Are you a Reader or Writer

I haven't been here very long but I really appreciate all that you've done for me thus far. If it wasn't for this forum I would only know two or three other people who write litRPG personally. I've met a lot of nice people here.

 

When I built LegendFire (which started as Arcane Artistry), building that community was pretty life changing for me. I know the challenges all too well with building activity and content. It's a hard job that takes a lot of time.

That community was the reason I stopped writing. It was more fun to run a community than write. (I love, however, that the members have kept it going). Don't let this community do that to you. Make sure you give yourself some limits and set your priorities. You probably don't need me to say that.

You'd make for a good tyrant.

 

Writers are more motivated to seek out new places. Even the 1 person we have who has identified themself as a reader has said she wants to be a writer. I haven't published anything and so don't qualify to be in the Writers Forum. However, I still identify myself as a writer even though I'm not part of the 40 mentioned above (unless that 40 includes the Aspiring Writers forum).

I do think that if this forum was hosted directly on Facebook in a private group that we would attract a lot more readers. I say to make it private or closed because that will allow people to feel more open about commenting and making new posts and not worrying that their co-workers are able to see them talking about orcs and witches or whatever. I think we'd get more people that way, but the downside is that we'd lose the gamification factors and those are nice.

 

You know, having a LitRPG Forum on Facebook isn't a terrible idea. It gives us the best of both worlds. Although, LitRPG Society kind of fills that role, and I know Blaise Corvin is a member here.

I consider anyone that holds an interest to write LitRPG as a Writer. There's a difference between consuming something and creating it. Writers/Readers is really just Creators/Consumers. There's an underlying different motivation involved for creators. So, is this a creator's community? And what would consumers want in order to be interested in contributing?

I'm not sure it's about gamification. I think that's a side bonus that may be more interesting to the writers. I think readers want... to connect with authors, access to early access content (alpha, beta, ARC), help writers improve, learn of new books, book reviews, discuss books (book club), get help finding a particular book, hype over new books (cover art reveals, samples, readings), book signings, and overall, a community of like minded people.

I feel some of our most in-depth topics aren't things they particularly care about, or motivated to slog through (let's be honest, some of those topics get pretty huge, lol).

 

Congrats John! And hosting AMA is a fantastic idea. Add it to my list of ideas.

 

Honestly, I'm not a fan of that type of content here. I feel that could all fit in one giant forum called General Discussions (for everything not related directly to LitRPG). This is, after all, a LitRPG forum.

 

I hadn't thought about doing both. If you had a LitRPG Reads Group on FB, it could serve as an introduction and funnel to this forum. The way that this would be different from the LitRPG Society is that since it would be Paul's group, we could talk about this place without worrying about running afoul of the community rules. I think Blaise's group has a rule that you're not allowed to mention other communities.

And, since the name of Paul's page is LitRPG Reads, make that community focused on reading. Writers are welcome to join and participate, but should avoid posts that are writer centric aka "How do you deal with writer's block?" or "Any tips for marketing my book?" The posts would be focused on specific published books or the genre in general. This would also be a FANTASTIC place to try to broaden people's definition of the genre. Get the to realize that LitRPG embraces things like Jumanji, Ender's Game, The Last Starfighter, etc. It could be a great portal to educate people to broaden their definitions for the genre.

I nominate Paul to start the group and Dustin can be the admin. I'll be the trouble maker... so, kinda what we have going here.

 

Part of my point about the FB readers group is that some of us could go there from time to time and make posts about all the fun we're having in this community. Give people an idea of the things we do and talk about here to make them interested.

 

@Dustin Tigner and I just had a baby? I didn't even know we were expecting. This week, I get to be the daddy.

 

Writer vs reader... Readers don't say you'll never be a writer, because I became one when I couldn't find enough of what I like to read, so I started writing it.

 

I'm still on the fence whether the LitRPG Forum FB Group would be useful. There are pros and cons to be sure.

Pros:
-- It's a property we own and can dictate fair usage
-- No blatant advertising or misuse of the property to promote any one author's work
-- The content is shallower (easier to consume/contribute to for readers)
-- Creates a funnel/awareness for the LitRPG Forum
-- Reserves the name so someone else doesn't take it, creating confusion between us and them
-- Can share content between official website and group

Cons:
-- Potentially divides our community and the overall community
-- Steps on the toes of other friendly communities like LitRPG Society
-- Will start small and take work to grow
-- Without author support, won't go far
-- Requesting a link in the back of a book in order to promote, kind of sucks (though is also how you get attention)

I feel the group would need to define ways in how it's different. What can people get from this group that they can't get elsewhere? Vs Kong's group, writers can talk about the LitRPG topics (though not general writing/marketing advice). Vs Blaise's group? Not sure.

Instead of requesting a link to the group, we could make an official LitRPG page that maintains a list of all LitRPG communities and resources. Give everyone fair representation, and try to get people to change and support a link to one place rather than including a hundred links to the different communities.

I made a post before concerning the new LitRPG FB group rules that you must include a full page dedicated to their group with a copy/paste blurb. I said that it makes more sense to link to a website page that includes all sites. I had thought of just making my own within an author website, or something. However, maybe I can build us an official LitRPG page that people can link to, and use that as our condition for marketing in our groups. Other communities, of course, would likely still want their own link, though perhaps over time, and if done well enough, would accept an official page (if that page was well designed, developed, and fair to all communities).

This would give us some power in directing the attention of people to new resources . . . such as a survey, or book catalog with search/filter features.

I'm thinking... LitRPGPlaces . com (don't register this if you want me to build the page, lol)? It would also be neat to allow a /some-code that authors could use to indicate which communities they are active in. Then the page would render all the communities, though the author's communities would be presented first with check-marks or something.