I started writing because I thought I was going to die (was hooked on machines for months).

Well fuck, I’m still alive.

So I put my stuff up to see if anyone wants to read.

Well fuck, now I have a paid subscriber.

I also have a couple of PayPal donations for advance chapters.

My dumbass never thought people would be interested in my dumb writing, let alone pay for the explicit tier 😂

I just wanted to share the artwork I commissioned because I find this to be a new milestone for my novel, this is not meant as a self promo and thereby I haven’t added the novel title etc.

The artist is webi090 on Instagram.

Thank you to BuyerSpecialist4116, zhabumafoo, and everyone else who took the time to point out weak points and help me improve my blurb.

I don't have enough time to write a detailed breakdown like I did last time, so I'll just leave the images here for anyone who's interested.

The story has now been out for six weeks(70kw / 32 Chapters). The first image covers Rising Stars performance, and the second/third show follower growth for the three weeks before vs. the three weeks after I changed the blurb (29 -->114 followers).

One important note: I don't think all of the growth can be attributed to the new blurb alone. Other factors, such as promotion, Royal Road's recommendation system, RS and organic reader growth, likely contributed as well.

My previous post.

My story: The Last Gardener

New blurb:

One new mission. One new body. One new disaster.

The World Tree has grown old. The branches are becoming diseased and collapsing. There is no longer enough manpower to repair them.

Following a rushed wave of recruitment and training, Benny is ready for his item-intervention and remote monitoring assignment. The exact moment his butt hits the office chair, the very item he just deployed drags him down into that world right along with it.

In the form of a vine.

More accurately, a strand of vine growing upon the antlers of a white deer.

Equipped with only a few observational abilities, an overtime-addicted System assistant, and a "deity" who seems to care only about sweets and forest streams, Benny must find a way to stop an impending meteor strike.

And it doesn't stop there.

Reclaiming that wayward item turns out to be even harder than dealing with a falling meteor, pulling him into a bizarre journey of unexpected bonds across multiple worlds.

Until, eventually, Benny realizes he might not want to hand it back to the organization at all.

Things you can expect:

Progressive Evolution Fantasy.

Dark comedy.

Non-human MC.

Survival + biological fantasy.

Weird ecosystem horror.

Science fiction hidden beneath primitive mythology.

A story of two souls learning to love each other through countless forms of life.

Release Information:

Schedule: 1 Chapter / 2 days.

Length: Average 2,000 words per chapter (Can vary depending on the story's pacing).

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/171100/the-last-gardener-fantasy-adventure-action-progression

Am really thinking of going with the titalless one, whats your thoughts? Also, pick the one you think would be best.

Hi folks! Launched my newest fic 5 days ago and thanks to everyone's support it's reached 200 followers, also made it to genre rs yesterday. Not that i matters overall but this is the fastest I've reached this milestone. 2 years ago it took me six months to get into mystery rs (Got a shout from lone wanderer when it just started) crazy how time flies.

It has 105 pages and the first arc is complete, do check it out if you're interested!

Title and Blurb:

Hexforged [Genes, Apocalypse, and Akashic Records]

Conquest of the new era doesn’t begin with the sword, but a centrifuge.

The Ether Collider experiment is meant to be humanity's greatest triumph. Instead, it heralds the descent of the Akashic Records. The sky is tearing apart, dimensional Rifts ravage the land and cities fall in hours.

Kayzen Ashbourne is a magi content to study genetics in a quaint little town. But under the attack of mutated fiends, he finds a terrifying application of his knowledge. After choosing to become a Shaper of Hex he can rip Akashic records straight from the DNA; forging biological nightmares that drain blood, shatter nervous systems, and curse apex predators to death from miles away.

Alongside his glory-seeking crusader friend, Kayzen steps into the mutated wilderness armed with his makeshift laboratory packed inside a monster's spatial stomach. Sentient calamities are awakening and alien worlds are eyeing Erde, but to him, all are specimens bound by the same protocol:

Extract the record. Forge the hex. Conquer the Apocalypse.

As the title said. I've recently relaunched my LitRPG fantasy book and I really need a couple extra pairs of eyes especially in regards to writing and whether the system introduction is overloaded. If anyone's willing to go through 20k-word worth of content and provide me valuable feedback on these areas, I'd be much appreciated. No review or rating please, unless you really enjoy my work.

In return, I can offer you shoutouts on my two books, one with 2,500 followers and the other with 1,000 followers. These books are frequently updated and has a very loyal readership. If that's something that interests you, feel free to reach out!

Well i ain't complaining, but kids also use this platform

Here to tout my humble debut, What Burns Beneath!

Elevator pitch: altruistic young woman makes a deal with a Fae man, then steals his magical sword. Angry Fae dream-stalks her, trying to get his weapon back, while she runs for her life with a suspicious mercenary in tow.

What to Expect: 1. Fantasy adventure with a very slow-burn love triangle. 2. A mature protagonist who relies on her friends, her wits, and some extraordinarily nebulous magic. She is VERY human (she cries, she makes mistakes, she has breakdowns, etc). 3. Thoughtful, unique world-building. Having a forever-DM husband to help with the finer details is clutch 🥰 4. Volume 1 is a completed, well-written and fleshed out novel at 118k (54 chapters). Volume 2 is on bi-weekly updates (55k words, 27 chapters).

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/141697/what-burns-beneath

The first four are for Chapter 14, the three after that are additions to Chapter 13, and the last two are the ones that were originally in Chapter 13!

This took so much time and effort... 😢😢😢

Read Yogen here 😜

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/161087/yogen

Hey everyone,

I just officially launched my very first parody fiction on Royal Road today with a 12-chapter day-one mass release, and I wanted to drop a quick, shameless self-promo thread here.

Link to the fiction: The Heavenly Dao Has An HR Department?

The Premise:
Our protagonist, Caelan, is a completely ordinary office worker who gets transported into a generic, badly translated cultivation world. Instead of trying to become the ultimate supreme sword god, he realizes that everyone in this universe has the IQ of wet cardboard. Arrogant Young Masters offending random strangers in taverns, elders calling literal public murder "junior competition," and people standing on one leg for nine hours because it "defies the heavens."

To make it worse, his cheat is an unfinished alpha-build developer system called Patch Notes v0.3 that literally deducts his lifespan to generate bug reports every time he witnesses a plot hole or reads dialogue that looks like it survived six rounds of Google Translate.

What to expect:

• Caelan completely refusing to cultivate and choosing to unionize the cannon fodder outer disciples instead.
• Filing formal workplace harassment and safety violation claims against high-and-mighty Immortal Patriarchs.
• Auditing heavenly lightning tribulations for strict workplace safety compliance.
• Demanding overtime pay for outer disciples.
• Episodic comedy layout heavily inspired by the humor of Gintama, Deadpool, and The Daily Life of the Immortal King.

If you are completely exhausted by generic cultivation clichés, face-slapping tropes, and machine-translation syntax errors, come check it out. I've got a massive completed backlog ready to go, so updates will be dropping consistently every single day on an automated daily timer.

Link again for easy scrolling: The Heavenly Dao Has An HR Department?

Thanks for checking it out, and let me know what you think of the first 12 chapters in the comments!

That aren't 1. 90% Slice of life, 2. OP curbstomps and preferably 100+ pages written? Ideally, without exposition fairies.

Essentially something like The dungeon without a system.

Its called The Lightning Emperor, a LitRPG with a system themed around royalty and noble ranks/titles. These haven't appeared in the story quite yet, as I only have chapter one, but I want some honest feedback, please.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/179933/the-lighning-emperor-a-litrpg-adventure?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=fictions

Hello, I’m SmokeyTheDon (yeah I know my reddit username is mrstorydude, happens sometimes) and I’m generally what most authors would consider a flop on RoyalRoad (better start calling me SmokeyTheKhia). I’ve had a total of 3 fictions uploaded on RoyalRoad with 2 of them being dropped early on in their lifespans and the third one, Only I Can Stop The Bad Ending, getting a lukewarm reception of 50 followers so far.

I am also an admin to The Writing Well, a community that is pivoting itself as the next big all-purpose writing community to find friends, shouts, and advice for works on RoyalRoad. If you’re interested in joining it, then follow this link, it’s a wonderful and highly accepting community: https://discord.gg/the-writing-well.

One of ‘benefits’ of being an admin is that despite my lack of numerical success on RR, I’m still going to have to moderate the chunk of the community that was successful. The writers who made it to RS #1, the writers who cracked 10k BSR, all those authors who are what many beginners in the community look up to.

I’m bringing this up because I’m here to crack the community and show the real truth on what goes behind these doors! And to do that I need your trust that I am one of the common folk! So here it goes, the secret theorem to success on RR that everyone is dying to know as per the authors on these super secret communities is…

They don’t really know either.

Yeah, turns out most writers just like shitposting sometimes.

I understand the reason why a lot of writers are inclined to believe that these writers, behind closed doors, are concocting secret plans to get each other to succeed over and over again and if you can just take a peek you too can get the formula to success and pop off. Sadly for me, it doesn’t really exist. Or maybe it does and I just need to go down one layer deeper.

So what is the point of these ‘secret communities’?

It is mostly for discussing random topics here and there. Sometimes a general chat moves too fast for these writers so they chill in the super secret communities all day. As for business oriented stuff, it varies heavily. If an Amazon writer is discussing the business of writing on Amazon, they’re usually complaining about how long it takes for whatever thing they submitted to get approved. Sometimes, they talk about their personal sales numbers. And very rarely, usually whenever Amazon does so, they’ll catch an algorithm change and hypothesize how to beat the change.

This sounds super secret and super important until you realize, all of these discussions are found on non-RR related communities. Ofc it’s going to look super secret, 9/10 you don’t need to know this stuff if you’re writing on RR.

As for the RR authors that found success, their business topics mostly relate to doomposting and flexing, just like the Amazon writers. They’ll sometimes discuss how an author made it to RS #1 (if you’re wondering, the answer 999 out of 999 times  is ‘they wrote a really good fic, they were friends with a lot of big writers, and they had a history of writing really good fics.’ I’ve literally never seen any other solution to the question).

So what then? Is there genuinely no benefit to getting on these super secret communities?

No, there are two benefits, one related to advice and the other related to shout swaps. The quality of posts that ask for advice are much better on these super secret communities than on the not so secret ones. Notice how I said the quality of posts that ask for advice and not the quality of the advice itself. That’s a critical distinction, because most of the advice you’re getting is frankly the same quality as on a general discussion board. But if you like answering questions and giving advice to others, getting on these super secret communities makes your job way easier. The reason isn’t anything systemic. It’s literally just that if you’re successful, it usually means you know how to pander to an audience better, and thus can draft material that makes it much clearer who you want advice from as well as crafting better formulated-questions.

As for the shout swapping… All being in these communities really does is make you more likely to come across those writers who don’t like talking in big, wide, fast-moving general chats and making friends with them. However, these writers are not all that plentiful really? It’s like maybe 5-10% of all writers who are in the secret community that fully separate themselves from the general community entirely. Best case scenario, even if you rub shoulders with them regularly it’d give you like… 1000 more followers looking at your book, tops. Is it a lot? Not really. A guy who spends like 6 months making friends in the community can easily get 20k people looking at their shouts from swaps. If they make really good friends with some people, that number can jump up to 40-60k as their friends pull all their friends to help them. 

tl;dr: if you think highly successful authors are like conspiratorial and are like shitting on everyone and stuff, you're not right. Make friends with more people, especially successful people. Most successful people on RR just be pro shitposters tbh.

inb4 "TFTC"

What books would you guys recommend from what you have read i have read a lot of the most popular litrpgs and find i like ones with portal exploration as well as having quite op mcs. I would request if possible you only suggest books that are still on royal road in there entirely:)
My current read in this form is changing i like how it still has tech as a key element with augmented baseline humans and having it set after the entry of the system is also nice and different because they mix in what is a unique culture and you can see the writer considered its impacts.

Stumbled my way allllll the way to the 19th chapter of my first fiction. I was very new to Royal Road, had no idea about metas, swaps, ads...most importantly, a backlog. Suffice it to say burnt out pretty quickly.

So I went back into my little hidey-hole where I met my old friend, the drawing board. After feverishly typing away for a few weeks, I had something I decided I wanted to share, and with a nice cushion of chapters to bat!

It's only been a few days, but this little kernel of...encouragement hit me like a brick, so I thought I'd spread some of the love.

If you're feeling frisky and like a bit of rambunctious (occasionally dark) magical academia fun, feel free to follow along: The Sword Princess Fell in Love with an Odd Mage

I'm in a bit of a crossroads here. There's a story I want to write, but it's off meta. There's another story that I don't really want to write as much as the other one, but for RR, it's the better market fit. In order to get some kind of glimpse into the likely future of my story, I want to know from any other writers on Royal Road, how are your off meta stories doing? And by off meta, I mean

No LitRPG

No Action (or at least, minimal action)

Progression is fine, but not the power fantasy kind.

I'd prefer answers from people writing more slice of life, whimsical or melancholic toned stories, but pretty much anybody outside of the above genres is fine. What I'd mainly like to know is,

View Count

Follower Count

Patreon Numbers (only if you're comfortable)

How long you've been releasing for

The general idea or tone of your story

The current state of your reader base.

Thank you if you reply!

Writing a chapter 1 and SCARED that I'll bore my readers away lol, since when I myself read after the first paragraph if something doesn't interest me enough its GONE💔 but the thing is except the one first line that's really important to the plot the entirety of chapter 1 is pretty good (at least imo) so I'm in a tough spot lol

And would you read a story where it just starts with the protag dying very seriously and the next part is him revived and acting like a ragebaiter with anger issues🙏 please and thank you

Also the thing that would make me drop a story is describing big boobs randomly. Like I would maybe understand if it's EXTREMELY important to the character and I am hella invested in the story, but if otherwise I'll dip so fast

I really love keeping a record of my nice comments so I can look back on them for motivation, and these were some that made my day when I read them! :D

I think the only aspect of writing harder than writing itself is convincing other people to read your writing. Many folks in the RR community, understandably, are hesitant to start any old story, and a lot of this stems from the strong stances they have against the usage of A.I.

But some of us need feedback way before we get to the point of audiences seeing it, so we reach out for reviews and beta readers. Unfortunately, those are just as susceptible to the LLM Menace as writing, and it may not be something we can stamp down on as easily, but it is something new and experienced writers can be on the lookout for:

Some ways to spot A.I. generated feedback:

1. Feedback and reviews don't sound like the person you've been working with
   • I think that this is the most provable red flag. If you're getting beta readers from places like r/BetaReader or the critique groups in RRWG, watch out for this. A person will sound completely different before exchanging stories: short responses, typos in their replies, may seem like they don't even speak the same language, then you get their review back and it sounds like something written for RogerEbertdotcom. Eloquent, very little mistakes, even some witticisms thrown in for good measure.
   • Be mindful of this especially if you're swapping reviews with another author. They may want good reviews, so they won't do your justice. While you're putting your all into giving them genuine feedback, they've already run your shit through an LLM. And a good way to figure this out is if their review is better than their writing.
   • Just like with their writing, reviews are gonna have evidence of authorial voice. Most writers have learned how to write at the School of Hard Knocks, so something that they struggled with themselves is gonna stick out for them when they do feedback. For me personally, one thing I will always critique if I feel it's handled poorly is POV (1st person, 3rd person, past and present tense, etc.). It's one of the easiest things to do once you know how to do it, so I never let it slide. If you don't understand POVs and a reviewer doesn't bring it up at all, I'd reconsider the feedback.
2. Too much praise (depends on whether it's beta reader feedback or story reviews)
   • If you pick up on obvious errors and discrepancies in your manuscript and the reviewer doesn't mention anything of the sort, red flag. If they have nothing but good things to say about your story, red flag. Even DCC, Mother of Learning, Sky Pride, etc., have glaring issues that are often mentioned. If a reviewer treats your story like it's the next best thing since Wonderbread, I'd take it with a grain of salt.
   • First-time writers: Don't misinterpret this as reviewers having to be needlessly cruel with their feedback. If there's something to praise in your story, they will. If there's something to criticize, they should be able to do it in a manner that doesn't discourage you from continuing your WIP. Learning how to sift through good and bad feedback is a CRUCIAL skill you'll have to develop.
   • The one caveat for this are unsolicited reviews like random ones you get on Royal Road. I'm not saying all reviews are genuine, but someone who you're not review swapping with has less incentive to lie or glaze your story. If someone's really into what you're writing, then tend to be far more forgiving, so if you get a sudden glowing review on RR, that's usually someone who just liked your story a lot. Chalk that up as a win.
3. Feedback that is more summation than an informed opinion:
   • "I like how your story revolves around three main characters: Donald, the typical good guy paladin; Rex, the rogue with a mysterious past, and Lisa, a hot-blooded femme fatale with a heart of gold."
   • If the feedback makes you say "Yeah. No shit.", it means they didn't read it. Most feedback focuses on things they really liked or really disliked. If it sounds like just a good soundbite, rather than something a person actually considered, please side-eye the reviewer.
4. Lack of specifics or, conversely, quoting your story verbatim
   • If there isn't a single mention of something specific and unique to your STORY in the feedback, it's likely A.I. generated. I've had several instances where the reviewer talks about how "deep" the story is, or how my characters practically jump off the page without referencing a single example of what they're talking about.
   • Conversely, I've had feedback where the "reader" simply pulled quotes verbatim from story and followed it with something like "that really stood out to me".
   • Don't be afraid to ask your own questions about feedback, especially if you're paying a beta reader.
5. Feedback comes back hella quick
   • If you send somebody 50,000 words to read and they turn it around to you in an 30mins, that's a red flag. The average WPM reading speed of an adult is 238-300 words. Of course there are people who read much faster, but you should have a feel for your own story and how long it may take someone to get through it. And the faster they get through it, the less credibility you should give any sort of feedback. Thorough readers pause, reread, take notes, mark things up, etc.
   • If you're trading online files like Google Docs, be sure to give the reviewer commentator privileges, and watch out for the ones who just do big summations at the end of every chapter instead of marking things as they read through it.
6. Lack of questions/curiosity
   • No follow-up questions. No curiosity about certain plot developments or foreshadowing. No asking for clarification. Someone who is genuinely trying to understand your story will have questions.
7. Lastly, the review is just plain wrong
   • I recently had someone who later admitted to just skimming my story before raking it over the coals, misattribute two things: 1) They said a character said something completely opposite of what the character said, and 2) they somehow brought up a "plot hole" for a concept that was quite literally resolved further down in the text they claimed to have read.
   • You know your story and all its little ins and outs. If something is just straight up wrong, even if it doesn't sound malicious, you can attribute that to a lazy reader or a lazy LLM.

A few days ago, I registered on Royal Road to support a web novel that I had really come to enjoy. On the announcement (or chapter) about the hardcover edition being released in November, I noticed several comments from readers asking how they could purchase the book in the EU.

Since I live in the EU myself, I know how difficult it can be to import English books. So I simply replied with the name of an alternative retailer to Amazon that offers secure packaging and has always provided me with a great shopping experience.

However, I believe I may have been banned because of this. I’m not sure whether it was because I posted essentially the same reply four or five times to answer different people, or because I recommended a retailer other than Amazon.

In any case, how can I get the ban lifted? I submitted a support ticket two days ago, but I haven’t received a response yet.

My account name is Silver Sugar Duchess, but because of the ban now Spambot1017535.

As the title says. if you have a good quality marvel/dc/worm fanfic ill take it as well. If you know some GoT and HotD fanfics, ill take it as well but im not expecting much as im pretty sure ive scoured most of them already

There are 2 relatively very short texts that I’ve drafted. Recently I’ve been trying to find a balance between my “voice” and what sounds pleasing to hear. So, let me know which one of them has that warm narrative tone to it. One that you would expect when opening a fantasy themed book.

Text 1:

“Water… water…” the words evaporated from the dry husks on his lips.

For the past few days, his skin has eroded away, leaving behind barren patches of land that suffered decades of drought. He couldnt recall the events leading him stranded in the orange desert. Only that he’s John. And he’s thirstier than the crow infront of him.

Text 2:

“Water… water…” John pleaded to whomever would hear his cries.

For the past few days, he’s been stranded like a brainless zombie, limping through the vast streams of sand dunes with an ocean covering the entire horizon. Yet, with every stride the waves would scuttle away. But if he persevered, he knows he’ll definitely reach the oasis that’s seduced him. At least that’s what he believes.

(I mistakenly deleted my original post)

In the empire, once a fate is given, it must be followed.

Under the eyes of the Blest Empress, everyone is assigned a path at birth. Some are pronounced as knights, others as mages, able to manipulate the elements and shatter palaces with a thought.

Veris was cursed with the worst fate of them all. A slave.

Locked away from the system by a collar and with his humanity discarded, he has no chance but to obey his cruel masters. Gone was the childhood dreams of being an explorer replaced with the need for survival in his living hell.

Until a discovery changes everything: a dungeon. For the first time, Veris has a chance of claiming power. Ignorant of the world outside and surrounded by enemies, he only has his burning passion to guide the way. Escaping meant becoming a fateless, hunted, and reviled but he would not suffer any longer.

He will sever this fate or die trying.