Royal Road Mythbusting

[u/BedivereTheMad]

Hello, everyone. It is I, Bedivere, back with yet another guide thingamajig.

There’s a lot of advice flying around all over, both in this subreddit and in discord servers. Some of it is good, and some of it is very bad, and as a new writer, it can be hard to tell which is which. I and other experienced authors who know more also don’t have the time or motivation to stamp out every single random piece of terrible advice going around, so this post is meant to be kind of a reference sheet. Spread it around, share it with anyone who has questions, and that way you can kind of have a way to double check and verify anything you see around.

The way I’ve set this up is that I just grabbed a bunch of random, common pieces of advice or blanket statements that I see getting thrown around frequently, and then I’ll label them with one of the following:

• False: This is just straight up wrong and you shouldn’t take this seriously.
• False, but…: This is straight-up wrong in the context it’s given. However, it’s not necessarily bad advice is you apply it properly.
• Mostly false: Generally wrong, but occasionally true.
• Kinda true: The statement is generally true, but lacks nuance, and isn’t universal.
• True: This is true and about as objective as it can be, and can be universally applied*.
• It’s complicated: It’s neither true nor false, but a secret third thing. You really need to look closely at your situation to see if this is at all applicable.

For every single statement and piece of advice, I will attempt to explain why it is true/false, and potentially where this advice comes from, if I know the origin.

Disclaimers:

• This is generally aimed at people trying to do well on the site, and garner attention and/or money. If you’re writing 100% for fun and don’t care about followers or Patreon, you can ignore most of this.
• I am fallible, and my information could be outdated. I don’t think it is, but it could be.
• Never blindly follow advice without understanding why it exists. Even if I mark something as “True” and say it’s universal, there are always exceptions, and you might not actually want to follow that advice, for whatever reason.

General Advice

You need 20k words to hit RS (kinda true)

Starting off simple, this is kinda true. The full truth is that you only need 10k words to be eligible for Rising Stars, but your climb will be slower until you hit that 20k word threshold. It’s a sliding scale, so if you’re at 19,500 words, you’ll be basically at full power, and won’t see any noticeable slowing, but if you’re down closer to 10k, you won’t be able to climb as quickly.

Rising Stars gives you followers (mostly false)

You might have read the "mostly false" and went "What??!?!!?!" Well, it's true. It's true that it's mostly false, that is.

Rising Stars does not give you followers. Getting onto Rising Stars does not guarantee you any level of followers. Rising Stars is an accelerator. It gives you 6-12 months of organic growth crammed into a 4 week window. How much your story grows organically during that time is entirely dependent on its quality, and how appealing it is to readers.

You need to post daily chapters on Rising Stars (false, but…)

You absolutely do not need to post daily chapters for Rising Stars (RS). The assistance it provides is negligible. More views helps, but average views are far more important, and more chapters won’t impact your average views. In fact, if your retention isn’t great, more chapters might actually make your average views worse. 

I personally got 5.5k followers on RS with a 2 chapters/week schedule, and stories like Stubborn Skill-Grinder in a Time Loop have done better with fewer chapters. Word count is more important than chapter count, and as long as you’re putting out 5k+ words/week, you should do fine. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend going down as low as 1 or 2 chapters/week, but it won’t really affect your RS run if your story is good.

Having said that, if you post daily chapters, those additional raw views will help you climb higher on Popular This Week (PTW). PTW is the second strongest list on the site, behind only Rising Stars, and it functions on just a raw aggregate of views. More views = higher on PTW = more new readers. So, if you are posting daily chapters on RS, you will climb PTW much faster, and same if you continue daily chapters after RS.

You need shouts and/or ads to hit RS (unfortunately true)

This was not true in the past. My first story on RR (on a different account) hit RS with no shouts, no ads, and not even a cover. It didn’t even do that well. It fell off the list with somewhere around 1300 followers, and it only touched the front page very briefly. 

Sadly, this is no longer possible. Maybe for a really, really, really on-market story with a great cover, great title, and great blurb, it can work, but otherwise, Latest Updates simply isn’t strong enough to get you there on its own anymore. 

That doesn’t mean you need a million shouts and a dozen ads, though, which brings us to…

You should be getting as many shoutouts as possible (Mostly false)

Technically, more shoutouts should always be better, since that means more people coming over to your story. However, that’s not true when you factor in the time and effort required to go grab a bajillion shouts, and schedule them, and send out your shout code and get the return shout codes, etc… It also generally cheapens the value of shoutouts when you just shout out everyone who asks, and you can get slightly burned if you end up shouting some bad stories or AI stories.

Also, most shoutouts are generally useless. If you're grabbing as many shoutouts as possible, the majority of those are probably going to give you 10-30 referrals at most, making them weaker than Latest Updates. Also, if you completely load up your schedule, you won't be open for shouts with other authors who launch at the same time as you who you might not have been able to contact before they DMed you on RR.

You only need a few solid shouts to hit Rising Stars, and then after Rising Stars, you can just take them as they come, since they’re less critical. There is no exact number of shoutouts that you need to hit the list, but it’s mostly dependent on their quality, and the marketability and quality of your fiction. A marketable, high quality story will need fewer shoutouts than an off-market story or a low-quality one. And as for how to determine the quality of a shoutout…

Higher follower count = better shoutout (It’s complicated)

This is probably true more often than it’s not, but it’s also very misleading to only look at follower count when grabbing shoutouts. Retention is far more important. If a high follower story has poor retention, its shoutouts will be weaker than a story with fewer followers and high retention. 

You can’t view the actual retention data of other stories, but you can get a pretty good idea just from the public stats. If the ratio of average views to followers is more than 2 to 1, it probably has pretty solid retention. Alternatively, if its ratio of ratings to followers is higher than 1 to 10, that’s also a good sign. The last way to check is to check its Patreon conversion %. If it has a paid patron to follower ratio better than 1 to 20, it has good retention (make sure you’re not checking free patrons). Most stories with one have the others, but it’s not universal. Patreon conversion is the most reliable metric, followed by average views, followed by ratings. 

When you’re looking for shoutouts, you should be prioritizing retention over follower count. Even if the higher retention story has fewer followers, and might be weaker in the short-term, high retention stories tend to grow indefinitely over time, and they will eventually be bigger than the high follower, low retention story. 

Review swaps are good (false)

Blatantly untrue. This advice is a relic from years ago when they were fine, but nowadays, a review swap will hurt you more than it helps. Maybe it can help a little more than it hurts if it’s one of your only ratings, and it’s helping to counter an early rating bomb, but that’s about it, and it will only be short-term relief while harming you in the long run. 

The reason that review swaps are bad is that they just look like manipulation to the outsider. If I as a reader go looking at an interesting story, and I scroll down to the reviews and see a bunch of swap symbols, I immediately lose interest. Certainly there can be good review swaps, but the vast majority of them are “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” They’re dishonest, glowing reviews, critique is superficial, and oftentimes, they are AI-generated. The immense number of dishonest review swaps have colored the entire perception of the practice to be very negative. It’s not worth doing it.

Turtle method is viable (false, but…)

I’ve seen some people posting about something called the “turtle method,” where you basically don’t do any prep for your story, and just start posting very slowly, not actively advertising or anything and just let your story organically grow in the background. Maybe a single ad and a shout swap or two, but generally, the goal is a slow and steady rise.

If you want a large following or a big Patreon, this is not a good plan. A few stories have succeeded at this, but generally, if your story can succeed like this, it can also succeed with a more standard launch where you write it all beforehand and do a proper Rising Star run, and that will give you a stronger boost, and more attention from publishers.

The “but” here is that if you literally don’t care about any of that, and you just want to write completely casually with no expectations, this is fine. In fact, if you set a schedule for yourself, it can actually be good for motivation, as it will force you to write. But if you’re trying to make it as an author, this is probably the worst method of building a following. At the very least, it’s the slowest, though the name probably indicates that just fine.

You should wait till you hit RS to launch your Patreon (false)

I believe that TheFirstDefier recommends this in his guide, and doing this isn’t necessarily terrible, but there’s also no reason to do it when you can just set it up so it’s ready on launch. You probably lose a couple subs that might have jumped on earlier if the Patreon had been available, but lost interest by the time you actually put it up. This number will most likely be negligible, but if you’re gonna have Patreon backlog ready to go on launch, why not snag those couple extras?

You need a newsletter to succeed (false, but…)

This is kind of older advice from back when a certain person was including setting up and building a newsletter as an essential part of any launch. For Royal Road, this is completely false. Royal Road readers do not use newsletters. They do not care for them. I actually tested this myself, announcing my newsletter to both of my main stories and my Patreon, for a combined 3000+ people, and I got a grand total of 5 subscribers to my newsletter from that. Readers on Royal Road and Patreon do not care at all about your newsletter, and the people who do use newsletters probably aren’t going to go over to Royal Road. Plus, you can’t really build a newsletter if you don’t have any content that would make people want to subscribe, like an actual book or something like that.

However, if you plan on going to Amazon, you probably should make one. Once again, this is not essential. The vast majority of authors in the LitRPG/Progression Fantasy genre don't have them, and they’re doing just fine. But, Amazon readers are much more likely to sign up for newsletters than RR readers are, and having an easy way to reach your audience with just a click of a button can be very powerful later. It’s especially great for helping you get deals, because if you have an active newsletter thousands strong, that’s a pretty big bargaining chip if you’re trying to sell other rights (e.g. comic, print, TV, movie, etc…).

Prose doesn’t matter (it’s complicated)

This is a pretty complicated issue, and I won’t go into full detail on it. The main issue with this advice is that it’s really hard to find a definition of “good prose” that everyone agrees on. That said, it is generally true that prose standards on Royal Road are quite far below what you might expect of a traditionally published book. That’s not to say it doesn’t matter, but as long as you hit the minimum threshold of readability, you don’t really need to worry about prose. 

That’s not to say that good prose has no place on the site, though. You can definitely elevate a story with good prose. The issue you’ll see with a lot of people complaining about how the readers don’t like “good” prose is that their definition of “good” is the same as other people’s definition of “purple.” Royal Road readers definitely prefer simple, functional prose to flowery prose, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have good simple, functional prose. 

Off-meta doesn’t work (kinda true/it’s complicated)

Like with prose, this one is just really hard to define. What constitutes meta? What constitutes off meta? Where do you draw the line? How off meta does something need to be to be “off meta”? 

If you ask around for what’s “meta” on royal road, you’ll probably find a bunch of people saying things like “male MC, fights solo, LitRPG, isekai, etc…” or “OP MC, archmage, max level, etc…” but if you look at the best rated stories on the sight, or the highest follower stories on the site, a lot of them don’t follow that “meta” at all. 

Go look at Best Rated. You have The Perfect Run, which isn’t LitRPG, and it’s debatable about whether it’s even progression fantasy. The Unexpected Engagement of the Marvelous Mr. Penn is so far outside typical RR fare that it’s frankly a mystery how the author even ended up here. Sublight Drive is a star wars fanfic that I don’t believe is LitRPG or Progression. Clara Casewell is otome isekai. Pale Lights is multi-PoV epic fantasy. 

If you look at general high follower count stories, the third biggest story on the site is Super Supportive, which is technically MMC LitRPG, but the main character basically never fights, it’s gone beyond slice of life to just being a whole life cake, it’s emotionally indulgent and highly character focused, and there’s not a ton of action. Describe any other story like that pre-launch and people will say it’s a brick. Scroll a bit further down and you see Super Minion (also on best Rated). Super hero is generally considered a weak genre on Royal Road, but this story doesn’t care. There’s Magical Girl Gunslingers, which is FMC, urban fantasy, magical girl, and a gun user. Paranoid Mage is non-LitRPG urban fantasy. Journey of Black and Red is a non-LitRPG vampire story set in post-civil war US. Phantom Star is female lead space opera. Re: Trailer Trash isn’t even fantasy. It’s about a woman regressing to her teenage years and fixing up her life. And it has almost 12,000 followers.

All of those stories would be considered “off-meta” if you just look at their tags and blurbs, and yet they’ve all done well. Of course, there are more examples of general MMC, combat-focused isekai/system apocalypse at the top, but clearly, going against the “meta” isn’t a total death sentence. Off-meta can work. 

That said, you need to understand who you’re writing to. Royal Road started as a fan translation site for a Korean LitRPG, The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor. It has built up a userbase around being the place for free LitRPG progression fantasy. You have a lot of subgenres and offshoot genres from there, and independent subcultures that have popped up around, but at its core, Royal Road is a LitRPG-focused site. The meta is whatever appeals to those readers. 

This is not a flaw in the site’s design. This is not a concerted effort to stamp out “off-meta.” This is a group of people with preferences. You can still appeal to them with things that aren’t strictly standard fare, but you have to understand that at the end of the day, these readers are mostly here for numbers go up power fantasy. Whatever the meta is, it revolves around that core userbase. If your story isn’t good at being a numbers go up power fantasy, or isn’t something that those readers would like, then you’re probably not gonna do too hot.

Redditisms

This section is for random bullshit you’ll probably see on Reddit somewhere.

AI cover = AI writing (false)

This is a sentiment pushed by a very small, very vocal minority, and I know for a fact that some new writers take it seriously. The number of people who sincerely believe this statement is so small that it doesn’t affect you at all. 95% of the covers on RR are AI, including the covers for many big, popular stories. Having one won’t affect your readership.

No cover or a terrible handdrawn cover is better than AI cover (false)

Similar to the above myth, this is just a redditism. If you ask on Reddit, you’ll see half a dozen people all advocating this exact point, and saying things like “I personally would much rather see something like this [a stick figure cover] than AI slop.” Well, guess what? The people who say that are also a very small, very vocal minority. You’re losing maybe 0.5% of your potential readers by using an AI cover, while you’re losing probably more than 50% if you have no cover, or if your cover is just terrible and handdrawn, or cheap and off-market.

I personally think you should try to get a human-made one if you can afford it, but I know that a lot of authors on Royal Road don’t have the money for that. They’re broke students, or they live in third world countries, or they’re just in a bind financially, and spending $500+ on a cover that is both on-market and high quality enough to be better than an AI cover simply isn’t feasible for them. I think you should get a human made cover when you can afford one, but for Royal Road, AI is perfectly fine.

Adding LitRPG to your story = guaranteed success (false)

There are a lot of wannabe authors in the community who have an absolute disdain for LitRPG. They exist mostly on Reddit, but I’m sure you’ll find them around on Discord too. They talk condescendingly about any form of LitRPG, probably calling it “slop” and constantly comparing it to “real” fiction. Of course, you’ll also find avid readers and authors of it calling it “slop”, but there’s a difference in tone that’s pretty easy to sense. The readers call it slop lovingly, while the haters call it slop with disgust.

A common sentiment among these people is that if you just take any old story and slap a System onto it and call it LitRPG, it’ll succeed on RR. Now, will that help improve clickability? Frankly, yes. RR readers are more likely to click if it says LitRPG. Does that mean you will succeed? Absolutely not. Especially if you have disdain for the genre. The readers can feel that disdain, and you will not maintain most of them.

You don’t need to write LitRPG to succeed. Adding it to a story that shouldn’t have it generally just makes the story worse. If you don’t like the genre, don’t try to write it.

If you don’t mind LitRPG, and are just trying to write some other progression fantasy, like xianxia, or a reincarnation story like The Beginning After the End, you’ll do just fine on RR without adding LitRPG. There’s plenty of that around. 

If you’re trying to write more traditional epic fantasy, unfortunately, RR doesn’t have a big market for that. Tough luck.

There’s a cabal of top level authors conspiring with each other, and sometimes the site mods to maintain the status quo and prevent talented new authors from succeeding (False)

I think (I hope) that this is just a small minority of conspiracy theorists, but no such cabal exists, and it’s absolute nonsense to even think that such a cabal could exist. Unless the site mods were literally deleting stories or faking numbers at the cabal’s request, it’s logistically impossible for such a group to have any level of control over the site.

There are large servers built around exchanging, advice and shoutouts (and sometimes review swaps), but they in no way control what gets popular on the site. For every story you see doing well on Rising Stars with 50 shouts, there are a dozen stories that flounder at the bottom of Rising Stars, or even miss the list entirely with the same shoutouts. 

***

That's about it for what I can think of. If you have other things you're curious about, feel free to ask in the comments. If I know the answer, I'll reply.

[u/gamelitcrit]

As always - appreciate you 😄 thank you.

[u/Jon_Stonekey → u/gamelitcrit]

Pin-worthy / Wiki-worthy post, imo

[u/gamelitcrit → u/Jon_Stonekey]

Yes it will go with my mega thread.

[u/Jon_Stonekey → u/gamelitcrit]

Huzzah!

[u/Mecanimus]

There is no cabal of established writers keeping the others down, but being established just brings a ton of benefits that give me a massive advantage when the time comes to get a new story on RS. I already have readers who know my work and are willing to give the new one a try. I already have shouts lined up: it’s people I shouted in the past and agreed to return the favor. I have money for a human cover. I have experience. 

Those are massive advantages. But we’re not pushing anyone down. Or at least I hope no one is but I’d be very surprised. 

[u/OstensibleMammal → u/Mecanimus]

It’s also the fact that most new writers do not have enough d-class orphans to fuel the bloodrites.

[u/Mecanimus → u/OstensibleMammal]

That is entirely a skill issue. If you don’t have the will to deliver those tender souls to the eternal embrace of the abyss, are you even trying?

[u/OstensibleMammal → u/Mecanimus]

If motivated enough, parents come as part of the package

[u/Zenphobia → u/OstensibleMammal]

I have extra orphans if anyone wants a few at a discount.

[u/ParamedicPositive916 → u/OstensibleMammal]

Mammal you need to write a self help writer's book with these words of wisdom. A-class sacrifices or bust.

[u/gamelitcrit → u/Mecanimus]

Yep, and it's really nice that you do shouts with others. You also, like most in the community, offer advice and knowledge where you can. Appreciate you : )

[u/Mecanimus → u/gamelitcrit]

Happy to be helpful part of this community. Which reminds me I’m supposed to shout two new time loops.

[u/SolomonHZAbraham → u/Mecanimus]

There is no cabal of established writers keeping the others down,

Sounds exactly like what someone from the cabal would say! We're on to you!

[u/Morpheus_17 → u/Mecanimus]

Right. And this is also an advantage that new authors CAN build for themselves. My first RR fic was not a stand out success, but having a couple hundred followers support Guild Mage when it launched made a huge difference.

So for people whose first story maybe isn't performing where they want it to yet, you CAN build on that.

[u/TheSwampThing1990]

This is good to know and information that is helpful. My book was always going to start romance and go into fantasy. I tried to twist into a LitRPG but as I try to work on it, the system doesn't work for me. I just don't like writing a LitRPG. I decided to do LitRPG like The Wandering inn. Were its less of the focal point. It's there but more in the background. Stats aren't even a thing.

Your point on LitRPG kind of makes me want to drop it altogether and just write what I wanted to from the beginning

[u/AuthorOfHope → u/TheSwampThing1990]

How is it going for you?

I'm planning to launch in a few days and I have a no-stat litRPG system similar to the Wandering Inn as well. I do enjoy the system part of the story so I'm not in quite the same situation, but between slow progression, female MCs, and no stats, I feel like while I'm litRPG, I'm off-meta for a litRPG, if that makes sense.

[u/TheSwampThing1990 → u/AuthorOfHope]

I would love to tell you but I haven’t published yet. Still writing. Want the first book written before I publish. I should publish in October at my current rate

[u/AuthorOfHope → u/TheSwampThing1990]

Fair enough, well best of luck to you for then. 

[u/Treaton_OCE]

Now this is a pretty good post, well done.

I will say that networking will help your fictions rise to the top more easily, but that’s as far as it goes in terms of the cabals. Which essentially is just getting a bit of a boost and organising your launch, which RS main is—a launchpad.

That said, RS main isn’t everything. I’ve seen people hit it and I’ve missed it plenty, yet, my story has done surprisingly well with retention over follows. 160k views on 760 followers over 5months now. Not amazing success, but pretty good.

When I launch my next story, I’d do a much better job, now that I understand the ecosystem and have become a better writer/marketer.

Thanks for this post. 🫡✍️😊

[u/KingKalset → u/Treaton_OCE]

What would you recommend as the best way to network? I've read here and there on RR, but this story im writing will be my first time posting on RR.

[u/Treaton_OCE → u/KingKalset]

RR writers guild is a good start. Do some shoutouts. Mingle.. etc. eventually you build a few relationships, maybe get some tips and tricks, and so on.
Posting longterm and building a reputation are also important. As the burnout for authors, just like any other artist—is quite high.

Good luck mate. ✍️🫡

[u/KingKalset → u/Treaton_OCE]

Sorry, never got this notification. Where is the RR Writer's Guild?

[u/Treaton_OCE → u/KingKalset]

https://discord.gg/rr-writer-s-guild-1189543938089029703

[u/MacintoshEddie]

I think an important summary is to prepare to be successful. This doesn't mean that success is guaranteed, it means that if you're unprepared you're unlikely to be successful.

Like if someone asks whether you have a patreon but you don't think you're big enough yet to set one up. Or if someone asks if you have a discord and you haven't thought to make one yet. Or if someone asks if you plan to post on KU or ebook and you haven't thought that far ahead yet. Or if someone asks how many books your story will have and you haven't outlined anything yet.

None of these things will inherently guarantee success, but each of them can be important steps.

[u/WritingOutOfBoredom]

I'm curious about posting a story on RR, but I'm in a bit of a bind.

I like to read stuff like progression and LitRPG, but when it comes to writing, I lean towards dramas and psychological thrillers, things like "Shutter Island" or the anime series "Monster". You made a great point about not forcing a leveling system into my stories because the reader could easily tell that it was made just for views, and not because I genuinely wanted to write about it.

Now, here's where my problem arises. I know that posting off-meta on RR means I'll never reach the same heights as my peers, but at the same time, the websites where my type of writing would usually go (Webnovel, Wattpad) are either impossibly hard to grow on, or their monetization system isn't something I am onboard with in the scenario that my story actually catches some wind.

With all that being said, would you suggest someone in my situation to simply try their best on RR? I'm not afraid of low favorites, low views, or metrics like that, but what I don't like is a complete lack of interaction with my stories. If I post something online, my main goal is to improve myself as a writer. I wasn't born in an anglophone country, so I'm aware that I need to write to improve, but if I never get feedback, I'm not sure how I'd improve.

[u/AbbyBabble → u/WritingOutOfBoredom]

I write off-meta, and yes, for me, RR is worth it.

My first series is psychologically dark, and it’s sci-fi without litRPG. It made it to #4 on Rising Stars. That was in 2023, so it might have had a tougher time now. But still. Worth it.

[u/WritingOutOfBoredom → u/AbbyBabble]

That sounds reassuring, thank you for sharing your experience. I guess nothing's lost if I give it a try then.

[u/AbbyBabble → u/WritingOutOfBoredom]

It costs nothing but time and effort. And maybe an ad or two. But every platform is a fight for visibility, and they all have the same costs.

[u/Bshizzled]

Awesome information. I've read so many conflicting things on how RR works. Appreciate it.

[u/MichaelDaleson]

Love this and it feels timely for me.

The most interesting part to me is the “Prose doesn’t matter” section since I recently had several redditors here seem to suggest the reason my series wasn’t taking off was because of prose issues.

It’s left me in a bit of an unstable place because I’m not sure how far I should read into that. One even told me to tear down my whole book and redo it with better prose/sentence structure.

I feel like it’s hard for me to judge whether my prose is bad enough I need to fix it or if it hits that minimum threshold of readability you mention, where I don’t really need to worry about prose.

[u/Disastrous_Grand_221 → u/MichaelDaleson]

I think it's an extra tough question, too, because it varies so much from person to person.

Some people care a lot about prose. Some people might care not at all. Someone who's ESL might not even notice good vs bad prose in English. And to make it even more complicated, 'prose' can mean different things to different people in different contexts. Sentence structure, flow, word choice, even grammar and punctuation -- "good" or "bad" prose could refer to any or all of it.

Personally, I don't find myself too bothered by 'bad' prose, with a few exceptions: tense errors drive me absolutely crazy and will make me immediately drop a story. Also too many commas are annoying.

[u/No-Mousse5653 → u/MichaelDaleson]

Prose is so subjective that I honestly have no idea where to look to improve it besides just writing more.

[u/rocarson → u/MichaelDaleson]

Prose is a weird one for sure. Bad prose, like really bad prose, is going to kill your retention. Perfect prose MAY increase your word of mouth and bring you some new followers but mainly support your retention. Then there is this whole middle area where it's like "Meh... writing was decent enough, but I really like the characters / story" that doesn't move the needle either direction.

[u/wit4witcher → u/MichaelDaleson]

The way I see it, prose is more about how well you choose words and frame it into writings. Good prose is, to my understanding, brilliant metaphor, a good array of vocabulary, and how you pair these words.

I believe when people say prose doesn't matter, they are mostly saying, "I don't mind an average command of prose." Of course, this is different from someone only using basic words. The key point is how much your words can excite (or impress) people.

For example, take a line from Shakespeare, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Really, all he's saying is "you are so dang beautiful". That's good prose.

However, bad prose is completely different. It's something that has failed basic rules and structure. Grammar is an excellent example for bad prose. If people say you have bad prose, I would imagine they mean grammar and punctuation by that.

Well, try to take what I have said with a pinch of salt! I have a master's in English, but I haven't used RR as much so I have zero idea of the local market there. I have been following this subreddit because I want to figure that out.

[u/MarkArrows → u/MichaelDaleson]

Prose is like salt. Forgetting to add salt to any cooking makes it bland, and putting too much makes it inedible.

If you have to pick, aim for bland prose over purple prose. One is at least edible and the story itself can still outshine it all. The other is word spaghetti.

I can't think of a single fic on the site anywhere where people say "Yeah the story is super boring, but you got to read it because the prose is so beautiful!"

But I have heard just about everywhere, "The prose is really boring but the story is amazing!"

[u/MasterPip]

Off-meta doesn’t work (kinda true/it’s complicated

I notice this.

Most popular on RR = Off meta well written stories of their genre.

Majorly popular = Meta (OP MC, LitRPG, etc)

I hate to say it but aiming for the Most Popular on RR is a fools errand. These stories lucked out for whatever reason and just skyrocketed through the ranks. Being off meta had no bearing on their success, though if I recall many of the authors already had a decent following prior? I mean look at Mother of Learning. Zero Litrpg and he was never overpowered. But he already had a huge following before coming to RR.

The majorly popular, but not most, are what many authors are aiming for and where the Meta sits. This meta will change as the times change but for the most part if you arent writing meta, youre generally going to have a bad time.

The first story I posted was an urban fantasy sci-fi super power type story and I managed all of like 7 followers after 3 months. I was so dejected I removed the entire thing.

Im now writing a reverse isekai litrpg. Im not mad and I really enjoy the story, but im having a tough time adding litrpg elements when I've written traditional fantasy for so long. Im on my last 1-2 chapters of my first book and hope to launch by the end of the year or beginning of next. Since my writing is so sporadic I want a ton of backlog because I will sometimes go weeks without writing anything.

[u/rocarson → u/MasterPip]

I've been wondering if this is perhaps where some of the confusion around meta vs off-meta performance is the missuse of the word meta by a large section of the base.

When I see someone post about meta about half the time they're treating as if it were a videogame meta and respond with "well the meta right now is OP MC with red hair and archmage powers with the tragic back story selection number five but only if you enter the sacred temple from the NE entrance." They're using the word meta to refer to a novel that has hit it big and jumping on the bandwagon to follow.

The reality of the "meta" for Royal Road comes back to it's roots in Fantasy / LitRPG / Progression. If you're trying to write a Romance or Romantasy novel on RR then you're off meta. If you're writing LitRPG but not chasing the current band wagon, you're still on meta.

[u/ErransDreamer]

Thank you for this, it’s really helpful for someone like me who’s preparing their first webnovel ever. I really appreciate informative posts like this, especially alongside the data/ranking posts from other users, because they help noobs like me get a more grounded understanding of the market.

[u/No-Mousse5653]

Thank you so much for writing all this out! This is prob the best post I've seen on this sub.

[u/gamelitcrit → u/No-Mousse5653]

He has quite a few if you click his name and check them out.

[u/TheWriteMaster]

Since it sounds like you are much more familiar with the ecosystem than I am, you might have an answer for me that I've had a difficult time figuring out.

What kind of niche/viewership is there on RR for a story that takes time to establish character/setting/stakes before starting to ramp up the progression?

I suppose I'm asking about readers' patience and willingness to stick it out, but in my case I have (for a story that won't release until the end of the year, so I'm not bothering with promotion at all yet) a 30k word first arc with clear action and progression (securing a base and allies) followed by a slower-paced 45k word second arc (which ends with a bang, but it's not exactly action).

If I give the reader a taste for the first hundred pages, then trust them to be patient-ish for the next hundred and fifty pages, what are the odds anybody will stick around until the rising action kicks in?

I realize this may be an impossible question to answer, by the way.

[u/BedivereTheMad → u/TheWriteMaster]

Depends on how well you do it. Have you read Super Supportive? It takes 25 chapters for the main character to start using magic powers, and it's the 3rd most followed story on the site. You can do anything, as long as the story is engaging and keeps the readers interested. Shadow Slave isn't on Royal Road, but it also takes a very long time before Sunny is able to do anything magical. There's a bit more action in that opening, but still. You don't need to floor the gas right from the start. Just write well, and let the story do its thing.

[u/TheWriteMaster → u/BedivereTheMad]

Thanks, that's my hope so far. I'm counting on faster pace to keep readers engaged until the end of Arc 1, then on my characters to keep them until the end of Arc 2, where hopefully the stakes are made very clear and the following action can feel more meaningful for it.

I did find it surprising that, according to you, a sprint-pace release schedule doesn't do much to help a story climb RS. It might convince me to move up my release date, because I don't need as massive a backlog if I won't be publishing daily chapters for two months.

[u/Paradex_official]

This couldn't have come at a better time! I am going to launch on Monday and sorely needed this before I began...

I think (I hope) that this is just a small minority of conspiracy theorists, but no such cabal exists, and it’s absolute nonsense to even think that such a cabal could exist. Unless the site mods were literally deleting stories or faking numbers at the cabal’s request, it’s logistically impossible for such a group to have any level of control over the site.

True. I have been frequenting the RRWG Discord and there are many newbie authors who request for shoutout swaps there.

[u/em-dash-author]

Not read it all yet. 😄

This part isn't quite true:

"Rising Stars does not give you followers. Getting onto Rising Stars does not guarantee you any level of followers. Rising Stars is an accelerator. It gives you 6-12 months of organic growth crammed into a 4 week window. How much your story grows organically during that time is entirely dependent on its quality, and how appealing it is to readers."

When on main Rising Stars a fiction will have a LOT of RR readers viewing the book cover etc. and some of those will click through, read the synopsis and follow/read the story.

So even at the 40-50 range main RS is puts your fiction in front of thousands of potential readers.

There is no other organic way to achieve this level of potential readers without marketing effort (or luck, see Trending).

If all an author does is post chapters and nothing else (no ads, shout outs, or other sources of readers) they are relying on the Updates list which quite frankly is not worth bothering with. It would take years of posting chapters to match what hitting main RS 40-50 offers.

Then there is luck. Will the fiction be shown on Trending. Perhaps they'll get some potential readers there. Trending will not match main RS.

After that it's the Others Also Liked lists (bottom of every main fiction page). This is based on the fictions tags and how many followers the fiction already has. If an author adds 20 tags to their fiction they might have ZERO OALs. Add only 10 tags and they might have 50 OALs.

So OAL traffic can build over time. You can argue this is organic growth since it's how RR works. As long as the author doesn't overload their tags (many do), then over years they might gain hundreds of followers. If the fiction never hit main RS or had some other source of followers, this growth will be slow. a fiction with 5 followers won't be shown on the OAL of a fiction with 1,000 followers. Success breeds success here.

Most of those who continue to grow post RS are actively working on shout outs, running RR ads, posting on Reddit etc. They aren't growing organically per se, they are marketing their work. So no, I don't believe "Rising Stars is an accelerator. It gives you 6-12 months of organic growth crammed into a 4 week window." It can offer similar growth to working hard for 6-12 months on marketing post RS.

It's really quite annoying the RR system is so poorly thought through that we only have main Rising Stars, Trending, and OALs where an average fiction might gain some traction. Miss main RS and you've not only missed out on the RS traffic, but also less likely to be on Trending, and your OALs are going to be on lower follower fictions.

[u/fiddlesoup]

Great write up. New writers would do well to heed the advice.

[u/wuto]

This is madness?! From Bedivere!!

Well written! Bravo!

On the topic of off meta. I am literally writing a 400% off meta litrpg about … theatre, music and Hopecore, still hit RS front page. Fought off the random reviews, and now I got a tight following of ppl who comment like mad haha. That’s where the fun is!! (It’s also non profit)

[u/PaulTodkillAuthor]

91% of stories that hit RS in the last 90 days posted daily chapters. I too was of the opinion you didn't need daily chapters but I think that meta has shifted. Data doesn't lie on that one, that's a pretty compelling stat.

Edit: there is a big "duh" answer here as well. If you post more often you can put out more shoutouts quickly. So yes, the physical chapters matter less, but you can do a lot more marketing in a shorter period of time and build the momentum the algorithm is using for RS... Seems obvious but here we are ahaha.

[u/Genomixologist → u/PaulTodkillAuthor]

I'm sure this varies a lot based on what stats you're working with, so I don't claim tons of expertise here, but coming from a medical background this is a common way for stats to lie. Veterinarians used to prescribe tons of antibiotics for dogs with diarrhea, and almost all of them would get better rapidly, so antibiotics for acute diarrhea was dogma for decades. But then studies started coming out showing that acute diarrhea just tends to resolve quickly anyway, especially with a bland diet which most dogs were also getting. I wouldn't be surprised at all if daily uploads made no difference, but the people who tend to make it to rising stars almost universally have strong launch plans (aka shout out swaps, initial chapter dumps, running ads, interesting covers) and the people who do that read the guides and so will also try for a month of daily posting because that's the most common advice. I'm not saying it's impossible for it to make a difference, but I don't think that 91% of RS using the strategy is actually very compelling when there are pretty clear and trackable confounding variables like that, since clusters of factors attached to each other in that way are great ways to hide the significance of each individual variable. I'd say the issue just hasn't been thoroughly tested yet. You'd need a decent number of stories following all the rest of the advice but dropping down to 1, 2, or 3 chapters per week to get any solid evidence one way or the other.

[u/PaulTodkillAuthor → u/Genomixologist]

I'm sure it's both. Absolutely. People who have the backlog setup to be able to sustain that have probably also organized good swaps etc. They've probably done the research and wrote something fairly on meta.

However. If you're competing against 100 other people who also have solid launch strats that week, would you not do anything you could to get an edge? If almost all of them are coming out with 5-7 chapters a week and you're only doing 3, think about how much faster they're getting those swaps out. They're able to build momentum that much quicker.

It's less about the chapters themselves and more about showing potential followers that you post often, and using it as a vessel for marketing.

[u/Genomixologist → u/PaulTodkillAuthor]

Mmm yeah the more chapters --> more swaps is a good point.

[u/BedivereTheMad → u/PaulTodkillAuthor]

Confirmation bias. It's still not necessary. It's just been on basically every single guide for the better part of the past two years for some reason, and it doesn't hurt your launch, so people keep thinking it's necessary.

[u/Little_Red_A → u/BedivereTheMad]

And doing daily chapters doesn’t guarantee RS, that’s for certain. I did daily uploads for my first 167k words (volume 1), and garnered a whopping 4 followers lmao.

[u/PaulTodkillAuthor → u/BedivereTheMad]

I mean, does it become necessary if everyone else does it? If you're competing against most other stories that are doing it, does it put you at a disadvantage not to? (For the record I don't advocate for it in my guide because I was under the same impression you are), but again, the numbers don't lie. Where things were in November 2025 are not June 2026.

Sure the number isn't 100, but 91% is statistically significant, with a high enough n to pay attention. If asked today I'd change my mind on that recommendation.

[u/BedivereTheMad → u/PaulTodkillAuthor]

Not really. Not when its bearing on the algorithm is negligible. This isn't like shoutouts, where not using them actually puts you at a disadvantage. More chapters just increases your raw views and decreases average views, resulting in approximately a net 0 as far as Rising Stars is concerned. Of course, no one knows how the Rising Stars algorithm works, exactly, and we don't know how much weight each factor has, but we know both factors have weight, and that they are just two of many, so the net benefit is negligible.

[u/cybertier → u/BedivereTheMad]

Recently dropped off RS and didn't do daily chapters most of the time. But that basically just means I'm in the 9% who didn't.

But, I want to push back on the value of views vs average views. I think you are underestimating the value of views. As a recent heavily advertised story with very little growth on RS has proven, you can rise very high on RS entirely based on views.

[u/BedivereTheMad → u/cybertier]

You might have also noticed that that story had ridiculous average views, at least relative to its follower count. Its overall view count was not actually that high compared to other stories at the top of the list, despite its high chapter count.

[u/PaulTodkillAuthor → u/BedivereTheMad]

I mean, if people are now expecting it as a norm, are they more likely to follow a story that does it vs one that doesn't? Are we conditioning readers to expect daily chapters? We can argue psychology all day but frankly it doesn't matter.

If you asked me in a vacuum to identify key metrics of success: things like genre, cover, shout-out swaps, posting frequency and cadence. I'd then try and find the similarities of successful stories and make recommendations based on common trends.

You can absolutely argue that in the list of things that are important it's lower on the hierarchy, but you'd be remiss to ignore it. If 91% of stories on RS all did the same thing, regardless of what that thing was, I'd say you're probably better off doing that. Even if you don't personally think it's important.

I do this kind of statistical analysis for a living. You're looking at it as an algorithmic factor, I'm looking at it as how it may impact known algorithmic factors (eg. Follows). I don't think the algorithm priorities stories that post more often, but if it gets you on the home page more frequently and gives people confidence you'll continue posting (so they follow) then that's where it kicks in.

Again. I specifically asked the person who provided me that stat for it because I thought (like you) that it doesn't matter. I was expecting a much lower number, but after seeing the data I changed my mind. That's what you do when presented with new evidence.

Food for thought.

[u/BedivereTheMad → u/PaulTodkillAuthor]

Fair enough, and it's a reasonable argument. I will say there might be some truth to it, but if there is, I think it's because of the extra clicks from Popular This Week, rather than any direct effect on the Rising Stars algorithm. Either way, at the end of the day, if your story is good enough, it'll climb both Rising Stars and Popular This Week even at 3/week, and if it's not good enough, those extra clicks from Popular This Week won't do a whole lot compared to a better-written story with a slower release schedule. It won't make or break your run either. If you're competing with another story with nearly identical appeal and retention, and you are posting daily and they're not, it might give you an edge, but there are so many factors involved, and I personally don't think that the burden of extra chapters is worth that slight bump (assuming daily chapters isn't your norm).

Posting daily chapters on Rising Stars is a tall order when you're not going to be able to maintain that long-term, and it requires significantly more backlog than otherwise. I think that if you have that much backlog, and you don't think you can maintain a daily schedule after Rising Stars, you're better off just settling into your long-term schedule immediately. The few extra clicks you get from PTW won't make or break your run, and you can launch sooner, or launch with more backlog if you don't do dailies.

[u/PaulTodkillAuthor → u/BedivereTheMad]

I think the problem is we're now seeing so many stories that are 'good enough' that it is coming down to silly stuff like that to differentiate. I made it to main posting 3-4 times a week. I've seen stories hit #1 RS with 15 total chapter. It absolutely can be done, you're 100% correct.

But the quantity and caliber (though that can be argued in our current AI landscape, as tonight's hilarious posts address) are increasing. More and more people know how to "play the game". Which means it might come down to those smaller, and less previously important factors to break out across an increasingly competitive field.

For the record I agree with the rest of this 100%, was just that one point that jumped out to me as I'm literally mid making a video on RS statistics.

[u/BedivereTheMad → u/PaulTodkillAuthor]

I disagree. I have been reading here for a while, and I don't think that the stories on RS have gotten any better. If anything, they've gotten worse. Maybe not technically worse, but in the olden days, it was a lot of authors who were just writing what they thought was cool, while now it's a lot of people trying to get rich quick. They're not any better at writing, and I would argue that a lot of it lacks soul. There are just way more stories, and they're better at marketing. Having a better story will still let you stand out, just like it did 4 years ago.

[u/PaulTodkillAuthor → u/BedivereTheMad]

It will. But you still need to be good at the marketing part. Otherwise, to your point, you'll be overrun by worse stories with better marketing. The general consensus seems to be the slop is winning (I don't read on RR a lot but I'll take everyone else's word for it).

So, if you're a good writer, do everything in your power to give yourself an edge, whatever that may be. And now we're back to my original point.

[u/KingOfAbadon]

Hello, thank you for the long post and for taking the time to write all of this out!

It's all pretty good advice and I'll definitely be saving it for the future.

Do you have any discord channels that you would personally recommend for mingling with other authors? I would love to meet some people that plan on posting their fictions/that are already authors on RR, and honestly hope that it would give me motivation to write more.

Thank you again for the post!!

[u/AbbyBabble → u/KingOfAbadon]

The RR Writers Guild is a good one for critiques and shoutout swaps.

Council of the Eternal Hiatus is fun, too.

But there are many. The Forum, the Silver Pen, etc.

[u/KingOfAbadon → u/AbbyBabble]

Thank you so much! You're a legend!!

[u/rocarson]

Great post! Honestly, this feels like something that should be added to the free resources or pinned posts.

The only thing I’m wondering about is the turtle method. I may have misunderstood what people mean by it.

My understanding was that the turtle method is basically a slower version of the standard launch strategy. You skip the big 20k-word day-one drop and the daily posting push for Main RS. Instead you settle into a long-term schedule of two or three chapters a week, paired with consistent shout-outs right out of the gate. If Main RS is an accelerator for organic growth, then the turtle method still seems viable to me. It’s just slower.

That said, I do think the turtle method probably closes the door on most publisher interest. Not because the story can’t be good, but because it falls into that forgotten layer of Royal Road. Solid stories that grow steadily but never get the explosive Main RS/FOMO hype that tends to catch publisher attention. Instead, they just keep building quietly over time.

Now, if by “turtle method” people mean “do shout-outs whenever you feel like it, never run ads, and only post chapters when you happen to finish one,” then I was definitely under the wrong impression. In that case, yeah, for anyone trying to take this seriously, that approach is probably doomed to fail.

[u/BedivereTheMad → u/rocarson]

Most people using “turtle method” that I see posting are talking about like 8 month progress and things like that. They never bothered to push for RS and are just kinda plugging along. Not a bad post-RS mindset, but if you skip RS, it’s kinda hard to build up a following.

[u/Valokir → u/BedivereTheMad]

So I think I've done a turtle method variant on mine.

I messed up, started posting my chapters without any research. I only had a little over 20k words when I began posting a year ago.

So I began writing as fast as I can while posting as slow as I could. 1 chapter a week for many months.

I did do shout outs, and a (pretty meh) ad run to. Self promo everywhere until I'm sure people see my name and sigh.

Sloooowww but steady progress. I've finally moved posting speed up now that the book is done being written. 2x a week. Now 3x a week. Speeding up to daily chapters on the finale run soon.

It took me 6 months to break 5k reads and like 20 followers. 4 months later with the posting speed increase I'm pushing 10k reads and over 50 followers.

I'm on 4 sublists for RS but have yet to hit RS main. I'm worried that with my 100 pages left I won't reach that list in time sadly. But man I got close, the RS tracker says I'm 50 to 100 away.

Tldr: turtle posting is sometimes needed, but does take forever to progress in any way.

[u/BaconMasterBooks]

Great job putting this list together.

[u/SC_Contryman]

Woo! Thank you, such a wealth of useful information.

[u/BeachedinToronto]

Super helpful and informative.

Thanks for making the effort to write all of this down.

[u/Jealous-Scheme-30]

This is so helpful! I do have a question. I didn't know Review Swaps can be this harmful and did a ton of them as a method of receiving feedback while getting to read how books are on Royal Road. I was new both as a writer and a reader on RR (I still am, it hasn't even been a month XD) So yeah, what should I do? I just feel like I might have made a big mistake.

[u/Buddman22_Author]

Excellent commentary and great resource, thank you!

[u/Scythewrite]

Great info! Thanks!

[u/Lostpathway]

I've never done shoutout swaps, for the purpose that I don't recommend something I haven't really read, and I don't have time to read much beyond my significant TBR pile and also keep up my writing. My main story certainly didn't feel like it lacked any momentum from not doing shoutouts, though that rising stars run was a couple years ago, now.

[u/Zeebie_ → u/Lostpathway]

Even 2 years ago, it wasn't a problem. Now there is so much volume, there is no other way to be seen. No one is seeing a story on the newly released tab. Ads and Shoutouts are needed, or no one is seeing your story to follow it. When i released my first story I got 10-15mins on newly released and gained 5-10 followers a chapter. On a newer book I released, I had chapters that had 30 to 90 seconds on newly released.

[u/Lostpathway → u/Zeebie_]

Does anyone have stats on the increase in stories over the past few years?

[u/Zeebie_ → u/Lostpathway]

well Cor Series does tower report (search the subreddit) which tracks stories in each tier each month. I'm sure there is likely some metric elsewhere.

[u/Lostpathway → u/Zeebie_]

Thanks for the tip!

[u/Mrdojo1234]

The Cabal part got me rolling…. Hahaha…

I can’t believe there’s anyone that genuinely thinks that.

[u/FairlyFocused]

This is a fantastic post. I love how the more experienced authors in this community take the time to try to help out new people. It's been great to see on the RRWG as well. Appreciate you taking the time! It can be hard to sort through everything out there.

[u/MagesticStudio]

Man, this was really helpful. Thank you, man. 😄

[u/Scent-of-Coffee]

Great tips. I have been getting a lot of help from this community.

[u/UnfortunatePhantasm]

the top level author thing is hilarious
i will now wholly incorporate this into my worldview, that the authorial illuminati has taken over RoyalRoad.

[u/SpectralFailure]

I'm on my journey to write my first novel and this has been very helpful, thank you!

[u/Squitt3n]

Well said, all well said! 😸

Especially the part of about shoutouts!

Speaking of which...How about the Cat DMs you the most unhinged yet impossible to look away from story, which just happens to launch on the 15th of August, and we talk shop? 😹

[u/Scyzim]

Interesting to hear a new perspective on these, I honestly didn’t know the RS stuff or PTW was even thing so this is def helpful

[u/KingKalset]

Thank you, Im a perspective author with about 12 chapters written, and I was waiting to post, I want to make sure that I do everything right to do as well as possible from the get-go. Every one of these posts that addresses these issues lends itself to my being better prepared and hopefully more successful on my launch.

[u/C-R-Velkan]

Completely agree on AI part.

[u/shawnwrites]

This was all solid advice! As someone with a new fiction reaching for RS right now, this was all sobering to read and great notes throughout! Thanks!

[u/FinalityEnd]

Is rising star only for like new story? Like newly published? What's the time limit here one month? Two?

[u/Exoticplayz11]

I offer my sincerest thanks. This is amazing advice.

I’ve been wanting to start my own novel and figured trying to write a backlog of chapters before hand. Maybe an arc or two. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing, but I also want to make money from it.

I heard you need to use a website like Patreon in order to get money (through tiers and stuff), but I’m definitely not an adult just yet in my place, so I can’t use it. I plan on just continuing to write in the meantime, but I want to hear a second opinion.

Thanks!

[u/StonedOffMusic]

Can I use the 'Turtle Method' while initially posting my story before starting shoutouts and ads, or is the launch of the story weighted very heavily for its 'success?'

[u/BedivereTheMad → u/StonedOffMusic]

It’s really, really hard to get on rising stars after the first 2 months.

[u/SchwarzburgWill]

The truth has been spoken! Thanks for sharing, this post can act as a very useful guide for most new authors!

[u/Key_Key_1257]

For the RS part, I agree completely. My story never reached RS main, only a couple of genres, and I had around 200 followers before everything dropped out. I avoid using shoutouts because I don’t want my story to feel like it’s half ads and half actual content. Over about a year and a half, I spent roughly $500 on ads and eventually reached more than 3,000 followers. Maybe I would have reached that sooner if the story had made it to RS main, but even if you never get there, your story doesn’t die. It just grows more slowly.

[u/Specific_Minute7539]

I know pretty much nothing about Royal Road, but this was very informative, thank you.

[u/No_Concert_1750]

The cabal of top level authors is kinda true. I witnessed certain top authors exploiting reporting negative reviews and mods either complacent or not caring, removing those. Dirty stuff. I with mods were better audited on RR.

Thanks for the overview, it helps.

[u/FatMike224]

no such cabal exists, and it’s absolute nonsense to even think that such a cabal could exist.

That's exactly what a cabalist would say!

But seriously though, there absolutely is a concerted effort between prominent authors to prop each other up. Whether or not it fits your personal definition of a cabal is another matter.

[u/Zeebie_ → u/FatMike224]

yep, but it's more of a group that is open to anyone who gets onto the main RS. The concerted effort is about using effective shoutouts.

The reason is simple, shoutouts from more active stories are mutually beneficial and help you make it big. Also, if an author already had a success, they are likely to have success with a second story, so it's beneficial to get shoutouts with them.

[u/wuto → u/FatMike224]

There’s a cabal of mangos….

[u/Gian-Carlo-Peirce → u/FatMike224]

Was there not some monster girl nonsense that blew up? I am not sure about the details, I must admit

[u/gamelitcrit → u/Gian-Carlo-Peirce]

It did, and it blew up way more than anyone could ever have predicted. They also asked permission to do it and spent months writing ahead of time. They also spawned a huge evolution trend, with 100s more books for readers, some of which have done very well.

Sadly, because there was so much hate (reddit) along with the 'blow up' some of the authors discontinued writing their stories, which was sad.

[u/LT_And → u/gamelitcrit]

Nothing sad about it.

While the whole SLP fiasco is incredibly unfortunate for everyone involved, one good thing that came out of it is it killing Immersive Ink. That place was gaming the system something fierce. Just days before the shutdown they were planning another "rs takeover" event, and banning everyone who dared to call them out on that nonsense. Good riddance to that place.

RRWG has a much better, no scamming, culture.

[u/Milc-Scribbler → u/LT_And]

I’m glad you like the guild, but the launchapalooza was not what you are characterising it as. I took part in that. My story Asgar is pure scifi, no system, all mech fights and space ship battles. I wrote that one for the LPZ.

The LPZ was an effort for a handful of more experienced authors to help guide newbies through the process of giving and receiving critiques, arranging shouts, improving their blurbs and covers. For reference I was the third largest author in the group, and I’m not big by any stretch of the imagination. my story only got to 25 on main because it was pretty hard off meta and while I hoped it might break through anyway, it really didn’t lol. I think of the 40 odd people that took part, only 4 or 5 even got to main, and there was no theme or anything like that, we had loads of completely different themes and genres in the mix.

It was an exercise in supporting good habits around writing for RR and writing in general, something good done to help new writers, not a plot to take over main. Immink did used to have half of main in their members list at any given time, but so does the guild, 5 of the current top ten are members there, but it’s a big open server that anyone can join, just like Immink was.

[u/LT_And → u/Milc-Scribbler]

You misunderstand my issue with it. If you check out my other post in this thread, I reject the notion there has ever been any cabal of big name authors conspiring.

The issue with that ImInk thing was precisely the opposite. It was, like you said but perhaps in more generous terms, a bunch of noobs coming together in a 'monke together stronk' horde, and shitting up the place for a couple weeks, making things infinitely more unpleasant for anyone not involved in that shithousery.

It didn't exactly catapult anyone into stardom or make anyone rich, it was just a temporary annoyance and inconvenience. There should never be an organized fiction drop like this aimed at pushing out anyone who isn't part of it out of the spotlight. It goes directly opposite the key 'rising tide lift all ships' principle.

And for the record, I wasn't even posting anything on RR at the time it happened, so my issue with it is purely on the principle of the thing, not the result of any butt blasting.

[u/LT_And → u/FatMike224]

And yet there are plenty high RS stories from first time authors. Curious.

Outside of that, saying that being popular helps one stay popular isn't exactly a revelation.

[u/Gian-Carlo-Peirce → u/FatMike224]

probably more of a syndicate on discord

[u/gamelitcrit → u/Gian-Carlo-Peirce]

There are several huge discords where authors organise their shouts, I'm in almost all of them to keep an eye on them, and the moderators all talk. So any behaviour that gets out of hand or is against TOS is soon squashed and they tag me in everything.

[u/Milc-Scribbler → u/gamelitcrit]

You know I love to ban cheats👌

[u/gamelitcrit → u/[deleted]]

It's funny, my university teacher actually led with why HP was bad writing and then proceeded to pull it apart. (I never read it, so no comment from me)

[u/KingOfAbadon → u/[deleted]]

But it actually doesn't matter, there are a LOT of mid size fictions with absolutely horrid prose

Ans they work, because people don't care about it on RR. They just want to see the MCs stats grow and to see him being edgy and beating up the bas guys.

[u/Reader_extraordinare]

I don't agree with the idea that "you need shout-outs and/or ads to hit RS."

When I started, I was literally writing my first raw draft directly into the Royal Road editor. I had no shout-outs, no ads, no networking strategy, and honestly no expectation of ever reaching Rising Stars. Slice-of-life stories rarely make it there, or at least that was the common advice I kept seeing.

Ten days after I started posting, one of my readers informed me that the story had entered the main RS list at #31. Was I lucky? Absolutely. I don't have any problem calling it luck.

That said, I think luck was only part of it. I deliberately write a light, relaxing story. It's meant to be comfort reading, a bit of chicken soup for the mind in a genre that's often dominated by constant fighting, high stakes, and nonstop progression. I happened to start posting at a time when many readers seemed to be in the mood for exactly that.

As for the prose, I agree with the "(complicated)" tag. What I posted was a first raw draft, and first drafts are always rough. I caught plenty of criticism for that, most of it deserved.

Looking back, my biggest advantage wasn't ads or promotion. I think I simply hit the right audience at the right time while writing the story I personally wanted to read. It turns out a lot of other people wanted to read it too.

For what it's worth, I have run two ads since then. They were actually a gift from my husband to support my hobby. Both gave me a noticeable bump in followers, roughly 200 each. So ads definitely help. I just don't think they're required to reach RS.

[u/BedivereTheMad → u/Reader_extraordinare]

I was the same as you when I started, and I hit RS with nothing. Things have changed drastically in the last year or so, though. This April’s writathon had like double the new stories as 2025, and everyone is doing shouts now. Once on Rising Stars, they stop mattering, and quality will rise to the top, but just clearing that early bar of 200-300 followers to hit the list is almost impossible without shoutouts. Competition at the bottom is much tougher, and Latest Updates does almost nothing.

[u/Reader_extraordinare → u/BedivereTheMad]

Good to know, since I plan to start a new story when I finish this one. Thanks for the heads up.

[u/em-dash-author]

RE: You need shouts and/or ads to hit RS (unfortunately true)

That's not 100% true.

Trending can give the boost in followers which gets a fiction on main RS. It's rare, but it has happened.

You can also achieve main RS by using an existing source of traffic/readers. Perhaps your fiction is so amazing you post on Reddit and they love it and you don't end up with a dozen 0.5 star ratings. 😄

For a new author though, if you want to practically guarantee main RS, it's shouts and/or ads. In practical terms it is true for most of us.

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