Hi everyone,

I’m excited (and a bit nervous) to share the first chapter of my new sci-fi fantasy novel, "The Shattered City"! It’s a story about rebellion, hidden truths, and the fight to reshape a dystopian world.

Synopsis: In a city divided between the glittering towers of power and the shadows of the oppressed, an unlikely hero emerges. With the help of a secret resistance, a fierce warrior, and a hacker who sees through the city's lies, the fate of an entire world rests on one decision.

If you love stories with:

Dystopian cityscapes

Underground rebellions

Tense power struggles

Sci-fi with a touch of fantasy

…then I’d love for you to check it out!

Read Chapter 1 here: The Shattered City on Wattpad[https://www.wattpad.com/1499764367-the-shattered-city-a-tale-of-power-rebellion-and] The Shattered City on Royal Road[https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/99783/the-shattered-city-a-tale-of-power-rebellion-and/chapter/1934453/the-shattered-city] The Shattered City on Inkitt[https://www.inkitt.com/stories/scifi/1381531/chapters/1]

I’d love your feedback! What stood out to you? What would you like to see more of?

Thanks so much for taking the time to read. Writing this has been a passion project of mine, and I hope it resonates with you!

(Not self promotion, i just need criticism )

Ive had writers block for around 6-7 months. I've attempted to write many novels but i cant even start, i also lack motivation and lose it very quickly if i do. Ive always wanted to write a novel that's in fantasy/dark fantasy such as Shadow slave which is my main inspiration. I need advice or just motivation to keep trying and practicing, so here is my attempt into starting my Novel, keep in mind information is very limited because you get it later on. this is just a cut of my writing in attempt to get another view on it that isint a writing checker or AI. please help me

Upon entering the underworld, Dukes mind went blank from the sheer size of the castle he was facing. At the door steps of an obsidian light absorbing slab of black marble. He was wearing a light tunic with patches of leather leaving open spots, letting the overpowering cold take him to his knees.

"what.. where is this place?"

Infront of him were the gates of the ominous castle, what mysteries lay beneath those giant gates were unknown for now. Rising from his knees due to the bare cold touched his skin he hurriedly shuffled to the gates.

Duke was more than confused, this situation was not like what the underworld was supposed to be. Usually freshly summoned challengers would be within reach of one of the main Citadels that humans shielded themselves in. With access to beginner equipment and weapons, but here Duke was in the bare cold with nothing but the bitter cold slowly rotting his skin.

"is anyone... here?"

He shouted but after some silence he quickly assumed that he was the only one here His bare hand touched the gates, where he instantly flinched due to the bare coldness of the steel. Duke began to push but it wasn't enough, his slim and weak body couldn't muster enough strength to push the sealed gates.

"was i really this weak in my past life too?"

Duke was shortly realizing after trying with all of his might to open the gates, that his body wasn't so familiar as he thought it was. Even a slave like him did lots of physical labor.

"This is embarrassing "

Pushing off of this idea for now, Duke tries to push again. He hears the shifting of the gates moving slowly, but eventually he was going to run out of energy, before stopping, the gust of bitter cold wind that was already powerful enough, became tenth fold. The wind slowly began to get faster and more aggressive.

Duke tries to open the gates once more, the wind slams the gates open with ease. The sound of the gates slamming open echoed through the entrance and back out, Duke had to cover his ears from the sheer vibrations. Running inside a massive relief hit him, he was no longer freezing but he was still in uncharted territory.

This castle still holds secrets, the black bare obsidian walls matched the pure blackness inside, no lights were on.

"fucking freezing"

He rubs his hands as he walks towards the pitch blackness. A couple steps through he noticed a large case of stairs, endlessly leading up.

After looking around for a bit he came to the conclusion that the stairs were the only way to progress up. After walking up for some time and only using his minimum vision to look up, this was a complete nightmare. Not only he didn't know where he was at but he couldn't see anything

"i could just die any minute now, cant i?"

as soon as this thought appeared in his mind he lost the rhythm of the steps and tripped, landing on his hands where they met the cold grace of the marble. He looked up regardless of knowing he would not see anything to his surprise. While he was tripping, two lights appeared above, informing him that was the end of the staircase.

Slight relief released, he took a deep breath and kept marching, until a figure appeared. You could barley see it but the two dim lights at the end of the staircase, you could see a reflection of a piece of armor.

"who, who's there?"

Duke shivered from the mere thought that someone else was here with him, in this lonely manor. He stopped ascending, and just stared at the motionless figure. His eyes became dry from not blinking for so long, it was so much as a stare off if anything.

The figure walked closer to the light, revealing its appearance. A Knight. not a single inch of skin being shown from the gleaming armor it had, clear dents could be seen on his chest plate marking the glorious past battles it had survived. The light flame encased the armors reflection, making it look like as if he was on fire Duke swallowed, he was clearly terrified and had no clue who the knight was.

"he..hello? i come in peace. I was kind of just summoned here,"

The knight just stood there in silence, its menacing stare dared to prove that nothing was inside of it at all from the lack of movement. Duke was left with no response, and in return all he really could do was just to stare at it. His eyes started to become watery. The knight began slowly marching down the steps, slowly. step.... another.

He and the knight were ten steps far, but the knight still continued to march down.

"Sir, i never meant to intrude into your castle, it was just so cold outside. "

Duke was like a dog with his tail tucked under him, he had his hands up, showing he had no weapons, but the knight still continued to close his distance, and eventually they were five steps away.

abruptly stopping the knight reached for his sword, on its left side. Duke noticed and flinched. The knight continued, unsheathing its sword and unleashing a strike, in attempt to behead Duke. Duke couldn't move but his body acted on its own, ducking the strike the sword lodged into the handle of the stair case.

The creaking of the knights armor was all the more terrifying as it was trying to unlodge its sword. noticing this Duke didn't waste any time but to leap ahead and run, the knight was alerted by the sudden movement and began hacking his sword out of the stair case, running past the knight, he was quickly slammed against the wall by the towering knight, It felt like he just broken every bone in his body, a shock jittering across his whole body.

"so much power!"

Duke spits out blood but gets up from his knees and continues running. The knight continued to hack away at his sword. eventually Duke reached to the top of the stair case where he met with the two lights, that were massive torches.

he took a deep breath from the massive leaps he had to take to reach the top in such a short time, he peeped a glance at the knight. The knight had unfinished its sword, but it seemed angered, instead of its calm ascent it began racing up towards the top.

Was Duke going to really die from a knight?

I have no means to get an ISBN (no money, no US address so Bowker isn't an option, in my country I have to have a physical office as a publisher to be able to get an ISBN and I don't want to make my home address public, this also disqualifies me for student financing programs) so I'm going to have to resort to using free ISBNs provided by the self publishing platform. The way I see it I have two options, either doing only one of the two or both of them, and I'm trying to figure out which one's better.

1. If I distribute to Amazon through Ingramspark, is it guaranteed that my book will be available on amazon.com? Or is it possible they'll reject it because the discount is low or because it's non-returnable?

2. If I distribute to Amazon through KDP select and other retail stores through Ingramspark,

1. Is it going to cause conflicts on Amazon.com? Has anyone tries this? Is this just a minor inconvenience or does it cause serious problems like system errors or your book getting deleted?

2. How do you recommend I sell ebooks: through KDP (and sell only physical books through Ingramspark) or through Ingramspark (and sell only physical books through KDP?)

3. If for instance I were to do KDP expanded distribution, what's the royalty I get through sales on Amazon.com? I'm aware that Amazon.com royalty is 60 % and the royalty I get from selling to other retailers is 40 %, but it's ambiguous which would apply when I've opted to use expanded distribution and made sails on Amazon.com.

Self-publishing seems like a tough journey. Any answers/advice/opinions/personal experiences are welcome. All the best!

I am currently running KDP ads and they are not profitable.

I started the ad for my latest poetry collection on Nov.2nd. Today marks a month for the ads run time and I have definitely seen improvement but they are far from profitable. I expected this because 1. its poetry and 2. it's only the first month.

Starting out I was running ads on the two books I have published. I noticed that my first book wasn't making any sales and my 2nd book made 3 sales in the first two weeks, so I turned off ads for my first book. I suspect the lack of sales for the first book is due to a niche topic and poor cover design. I most likely won't change it because it means alot to me and sales don't matter as much to me as it truly launched a huge part of my life.

As for the second book, black friday is kicking my ass. In a kinda hot way and in a kinda humiliation torture kink way. I love that I have gotten 11 sales within the last week but the CPC is so damn high. My ACOS is embarrassing to say the least, but the most embarrassing part is I won't stop paying.

Its like I have a addiction to looking at my sales go up but I also hate the fact that I just spent $175 and I only made $20 lol.

Honestly, I'm not sure what this post is but I'm going to keep optimising the ad and see where it takes me. Jeff you might have me in your grasp for now but I don't know how much longer I'll enjoy this cock and ball torture your putting me through.

(I don't have a cock or balls)

Hi, My book was just published a few days ago and I run one manual and one auto targeted ad with the following results. As I have no sales, I am afraid that either my categorization or blurb is bad or the topic is boring. Thanks for your suggestions:

Ad results: Manual: CTR: 0,07% CPC:1,08$, 14.000 impression, 10 click Auto: CTR: 0,14% CPC: 1,20$, 7300 impression, 10 clicks

Category: *Science Fiction › Dystopian *Science Fiction › Alternative History *Literature & Fiction › Genre Fiction › City Life (originally it was postapocalyptic, but I change it to that yesterday)

Blurb: What if humanity's dependence on technology brought innovation—and devastation—in equal measure?

Spanning the transformative decades from the 1990s to the 2030s, The Digital Collapse chronicles the rise of "Starlight Corporation," a tech giant navigating global upheavals, from economic crises to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the accelerating dominance of AI and automation. Through the lens of its ambitious CEO, Martha, and a cast of employees caught in personal and professional struggles, this gripping narrative explores the cutthroat rivalry between the United States and China and the immense cost of progress in a fragile digital economy.

As the stakes rise, readers are drawn into a world on the brink, where corporate decisions ripple across nations—and lives. With sci-fi elements emerging in a stunning final chapter, The Digital Collapse offers a chilling glimpse into a possible future shaped by technological ambition and human vulnerability.

Perfect for fans of Ken Follett, Philip K. Dick, and Black Mirror, this thought-provoking debut blends alternate history, corporate drama, and speculative fiction, setting the stage for a visionary sci-fi series.

Discover why Martha’s choices haunt her—and why the world may never recover. Click the BUY NOW button to enter the world of Starlight Corporation today.

Hey everyone. I’ve acquire a printed copy of my book (FINALLY!) and at the point where I need someone to read it and give me an unbiased opinion and feedback. Do you avoid family members reading it to ensure you don’t get a biased opinion?

Do I just type it out or does KDP do it automatically? I’m planning on publishing with KDP next year and am wondering how to format/type out a copyright page because it seems different from every other page in the book. If you can’t tell this is my first time trying to publish!

I’m planning on publishing on KDP next year and don’t know how to format a cover. I’m aware I need to pick the final page count and such but where do I get the template? If Reedsy has cover artists I might ask of of them but idk

Hi there! I’ve been working on my first book which is a poetry book, and I’m having an issue with my chapters and the formatting.

The first chapter page of my book is done properly and is on the right page, but the rest are on the left and I’m not sure how to fix it. This is the second time I’ve done / typed everything and I’m a bit frustrated because no matter what I do I can’t fix it or I run into more issues. Is there a way I can fix this?

I’ve also been trying add a page number and name / book header to the first chapter page but I keep running into issues as well and I’m not sure how to fix that either. I just wanna be able to get everything done but no matter what I do, more issues keep happening. Is there any help or advice anyone can give me?

I’d really appreciate it. Thank you

Anyone know of any nonfiction book competitions. My book is coming out next month and I would like to enter something like this. Sure my book will come in last but think it would be fun to do. Hazy FD is my book.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I've been researching a bit on this as was shocked by the royalties offered on KDP. I couldn't believe that when I was about to publish it told me I would make about 90p per £20 sale.

From what I can gather, Bookvault is a better option as the royalties percentage is better.

But still, how about printing 50-100 books and selling them through Amazon, with commission of just 4.5%.

Print might cost £5-6 per book, P+P maybe £5, that's £10 profit per sale.

I have my own ISBN and Barcode, so I'm guessing I can place my book on all of these platforms if I like.

My second novel comes out at the end of March and ARCs are hitting in Mid February through the NetGalley Coop. and I have been thinking about doing free promo boxes for book influencers (BookTok/ Bookstagram/ Podcasts) my book is romance and falls firmly into the sorts of books that do well on social media. It also has a killer cover that I am super excited about (I did not design it and it looks very professional)

I am thinking a copy of the book, all the paper promo (bookmarks, stickers, and character art) as well as some other on theme goodies (like the book boxes the big publishers do). I am already aware that I will lose money on this but I am following the philosophy that each book will do a bit better than the last. In other words, I have the money to spend and am thinking about giving this a try.

My goal is just to look at big instagram and booktok accounts and start emailing to see who wants a promo box.

Has anyone done a PR box, what has your experience been, what should I do/ what should I avoid.

Looking for someone to help promote my latest novel. Anyone have luck with this company? Trust Pilot rating is good but that could be faked.

I’m soooo new to this and I’m barely writing my first draft of my debut novel (a cozy fantasy romance).

As I write though, I’ve started to think about the publishing process, and have done some research on self-publishing and traditionally publishing. However, I’ve seen a third option out there - small presses and hybrid publishing?

What is this exactly and do you have any experience publishing a book through this method? What was your experience like and would you recommend it? What makes it different from self-publishing and traditionally publishing? Are there any small presses/hybrid publishers that specialize in publishing fantasy and romance that you would recommend?

Thank you! :)

Hey everyone, this is my first post on this subreddit. I've been writing poetry for the past tens years and have been sitting on a decent backlog so I'm finally looking into self publishing and how to get started so any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated.

How do I market a 3 book series as such that I will generate book sales on a daily or periodic basis? 

Can you give me some book promotion sites that accept short stories?

Please, give me different marketing strategies which you use for your book series in detail, including the pricing of your book 1.

Hello! I’m a writer who’s recently finished their book, currently I have the entire thing “formatted” on reedsy, but eventually I want to get this into a printable format. Is the process just done when all of the chapters and other parts are uploaded to their formatting software or is there something else I need to do before downloading it and sending it to print on another site?

I'm thinking about enrolling an ebook into the Smashwords end of year sale. It looks like a good opportunity. My ebook is also distributed by KDP. Is it true KDP won't let you lower a book price or run a sale anywhere else? I've heard of authors who had their book priced lower in Walmart, but had to pull the book when KDP kicked up a fuss when Walmart refused to increase the price when the author asked.

Notes: I'm not in KDP select. Also, I wouldn’t mind changing the price individually on Amazon for the duration of the sale, but their minimum price won't go as low as I want to sell at.

Title pretty much says it all. Has anyone used their IPhone to create the image used on the cover of their book? Did you do a lot of post processing?

Thanks in advance!!

Can someone recommend a self publish marketing group not associated with a Nigerian prince or the Philippines? I have been approached by a host of scammers.

To preface, the last book I read was in elementary school and was The Lightning Thief.

My brother has a full length novel and is almost done illustrating each chapter as well. The book is amazing. I'm in school for accounting so I want to help him with the business side of things while he focuses on the creative. How do I help him self publish? So far I've thought of these:

1. Any recommendations on print companies for hard copies and soft copies?
2. Is amazon and TikTok shop the best options to reach potential buyers?
3. Should he set up an LLC for his book selling? Not sure what kind of liabilities he could be facing for legal damages in this industry.

Any tips are appreciated!

Hi all,

I am hoping for some tips to improve my process of formatting ebooks. I currently format my ebooks in word by hand with paragraph tags <p></p> and italic tags, heading tags, etc. Then put into html (brackets) and then import the html into calibre to convert to an ebook.

Is there a way to at the very least insert the paragraph tabs in bulk, rather than line by line as I am doing it?

My formatting is pretty basic, any other tips to give the reader a better experience please let me know!

What's your opinion?

How does the Kindle pages read update? Does it happen daily or not until the 15th? I added my book to KU and this is my first one so I'm new to the process. It's been out for a little less than a week and the reports show it selling okay I think (20 so far but surprisingly mostly print editions) but to be fair about 5 to 10 of those are people I know.

There are 0 pages read on Kindle unlimited though. Idk if that's because no one picked it up that way or if it just hasn't updated.

Just wondered what everyone else's experiences were. It may be that no one read it, and I'm prepared for that. I'm just trying to understand so I can do better with my next one.

I created an LLC to try to organize my activities and my revenue a little better (between copies sold online and those sold “out of my trunk”, as it were). I currently have one title selling on Amazon that was published with one of those “vanity” companies (it’s doing reasonably well), and one self-published work on KDP. I was going to change my info in KDP to route royalties directly to my new business account, but now I’m looking at it and it’s making me nervous. Are there good reasons not to proceed with what I was planning, that I just haven’t thought of?

If I am getting a decent amount of impressions and an okay-ish click %, but no sales is the problem likely with the book blurb? The other factor that is a problem at the moment is I have no reviews. Of course, can't get reviews without selling books...

I've been charged $20 on amazon ads with over 30k impressions and have 0 sales to show for it, which has me thinking there is something wrong with the book blurb. Here it is:

Alex Wagner is a 30-year-old nobody who moves to the town of Hampton to launch his new life pursuing a degree at a second-rate art college. After his shift ends at the rundown bowling alley where he works part time, he stumbles into an encounter with a masked vigilante who spends his days working “undercover” as a homeless person.

Under normal circumstances, the vigilante would dispose of someone who witnessed his night time activities, but he learns that Alex is a talented sketch artist, so he gives Alex an follow him around to record his exploits in a graphic novel memoir, or “I’ll kill you and plant weird stuff from the dark web on your hard drive so everyone will think you were a freak.”

Using his network of “field assets” comprised of a homeless prophet, meth addicts, and a schizophrenic; this mysterious ex-intelligence operative—who Alex comes to know as “Randy”—unearths the seedy underworld of Hampton with a style of vigilantism that is more Dexter than Batman. As Alex discovers during his time with Randy, nothing in the city of Hampton is quite what it seems to be—especially Randy.

EDIT:

Here is what I came up with for an edit. I agree that my blurb sucks. Hopefully this one sucks less.

“I’ll kill you and plant weird stuff from the dark web on your hard drive so everyone will think you were a freak.”

That was option number two offered by the mysterious ex-intelligence operative known as "Randy". Unfortunately for Alex, the first option wasn't much better.

If only he would have listened to that inner voice yelling: DON’T go up those stairs to look inside that window! He could have been on his couch watching Netflix and eating Chinese takeout. Instead, he’s stuck living in an underground hideout that smells like a sewer, documenting Randy’s exploits in a graphic novel memoir. By day, Randy goes “undercover” as a homeless guy (or whatever other ridiculous disguise he whimsically decides to use that day). By night, Randy is a ruthless masked vigilante, hellbent on delivering justice with a style that is more Dexter than it is Batman.

Now Alex is knee-deep in a world he never wanted to be in. He’s a reluctant accomplice to Randy and his network of “field assets”—comprised of a homeless prophet, meth addicts, and a ketamine-induced schizophrenic—as they unearth the seedy underworld of Hampton. And as Alex discovers, nothing in the city of Hampton is quite what it seems to be—especially Randy.

How do you go about getting a short "review quote" on the back cover of your book? In honesty, do the people (well-known or semi-well know) actually read the books?

The person I'm considering contacting is a professional author, but not widely know. What kind of money do you think I should expect to fork over?

So I recently wrote "The End" for the first time ever and have moved on to my second draft. I think overall I'm a fairly clean drafter, despite wanting to I was never really able to do the "Just get it on page you'll fix it on the second draft" thing.

I'm doing a read trough now where I'm only letting myself fix obvious errors(double words, spelling mistakes, obvious grammar issues or repeated phrases, etc) and honestly, I'm finding that's mostly all I see wrong with it. There's a couple parts I want to re-work/shift around, and one chapter that I think needs to be fully rewritten, but other than that, it doesn't feel like I'm going to be spending *nearly* as much time as the first draft.

Once I'm done with this my plan is to go to Blurb, print out some copies of it to have for myself and to give to some close friends. Then it's going to read it again, get feedback, fix any caught errors, a copy edit, format and look towards ARCs and release.

where can I find one? Im pretty clueless when it comes to editing and finishing my book before putting it out there. Any tips and places on the web I can find an honest beta reader ? (Or even here?)

This may sound like im looking for a spam took, im not. I ve seen a lot of Social Media management tools out there, they all have 1 thing in common that Im looking for, but they all have a ton of other tools that may be great to have for companies, influencers, and other uses, but I just don’t need nor want.

All I want is the ability to write up a post, edit that post as needed and have it be sent to all the platforms I use instead of doing them one by one.

Is there a platform that does this, or at least a free version that only includes that?

EDIT: For clarification on rule #1, I am a 2x Published author and I need to use this to keep my name out there in the social media world to spread my books around. SO I would be considered a professional in this sense.