OK, I'm fudging on this one in several ways. First, it was originally published about two years back, but I recently took down everything and re-released with new artwork and continuity tweaks. Also, considering my general inability to get any sort of advertising to work previously, I figure it'll be new to everyone anyway. Second fudge comes from the fact that I'm not sure how well it fits into the current definition of LitRPG as a genre. It's about gaming, yes, but tabletop gaming. It has sections in the real world and others in the fantasy world, but it's a fantasy world as played by the kids sitting around the table in the back of a local pizzeria, with no literal crossover between them. Events and drama in the real world do have an impact on the way things play out in the fantasy world, with things like character sheets and dice rolls ruling the range of action, but it's definitely not the "sucked into the fantasy world" trope. (Though for fun [?], I decided early on that all visible dice rolls and/or roll results in the story were actually rolled by me, often three sentences ahead of when they took effect. And then I gave one character a Rod of Wonder. This has had... interesting repercussions at times.) The gist is that the young lady in the cover image above has talked her uncle into running a game for her and four friends, none of whom have done anything at all like this before. Uncle's stuck trying to make things work even when it seems like the girls are actively working against any sort of plot cohesion. So occasionally the princesses in fantasy land seem to have stuff just dumped on them out of Fate's mad pique... This is the first episode in the series, with each episode representing on Sunday's worth of gaming session. I previously had everything up to Episode 5 published, and I'm hoping to have everything through Episode 9 online with better cover art by the end of the year. --oops, I should probably add a link: Princesses Don't Do Summer School
As an auntie I can't help but go "awwwww" at the idea. I wonder if it's marketed towards a very young audience though because I'm getting an 8 year old vibe from it. If yes maybe a fantasy, children book, tag would work better for you. If not, of you're going for those older then say 14 then litrpg might work. The target audience of this genre seems to be split down the middle between 14-18 year old boys and 30+ old geezers!
The tabletop thing is fine for litrpgs. Critical failures is a series in the genre (though totally for adults) that is based on tabletop instead of mmorpg. Don’t let someone try to tell you that your series doesn’t fit the genre because it totally does! I will say though like the commenter above that litrpg tends to be geared toward an older audience than your blurb gives off. Nothing wrong with your story but it’s provably going to make things difficult if you just slap litrpg on it and try to sell it. Not an expert on marketing children’s books but I suggest you put in some research on what keywords and other strategies work well for them.
I think most people consider the tabletop stuff gamelit or something, though I really don't think the distinction is all that important, as series about tabletop stuff, etc is almost along the same lines. I also enjoyed Critical Failures series, though I kinda drifted away from it recently. I suppose, you don't necessarily need to breach the boundaries of reality to have a good series based around a premise of playing tabletop games, etc though you would need a good supporting plot that keeps readers interested. Reality has a lot to offer, and you can use a coming of age, tragedy or other typical format as a loose basis, while keeping the plot revolving around a main character's interest in tabletop gaming. I think I did a short story once where the MC was insane and thought he was his video game character. Bridge to Terabithia was one of my favorite books growing up, and that is based around an imaginary world, so it is certainly possible to do a good book in any way if you do it right. Don't feel constrained simply by typical tropes, I'm betting LitRPG readers would still appreciate something if it's done well even if its not in the normal mold. There are certainly plenty of terrible books in our genre that tirelessly abuse the normal tropes, just to give them a nod for no reason other than they think it will make their books more appealing.
The original target audience was my niece, now age 12 and a half, so I can definitely see where there's a potential mismatch in demographics. Still... the genre appellation seems to fit, for me at least. It's a place to start, a place to stake a claim. I'm definitely looking more into young adult publishing these days, however.
Same with me, I tend to at least try and keep young adult readers within my target audience. Remember that good writing can many anything sound interesting. Even if you are writing very specifically, towards a narrow audience you can incorporate outsider readers if you make your tabletop gaming interesting to them, and understandable.
I've got a fair level of confidence in my writing. No problems there. Where I'm not confident is in my ability to get people to read my writing, because I apparently suck at self-promotion.
I'm probably the wrong person to ask about that, I love to write and have been doing it for as long as I could use a word processor, but I mostly do it for my own enjoyment. While I do understand how to critically review, and judge writing it's difficult for me to figure out how to promote it as I haven't really looked very deeply into marketing, etc.
