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So I'm plinking away at a story right now and for the authors on RR, how do you market it to get the early hits? And I assume the actual profit from RR comes from linking a Patreon to it for earlier chapters and tiered rewards? E: oh god that's a page snipe, my bad
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Sep 24, 2021 15:39
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Larry Parrish posted:It says that but then there's a handful of authors who just do it anyway. Whether that means they got permission or Amazon just doesn't care since it's not being sold, or didn't bother to look for it, I dunno. It makes sense that Amazon lets authors post teaser chapters somewhere else since it is just more publicity for them. Plus they let you download a sample of the book if you're curious. If KU is the only one selling the book all the readers end up there anyways.
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Sep 24, 2021 15:44
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I think the 10% free preview thing might be an interpretation from the general Amazon book preview policy rather than a KU specific thing. I've posted a thread asking about this on a selfpub Reddit and hopefully someone might be able to point at something specific. EDIT: Okay finally got an answer. It used to explicitly be a thing in their rules, but then they changed the language and now it's a legal grey zone. Here's the old version on archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20200317065450/https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200798990 quote:"However, you may choose to make up to 10% of your book available on other sites as a sample, as well as continue to distribute your book in physical format (including print on demand books), or in any format other than digital. 10% is roughly the length of the Kindle Free reading sample." Megazver fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Sep 24, 2021 |
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Sep 24, 2021 16:17
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Galick posted:So I'm plinking away at a story right now and for the authors on RR, how do you market it to get the early hits? And I assume the actual profit from RR comes from linking a Patreon to it for earlier chapters and tiered rewards? Make the story easy to pick up, with a premise that starts simple and short chapters. Post several times a week for the first month or so, but at different times every day so that you get as many hits from Latest Updates as possible. If you're writing straightforward proglit (as in, LitRPG or Cultivation) that's basically all you need to know, but if you're not and you still aspire to become a big hit, you're going to need a good understanding of what pushes the buttons of the site's users so that you can reflect that without relying on the familiar markers. Most readers will be after power fantasies to varying degrees, so ideally you want to frame your opening chapter as one where the protagonist is confronted by obstacle, only to find some special way to overcome it. Read some other stuff on the site that's unconventional but popular to get a feel for the texture. There's not really many places you can market this kinda stuff directly beyond just optimizing it for that initial appeal. You can try to find subreddits for the type of story and link it around on RR writer discords like the Silver Pen, but it's ultimately gonna be a drop in the bucket. And yeah, you'll probably only make serious money quickly if you do the advance chapter thing. PoorWeather fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Sep 24, 2021 |
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Sep 24, 2021 16:36
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Thanks so much! That sounds about right from my research, I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. It may bomb or flop, but the idea is hopefully novel at least.
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Sep 24, 2021 16:47
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Doing well on Royal Road involves getting on Trending (currently renamed to Rising Stars) and taking off from there. Posting one chapter a days for the first few weeks to a month helps with that significantly, as every time you post an update, you get pushed to the top of the 'Recently Updated' list, which is how many stories are discovered. I wish I could tell you what makes a story get to Rising Stars outside of posting often, but...I don't know. The most surefire way is to have fans from elsewhere support your story, but then you have to actually have fans from elsewhere, I still have no idea how I got popular on Spacebattles. Like everything else in life, a large portion of it comes down to luck.
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Sep 24, 2021 19:12
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A big flaming stink posted:TUTBAD 21: isra is the loving cutest person ever i swear to god I already really liked Wales' writing, but the dialogue in TUTBAD seems like a significant improvement over even the later chapters of Worth the Candle. Really good flow, feels very natural (and fun). My theory is that part of it is the setting being a lot cozier, plus the party being proportionally fewer people who are downers or emotionally flat. In WtC, out of 8 people, that was everyone but Fenn and Bethel, and Bethel was still a sociopath. Meanwhile, in TUTBAD, you have two gregarious people, two people on the obviously quieter/emotionally controlled side, and one person in the middle (Verity).
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Sep 25, 2021 05:46
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Cicero posted:drat, another great chapter. It helps that there's no stakes so far, really, except the possibility of being injured or dying. It's like reading about friends going gold panning in the deep wilderness. That's more enjoyable for me that conversations about how to use power or narrative or how to save the world or whatever.
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Sep 25, 2021 06:02
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i also have to say im super into hearing hannah talk about theology, i legit am excited to hear more about the deities of the setting
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Sep 25, 2021 07:49
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"this is the god of balance. they want you to be symmetrical. this is the god of number go up. they want you to get bigger. any questions?"
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Sep 25, 2021 13:24
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90s Cringe Rock posted:"this is the god of balance. they want you to be symmetrical. this is the god of number go up. they want you to get bigger. any questions?" im laughing imagining rejected cleric hopefuls for the god of the infinite who just latched on to the increased size part, like Hannah talking about people wanting to be balance clerics for the gay sex. tfw the high priest figured out I was just in it for being able to make my dick bigger.
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Sep 25, 2021 13:34
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How's 12 miles below going? I wasn't too enthused with the description of what the new arc is gona be about but havent had time to catch up myself.
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Sep 25, 2021 14:24
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Xun posted:How's 12 miles below going? I wasn't too enthused with the description of what the new arc is gona be about but havent had time to catch up myself. the stuff involving to'wrathh is much more interesting than the stuff involving the boring humans, i can say that much A big flaming stink fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Sep 25, 2021 |
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Sep 25, 2021 14:36
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Xun posted:How's 12 miles below going? I wasn't too enthused with the description of what the new arc is gona be about but havent had time to catch up myself.
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Sep 25, 2021 15:46
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Plorkyeran posted:One thing I've been wondering about for a while is if RR has any plans to build their own monetization platform. Patreon doesn't have any discoverability features, so I'd assume that any new authors looking to do the RR posts + patreon advance chapters model would be perfectly happy to just do that entirely on RR instead. They do, but it's a MASSIVE undertaking, and the ONE DEVELOPER on the team has big ambitions. I've told him that he should take small bites, and roll it out to a few select author at first while it gets sorted, but....
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Sep 26, 2021 00:23
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Selkie Myth posted:They do, but it's a MASSIVE undertaking, and the ONE DEVELOPER on the team has big ambitions. I've told him that he should take small bites, and roll it out to a few select author at first while it gets sorted, but.... gonna be insanely lmao when yet another company undergoes a complete catastrophe because they dont want to loving pay developers
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Sep 26, 2021 02:10
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Tbf developers are expensive, dunno how much money RR is currently bringing in. But yeah just one dude is not enough.
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Sep 26, 2021 02:15
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To build a proof of concept, patreon had two developers. To move from proof of concept to minimum viable product, patreon burned 2.1 million dollars in less than 12 months. With 1 dev coding to get proof of concept working (probably not even able to dedicate full time to the project) - even if RR has the money to ramp up spending once the proof of concept was finished (they don't), they would be competing with an established company to steal a sliver of their revenue. It's never gonna work.
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Sep 26, 2021 06:49
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You're writing that like it indicates a large amount of manpower, but Patreon is headquartered in SF, 2.1 million in a year is probably like 8-10 employees or something, maybe less. Anyway, RoyalRoad does have an advantage in that a) they're only targeting a single type of creator, and b) they already have a platform for said creators to post updates for the relevant content type, to have followers, to allow comments, etc. So they already have a decent-sized subset of the functionality they need. But yeah they still need more than just one coder.
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Sep 26, 2021 07:48
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Based on how godawful and slow the Patreon site is I'm sure they could have gotten much more StackExchange cobbleware for their money, but efficiency doesn't impress the investors
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Sep 26, 2021 08:10
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The latest TWI Patreon is 38000 words over two chapters because Pirateaba was 'on a roll'. lol
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Sep 26, 2021 09:31
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Peachfart posted:The latest TWI Patreon is 38000 words over two chapters because Pirateaba was 'on a roll'. Pirateaba is a completely insane person. It has been stated before, but stunts like this really make it worth repeating. Christ, I don't think I can write that many words in a goddamn month.
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Sep 26, 2021 12:45
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She's a ludicrous existence for sure. Is there anyone who manages to poo poo out more words a week? Maybe, but she's probably got em beat for quality. If it wasn't for the occasional livestreams I'd think she was secretly one the the brains behind GPT-3 and had a Cray in her basement to crap out outlines with or something.
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Sep 26, 2021 12:47
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Jamesdean5842, the author of Loud House fanfic Loud House Revamped, started writing a year and a half after TWI, and it's now at 11 million words, so he has a leg up over pirateaba  it's completely unreadable
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Sep 26, 2021 13:08
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There are lists of World's Most Prolific Authors and pirateaba is probably gonna end up on them eventually, if she keeps up.
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Sep 26, 2021 13:55
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Argue posted:Jamesdean5842, the author of Loud House fanfic Loud House Revamped, started writing a year and a half after TWI, and it's now at 11 million words, so he has a leg up over pirateaba quote:Skinner: Hello Mother.
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Sep 26, 2021 14:08
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Cicero posted:You're writing that like it indicates a large amount of manpower, but Patreon is headquartered in SF, 2.1 million in a year is probably like 8-10 employees or something, maybe less. The LitRPG crowd would probably come over for the ability to post tables.
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Sep 26, 2021 16:36
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Argue posted:Jamesdean5842, the author of Loud House fanfic Loud House Revamped, started writing a year and a half after TWI, and it's now at 11 million words, so he has a leg up over pirateaba ... I don't know what that is and frankly I don't want to know. Anyway fanfics clearly don't count. They're on a lower circle of hell then web serials.
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Sep 26, 2021 19:00
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A big flaming stink posted:gonna be insanely lmao when yet another company undergoes a complete catastrophe because they dont want to loving pay developers To be fair, that one developer is also the co-owner.
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Sep 26, 2021 19:52
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PGtE Occidental V: really great chapter today. You know it's a sign of quality writing when a simple dialogue between two people explaining their aims and thought processes can be so riveting. And not even, like, hero vs villain type dialogue; these people are (mostly) on the same side!
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Sep 29, 2021 08:57
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After 18 months of radio silence, Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4 has updated with ten chapters. I loved this serial when it started, but eventually it felt like it just became what it was satirizing, and it wasn't all that funny anymore. I'll still check out the updates though and see if the author has figured anything out.
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Sep 29, 2021 20:07
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According to the author’s post under the first new chapter, they’re dumping 71(!) chapters.
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Sep 29, 2021 20:09
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Cicero posted:After 18 months of radio silence, Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4 has updated with ten chapters. I think this is the natural progression of most parodies that don't end early. One Punch Man, for example, becomes much more of an action shonen the longer it goes on. There's only so much comedy you can squeeze out of "Hey, this thing is like this other popular thing, but poking fun at it". Transitioning into the genre it parodies isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. The later parts of One Punch Man are very solid.
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Sep 29, 2021 20:33
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I wish These Heels Step Heavenward - A Jade Beauty's Isekai Gone Wild had made the transition to being an earnest story. The author did a pretty good job of setting up a real plot and some interesting characters by the time the parody wore thin, but then they decided not to continue on with that.
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Sep 30, 2021 01:27
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Galick posted:So I'm plinking away at a story right now and for the authors on RR, how do you market it to get the early hits? And I assume the actual profit from RR comes from linking a Patreon to it for earlier chapters and tiered rewards? I’m doing a ton of review swaps(swap with me!) And non authors read my web serial now in week 2: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46687/red-mist
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Sep 30, 2021 01:43
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Cicero posted:PGtE Occidental V: really great chapter today. You know it's a sign of quality writing when a simple dialogue between two people explaining their aims and thought processes can be so riveting. And not even, like, hero vs villain type dialogue; these people are (mostly) on the same side! Finally got around to this and yeah, insanely good chapter lol. This thread likes to whine about PGTE sometimes but no matter what I'm always on the edge of my drat seat.
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Sep 30, 2021 12:14
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EE is probably the web serial author most likely to get me hyped for a conversation between characters. the amount of anticipation I felt for our last big Black/Cat and Hakram/Cat interactions was insane also, KamikazePotato, that little thing you did for the raffle winners was just the sweetest. it was the second random act of kindness to get me crying in the car in as many days (might be a commentary on my mental state but,). thanks for making the current state of The Everything just a little more bearable. you, and every other web serial author reading this. keep killing it, please.
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Oct 1, 2021 04:28
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catgirlgenius posted:also, KamikazePotato, that little thing you did for the raffle winners was just the sweetest. it was the second random act of kindness to get me crying in the car in as many days (might be a commentary on my mental state but,). thanks for making the current state of The Everything just a little more bearable. You're very welcome! I'm glad it made your day better, we all need moments like that. Some people asked for a detailed statistics analysis of my first two weeks on Amazon, and I'll get to that when I'm less busy. At the moment I'll just quickly say that Kindle Unlimited accounted for 3/4 of my book's revenue.
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Oct 1, 2021 05:21
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Very excited for next chapter in TUTBAD for the best content of all: entad time!
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Oct 1, 2021 10:51
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Cicero posted:Very excited for next chapter in TUTBAD for the best content of all: entad time! also maybe the crew talking about how they almost loving died for an incredibly stupid reason
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Oct 1, 2021 11:08
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