Yeah, I post there, it's good for motivation and (very minor) feedback, but the ranking system is broken beyond belief and beyond a certain point early rank is pretty much determined by whether or not you get a troll... most people give 4.5*s and 5*s, but if you're unlucky and get a 0.5* it will set you back anywhere from 5 ranks to several thousand (depending on what your average rating was and how many ratings you have in total)... one of the major factors in a fic's success on RRL is luck... RRL also likes LitRPG with blue screens, lots and lots of blue screens... if you're going into RRL without blue screens, beware. It's possible to beat the odds, but it's harder and you need to have a little (or a lot of) luck on your side... There are good fics on RRL which are not litrpg, these are often, unfortunately, relegated to the sidelines, and even the successful outliers are litrpg-esque... You need to update frequently. Exposure is dependent on update frequency and not word count. If you want to do well on RRL, publish once every 1-3 days at between 1k-2k and you'll pick up followers quickly. Publishing everything in one massive dump does not work well, people who push out 60 chapters at once usually end up getting screwed over and get only 100 or so views. Longer chapters and longer release intervals can work, but there's a point at which the increasingly favorable reception of long chapters drops off and gets subsumed by the negative impact of long release intervals. It's not all bad... while most of the community don't interact, simply reading and moving on, there are some genuinely nice and helpful people on there who make publishing there worth it. . BookBrawl, on the other hand, is most of a tabula rasa. It lacks the hordes of RRL but it also provides a prime opportunity for publishing your story on a site where you're not constantly trying to vie for attention on the recent updates tab. It currently has the potential (depending on how travis and co play it) to be a much more organic version of RRL.
I've published the first 5 Chapters of Book 1 in my series there to drive traffic to Amazon. It's Meh. Not really sure how many are converting. I have 15 followers, so there's that.
Surprisingly we're getting a bunch of click through to Amazon off of Royal Road, but I'm not really sure why. It's a pen name. Once I figure what's working I'll update. Sorry that's not more helpful yet.
I post on RR. Right now I'm putting up the first chapters of book 2. I don't have a huge following, just a couple of hundred people, but I have a pretty loyal following. I'm consistently in the top 200 despite a couple of rogue 0.5's with no explanation lol. And I get a lot of AMAZING feedback. Truly I have about 5 or 6 readers who make fantastic comments and will discuss game mechanics and world building points with me. I've thanked 5 of them in the backmatter of book 1 because I really feel they pretty much beta read for me. I'm not sure if my experience is normal or not, but it's been invaluable so far. Although they're probably going to crucify me when I publish to KU in 6 weeks...
I just announced I'm taking Login Accepted down on WP, and the response was an instant jump in reads from everyone that had it on the "I'll read it later" list. I'm fully expecting backlash despite the warnings.
Not always. I offered my readers a book and they just said they'd buy it when it came out and review then. Kinda felt good.
I wish I could get more reviews on my fantasy novel. But, it is the first of a series and none of the others are out yet. The next one is on the way though, so maybe then... I'm trying to get some stuff up on wattpad.com. Do any of you guys use that one? I hadn't heard of RRL. I'm trying everything at the moment just to get some eyes on my book. I'm a teacher, so maybe this summer when I have less other responsibilities I'll have more writing time.
Book Brawl is in the growing pains stage of most serial sites - in that there's webpage changes needed to make it better for readers and writers - but we need more writers to generate content to attract readers to get writers more stats and comments and so on... A lot of the stuff up there is by published authors and there's a different take on ROI than with serial writers who aren't looking to go professional.
Yes, I got my start on Wattpad with my current penname, R.J. Triveri. I also have responsibilities similar to your own as we share the same profession.
I managed to find success with SWA on there... ranked #230 at the moment, although I havent posted in a month or so. It's definitely good motivation for a new author. I dunno if I would have made it through book one without it. At least now I don't feel the need to refresh every two minutes.
I haven't ever really checked out RRL so how does it work? Do you post the whole book? Part of it? Use it as a beta reader thing?
Yes. Yes. And Yes. Or no. No. And no. It's like Wattpad or a personal site. Post up whatever portion you want. Expect results accordingly. Mostttttttt people on there use it to post chapter by chapter of a work in progress. Rarely does anyone finish an entire work.
You usually upload a chapter at a time. You can put in polls if you want, so the public can help direct which way the book goes. They rate you, leave comments, troll you. If it wasn't for RR I don't think I would have got my first novel out. The key is regular, frequent uploads.
I still post some of my work on there before it’s published. I find it a good motivator to “finish that next chapter” and enjoy interacting with some of the fans I’ve developed over there. Feedback is definitely a mixed bag, but I suppose it’s like that no matter where your posting your work. Overall, I still enjoy the site and use it often, as it helped motivate me to finish my first book last year.
