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Does shout out exchanging even work? My eyes usually glaze by any not by Macronomicon.
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Sep 16, 2023 19:26
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The ones that are just the blurb do nothing for me. If it's apparent they've read the stuff they're linking I'm way more likely to click it.
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Sep 16, 2023 19:32
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I clicked one on Slumrat a while back and it had a rape scene in the tenth chapter, so I decided not to trust them anymore. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/70915/the-first-great-game-a-litrpgharem-series This, if anyone wants to avoid it. (I thought, "maybe this harem stuff is fun, bit of porn, could be nice?" NOPE. Won't make that mistake again!)
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Sep 16, 2023 20:28
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Patrick Spens posted:Does shout out exchanging even work? My eyes usually glaze by any not by Macronomicon. I can reliable drive about a thousand readers to a story when I shout it out. So yes, they can be extremely potent
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Sep 16, 2023 20:32
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Yeah shout outs just feel weird. Why would I care about your commercials? I don't care about commercials whenever else I read or so them.
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Sep 16, 2023 21:03
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I click them sometimes if I'm bored but it is usually A Mistake
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Sep 16, 2023 21:21
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I click if it's by an author I'm enjoying and they don't shout out often so it's an actual recommendation. There are so many these days it's just extra scrolling to get to the chapter.
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Sep 16, 2023 22:30
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The shoutouts by the Quill&Still author felt noticeably genuine while been clearly and obviously shoutout exchanges, and I semi-regularly clicked on any that sounded interesting. They were effective; if I wouldn't like a serial, the shoutout gave me enough info to know why I wouldn't like it. I rarely, rarely click on most shoutouts though.
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Sep 16, 2023 23:07
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I'll generally click on shoutouts if it sounds at least mildly interesting and the author has actually read the storing they're shouting out. The ones where it's just the synopsis of something they haven't read seem totally pointless.
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Sep 17, 2023 02:45
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I'm an introvert who feels awkward talking to other writers, so I've only had one major shout-out for my work (by thundamoo) which initially brought in only 35 or so followers and several negative ratings, but has since remained a decent source of hits from within the site, so it's probably helped in the long run, if only a little bit. I think like they're probably very dependent on whether the recommended story has a similar vibe that will agree with the tastes of the recommenders audience, and how much they elaborate on or seem enthusiastic about the content. In the worst case, they can do more harm than good.
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Sep 17, 2023 05:06
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Nitrousoxide posted:I'm about 1/10th through the first book of A Practical Guide to Evil and I'm really digging it. A lot of the complaints folks have had about SupSup where characters feel kind of samey don't apply here. Everyone I've encountered so far has had a pretty distinct voice and world building has been really well integrated into the movement of the story. It's really easy, especially at the start of a story, for the author to fall into the trap of screeching things to a halt so they can explain, rather than show, some aspect of their world. PracGuide is my #1 web serial of all time, I hope you enjoy it. It really excels at creating super memorable scenes, and I can always picture them vividly, despite normally having a hard time with mental imagery. BTW let me know how you mentally picture the goblins/orcs (but particularly the goblins) - I always imagined them like WoW goblins (except the females are physically larger), but I'm pretty sure that's wrong. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Sep 17, 2023 |
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Sep 17, 2023 06:53
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SS87: lmao get hosed alden with your insistence on assigning moral worth to every single person alive except yourself
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Sep 17, 2023 12:28
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A big flaming stink posted:SS87: lmao get hosed alden with your insistence on assigning moral worth to every single person alive except yourself It's really incredible. My favorite of the Boe chapters, I think. Alden's breakdown had some real power to it, but this felt the most compelling to me. Maybe it's because their relationship, established off page during a time skip, has been so static. Here we have some good loving dynamism.
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Sep 17, 2023 12:51
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TheMaskedReader posted:Found this new web serial on Royal Road, I think it's pretty neat! Definitely more interesting than the general litRPG stuff. The worldbuilding seems very interesting on like, a socio-cultural level. This rules. Carza has a delightful inner voice, and I really like the presentation of ALD IOM as this labyrinthine mess of cultures, tradition and history that is getting slammed by modernity and scrambling to keep up.
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Sep 17, 2023 16:14
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A big flaming stink posted:SS87: lmao get hosed alden with your insistence on assigning moral worth to every single person alive except yourself I feel like (SS87) Alden should just mention the boater and his concerns to his teacher for the heroic morality class and see what the teacher thinks. It might be different if he wanted to keep it secret, but he's considering doing something already, and that's literally what the class is about.
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Sep 17, 2023 16:52
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Bremen posted:I feel like (SS87) Alden should just mention the boater and his concerns to his teacher for the heroic morality class and see what the teacher thinks. It might be different if he wanted to keep it secret, but he's considering doing something already, and that's literally what the class is about. Not a bad idea. And that teacher is a sway even.
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Sep 17, 2023 17:15
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Partner is reading through SupSup and just came in to hit me with this. "I know why he's called Joe." me: Okay, go on. "Worli is the mourning name. Ro'den is his uh, maiden name in that sense, what friends call him. Joe. Joe Roden. Like Joe Rogan." I wish to remove this from my brain?
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Sep 17, 2023 18:23
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As something less horrific, I remembered Onward to Providence and started re-reading it and it's just so good. It hasn't updated in two years, but still worth a look if you like weird sci-fi.
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Sep 17, 2023 18:26
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Ytlaya posted:PracGuide is my #1 web serial of all time, I hope you enjoy it. Hakram (a male orc) was described as 200 lbs of pure muscle. And the goblin sapper tunnels were small enough even small Catherine barely fit. So yeah I think goblins mostly fit with the sizes of WoW goblins. Orcs are probably somewhat leaner and shorter than their WoW counterparts and shorter than the average American man.
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Sep 18, 2023 00:18
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Nitrousoxide posted:Hakram (a male orc) was described as 200 lbs of pure muscle. And the goblin sapper tunnels were small enough even small Catherine barely fit. So yeah I think goblins mostly fit with the sizes of WoW goblins. Orcs are probably somewhat leaner and shorter than their WoW counterparts and shorter than the average American man. Yeah, I think orcs are sorta like Elder Scrolls orcs, though their mouths might look different (IIRC their smiles are described as being creepy/intimidating and looking like a shark's or something). Edit: Picture the PracGuide orcs as looking like goombas from the live action Super Mario movie Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Sep 18, 2023 |
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Sep 18, 2023 02:05
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I really like the reveal at the end of volume one in a "Practical Guide to Evil" where the other countries don't take the Evil Empire seriously because 90% of the time they have some clown on the throne who wants to steal the continent's weather or make cats illegal or something.
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Sep 18, 2023 12:30
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Nitrousoxide posted:I really like the reveal at the end of volume one in a "Practical Guide to Evil" where the other countries don't take the Evil Empire seriously because 90% of the time they have some clown on the throne who wants to steal the continent's weather or make cats illegal or something. This is also largely because Callow acts as a sort of buffer state between Praes and the other countries on the continent. Callow still needs to take Praes seriously, because even their more hare-brained schemes can cause huge casualties before they're stopped by heroes (or internal conflict in Praes itself). The fact that some insane villain will inevitably be put down by a hero isnt exactly much consolation to the thousands of people killed before that happens. Throughout most of history, I think going all the way back to Triumphant, Praes hasn't been much of a threat to other places just because they're constantly going to war with Callow, which they usually end up losing due to embracing Evil Roles. But Callow definitely still takes them seriously. (Even though I used spoiler tags, none of the above really constitutes spoilers and is just "information about the setting that I don't think is ever meant to surprise the reader" - I used tags just in case someone really wants to avoid literally all info)
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Sep 19, 2023 03:06
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I've been making my way slowly through prac guide for I'm probably a year on and off. Maybe halfway through volume 5 now. It's mostly been a continuously great read. I don't really have any specific thoughts, it's kind of my fallback read in between other serials or books. It's unique enough that I always feel like jumping back in to see where it goes next.
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Sep 19, 2023 06:25
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Thresholder: this will never be a favourite story. I've consistently found myself thinking I'll give it to the next thing and probably drop it. But I never quite do, and it always winds up introducing something I want to see the outcome of in the nick of time. Marchand is now that thing.
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Sep 19, 2023 08:17
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The regular introduction of interesting new things is one of the reasons Thresholder is one of my favorites. c57 Marchand's maybe-rampancy is one of them. I'm convinced that Luo Yanhua's description of March's electrical connections as channels for vital energy is a more apt description than we were meant to believe, and that Perry's use of actual vital energy to power March is bringing along some sort of magical refinement. I'm also very much hoping that this, or at least something like it, is the case, since it's already been mentioned that Perry's growing power set isn't very compatible with a suit of power armor, and I would really, really hate if Perry had to leave March behind because he's too strong and fast for the armor to keep up with.
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Sep 19, 2023 18:00
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Nettle Soup posted:As something less horrific, I remembered Onward to Providence and started re-reading it and it's just so good. It hasn't updated in two years, but still worth a look if you like weird sci-fi. I asked about this, despite it having no comments/update in 16 months, and the author replied: quote:I'm doing quite well, I spent like a year working on what is an incredibly emotionally draining part of the story and that's still not done and I had to take a break. So I'm currently writing a fantasy story for a bit that should be getting posted here once I've had some time to polish it with forum readers. So that's cool! 
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Sep 20, 2023 01:59
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Yeah, a lot of stories on hiatus are on hiatus for similar reasons. Some authors are motivated by only publishing things they are satisfied with. As contrast there’s the business minded authors that just post. Neither is somehow more virtuous, to be clear, they just both exist.
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Sep 20, 2023 14:12
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Hiatus talk reminded me: One of my frustrations with the RR webnovel scene is that authors are strongly incentivized, socially and economically, to write long million+ word epics. Like they definitely have their place but it just leads to so much pain and burnout. Doing shorter novel/novella sized works is way healthier for a new writer, because it allows you to both actually finish a work and dump things that are just not working without the feeling of failure and abandonment. But sadly it's just not going to happen: First off, prog fantasy in general is very suited for long works, because there's an implicit expectation that the MC will go through the 'whole' power curve. Next, readers will never tell you that you should think about ending the story soon. Readers are an infinite void that will devour an endless number of chapters. Also every time you end a story you take a massive risk in losing your audience with the next book. And finally, the economics. Patreon means you have to reliably release chapters, and again moving to a new story risks your patreon income going off a cliff. ...It's just frustrating, seeing authors burn out and go on infinite hiatus because they took on a project far too massive to actually write.
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Sep 20, 2023 19:32
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SupSup 88: Enjoyed both halves of the chapter, though this really is two half-chapters glued together. Reading between the lines, it now seems less like Max specifically has a history with himself or those he cares about being collateral damage, between his dressing-down over unthinking and unnecessary power usage and his talk about the value of Kon's power. Sure, each of those could be coincidences to show him as thoughtful and serious, but together the throughline is suggestive. Wonder if getting people kicked out of heroing for thoughtlessly going for lethal was less about him getting into the program and more about that kind of person not getting in to any of them.
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Sep 21, 2023 00:04
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BadMedic posted:Hiatus talk reminded me: One of my frustrations with the RR webnovel scene is that authors are strongly incentivized, socially and economically, to write long million+ word epics. At the same time, I picked the web novel format BECAUSE I wanted to write a huge epic. Because I'd read so many good books and stories that ended 'too soon'. I think it's less the incentives, and more that web serials offer a way for writers to write the big epic they always wanted to, in the way they want. The ease of being able to enter into the market + the sheer attrition rate on something that big (Much easier to hit 30k words than 3m words) means that there's a lot of people who 'don't make it'. At the same time, all of the long running big epic authors I've talked with have all said they have an ending in mind, and that they're working towards it.
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Sep 21, 2023 08:05
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Selkie Myth posted:At the same time, I picked the web novel format BECAUSE I wanted to write a huge epic. Because I'd read so many good books and stories that ended 'too soon'. Those are pretty much my reasons for writing a webserial, too. I knew i could write that much, that i wanted to write that much, that the full story would require that much, and that's what i did (am still doing). I know my ending, too! hopefully i can reach it within the planned 400k--550kish more words i expect book 9 to have. and then it's on to the next project. the next one will very much have KU in mind, tho. I want to keep Ar'Kendrithyst always online somewhere, for free. That was one of my other reasons for doing a webserial.
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Sep 21, 2023 08:59
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arcs01 posted:
I started off that way, then the KU pile of money just got too big. KU's made me $104k so far this year, and like, I wanted BTDEM to be always free online, but 6 figures a year was just too much
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Sep 21, 2023 13:41
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Einander posted:SupSup 88: Enjoyed both halves of the chapter, though this really is two half-chapters glued together. Reading between the lines, it now seems less like Max specifically has a history with himself or those he cares about being collateral damage, between his dressing-down over unthinking and unnecessary power usage and his talk about the value of Kon's power. Sure, each of those could be coincidences to show him as thoughtful and serious, but together the throughline is suggestive. Wonder if getting people kicked out of heroing for thoughtlessly going for lethal was less about him getting into the program and more about that kind of person not getting in to any of them. Dang, that's a cool read. SupSup 88: I think Max is a bit of a poo poo, but just like the much more obnoxious Lute Velras, there's definitely a lot more to it. Boe stuff has been much more compelling for me the last couple chapters. I think the awkward timing of his return, his status as the guy who became Alden's most important friend off screen, and his isolation from all other characters combined to make a bunch of scenes that were somehow well done and full of important stuff but not at all grabby. Now that the relationship is shifting and reacting to the on screen events of the story, I find it much more engaging. I'm still more pumped for the dumb teen shenanigans. 5 minutes into this party and we already have a gross out food challenge and broken glass.
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Sep 21, 2023 15:07
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Selkie Myth posted:At the same time, I picked the web novel format BECAUSE I wanted to write a huge epic. Yeah like, I'm glad for everyone who's successful with it. I just feel like it's an unhealthy goal for the majority of novice writers.
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Sep 21, 2023 15:28
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Selkie Myth also planned to have the big time skip about a hundred chapters in, IIRC. Even if you plan for a long story, they grow.
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Sep 21, 2023 15:30
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Best way to get better at writing is to write, so for most new authors the web serial format is a good thing. The expectations are low and the words are many.
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Sep 21, 2023 17:39
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Started on the wandering inn a month or two ago and I'm now on the second-last released kindle book (tears of liscor, I think) and I googled an image/chart of 'how much is left' and it looks like I'm currently ALMOST 1/3rd of the way through the progress on the web serial. Holy poo poo. I want to look up fan art and stuff, but I figure I'll just get massively spoiled. I'm enjoying this a lot so far! I'm not sure if I'll carry on reading when the released books in kindle format end (I realise more are being released pretty fast!) but drat, this is good.
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Sep 21, 2023 20:46
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redreader posted:Started on the wandering inn a month or two ago and I'm now on the second-last released kindle book (tears of liscor, I think) and I googled an image/chart of 'how much is left' and it looks like I'm currently ALMOST 1/3rd of the way through the progress on the web serial. Holy poo poo. Two things, TWI's website TOC includes a guide for what book maps to what chapter now, so once you get caught up on the books you can easily what maps to what there. https://wanderinginn.com/table-of-contents/?compare=ebook pirate did a complete rewrite of Volume 1 which currently is only on the website as they haven't figure out how best to replace the currently published version. I still haven't gotten around to reading it, but the main gist was to make Ryoka much less punchable iirc.
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Sep 21, 2023 20:55
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redreader posted:Started on the wandering inn a month or two ago and I'm now on the second-last released kindle book (tears of liscor, I think) and I googled an image/chart of 'how much is left' and it looks like I'm currently ALMOST 1/3rd of the way through the progress on the web serial. Holy poo poo. I would really recommend giving the audiobook a shot as well. The narrator has an amazing range for all the characters and they all have unique and recognizable voices.
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Sep 21, 2023 21:09
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Peachfart posted:Best way to get better at writing is to write, so for most new authors the web serial format is a good thing. The expectations are low and the words are many. The thing is, the web serial format is extremely weird and it lets you get away with bad habits that wouldn't fly in any other setting. I used to feel that any writing was good practice, but at this point the serial space is maybe the one counter-example I can think of, where it's possible to write millions of words and still churn out prose that sounds like it was written by an edgy sixth grader.
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Sep 22, 2023 03:12
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