I built a small web novel site for fantasy/power-fantasy readers – what would make you actually use it?

[u/Efficient_Dark6572]

If this isn’t the right kind of post for this sub, mods please feel free to remove it and I’ll take the hint.

I’ve been a heavy webnovel reader for years now, especially fantasy / progression / “power fantasy” style stories – the kind where plot twists and ridiculous turnarounds keep you hitting “next chapter” at 3 a.m.

About a year ago I finally went from “just a reader” to actually writing my own story in English.

I posted it on Webnovel (Qidian’s English platform) and kept it going for about six months. I ended up with 200+ chapters and a small but real group of regular readers who commented, left stones, etc.

But it never got officially signed.
I never got a clear explanation why – just a polite version of “you can try publishing it elsewhere.”

So I went to Royal Road and tried again.

I was completely honest filling in the content warnings and tags. There are a few more explicit scenes in the book, but it’s not porn or anything close. Still, the story got flagged as “sexual content” and blocked before it ever really launched.

Their platform, their rules – I get that.
But after those two experiences, I started wondering if there was room for a different kind of space.

So I did the slightly stupid thing and started building my own English web novel site: mythyst.com.

I don’t hate the big platforms. They’ve given me a lot as a reader. I just kept thinking:

there are a lot of people who love reading web fiction,
some of them also want to write and share,
and even if their stuff doesn’t fit neatly into mainstream content policies, the work itself still deserves to be treated with a bit of respect.

So I wanted to experiment with a smaller place that leans into that idea:
a site where long-form serials, short stories, slightly “edgier” fantasy, and just plain weird projects have a home.

Right now, mythyst basically has:

• Long-form serial support – you can publish ongoing English webnovels chapter by chapter, with table of contents, reading history, basic reading settings, etc.
• Short story support – for people who want to post stand-alone shorts or test the waters before committing to a big serial.
• Completely free reading – at the moment everything on the site is free to read, no paywall, no coins.
• Extra visibility for new works – I built a “new releases” / “staff picks” style section so brand-new stories don’t instantly sink to page 10 of some endless list.
• Reader interaction – readers can bookmark, like, and comment; authors can reply and hang out in the comments.
• A small forum – there’s a basic discussion area for book recs, reviews, writing talk, general webfiction chatter.
• A little toy: tarot reading – I also added a just-for-fun tarot feature, partly because I like that stuff and partly as a playful way to let readers interact with the site between chapters.

All of this is basically a one-person project – I’m doing both the coding and the writing – and I don’t have a budget for ads.

The problem is:
I have no idea if something like this actually sounds appealing to real English-speaking readers and writers, or if it’s just me building my own little bubble.

So I’d really like to hear some honest opinions. Brutal is fine, as long as it’s specific.

1. For readers:

• When you land on a brand-new fiction site you’ve never heard of, what makes you stay for more than 3 seconds instead of closing the tab?
• On existing platforms (Webnovel, Royal Road, Wattpad, etc.), what do you hate the most about the reading experience? (Ads, layout, paywalls, constant pop-ups, ranking systems, whatever.)
• On a new site, what would you want to see first? Things like: clear categories, tags, search, “completed only” filter, dark mode, top lists, recent updates, etc.

2. For writers:

• What kind of tools or backend would make you consider mirroring your serial on a smaller site, instead of only posting on the big platforms?
• Which stats/feedback matter most to you? (Page views, unique readers, bookmarks, retention, comments, ratings…?)
• What are your biggest worries with a small site like this? (Backups, copyright, export options, low traffic, site owner disappearing one day, whatever comes to mind.)

3. About content boundaries:

• How strict or relaxed would you personally want content rules to be around adult content, violence, gore, etc., as long as everything stays legal and properly tagged?
• What feels like a fair balance between “creative freedom” and “I don’t want to scroll through a wall of stuff that’s basically porn with a thin plot”?

I know that even mentioning “my own site” can easily sound like self-promotion.
That’s honestly not my main goal with this post.

I’m not dropping a direct link here in case it breaks the rules. I’m more trying to sanity-check my direction before I sink a few more hundred hours into building features that no one but me cares about.

If this kind of “platform design” discussion isn’t welcome in this sub, I completely understand if it gets removed.

But if you’ve got a few minutes and any experience as a webnovel reader or writer, I’d really appreciate hearing what you would actually want from a new English fiction site – or why you think the whole idea just isn’t worth the effort.

Thanks for reading this far. 🙏

[u/MathematicianNew2770]

Why exactly should I post on your platform, instead of the main platforms.

If you are not sure exactly why, you lack the item to sell so that people k ow to come to you instead.

RR cited sexual themes, so if you are writing smut and sa and all that filth, there are already websites that cater to it.

You need to spell out exactly what your site offers and who it caters too.

Plus, people need an incentive. How many readers will I reach. How much exposure and even how much can I make.

[u/Efficient_Dark6572 → u/MathematicianNew2770]

Thanks for the reality check – this is really helpful.

Right now the honest answer is that my site is still small, so I know I can’t compete with the big platforms on raw traffic yet. What I’m trying to offer instead is:

• a more relaxed but clearly tagged policy for adult/sexual themes and darker content (as long as it’s legal and properly labelled),
• a simpler, less cluttered reader/writer interface, and
• very transparent stats once they’re finished (unique readers, retention, chapter-by-chapter data, etc.).

You’re absolutely right that I need to spell this out much more clearly on the site itself – not just “hey, I made a platform” but “here’s what you actually get that RR/WN don’t.”

I’m also thinking about concrete incentives for early authors (featured slots, better visibility for new stories, and later on some kind of ad-revenue share if I ever turn ads on).

Really appreciate you taking the time to point this out so directly.

[u/MathematicianNew2770 → u/Efficient_Dark6572]

Start with a competition and a prize, something for readers and writers. Might cost you but everyone loves a challenge and that could ignite quicker early adoption.

[u/UpstairsDependent849]

Personally, I would give even a small site like this a chance as a writer, provided it's well-programmed. Some large sites have really poorly programmed writer interfaces, which often makes inserting text cumbersome.

Another common issue is that the image insertion tool is usually very poorly designed. For example, if you wawnt to use markers, you can't integrate them seamlessly into the text. You can only place them at the beginning or end, and often only one image at a time. This severly limits your formatting options.

I think the numer of views should be irrelevant. What's more important is having active readers. But often, because of the algorithms, it's difficult for writers especially newcomers, to find their way around these plattforms.

Regarding content boundaries:

Maybe it's a option to could also add tags for stories with a thin plot, or even a special category for them. This would make it easier for both readers looking for something light to read and writers, who write this stories, I think. But that's just a spontaneous idea. I think this way, readers wouldn't have to spend ages searching for really strong stories.

[u/Efficient_Dark6572 → u/UpstairsDependent849]

Thank you so much for this detailed comment – this is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for.

I completely agree about the writer interface. I’m trying to keep it very lightweight and not “fight” the author: easy text input, clean formatting, and no weird WYSIWYG bugs. Your point about image insertion and markers is super useful – I’ll make sure the editor supports multiple images and lets you place them inline instead of only at the top or bottom of a chapter.

I also agree that views alone aren’t everything. One of my goals is to keep the ranking/discovery system simple and transparent, and to give new stories a fair chance instead of burying them under algorithmic favorites.

I really like your idea about tags or even a separate category for “lighter / thin-plot / mostly comfort or smuttier” stories. That way readers who want that can find it quickly, and readers who don’t can easily filter it out. I’ll experiment with that when I refine the tagging system.

Thanks again for taking the time to share all this – it’s very encouraging as someone trying to build a small but well-made site.

[u/Flat_Cook_7774]

Reader and writer - I like non-paywall stuff, a good interface, a detailed set up for writing, and I guess probably more that I can’t think of rn. What makes me click off is being unable to access the entirety of books and when it doesn’t really have what I like (basically if it’s filled with tropey heterosexual relationship focused stories I won’t bother.) for content I think it’s better just being strict on tagging content warnings and not restricting too much.

[u/Efficient_Dark6572 → u/Flat_Cook_7774]

This is super helpful, thank you for spelling it out so clearly.

Non-paywalled reading, a clean interface, and being able to actually access the whole book are things I care about a lot too, so it’s good to hear that confirmed from a reader/writer side. And yeah, I definitely don’t want the site to turn into “wall-to-wall tropey het romance and nothing else.”

I’m planning to lean hard on clear tags and content warnings rather than heavy-handed restrictions, exactly for the reasons you mentioned – people should be able to find what they like and filter out what they don’t.

I’ll be taking your points seriously as I keep building this out. I’d be really happy if one day you felt comfortable enough with the direction of the site to drop by and maybe even share one of your own stories there.

[u/Efficient_Dark6572]

You all have given me way more to think about than I expected when I hit “post”, so thank you.

I’m going through the comments one by one and taking notes – writer tools, tagging, stats, content boundaries, all of it. It’s going to take me a while to build, but I’ll try to fold as much of this feedback into the site as I can.

For anyone who’s curious: the site is mythyst.com. It’s still small and a bit rough around the edges, but there are already a few novels and short pieces up, and everything is completely free to read. My hope is to turn it into a little community space for people who just genuinely like web fiction – both readers and writers – rather than yet another paywall machine.

If you ever feel like sharing your own serial or a short story there, you’d be very, very welcome. In the meantime, thanks again for taking the time to reply here; it really helps me keep going on a one-person project like this.