Hi all, I'm currently working on a litrpg for royal road. It's going to be a slow burner in the sense of requiring a huge setup in triggering the litrpg portion.

My question is this: would you stop reading the book if it took as long as 10 chapters for the litrpg portion to begin? As in, it reads like a regular fantasy novel up until chapter 10. There will be close to no indication, just a bit of foreshadowing, that the book is litrpg genre.

Of course it will be tagged as litrpg. I'm just wondering if it will turn readers off who are expecting it to read as a litrpg asap. Anyhow, opinions much appreciated.

Thanks 🙏

Today, I just finished my 12th chapter for a novel I have been working on(~30,000 words) and decided to upload it on royal road(and wattpad) and I usually see some comments on posts for new authors to upload multiple chapters at once. Now my question is-how does that work? I have uploaded a short story on royal road like 2 years ago and could only upload one chapter then it is approved. Thats how I uploaded my other chapters and I tried to upload multiple chapters now but I don't know how to, so I just uploaded 1 chapter, hoping to upload the other 3 when this get approved(hopefully). So can anyone help so I can edit my submission🙏🙏🙏

And pardon my English, I am non-native.

I find this quite humorous… The first strike: .5* and 1* rating bomb… I make a post about joining the author community. The comeback: 2 4* and 4 5* ratings… we’re doing good, the ratings bounced back to manageable… I made a support ticket to remove the bomb but if they refuse it’s gonna be okay :) A QUESTIONABLE rating: 2 star(haven’t uploaded a chapter in 48 hours… ehhh debatable on a bomb or not) dropping the rating MORE. The double down: 2 more 5*’s are introduced to the game… The game ender: Michael.Hammer with the 5* REVIEW… thanks :), glad u like the genre! Ending the night with 3.77 stars from 10 ratings and 1 review(I started with ZERO of both for a clean slate this morning…)

As I finish narrowing down ideas for a story, I've come up with an idea I love, but doubt that it would interest others:

How about a story that follows a world, maybe through interviews (a la WWZ), or 'found' media, or another world's scientists' reports on it? It could follow the world from the very start of its civilization, and go right up to... wherever it ends up ending.

The main problem, of course, is that readers might be uninterested in it without a single major character, or even any characters that remain relevant for more than a few chapters.

So, in short, would y'all actually read a story without any single plot line, but that gives rich history to a world?

Does this make me an official RoyalRoad author? Glad to be part of the club 🙂‍↕️ .5 and 1 star in the span of an hour 🫢😂

Slimantha took a bite of cheese sandwich. She chewed.

"What are you doing?" Samuel said, his eyes on her.

She swallowed. "To celebrate Summon Slime getting its hundredth follower, I'm doing a promo."

"And you're doing that by eating a cheese sandwich?"

"Yes. Trust in the cheese sandwich, Samuel." She took another bite of cheesy goodness.

...

Summon Slime, a cozy fantasy adventure.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/68584/summon-slime-cozy-fantasy-adventure-with-some

After some time, I wanted to continue reading the novel Journey of Brightburrow( I am not 100% sure about name). When I checked, it was deleted as every other novel written by them. In short, I was shocked and confused about what happened. The author wrote several novels featured in the same universe about bug gods with concepts under their power. They were interesting, but all of them were deleted. If you know about what happened, please tell me. In their royal road bio, it says, "On an indefinite hiatus." Link to author royal road page: https://www.royalroad.com/profile/302178

Hey everyone…

I’m a college student studying chemistry with hopes of getting into pharmaceuticals, but my real passion has always been reading and writing. Right now, I’m rereading Lord of the Mysteries, but I’ve been inspired by so many authors—Brandon Sanderson, Frank Herbert, DJ MacHale, Tolkien, and Rick Riordan. I also draw inspiration from movies like Blade Runner 2049 and shows like Game of Thrones.

I feel a little bad asking like this, but I really need an editor. I don’t have any money to offer, but if anyone’s interested, please reach out. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

My story follows a young boy struggling to find his place in the world—until everything changes. (It’s not an isekai.) The world reveals itself to be something completely different, and all he can do is keep moving forward. If I you are interested contact me on royal road.

Here is the link to the story: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/99873/the-cruel-horizon

I’ve been contacted for shout out swaps on RR before, and I assume as my story “Tales of Starlight” inevitably grows I’ll get more, but I always turned them down because I find the idea of putting another novel on my novel’s chapters kind of like… i don’t know… unprofessional? It seems like a cheesy way to get more views and follows. There’s no hate for those that do it, I’m more of a writer than a reader on RR, so I don’t know readers opinions on it.

I get they can increase views from the community sharing if you do it with the right people, but it’s rude to remove the shout out after you’ve done it, and honor kind of binds you to keep it. I plan to write as a career and don’t want my early chapters to be rung full of other novels ‘ads’…

Hi everyone,

Finally hit 20k words today. Happy with the target being met. Although, I am starting to encounter a problem I thought I had gotten over. Has anyone had a similar problem to the one I've described below.

I've had this issue in the past where the story takes control of the writing process and quickly becomes predictable. The story dictates what happens rather than myself. I don't like that. I like to be free and creative and feel like I have full control over every aspect of the story. Now I'm starting to feel that certain parts are forcing me in a direction I don't want to go in. I have to wrestle the story and I don't want to. It takes the fun out of it.

Not sure if that makes sense. Hope it does. (Very sleepy).

Anyway, If anyone can relate and has any suggestions on how to regain control, I would really appreciate it.

Also, if any of you want to read my story and the progress I've made so far, here is the link.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/101989/internal-resonance-litrpg

Here is the blurb-

Liam is devastated. Not only has his upcoming promotion been ripped away from him, but now his girlfriend has walked out on him as well. To make matters worse, both of these blows are the result of one man’s actions: Dave. Always Dave. The bane of Liam's existence.

At the New Year’s staff party, Liam reaches his breaking point and decides to confront his rival. What starts as a tense exchange quickly escalates into chaos, with both men falling off the balcony.

What follows is a bond unlike any other, as they are reincarnated in a new world—one where Liam is reborn as a man, and Dave as a mouse. Forced to put aside their differences, the two must navigate a strange and dangerous realm together.

In this new world, magic, power, and experience dictate wealth, love, and influence. Treachery abounds, as do demons and evil spirits.

Join them on a journey where former enemies must forge an unlikely alliance, one that sees their lives intertwined in ways they never could have imagined.

Thank you for reading my post 😊

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/90712/ring-world-volume-one

Blurb: In the blink of an eye, Saylee Green's life is cut short, leaving her husband and children behind. But death is just the beginning. Awakening in a surreal afterlife managed by a mysterious corporation, Saylee discovers a world far beyond her wildest imagination. As she navigates this strange new Earth, she uncovers unsettling conspiracies and encounters supernatural beings that defy explanation. Determined to reunite with her family, Saylee must unravel the secrets of this enigmatic realm while evading its sinister grasp. Will she find a way back to the life she lost, or will this strange afterlife consume her forever?

https://preview.redd.it/etaietinskge1.jpg?width=1844&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5409cca79535e8dec29f1bb2578953fb4f7f6bc4

Read it here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/90009/now-leaving-earthnext-stop-earth

Just the mc standing on the cover

random mutations names the mc will get

I am from India and having some difficulty supporting some of my favourite authors due to PayPal and Patreon problem. I have been also thinking of seriealizing one of my works So are there any Indian/Asian author out their

Authors, when you are serializing your story, how do you deal with revisions? Do you ever retcon after posting?

Hi, I have a lull in my proofreading and writing schedule and would have bandwidth to check out some of your prose, if you want.

I’ll take a chapter you pick and go through it with a fine comb, pointing out opportunities to strengthen the prose or make things hit harder, cut unnecessary fat or whatever the narration needs. As I can’t read up on all of the context, this offer is for punching up your prose and craft in general.

I’ll try to meet you where you are and will always be constructive and kind, but I will comment on things that I think deserve it.

I’ll spend about an hour per chapter on the review. I’ll pick up as many as I can, but there’s obviously a limit on how many I can do and how fast.

These are free in that you don’t need to do anything in return. I’m doing this to improve as a writer and to give something to the community.

EDIT: I prefer to do inline commenting, so if you share me a chapter directly from RR or somewhere, I’ll copy it to a GoogleDocs and use the commenting tool there and share back the link with the comments. If this is a dealbreaker for you, suggest alternative way on how to handle this! If you have any questions or anything about my comments, just reply to the comments and I’ll check those out.

EDITEDIT: I’m posting the feedbacks publicly on the comment threads. You can check those out to see what kind of feedback I tend to give and also I think it will be generally educational to check out feedback on prose, even if it‘s not yours.

So, I've decided to analyze a bit more stats for my book. Just to give you the context: I started posting my first chapters in November and got to RS in a few weeks. Currently, I have 116,000 words posted in 43 chapters (and a few interludes) and just went over 1000 followers.

This time, I decided to use the referrer's data and analyze which sources bring the most readers and which perform better in the User/Sessions ratio.

So, in the last 7 days, I had:

• 90 users and 126 sessions from swaps (reader comes from a chapter of a book I swapped with)
• 74 users and 106 sessions coming from Others Also Liked (reader comes from the main page of a different book)
• 58 users and 69 sessions coming from the front page updates
• 29 users and 54 sessions from the search
• 1343 users and 1732 sessions from ads

Not surprisingly, the best ratio is with users coming from search: 1.9. They know what they want and are better prepared to immerse themselves in this book.

Swaps and Others Also Liked give a similar ratio at around 1.4. So, my blurb/swap description is probably not that bad.

Ads are then next with 1.3. I'd say it's not that bad, considering that people have to judge a book by an image with just a few words on it (those ads have 1.6 CTR, so I'm quite happy with them anyway).

And in the last place as a source is the front page, with almost no one giving more than one session to my book. This isn't really surprising as you have to decide based only on the book and chapter titles

Measuring the overall impact of each of them, a couple of ads bring more than the rest of the sources. At least for me, at least for this book.

I'd be happy to hear about other authors' experiences!

I’ve seen a lot of edgy MC’s and dark elements in other stories, but I’m wondering given the established tropes if people enjoy Grimdark within litrpg and progression fantasy?

Is the combination of subgenres reconcilable with each other or is the hopelessness of Grimdark directly at odds with the hopeful nature of many litrpg tropes?

View Poll

Blurb: After dying as a corporate slave from burnout, Ryo is reincarnated in a medieval fantasy world with a strange system that rewards him for doing things at his own pace. The slower he learns something, the more overpowered he becomes. However, Ryo just wants to live a peaceful countryside life, running a small tavern. Unfortunately, his stats keep maxing out no matter what he does, and soon powerful figures start noticing his hidden potential.

Read it here: The Lazy Lord's Slow Life in Another World

I have been trying to write a blurb for my novel for the last couple of months now and this the best I got after two months of work.

Any suggestions would be helpful because i really don't understand how am I supposed to improve this.

I will be cross posting this one, because why not make the most of it :)

Also feel free to still post your own promotions, I just want to keep a list every month if I can. If it works. Open to suggestions, of course

It is the first of the month in many places worldwide; February, here we come!

Authors, share your latest story with the Royal Road community! Whether it's a thrilling adventure, a heartwarming romance, or a fantastic sci-fi. Whatever it is, we want to hear about it.

When promoting your story, feel free to get creative. You can include a brief description, an eye-catching image, and your current word count. But most importantly, make sure to include a link to your Royal Road fiction so readers can easily find and enjoy your work.

Please note that this thread is on a first-come, first-served basis. The earlier you post, the more likely your promotion will be seen first. To avoid overcrowding, we will have a new thread at the start of each month where you can promote your story again.

Also, don't forget to check out this subforum to promote your fiction https://www.royalroad.com/forums/5689

For readers, take a chance and explore all the stories available here. Main thread on the forums is here.

Have at it.

https://www.royalroad.com/forums/thread/147898

Lurker here, been reading on royal road for a hot minute and occasionally check this sub for new stuff, but a pattern I’ve been noticing is that, for some reason, authors that self-promote use the most bland, cringiest, or just outright soulless ways to describe their work. Which is weird. Aren’t they authors? Isn’t writing and creating engaging sentences literally their work?

It’ll be stuff like a generic marvel quip like “(X) never asked for this” or “Enter a world of peril and danger” or “Torn from his life by forces beyond his control” or “It was supposed to be any other boring day… until (x) happened.”

That’s just for blurbs. When you get down to actual self promotions and stuff, it’s like they roleplay as some out-of-touch corporation. “This story is guaranteed to get some laughs and tears!” or “Come along and be a part of this innovative new litRPG that explores (generic theme)” or “I can’t believe my character did this 🫣 check out my latest chapter here! (usually smack dab in the middle of their story for some reason???) and I could go on and on and on, but I think I’ve made my point.

The appeal of web novels is that human, personable aspect. You can interact with the author, you can converse with them, and it’s a much more intimate experience than reading traditionally published work. So just… act human. Why are you pretending you’re some PR agent for a detached mega-corp that’s hitting all the buzzwords possible to get noticed by the algorithm?

https://preview.redd.it/8g6tzrmhcgge1.png?width=799&format=png&auto=webp&s=4574c380e5997c357af4c5dc47963b25319893c7

I have never seen anyone that got on RS with less than 150 followers. This was my honest first reaction to this:

https://preview.redd.it/e3qji1zbdgge1.png?width=632&format=png&auto=webp&s=d92680ba4a418b1cc33b9f7b5be8de3016575d41

Now I'm going to not look at the 0.5 stars I will get and focus on writing...

Here is the link Dimming Stars. All feedbacks are welcome, please give me feedbacks/criticisms , please....