenting on a new fiction, posting in threads etc gives you timegated points to purchase profile circles or something

>>24576977
Something I'd like is ratings on invidual chapters, so I could get some understanding if people liked or disliked it.

>>24576992
I'm not sure that's enough of an incentive.
the user side of things just doesn't feel enough like social media for any of that to really matter. consider all the default profile picture users all over the site.

>>24576977
if you as a commentor don't leave comments then you have no rivht to complain

Outline is almost done after 2 months—reckon there's about 20%, 10% left and then I can chomp down on the first draft. Hooo'boyy.

Any Anon's here who wanted to become a trad writer, gave up at some point, and have stumbled upon this general, which made them write again? There is just something about web novels that actually make me want to write instead of just outlining or daydreaming about the story, and I have never felt myself so willing to write. Like there's just something about WN's that activates something I didn't have before.

>>24577183
>17k words
doesn't really matter but these are usually called a zero draft, or discovery draft

>>24577326
discovery draft, zero draft, skeleton draft... yeah that's one way of putting what an outline essentially is.

>>24577339
i'm trying to inform you that there is a distinction

i've started shadow slave (per anon's rec); did the kindle version receive a lot of editing? im reading the webnovel and it's sort of sloppy.

>>24577344
By your logic then no this isn't a discovery draft. It's a structured outline written in prose, not lists; like a skeleton draft so to speak. Both methods accomplish the same thing anyway, what I'm doing is like a hybrid though I do have the ending locked and loaded and I'm not just shitting out ideas for the sake of it—I know what I'm doing and what I want to do but there's still bits and pieces I'm discovering along the way.

>>24576977
Nigger I don't comment on most art I retweet, hardly ever comment on youtube, and almost never review tradpub books, most I might do for one of those is say
>oh hey you like suchandsuch author? yeah check out soandso, just finished their latest and it was pretty good
so you should again count your schizo ass lucky that I will sometimes write a TYFTC so that your comment section isn't completely empty/

>>24576980
It's a 500-year-old room that has been renovated dozens of times over the years to triple the seats without actually changing the room size.

Read a few chapters of Pale Lights. So much info dumping and characters being introduced yet no reason for me to give a shit about the main character so far. Don't know how much more I can handle.

>>24577473
You haven't even met all the main characters yet. And the cast gets easier to follow as an increasing number of them are killed.

>>24577473
I thought the opening pace was pretty brisk
it does go hard in the "meet the cast thing" which is tiresome

How many chapters do you anons write ahead? Or do you upload them as soon as you are finished with them?

>>24577688
0.
But I have a lot of drafts that I turn into KINO every single day.

>>24577688
i used to have a backlog but suicidal thoughts prevent me from writing any more.

Explain to me why the fuck my user retention looks like this. I know for a fact people with accounts have read the story without skipping chapters. There are comments on those chapters. The views still say zero

>>24577688
None, except when I used the Christmas break to get 10 chapters ahead of my story on Patreon.

>>24577688
I really haven't decided yet. When I start writing the first draft+line edits, I might strive to start publishing with drip daily releases after I line edit enough at maybe a good spot for a cliffhanger for planned hiatus so I can finish the last gauntlet without pressure.

Best part about writing before serializing is you have so much time to actually plan and write each chapter. I don't make the same mistake I did 5 years ago writing raw every week for literally years without break, without an ending. never again.

>>24577525
There's over 30 characters and they are always referred to with dumb ass family names, some unique to the world ethnicity name or some other bullshit that I can't be asked or remember.

>>24576977
>I mean, if you are giving your time to reading something, surely you have something to say about it.
Yeah, sure, I talk to myself a lot while reading in my bed with my kindle. I don't even have a royalroad account, though.

>>24577730
Only unique views are counted?

>A Practical Guide to Evil
>dumps 7 volumes in a week
>only to stub right after
I've never seen anything so pointless, half-assed, and shamelessly jewish

>>24577826
You don't need to memorize all of them. They break up into groups with only a few being relevant at a time and you'll quickly learn who those ones are. And if I remember correctly only 7 of them survive the first volume.

>>24577869
It's all marketing

>>24577826
>Just 30
FFF-Class >>> Pale Light

>>24577869
>>24577898
after anon rec'd it the other day, i saw they were dropping a kindle & audiobook in like ~2 weeks. it is what it is
(so i started shadow slave)

lol. (nta, but) you shouldn't be rating any anon's work under 5 stars, no matter how gay and retarded they are. even if you bully them in the review. please don't make me explain why this is important and principled and all that.

>>24577913
Obsessed.
>>24577934
I kneel, my king.

gotta love those faggot reviewers who rate things "fairly" with shit like 3.5 stars when they liked it but wasn't a masterpiece

you know full well you're doing damage to a story you like because you have your own gay little rating system

>>24577958
An average turd deserves an average score. Do better next time.

>>24577958
sorry but I'm just not gonna rate you five stars

>>24577963
I wasn't talking about my own work you smug self-centered retard

>>24577963
But your mother didn't abort her average turd

>>24577958
not complying to the standard of 0.5 or 5.0 isn't something to bitch about
the standard itself is the stupid thing. all star ratings really should migrate to like/dislike ratios

>>24577965
>>24577969
Oh, is the 3.5 stars club meeting today?

>>24577979
>the system is stupid so im gonna actively cripple the thing I like because muh principles
yeah you're the faggot in the post buddy

>>24577981
>cripple
if your story has so little visibility it can't survive a 3.5 you should take it down. it's been over

>>24577986
google what "rationalization" means

>>24577979
>people should disregard glaring problems in a story and boost it only because they didn't outright hate it
lol no

>>24577994
yes
send my middling slop to rising stars NOW

reminder to make a patreon before august because they're ripping you off even more if you do it afterwards

>>24578036
thanks, hadnt heard

Are royal road jannies actually retarded or what? I tried to submit my novel 2 days ago, also made a support ticket with a link to the first publication of the story including the verification message. Got rejected 1 day later because they still couldn't verify it. I tried to explain it. Now it's been another day and they haven't gotten back to me.

>>24578062
Dug up the message itself in one of the interminable discords I'm in.
>What's changing for new Patreon creators
>Starting in August, we're consolidating our Pro (8%) and Premium (12%) plans into a standard 10% plan. This new platform plan + applicable taxes and fees will only apply to creators that publish a Patreon page after August 4, 2025, or if you unpublish your Patreon page. If you need to take a break, we suggest you use the pause feature instead of unpublishing your page to retain your 8% platform fee + applicable taxes and fees.

>>24577869
He had problems with Wordpress and wanted to move everything elsewhere.

>>24578090
>He had problems with sales and wanted to redirect more people to amazon
fixed

>>24578036
SHIT I haven't decided on my pen name yet I'm still too busy fucking backlogging!!!

>>24578069
Did you add a note in the first publication who you are at RR?

God RR is such a garbage site please someone just fork Qidian's code somehow

>>24578107
Quidian is garbage , wtf are you talking about. How can you find anything on that site?

>>24578102
Yeah, I wrote "I'd like to post this story on Royal Road. My username there is ****" in the summary. They said they rejected it because it's a translation and the co-author hasn't given me permission, which he has - he accepted the co-author invitation and has left comments on it. I pointed that out to them, but they're still not convinced.

>>24578117
Well, RIP, I guess

>>24578107
I prefer Narou. Clear text, max ease of reading, no superfluous bullshit. I can't believe no one has even tried to clone it in English

do readers on RR enjoy absurdly petty MCs? for example:
litRPG
>lvls up fishing via grinding at a lake
>war between an empire and a kingdom occurs and disrupts his constant grinding
>can no longer efficiently level up
>spends an entire arc exploring the empire/kingdom’s cultural customs, and infiltrates the nobility
>goes out of his way to figure out the factions, power struggles, etc. happening in the empire, complete with a rough analysis of everything going on
>uses absurdly high lvl. skills to assassinate the leader of one faction at the opportune moment to maximize chaos
>then sets up caches of extremely high lvl equipment crafted by MC that exist to make the situation worse
>arc ends in both nations fracturing into warring states
>later on the reader gets drip-fed the consequences of the MC’s actions, including the millions of civilians displaced or dead from said warring
>MC goes back to grinding

>>24578127
Didn't read all that, but the answer is always: depends on execution

>>24578127
also didn't read, but a common trope is they start off inoffensively plain and then they get pretty (jacked, purified or some other bullshit)

We need more harems

>>24578155
YES

>>24578127
also didn't read but have you considered your MCs core urge?

>find a story you enjoy a lot
>read it all
>look for other stuff to read
>nothing evokes that same enjoyment
it's fucking over. i feel like a heroine junky that can no longer enjoy life.

>>24577846
That's something I'm curious.
So, called "shadow followers", people who do not have account but still check up updates on works you are reading.
Do people like that exist? If so, how do they keep up? Do they just go one by one checking if there are an update every week?

>>24578168
nta but i subscribe to royalroad rss feeds and read everything on my rss reader

>>24578165
can you articulate what you want but can not find? im coming up with characters for my NEW slop... maybe you can inspire me. win/win

Are there any (decent) time loop xianxia novels?

>>24578177
huh, didn't know that was even posisible.
I wonder how many people are using RSS

>>24578185
Almost nobody.

how did ArcaneCadence get away with it?

>>24578188
it doesn't even have a good cover
at least not as good as fellow up-and-comer FFF-CLASS UNLUCKY ANTAGONIST

>>24578178
i enjoy reading because its the only thing that make me feel any emotions. i want to read things that make me smile, cry, feel awe, be tense etc. give me a fantasy world with moments that evoke those feelings. your story should be like mdma for an emotionless robot.

how to achieve that? i don't know. perhaps focus less on the progression fantasy stuff that's so popular today and more on the human elements of your story. knock them down, build them back up, give them despair and then give them hope. that kind of thing.

>>24578194
Plenty of soap operas out there

>>24578200
*presses button that makes you fucking explode*

>>24578188
Deal with the devil.

>>24577245
>The common (sense) reason is the same reason cheating is frowned on. I
What do you think of cuckoldry?
If MC cockolds the villain, does that make him a bad person?

>mom can we get arcanecadence?
>we have arcanecadence at home

>>24578165
>>24578194
Sure, don't tell us what was this magnificent story, so we can't tell you if we know anything else like it

>>24578165
simply read my story

>>24576779 (OP)
Is there any point in including a timeline in the appendix?

>>24578216
The Wandering Inn

>>24578234
lmao

>>24578101
Just use your personal name.

>>24578214
Imagine, though, that you've been working on a story for months, patiently filling up that backlog. Polishing your writing, generating the perfect AI cover, all that.

And then someone else comes out with basically the same idea five minutes before you launch. What a punch to the dick that must feel like.

>>24578214
>>24578242
Is there any problem with it or are readers just disliking because it's too derivative? (which Archmage also is?)

>>24578242
Maybe don't choose the most generic idea in the world. The same premise has been done in about 9000 japanese web novels already over the past 20 years

>>24578244
according to a review I read it's mtl sloppa that doesn't even consistently translate names.

>>24578214
>lich queen
>doesn't show off her skeletitties
Lame.

>>24578250
Oh, so that score is underserved (it needs to be lower).

I just had a dream that I'm including in my story. Does anyone else also do this?
>>24578180
>A Regressor’s Tale of Cultivation
>My Longevity Simulation

>>24578262
My dreams usually involve me looking for where I parked my car or something equally dumb, so no.

>>24578262
>A Regressor’s Tale of Cultivation
Huh, I assumed this would be the usual MC-returns-to-the-past thing instead of a time loop. ty

>>24578265
Nta but he dies and goes back over and over and over.

>>24578269
icic
To the original point, or to different points every time a la Reverend Insanity?

>>24578270
To the same exact point each time.

>>24578281
good enough for me, cool

>be dumb kid
>nature spirit tells you they've experienced true horrors
>you challenge them on it
>they gift you a memory of a thousand years of torment
Surely most people would just break from this? Like full on ego death.

>>24578316
You get bored of any torment in a thousand years

>>24578318
Perhaps but even so, you'd still be sitting there bored and thinking away, daydreaming etc for a thousand years. Now take those memories you made in that time and give it to someone else. Wouldn't it just overpower the miniscule amount of memories their identity is built on? Like if someone gave me the memories of a god that lived for a hundred thousands years would I cease to exist? It's interesting to me.

>>24578316
I guess it would depend on how it's done: if you relive a thousand years of torment, you're probably becoming a husk of a person; If you just remember a thousand years of torment, it probably would cause PTSD, but I guess you could cope.
And a thousand years is a long, long time. After a point you would just go back to baseline.

>>24578316
I don't think I've ever been impressed/convinced when these huge time periods are involved whether it's mental illusion torture stuff or just a race having insane lifespans. I know "write what you know" is a meme but at some point, some experiences are just so far beyond human comprehension that any depiction feels shallow

>>24578324
Most likely. Not that the brain is even capable of taking in that much information at once, but if we assume some convenient magic is involved, then yeah, you'd probably end up catatonic.

>>24578127
>>24578143
came back and actually read your post (along w/ my reply), thought i saw the word "pretty" and even got that wrong. lol'd for like a minute straight

>>24577276
I park most of my catalog on a relatively small WN site. Its great just so I can drop links to chapters or whole books. I didn't quit doing the trad paperback thing. I just do it and post it on WN sites. For now anyways. I'm trying to identify which of them I like and think might work.

>>24578162
unspeakable “i like seeing numbers go up” autism

>>24578389
>I park most of my catalog on a relatively small WN site
I've seen you post some version of this phrase so many times I think I'm in my own time loop sometimes

>>24578250
>>24578214
its not even mtl sloppa its chatgpt output. chapter 1 is literally archmage chapter 1 with the prompt "this but different please". the author was complaining about it in a author discord. you'll find the exact order of events and even sentence structures, its kinda funny
crazy how it has 300 followers despite that...

post yfw finally figuring out a plot point/narrative beat/character moment that's been stumping you for a long time

>>24578466
People are so fucking desperate to make money, it's sick

>>24577730
If you not baiting, retention is where the reader stopped. It's where in the system that "account or ip or whatever" stopped reading your story. Ie the chaps with 0 views were all read-thru and they stopped on the next one.

Highlight the bar on the graph with mouse you'll see the # and you can compare it to the actual views # below to see comparison. Though that might be a premium feature if you don't have it, idk.

>>24577730
RR has stat diagrams?

>>24578642
>premium feature

>>24578642
On RR I just joined and dropped two chapters in my first couple days. I'm ranked? #59,2xx
Am I the very last author in rankings until someone notices and reads me?

>>24578679
you've bungled your launch

>>24578679
you are tied for last with everyone else who has 0 ratings, yes

>>24578247
>Maybe don't choose the most generic idea in the world.
if you enjoy generic premises, write that generic premise
write what you fucking want. no other clarifiers

>>24578679
Better spring for an ad cucky

>>24578703
BASED and enjoyment pilled.

What's the over under on smut percentage until Scribblehub kills your story?

>>24578703
>write what you fucking want. no other clarifiers
a statement that will cause most people to writhe in discomfort and fear

>>24578741
don't imagine me writhing you fucking pervert

>>24578837
Too late, your anima has been forever captured in a 2k word long smut I wrote.

>>24578837
Kekekeke

>>24578703
Sure, you can do whatever you want, but don't be shocked if you're ignored by everyone or treated like something stinky

I see the crab is back.

This thread is full of retards posting embarrassing flops and coming here to cry about their sub-50 views and when you point out the very obvious causes, you're a crab. Sure, sure

Sword and Sorcery but progression fantasy? has it been done before?

>>24578679
>I Have no readers
>Doesn't even post link to xirs novel
And you wonder why nobody is reading it

>>24578912
That covers a good chunk of litrpg's.

>posted a chaper after nearly a month break between volumes
>was at 600 followers
>lost about 6 right after
>slowly gained them back with new chapter updates

Also, smart numbers anons, what can you infer from my stats?

>>24578904
i will only post my embarrassing flop at request

>>24578995
>>24578912
The biggest thing is that actual sword and sorcery is far more rooted in Lovecraft than the Grail saga so being a zomghax battle man isn't really the point.
(Lord of the Rings is pacifist S&S with the same baseline idea of magic representing the hybris of civilization)

>>24579049
How long did it take for you to get your first comment?

>>24578995
>>24579052
i meant more pulpy stuff like Conan, Elric, Fafhrd, etc especially if there's a lower stakes adventure fantasy angle
modern s&s/fantasy progfan feels more derivative of movies, video games and/or LOTR and/or D&D, often with badly executed grandeur/scale/stakes
i think a more old school vibe but with the addition of some formalised progression (without being litrpg) could be comfy while also massaging modern dopamine receptors

>>24579084
Not really sure. it wasn't a lot out of the gate. My chapter 1 looks busy but that's built up over a year and a half. I get 1 comment usually per chapter these days.

>>24576779 (OP)
Tell me how lame my book is based on these chapters.
Chapter 1:
>MC is a hostage of not-Kublai Khan
>he asks permission to leave to rule his own vassal kingdom
>not-Kublai agrees but insist another noble come along to monitor him
Chapter 2:
>MC, deuteragonist, and 100 men behind to travel the steppes
>They discovered that not-Kublai Khan's favorite concubine had disguised herself as one of the men escorting them
>they conclude that
>1) one of the not-Kublai's advisors had assisted her escape
>2) they will be accused of abducting her
>3) search party is its way to kill them all
Chapter 3:
>MC and deuteragonist interview the concubine and debate what to do
>MC comes up with a plan to deal with the search party
Chapter 4 (unreleased):
>told from the search party leader's POV as they discover the party

That's probably not a lot of stuff happening for 4K words

>>24579200
>the search party leader's POV
you've fucked it. i'm so sorry

FFF-CLASS 'UNLUCKY ANTAGONIST' New chapter is out!!!
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/0/fff-class-unlucky-antagonist-villains-origin-story/chapter/2463296/masseur-part-two

>>24579200
It could be a great adventure story, exploring the massive not-Kublai empire while escaping. But, based on your cover, I was expecting a strategy-focused story.

>>24579201
Maybe, I just thought it was a fun idea to watch them fall into the trap.

>>24579228
I mean, dealing with the search party is strategic.
What do you expect from strategy-genre? Like does pic related snipped from my side story count as strategy?

>>24579258
>What do you expect from strategy-genre?
A board-game-like military campaign to become the hegemon, as your cover implies.

>>24579272
I'm getting there, though it's more about leading a rebellion.

Could I talk about fanfictions in this general? If so, what are your favorite fics anons?

>>24579290
Me X Your mom smut

>Violence is, in and of itself, its own reward. So speaks the psychopath you might think, intrepid reader, but I am not one to easily give in to moral stiflings. I held my hand up to the moonlight and felt the blood coagulate against my skin. The fingers were strong, the shape of my palm elegant and thin. Humans worship the predator. They festoon their art with images of great cats and cunning wolves. Am I to be looked upon askance for my violent appetites? Perhaps in this case the discerning among you would say not. These creatures were demons, death was their domain. How poetic for them to meet a violent end. Yet you are still aware of my mission, and by the end of our journey together, intrepid reader, violence against those deserving or otherwise will be the least of my transgressions.

Critique.

>>24579290
As long as the fanfic is a serial webnovel then sure. Fanfic in general though tends to be short-form or self-contained stories.

>>24579294
Sentence length.
Vary it.
Word eras.
Match them.
Psychopath and festoon don't belong into the same time or paragraph.
Decide if you want to go for distinguished warrior (exacting succession of logically interwoven points) or senile potentate (recursive ramblings and depraved declarations).
The key sin of the text is its lack of true identity.

>>24579315
The narrator is an immortal creature of many times. In that sense I think the anachronistic dialogue can be forgiven here and there, but for this case I'll replace "psychopath" with something more villainous. Knave, fiend, maybe even just villein.

On the subject of sentence length, how else could I write this? I have a few short punctual sentences with thesis. "Humans worship the predator" "These creatures were demons, death was their domain."

I prefer senile potentate though I think "senile" is a bit regressive.

>>24579294
i don't know what most of those words mean. Are you writing this for a web novel or ot jerk off?

>>24578101
call yourself Fetid Francis

Do y'all niggas edit your shit? Seems if I want to dump this slop I shouldn't bother editing beyond a cursory proof read.

>>24579290
No. Fuck off. Actually wait. First tell us what cartoon you like to self insert into, then fuck off.
>>24579200
I would cut chapter 1 and just start with chapter 2. I think all the information from the first chapter can be understood from context clues within the dialog. Plus, starting the story this way can also make the reader think there's a chance the main character was in on it.

>>24579383
Are you joking? Maybe if English isnt your first language, okay.
>>24579436
Personally I would die of cringe if I submitted first drafts.

>>24579294
Reads like it was written by a cringe edgelord.

>>24579290
>>24579302
No, you can't.
/lit/ has only rule and that's not talking about fanfiction of any kind.
I don't even think you can talk about bible fanfic like Paradise Lost.

>>24579294
Edge kino. Needs a rewrite, but I like it.

>>24579315
>>24579495
>>24579383
Mad at someone trying. Crab mentality.

>>24579439
>I would cut chapter 1 and just start with chapter 2
Maybe I do that in the eventual relaunch.

>you're not allowed to talk about fanfics on /lit/
Then why was there an AO3 thread just up on the catalogue then?

>>24579516
ao3 has more than just fanfic. It's basically where you go to post the kinds of things you can't post literally anywhere else.

>>24579294
As a whole, it insists on itself a bit too much. The strongest line is "Humans worship the predator" which works in its simplicity. Everything else feels too contrived. From the word choice to the grammar, the rambling self-importance actually takes away from the violence in the opening moments and muddles whatever convictions the narrator tries to develop.

>>24579516
>https://www.4chan.org/rules#lit
Depends on the janny's mood I guess. Some previous /wng/ got deleted for having covers of foreing web novels.

>>24579436
this seems to be a mindset a lot of middle-tier sloppers have, but the big successes generally have solid, clean writing that only comes from at least two or three editing passes
it also just depends on the quality of your first draft. some people's are clean out the gate, the madmen

>>24579294
Solid. More than competent enough for web sloppa
Disliked the repetition of "intrepid reader" (no I don't care if it was intentional). Disliked the comma splice, use a semicolon. Some sentences need tightening like
>Perhaps in this case the discerning among you would say not.
to
>Perhaps the discerning would say not.
or
>Perhaps the discerning among you would say not.
If you insist on addressing the reader. I almost always favor tight writing though

>>24579302
there are shitloads of really long, really popular serialized fanfic out there
>>24579290
web novel readers do tend to read lots of fanfic but it's offtopic for lit, which is a shame, i would have lots of recs

>>24579294
My rewrite.

(A Sylph is one of the creatures the MC just killed)

>Violence is, in and of itself, its own reward. So speaks the demon you might think, intrepid reader, but my appetites are not so atypical. I held my hand up to the moonlight and felt the blood coagulate against my skin. The fingers were strong before they became mine, their shape slender and beautiful, but I had given them purpose. Beauty and aesthetic mean nothing without the promise of what they might inflict.
Humans worship the predator. They often fashion their art with images of great cats and cunning wolves. Patrons then marvel at the forms of these creatures, and the violent efficiency that so many millions of years of instinctual killing has bred into them. Am I to be looked upon askance for my own violent appetites?
Perhaps the discerning among you would say not. These Sylphs were demons: death was their domain. How poetic for them to meet a violent end. Yet you are still aware of my mission, and by the end of our journey together, violence against those deserving or otherwise will be the least of my transgressions.

>>24579608
> there are shitloads of really long, really popular serialized fanfic out there
such as? I seem to have missed most of them.

>>24579608
Mods are asleep, give recs

>>24579689
>>24579693
Basically everything posted to SpaceBattles lol. Worm, HP, GOT, many other franchises have tons of longform fics like 500k+ words or more. some are decent, though I can't say any are truly great, not by the standards of my favorite web serials.
all you have to do is set up a kudos + wordcount filter on ao3 to find these mega-fics. some have 10s of thousands of comments, they really aren't small/niche.
my personal guilty pleasure is coeur al aran rwby fics, which is embarrassing to admit even anon

>>24578683
>>>24578679 (You)
>you've bungled your launch
of course I have. I don't know what i'm doing, other than I have a basic handle on writing (I think), I mean, what am I going to publicize about my "launch" at RR. "Attention. Unknown author that you beer once heard of? Just started a WN. get in here now!" I just don't see that.

>>24578704
>Better spring for an ad cucky
poor-fag here. My idea was someone reads it, maybe likes it? Then two or three people read it on their word. What do they call that, a slow burn? What I was looking for.

>>24578926
>And you wonder why nobody is reading it
Posting my work never seemed to get me readers before. But, I'm two chapters on RR now. maybe because its on the approved site (RR) someone will read it? We'll try that.
>
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/125587/merrys-present/chapter/2452001/chapter-1-introduction
>
is that the right link? Not my usual site.

>>24579721
>>24579723
That is a rather common thing new authors do on RR, there's a sort of 'meta' for launches you see: basically, readers will only pick stories that already have a few chapters, it's very usual for authors to drop stories after 100 pages, so many will only pick stories that are larger than that.
The algorithim also works against smaller stories, and you only qualify for rising stars (which is basically free advertising that catapults authors into the thousands) if your story is larger than 20k words. So, the usual recommendation is to write like 3 dozen chapters and release daily, together with ads and shoutout swaps (basically swapping ads with other authors atop your fiction) to try to get into rising stars.
Really, you only need to bother doing it if you're looking for money or fame, if you just want to write and put your stuff there, you don't *need* it, it just gets you more readers.

>search up the most popular story on SB
>its a gamer fic
>check the author's patreon
>they're making 10k a month at least
...are fics the real money maker?

>>24579732
I know I need a reader(s). beyond that? we'll see.

>>24579737
It's a way to tap into a pre-existing audience and market. Instead of having to get a reader invested in your own original world and characters, the audience is already completely bought into the setting and characters you're going to use, and all you have to do is not fuck it up too hard.

>>24579745
back when I first tried writing? We didn't call it fan fic back then. We didn't know what to call it. I just know an author died before his series was finished, and I thought I could write the ending. (I knew nothing about writing, lol)
The fact it couldn't possibly produce a workable product? Copyright, characters and situations, etc etc. Not a big deal. It got me writing. In my mind, you have simply got to try to write a couple hundred page novel several times, until you get close enough on one you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I think its a great way to get a person writing. Being given characters and settings and other things, it lets you explore just writing.

>>24579657
smooth flow, arrogant narrator, fun vocabulary. I'd read this.

If i speak spanish where should i publish my autistic stories?

>>24579774
lol
lmao
puta alert

These threads move WAY too fucking quick

>>24579780
Not as much as generals in other boards, but this is mach 2 speed compared to /lit/.

>>24579775
don't be mean anon i am just wondering, i don't want to write in english this language is hard

>>24579774
There isn't any place for us, your only option is to make a website and spam it here and there and pray for luck
>T. Fellow SFL
Captcha: N0GSS

>>24579774
There are some Spanish novels on rr but they don't get much readership. I think most Spanish readers just read things in English, using mtl to fill the gap if they don't have high enough fluency. Seen this on other sites as well, lots of comments in Spanish on purely English works. My recommendation is to just write in English or post in Spanish on RR and shill it elsewhere to Spanish speakers and direct them to it o algo.

>>24579200
why did your protagonist's name change partway through the first chapter?

>>24579819
im curious about south america lore now

>>24579737
seeing how original web novels have several people making >50k a month, no, fanfics are definitely smaller
if you likes fics though, go for it

>>24579737
which fanfic author is making 10k? i didn't know any were

>>24579832
>>24579200
also i can't stand the stilted/formal dialogue; it makes perfect sense for the scene, but if you introduce your story like that, i'm thinking it might all sound that way.

>>24579832
fuck, that's embarrassing.
Thanks for telling me, fixed it.
It was initially meant to be Tau, but I changed it to Tou overtime. Annoying thing about name "Tou" is spellcheck keeps mistaking it for "you", no matter how many times I tell it to ignore it.

>>24579909
Fair point, in the eventual relaunch, I will likely start the story before the meeting.

we should make a sister thread on /trash/ for longform fanfic serials and link each other

>>24578165
>>24578234
Fuck. I'm you in a month. Just got to vol 9. Got no idea what Im reading next either

>>24579436
I create an outline before starting every chapter which lets me run through all the ideas for what to do. Just thinking about characters and story in general to figure out what the story needs.

Then I attempt drafts, and usually after a few false starts I get the proper draft out.

Then I read it back to myself using a phone recording app to speak into so I can see how it flows.

Then I run it through a text to speech which also helps find any errors / typos.

Then I post.

All of it would still be considered posting a first draft that's mostly unedited tho.

>>24580076
just started shadow slave after seeing a lot of praise, and there's like 2500 chapters.
i don't know what i think of it yet, but the writing is probably a similar quality to the wandering inn

>>24580146
>but the writing is probably a similar quality to the wandering inn
really? i found shadow slave's prose substantially worse. shadow slave was just barely readable to me, since it wasn't mtl at least

>>24580076
the only long stories i binged as hard as the wandering inn was APGTE and Katalepsis

How do you guys do brainstorming for writing new stuff? I like to throw a random splots of words that capture the atmosphere/mood of what I want to write. I'm currently plotting out a story so I was just curious

>>24580163
i'm considering structure just as much as prose. the wandering inn will spend 5 paragraphs describing one single thing. it's incredibly painful (early on, i've only read the first parts of each).

>>24579786
>>24579780
Despite best efforts by several schizos the thread is actually dedicated to providing value.

>>24579980
/trash/ already has wfg and it's utterly glacial.

Any powerlevel faggotry webnovels? What do you recommend? N
No xianxia, wuxia, litRPG, etc. if possible.

>>24580188
oh yeah twi pacing is fucked. but the character interactions are way better and the prose is better. those are what I care about, shadow slave is just repetitive fights and leveling up which makes me want to kms. that said I did read it, so it had something going for it

>>24580203
Thats's mostly the domain on one clown/bimboification autist. But it's not a bad thread overall. All are welcome.

>>24580203
that's a porn thread tho isn't it

>>24580209
i'm still not that well-versed in webnovels, and attempted the wandering inn very early on so i was probably overly harsh on it. i'm definitely going to give it another shot-- especially considering how much i'll have to read once it clicks.

and yea, shadow slave is whatever. it's my market research.

that dumb whore broke 20k
been posting one (1) month

>>24580222
he's earned more than i did 9 years of my life slaving away in fast food, fuck my unironic turbo stupid chud life

>>24580222
it's not fair, it's not right. nothing makes SENSE

>>24580216
>I'm not saying it's porn. But it's porn.
SFW and NSFW work are welcome. It ain't highbrow /lit/ by any means tho'. Cocks and cunts abound, etc.

>>24580228
>>24580226
>>24580222
Who?

>>24580272
Archmage author

>>24580272
https://www.patreon.com/arcanecadence/about
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/118891/new-life-as-a-max-level-archmage
makes no fucking sense

>>24580222
it's a scheme to sell the value of the webnovel sphere to investors
RR is going to be subject to a hostile take over

>>24579874
>>24579737
Monetizing fanfics is against patreon rules too, you could get shut down whenever

>>24580222
I know it's decent but is it just a perfect storm kind of situation for the author to get that much traction?

>>24580184
An anon made a thread about writing a blurb for a novel based on the title the anon above you posted
You can look for in on the archive (Fake novel titles)
I made three (3) blurbs on there, check them out

>>24580222
I don't understand the fucking logic in this. Genuinely what is so amazing about that story that people will give their left nutsack away?

>>24580541
You see the same burger logic in these threads too.
>X makes money
>therefore it must be good
>counterarguments don't matter because it makes money
>people talk about it because it makes money
>you want to see what the fuss is all about too
>the more money it makes, the more people talk about it and the more money it makes
It simply crossed critical mass and entered the self-feeding loop.

>>24578242
if that super unique idea was just "wow i've been isekai'd into a vr mmo and i'm OP" then I dunno what you're expecting, that's a pretty generic high concept. hell sword art online did it years ago and kicked off the isekai trend.

>>24580549
overlord is plenty popular too, and probably more apt.

>>24580184
I have a document where I put random ideas I find neat
premises, titles, dialogue exchanges, random phrases
I comb through them whenever I'm struggling to come up with an idea

>>24578242
>generating the perfect AI cover
countless minutes of effort lost

>>24579516
Ao3 actually has an "original work" category. There are some long as fuck works in there that definitely qualify as a web novel. Most are fetish smut though.

>>24580568
>multiple minutes to prooompt up a cover sloppa
damn nigga you type slow as fuck

>top the charts on rr
>explosive patreon growth
>still promote your story on plebbit
$20k isn't enough. pay up.

>>24579200
The drop after chapter 1 is pretty steep.
I wonder if I should rewrite 1 chapter or just keep going.

>>24580783
this data is meaningless and not actionable because you didn't do a formal LAUNCH

>write chapter
>go to bed feeling good about it
>read the next day
>it's complete shit
>edit
>go to bed feeling good about it
>read it the next day
>it's complete shit

does this ever end or what

>>24580789
As you improve your standards continue raising. It never ends. We are stuck in an endless cycle of torment.

>>24580788
what is a formal launch?

>>24580222
>>24580768
STOP crying rivers over this particular litslop in literally every thread. This is like ACKing yourself over the neighbor's lottery prize bugatti

>>24580783
You are doing well. The only drop you should care about is after chapter two.

>>24580783
>2 chapters in
>appendix
>3 chapters in
>side stories
Why would you do this

>>24580811
he's speedrunning being a successful author by writing shit no one wants to read immediately after starting his story instead of a couple years in

>>24580802
when you actually learn the rules of the game and take things seriously

>>24580806
im going to cry entire oceans and you cannot stop me

>>24580783
you defied the voodoo launch ritual; and even besides that, this is very niche. even if you did everything perfectly, you might not retain any readers. you'll have to find your people elsewhere and redirect them.

>>24580802
when you realize if you want to be successful you have to get your hands dirty

i'm not even going to launch until people get bored of op archmage. greedy boy gobbling up all the subs

PSA: if you didn't abide by the Launch Optimisation Precepts©, you forego any legal right to complain about your visibility/retention/etc statistics

Either don't care about all that shit at all and write purely into the void without any expectations or play the game seriously

>>24580826
What are the precepts? Ai sloppa art, 200 pages worth of chapters up front with 3 new ones per week, shoutout code swapping, and paying for an ad?

>>24580789
It ends if you know why it's shit and your edits correct that. Shuffling words around without rhyme or reason is like trying to wash a dirty window with an shit covered rag.

>>24580768
I don't get it, who the fuck are all these patreon people giving away money to stories that have barely started.

>>24580821
Considering the abrupt inflow of readership, it's a matter of time until some discord drama explodes or quality cuts are made to keep the pace, and once sloppers are fed up with it they will scramble for alternative novels and genres, that's where we come in with our slop.

>>24580834
>art
you need a good cover that still looks good at thumbnail size
>200 pages
pages come after word count in importance ie 20k so you can reach RS eligibility

there's a lot of other shit you need to consider. we're past the era of simply posting and manifesting success. everyone else is playing the game with stacked decks so you can't go into it expecting a fair fight

>>24580861
>pages come after word count in importance ie 20k so you can reach RS eligibility
Aren't mutually proportional unless you use a lot of stat boxes

>>24580806
The difference is, I could go slash the tires of my neighbor's bugatti to restore balance to the universe, but this fag's outside my reach.

>>24580873
You can inflict a metaphysical beating on anyone on RR by knocking them down their tier

>>24580867
>>24580869
word count is tangible and you're either eligible for RS or you're not.
page count is incidental. some readers might not give your work a chance until it reaches 200 or 300 or 500 or 1000 pages but that's outside your circle of influence. focus on the stuff that makes a tangible difference

>>24580834
>1100(minimum) word updates
>post every 23 hours
>do this for 30 days
>this frequency lets you exploit the boost given to new Stories + the boost of the recent updates page + lets you be eligible for Rising Stars before the initial boosts expire
If you do it this way and your story is halfway good you can potentially be on RS by day 19.

knowing I need to do all this is stressing me the fuck out
what happened to just writing a good story

>>24580814
>>24580811
I'm writing what I want. Sidestories are a way for me to explore the world.
In this case, the side story is something a contrast to the main story. As the main story is about the collapse of the nomadic empire after becoming decadent, the side story takes place decades earlier and explores how the nomadic empire rose into prominence.
>>24580809
>The only drop you should care about is after chapter two.
Why?

People that couldn't hack it in Tradpub but insist on posting "serious" stories on WN sites void their right to complain too. Yes nigga it's not the 1970s anymore. No the fact your "badass" potboiler isn't succeeding on a site for weeby zoomers isn't because whatever economic/racial/cultural strawman you've conjured is personally trying to keep you down.

>>24580894
Nothing happened.
The brutal truth is that this is not even a tenth as retarded, arbitrary or overly complex as trying to launch a regular book or short story.
The vast majority of incredibly successful books were rejected by the big name publishers.
So not only do they not want good Material.
They don't even have an eye for successful Material.
Tradpub is run by malicious morons with horrible instincts.
Breaking up the first quarter of your novel into specific chunks you post at specific intervals is absolutely trivial by comparison.

>>24580894
The market is what it is. It wasn't any easier for old school traditional writers, except now you know what publishing houses did/do. Everyone knows the stories about editors forcing changes on an author's work and how that author bitches up a storm, fights tooth an nail, etc. Sure, but editors have bills to pay and they knew how the markets work.

>>24580902
TRVTHNVKE

>>24580894
all that a good story with good characters amounts to is a FAIR deck
you need a STACKED deck to compete

>>24580896
>Why
'Cause 70% of them ain't real readers anyway. Some are bots, and some wouldn't continue your story regardless. It's better to remove them as soon as possible before getting a bad review.

damn anons are fucking mercenary in here, I kinda like it

>>24580920
If you're here you're closer to me in mindset than a Redditor and thus I'll push you to succeed.

Guys. Hear me out. Hear me out here. What if, what if you take your slop and run it through a voiceover AI to create an audiobook version of your sloppa? Sanderson here is telling me that 50% of people who bought his Stormslop Archive 5, did it in the form of an audiobook https://youtu.be/5zzzjLKuFZA?t=1907

What do you think?

>>24580927
Depends on genre. If you do scifi there's a pretty big community on YouTube for that and you can use that to fund your Patreon which you can then use to fund ads and professional editing for magazine submissions.

>>24580927
Audio"books" are a fucking meme, and there's only so far I'm willing to humiliate myself, even for money

Oh the retard is back

>>24580927
No thoughts on it. Anons are still figuring out how to write a readable webnovel* and minmax for RR, audiobooks are for when you already have a niche of fans ready to purchase your storytelling on alternative mediums and outlets

>>24580933
>My Level 1000 Worst Power S-Rank Time Looper System Apocalypse is too good for audiobooks
>What do you mean the Odyssey is supposed to be performed orally?
You sound like a retard. What do you think these funny symbols we share are supposed to represent? The spoken word, retard.

>>24580939
>I'm comparing my litrpg diarrhea to oddsey and preaching about tradition while promoting AI
who's the retard, retard? It's rare to see a guy this diseased

>>24580920
Big reason why we split from /wg/ is that people who tried to focus on succeeding were bood out.

>>24580939
I'm not reading audio books. No one is reading audiobooks at all. Crawl back to your amazon warehouse before you get 1-star ratings over alexa voiceovers.

>>24580927
>What if
>What do you think
I don't understand what you're asking. There's a Youtuber called Hogfell who already does this with stuff on RR and I don't know how much difference it makes for the authors.
Wrestling with the YouTube algorithm machine-god without all the other personal brand-building parasocial relationship shenanigans doesn't seem helpful.

>>24580942
>Hurr durr, look at me, I have no reading comprehension
Fucking retard. What the hell do you mean 'promoting AI'? Are you one of those room temperature IQ people who are just viscerally anti-AI? Oh, did the mean techbro scrape your Ao3 Drarry fanfic and take your lunch money? Taking a text you wrote, by yourself, and then making a generative AI read it out loud into an audio file is not the same thing as prompting a model to write you a story. You can do it yourself, I guess, but having an anime waifu read the thing will go down better with audiences than your own squeaker recorded on your shitty laptop microphone. Honestly, considering how much of a luddite you are, you probably don't even own a laptop. Also, the point was, that storytelling has its roots in oral traditions, and so I think that denigrating audiobooks is just plain retarded, and it also leaves money on the table.

>>24580944
Audiences are reading audiobooks, that's the point.
>>24580945
I was asking, if the webnovel writers here thought about the strategy of also making an audiobook version of the content they produce available, to have a broader reach, and a better chance to get an audience. I don't know if YouTube is the right place for it. I have no clue where one would actually buy audiobooks, I also don't really use them. But the ADHD zoomers do, so, you know, you should probably cater to them.

>>24580953
didn't read lol

>>24580961
Yeah, maybe copy-paste it into an AI voiceover and listen to it instead.

>>24580959
>broader reach
this only works when you are becoming your own personal brand with a suite of different media and a presence across different platforms
I don't think there's an AI audiobook to web serial pipeline

>>24579732
Nta but I'm also trying to post there and looking for tips. This is pretty helpful already.
I know webnovels commonly have hundreds of short chapters and so it's a good idea to release fast. What about long chapters? What do you think is a good strategy if I have a 200k story already completed and every chapter is like 10k words? Dumping 20k words at first and updating weekly after that?

>>24580959
>Audiences are reading audiobooks
You most definitely cannot read an audiobook, but you wouldn't know that.
>>24580959
>I have no clue where one would actually buy audiobooks, I also don't really use them.
Audiobooks are not compatible with webnovel format at all, but you wouldn't know that.
>>24580953
>luddite
>techbro
>anime waifu
>shitty laptop luddite
Jeet rhetoric.

>The schizo is a polsperg
Pottery

>>24580985
>Audiobooks are not compatible with webnovel format at all, but you wouldn't know that.
audiobooks are stupid popular with web novel readers, silly goose. some authors in this space make half their total earnings or more from audio

>>24580984
drop the early chapters as part 1,2,3,4 three minutes apart to artificially inflate views and increase latest updates front page exposure. do that once per day.

>>24580945
>Hogfell
some of these audiosloppas are pulling in surprisingly big numbers

>>24580999
Which author sells their novels' audiobooks while simultaneously releasing chapters on RR?

for all we know archmage author is a lurker here so stop being mean to him :(

>>24581011
most of them you actual tourist

>>24581015
that isn't true

>>24581017
yes it is....

>>24581015
You cannot provide a source so you seethe irrationally when anyone calls out your senseless claims.
>I have no clue where one would actually buy audiobooks, I also don't really use them.
Because you said it yourself.
>>24581017
That the AI ideas guy who has no idea what he's talking about but desperately wants to make his amateur misconceptions about the webnovel market seem real.

the wandering inn. hwfwm. primal hunter. beware of chicken. dotf
I would keep going but its literally more that do it than dont.

>>24581015
>>24581024
maybe the KU crowd or those authors who later got picked up by aethon/moonquill/etc and ditched RR but I don't think most RR sloppers are producing companion audiobooks to their releases, AI or otherwise

>>24581030
they did it after already achieving some level of success
not as an additional plate to spin while they were still getting started

more tourists here than usual huh

>>24581032
cool story brother, not what I responded to >>24581011

>>24581031
stubbing doesn't mean abandoning rr. they keep posting to rr. ppl keep reading there. why are you fuckers trying to sound like authorities when you're so clueless

>>24581009
Man I get the logic behind it but it feels cringe
I'd like to keep the chapter titles I've picked too. It would look weird when 4 chapters parts are named the same way. Can't be bothered coming up with a title for each one.
I can't find a single highly rated story with long chapters though, so you're probably right this is the way to go if you want readers.

>>24581042
>can't find a single highly rated story with long chapters
the wandering inn. katalepsis. super supportive. skill grinder in a time loop.
depends what you mean by long tho. 10k average is beefy as hell

>>24581037
Stop engaging with the mentally ill

>>24581037
>>24581035
>stubbing doesn't mean abandoning rr
So they release audiobooks once they stub 95% of their WN and sell it on Amazon. You seem to be a tourist who cannot comprehend the Kindle ecosystem of audiobook selling is a paradoxical detour from our authorial RR-to-patreon pipeline

>>24581051
the pipeline in this community is literally rr->patreon->ku/audible, not rr->patreon
most authors make more with the last step than on patreon
you would know this if you weren't really a tourist -.-

>>24581050
we at bump limit its fine
he really believes what he's saying so its interesting. I dont engage with obvious trolls but he's just a lost soul so I'll correct him

>>24580985
>Audiobooks are not compatible with webnovel format at all, but you wouldn't know that.
Why not you dumb fuck? What makes the webnovel so different from a normal book that audiences wouldn't prefer to listen to it, instead of reading?
>Jeet
I'm probably whiter than you. Post eyes, I bet they're brown

hello lads, just spent 3 hours fine-tuning my power system
what's everyone arguing about this time?

>>24581047
>katalepsis
True that. I'll look into these.
The first two chapters of mine are shorter, at about 3k. But it only gets longer as it goes. Near the end of the story every chapter is around 13-15k. It's because the writing is very dense. Regardless of the update schedule, it probably won't catch on if people are scared of long paragraphs.

>>24581051
when authors transition to ku and audible they often get MORE patrons btw. because they open the story to ku and audible which dwarf rr by audience size
primal hunter is the biggest patreon at 80k a month and its on amazon

>>24581053
So you acknowledge kindle platforming is not the first step, but the very last step in webnovel pipeline, which loops back to the crux of this issue >>24580927 a grossly wrong advice telling anons to run their chapters through AI audiobooks and sell it which would automatically hamper their authorial steps in actual web novel publishing due to the premature need to stub the novel and branch it out of RR.

>>24581032
>>24581064

Is our general the most active thread on lit? Feels like we've been going through threads really quickly.

>>24581064
i didnt read your whole conversation and i dont give a shit about it
i responded to a post asking "which authors publish audio books AND keep posting their web novel at the same time????" and replied with the truth of "most of them"

>>24581071
Yeah, no other general on this board can compare to throbbing, virile slopCOCK

>>24581071
wwoym was kind of fast but its gone now isn't it? so yeah we're prob the fastest

audiobook is mid-game/early-late-game

(mobile gacha game is endgame)

>>24581071
We're Mojave's New Vegas. Outside the gates there's a desert of centuries-old Nietzsche discussions and ruined Jordan Peterson monuments.

>>24581071
Yes, it is and has been since inception.
There's a reason why we're getting foaming-at-the-mouth schizophrenics here at the same time every single day — They know we won and they're jealous their nuMale slam poetry isn't interesting.

I have uploaded a new chapter. Thank you.

>>24581202
Did you delete chapter 15 or this just a typo?

>>24581202
Sex with Ferene.

>>24581208
that is an error, thank you for pointing it out. I am bad with numbering the chapters on the site because I did not number them in my own files as I am very smart.

>>24581012
One anon did ask for tips on how to write an OP character with a pupil many threads back, before it even launched. I still think back at it sometimes, but I don't want to be schizo about it. It would be so fucking funny if they're just lurking the thread or randomly posting about it to see people's reactions.

>>24581232
;)

>>24581235
STAP!!!!

>>24581202
sex with my wife

>>24581232
For better or worse this doesn't seem to be the case, the chapters had to be written way before that to account for a steady schedule of daily releases

alright one of the resident autists go crawl the archives for opmc mentions

>>24580840
they wanna read 20 chapters ahead in a new story and it's "only 5 bucks" (if you ignore the fact that it's a recurring bill)

>>24581281
except that one is 10 bucks for only 7 or 8 chapters ahead which is on the lower end of these offerings

>>24580894
You don't NEED to do any of that. You CAN just write a good story as long as you're don't care about attention / viewcounts / comments.

>>24581292
then what would be the point of it all...?

>>24580959
>reading audiobooks
not possible, unless you mean the transcripts

>>24581011
just look at the "stubbed" tag on royal road and sort by reader count. like 90% of those are because of signing up with amazon and releasing on audible + KU. because porky at amazon robs you of like half of your royalties unless you agree to make the book "amazon exclusive" which also means taking it down from RR. somehow this blatant monopolism is legal, probably because they hired enough 14 year old epstein girls for senators.

Hot, juicy tidbit:
It's significantly cheaper to just commission character art versus paying a premium for commissioning a full book cover. You can then make your own cover with a basic understanding of typography and photoshop — a browser-based version called photopea is even available for those who can't be bothered to pirate the real thing.

Please tune in next time for more hot, juicy tidbits!

>>24581308
Display your work please

>>24581308
I'm not sure if I want any more of anon's 'hot and juicy' bits...

>>24581308
thing is, a truly top-tier professional cover needs a top-tier artist and real typographer
if you're talking middle tier covers sure. i think you're better off doing a lot of it yourself

>>24581294
Creating for the sake of creating. Plenty of famous 'real' authors were insane starving artists who wrote for no reward and only had their works spread and became famous after their deaths.

>>24581308
If you commission character art make sure your contract with the artist allows commercial use since that won't be a baseline assumption like it is for covers.

>2.5 rating
i'm sorry i'll do better next time.

>>24581308
The messy part is getting them to sign a legal contract granting you the commercial rights as they might just feel like not doing it and you won't be able to force them to do so.

>>24581202
>>24581332
new chapter was that unpopular huh?

>>24581202
>>24581332
rabbitanon did you get commercial rights to all your Ferene art?

>>24581310
Me? I'm just a humble backlogger
I've been slowly building a list of artists I want to commission eventually though.
I thought to share my hot juicy tidbit because I've seen people pay €$800+ for shit covers when you could pay a fraction of that for frankly incredible character art.

>>24581312
I can't believe you'd say something like that.

>>24581313
>top-tier
I feel you won't need that until you reach the self-publish/KU phase of the game plan. I was under the impression RR+patreon is at least partially about gauging market viability while building an audience. Commissioning a truly top-tier cover as you say feels like an unnecessary investment if you haven't got proof of market yet

>>24581321
>>24581350
Hey hey that's a great bonus legal tidbit, thanks for sharing

>>24581354
I'd like to know this too

>>24581363
>I've been slowly building a list of artists I want to commission eventually though.
List 'em, then.

>>24581352
no they rated chapter 2 that way. It is rare for people to read very far.

>>24581354
no, which is one(of many) reasons I have monetized nothing. A lot(but not all) of them are done through skeb. I've shown the parts of their user agreement that I'm worried about before.
I'll get a very high quality piece at the end of the year from an artist with a long backlog and I specifically stated that nothing about the story is monetized.

>>24581380
skeb defaults to the artist retaining all rights
did you ask for commercial rights in your request?

>>24581398
the art isn't meant to make my story more popular, the art is for me to look at.

>>24581401
dangerously based

>>24581401
Common rabbit anon W

>>24581401
huge fuckign lance
i will now read

>>24581411
she doesn't have a lance, that is a recolor of a game sprite I made. Sorry.

>>24581421
my heart is broken

>>24581401
But that's Selvaria...how fucking lazy can you get.

>>24581445
see >>24581421

>>24581445
Common paint win

On the topic of character IP, the most terrifying thought keeping me awake at night is the fallout scenario of a gacha releasing characters with the same traits and looks as mine, essentially rendering them cheap carbon copies forever to be compared with their popular version. Gachas are haunting slop machines with a lot of money so they can hire teams of experts to dig out every possible character combination under the sun to maximize earnings and recognition, and in the end character just sits in their gacha catalogue, left unexplored and underdeveloped, but used to permanently plant a flag on its design and quirks that makes any other lookalike an inferior derivative amid the anime zeitgeist. These weeks it almost happened to me again, as in the gacha character had the same aesthetic quirk and a barely different name. Haunting stuff

How quickly do you burn through the obligatory first 20k words? Do you try to get it all out on the first day or spread it over a few consecutive days?

>>24581489
truly a nightmare scenario

>>24576779 (OP)
>release chapter 1
>get 20 views in 48 hours
>release chapter 6
>get 50 views in 48 hours
What gives? It's almost like people look total word count before deciding to read whole thing or not.

>>24581542
>almost like
that's exactly the case, between
some readers will proudly say that they won't even give a work a chance until it hits 1000 pages

I don't read anything below one million words

>>24581561
this but 100% unironically

>>24581544
>>24581561
What is wrong with people?
Why would they eat an entire truckload of slop instead of one luxury meal?
Has any literary medium in the history of mankind favored quantity over quality as much?

>>24581599
It's about the journey twin

>>24581599
I assumed it's more about knowing something wasn't dropped 200k words in and the author has the perseverance to deliver

>>24581599
imagine getting blueballed by a story you got invested in

>>24581645
like 90% of every seasonal anime that just ends with conclusion?

>>24581654
Seasonal anime is made to sell manga/LN volumes, the cliffhangers are intentional

>>24581599
>Why would they eat an entire truckload of slop instead of one luxury meal?
a luxury meal (normal book) lasts 5 hours at best. no thanks. i want something i can binge for a week at the very minimum

>>24581610
>>24581645
This is what drives me to finish even tho I want to move on to another project

>>24581679
How much time do you spend reading per week?
Sounds like addiction. I thought reading addiction didn't exist.

"What is this?" Anon looked at the complex trace work of interlocking computer code that seemed to make up the underlying structure of the space he had awoken in.

"This is【THE SLOPPING SYSTEM】" the invisible voice replied and anon could feel each word pulse through him like waves of warming light.

"In this world, everyone is sorted according to their daily word count. Your
【SLOP SCORE】determines your worth in society — Don't fail"

Anon suddenly could feel himself falling, falling, falling from the skies through clouds and past startled birds. Anon was screaming now.

【OPEN FILE?】

The window popped up in front of him unbidden.

"What????"


"Yes! Yes! Open file!!!!!"

His old webnovel "Of Silk & Spice [Slow paced silk road progression story]" popped up, a shameful 15 thousand words making his heart sink even faster than his fall.

【DEPLOY MANIFESTATION?】

"Yes!!!"

7000 words were subtracted from his word count in an instant, motes of light forming the Chinese as spy hanglider described in chapter 3.

"I can't believe eeeet---"


Fosh!!
Anon crashed straight into a straw-thatched roof and rolled off end over end.

"Ayaya...!! Not my day! Not my day at all...!!"

Should you stop with the rapid double dailies right after you hit the obligatory 20k words or continue for 3 weeks like that one anon said? Is it really worth the strain?

>>24581708
>a shameful 15 thousand words
*Hides in shame of my 6k, 3 chapter shitter.* I have a headache today, I can't write.
Anyway, any anons using grammarly? What's the best way to use it? I've been writing directly onto the the web editor but it started shitting the bed after ~5k words.

>>24581696
>Men aren't reading and need to read more!
>Okay I'll read more
>NOOO NOT LIKE THAT
Just can't win with retarded faggots

>>24581716
The nuanced answer is "it depends on what your trajectory to Rising Stars looks like"
You need about 200 followers in 3-4 weeks. Get that however you can.

>>24581720
grammarly can hook straight into programs like scrivener to work inside its editor
i used to have a subscription but it's not worth it. grammarly is ass. use AI to proofread, it does a better job

>>24581775
I see. Good to know. Thanks anon-sama.

>>24581599
>Why would they eat an entire truckload of slop instead of one luxury meal?
False dichotomy. They can't know the quality of the writing before beginning to read it, and there are plenty of long and good or short and bad stories.

Readers have a preference for longer stories because that way when they DO find one that appeals to them they can read it for longer, so they spend less time having to do the work of searching through stories for something good.

>>24581740
Also
>Reading is a fascist dog whistle

>>24581784
What pr000mpts do you use?

>>24581784
>grammarly can hook straight into programs like scrivener to work inside its editor
wait really? where, how?

>>24581926
https://www.grammarly.com/desktop I think.

>>24581932
Oh cool, that must've been fairly recent since it wasn't a feature before 2023-2024ish, thanks.

>>24582040
>>24582040
>>24582040
>>24582040
new