Board 8 > I accomplished a lifelong dream and became a writer of some renown.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hardly New York Times Bestseller renown or anything like that, but I've got several thousand consistent readers and a Patreon that's up to $1000 a month. This has been something I've been dreaming of since I was a kid, and while it didn't take the form I expected, being serialized instead of a single on-the-shelf book, it's been a wild ride that barely feels real.

Not going to link to the story as I want to keep a degree of separation from other parts of my life (although it wouldn't be too hard to find if you're that curious), but I wanted to share the happiness with B8. I've gotten a lot of roundabout writing practice over the years here and it definitely helped.

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Congrats, man. That's awesome news.

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Congrats but also just post the link fam, unless youre one of those NSFW patreons that cant get posted here >_>

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That's amazing and kind of inspiring. But also, is it furry fanfic?

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LeonhartFour posted...

Congrats, man. That's awesome news.

Thanks man. I legitimately think all the rating and ranking topics done on B8 over the years helped me become a better writer - being able to articulate why you like something is a legitimate skill!

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Congrats but also just post the link fam, unless youre one of those NSFW patreons that cant get posted here >_>

If you really want to, you can find it very quickly by google searching my username. It's not NSFW but I don't want to post a direct link cause degrees of separation and all that.

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RikkuAlmighty posted...

That's amazing and kind of inspiring. But also, is it furry fanfic?

Not yet

(but actually no)

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Congrats! That's awesome.

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A web serial, I guess? That sounds like impressive success for one. Cool.

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Ok, after Googling...have you only been doing this serial for a month? And you already have that many readers? That's seriously impressive dude

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VintageGin posted...

Congrats! That's awesome.

Thanks! It really is.

Sceptilesolar posted...

A web serial, I guess? That sounds like impressive success for one. Cool.

It doesn't scratch the success of the real big boys of the market, but as a whole, yeah it's doing very well for itself.

VintageGin posted...

Ok, after Googling...have you only been doing this serial for a month? And you already have that many readers? That's seriously impressive dude

Will be exactly two months by tomorrow! And thanks, I did a good amount of marketing research to figure out the best way to maximize readers (outside of, you know, writing a story people would enjoy). Someone on the forums called my story a 'textbook way to get on Trending'.

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Actually, as a comparison I was looking at the one web serial Patreon I do subscribe to (Katalepsis), and it's been running for two years and makes half as much. I thought it was doing pretty decently, but you really do seem to have hit a sweet spot.

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That's awesome! I'm definitely going to check it out. I started with some of the reviews on Royal Road and damn those reviews don't pull their punches, eh? But definitely a lot of praise mixed in with the criticism (most of which felt constructive).

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Sceptilesolar posted...

Actually, as a comparison I was looking at the one web serial Patreon I do subscribe to (Katalepsis), and it's been running for two years and makes half as much. I thought it was doing pretty decently, but you really do seem to have hit a sweet spot.

Half as much as this is still great.

Forceful_Dragon posted...

That's awesome! I'm definitely going to check it out. I started with some of the reviews on Royal Road and damn those reviews don't pull their punches, eh? But definitely a lot of praise mixed in with the criticism (most of which felt constructive).

I actually got review bombed pretty badly once I hit the top of Trending on Royal Road. Up until that point all the highly-voted reviews were strictly positive! It was certainly interesting watching my Followers and Patreon skyrocket while the front page reviews got slammed.

Overall I think reception has been very positive, although it's got some elements that are definitely divisive and offputting to the people who were hoping for a strict power fantasy.

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Nice

Congrats!
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KamikazePotato posted...

! It was certainly interesting watching my Followers and Patreon skyrocket while the front page reviews got slammed.

Overall I think reception has been very positive, although it's got some elements that are definitely divisive and offputting to the people who were hoping for a strict power fantasy.

They say theres no such thing as bad publicity. If you get people so furiously angry they have to make a comment, that too is a reaction... no reaction at all is worse.


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XIII_rocks posted...

Nice

Congrats!

Thanks!

FakeAccount3000 posted...

They say theres no such thing as bad publicity. If you get people so furiously angry they have to make a comment, that too is a reaction... no reaction at all is worse.

Not quite true in this case - bad reviews on the front page deter potential new readers (and I've got the numbers to back that up!). But I'm not gonna worry about it too much as Royal Road has basically peaked for me regardless. It's very difficult to gain new Followers after falling off Trending. Am considering some other avenues on other sites.

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Wow, congrats! Very impressive

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That's awesome!

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congrats!!
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Peace___Frog posted...

Wow, congrats! Very impressive

Aecioo posted...

That's awesome!

SeabassDebeste posted...

congrats!!

Thanks everyone! You guys are awesome.

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Oh, and since B8 likes numbers, people here might be interested in seeing how the Patreon growth per days looks



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That's awesome to hear, congratulations!

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Ok I found, and holy shit: 2-7000 words every few days? My god, is that real? Are you a machine?

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Dark Young Link posted...

That's awesome to hear, congratulations!

Thanks!

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Ok I found, and holy shit: 2-7000 words every few days? My god, is that real? Are you a machine?

It's standard if you have a Patreon. I treat it like a second (but fun) job.

Also the graph I posted had some errors, so I fixed it, and also colored in the days where I posted a new chapter red.



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Damn dude those seem like crazy numbers for such a short timeframe, congrats.

Thanks man. I will freely admit that I am completely blown away at how well this has done. My end goal was $100 on Patreon - that was my 'I can justify doing this in my free time' goalpoint.

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Congrats! I hope you can find sustained success with it

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MZero posted...

Congrats! I hope you can find sustained success with it

Thanks! I think I should be able to. The Patreon model I'm using incentivizes staying on board, as you get unreleased chapters for subscribing. Unsubscribe, and you would have to wait several weeks before publicly-released chapters catch up.

I've also written a bunch of chapters in advance so I have a healthy backlog. Patreon is 7 chapters ahead of the public, but my backlog is 7 chapters ahead of Patreon. Reduces my stress significantly.

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This is a really impressive haul for an internet venture not involving porn.

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congrats!

what were some of the marketing techniques you employed?

Congrats, that's really cool!

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red13n posted...

This is a really impressive haul for an internet venture not involving porn.

Sadly, writing porn doesn't make anywhere near as much as drawing it.

kateee posted...

congrats!

what were some of the marketing techniques you employed?

-Make the title of the story quirky and intentionally long to stand out among a list of names
-Choose a genre that's popular on Royal Road, the biggest writing site out there
-Keep up a consistent update schedule
-Put the story on a different forum first (Spacebattles), have it build a fanbase there, then do a Royal Road rollout and ask the fans on the first forum to go support it when I start putting it up there
-Post updates quickly on Royal Road using the built-up public backlog, as this will keep it on the 'recently updated' section
-These two things combined gets it onto Royal Road's Trending page, where it will snowball by itself from then on
-Put it on other sites to spread it as far as possible, pare back the ones that don't (the one other site that ended up taking to the story was the Humanity Fuck Yeah subreddit)
-For Patreon, offer unreleased chapter incentives for those who commit

There was some other smaller things I did, but that's what I got off the top of my head. Also considering starting up a Discord, a TVTropes page, and maybe expanding to some more sites I might not have tapped into just yet.

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Dude, this is amazing. So happy for you!

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KamikazePotato posted...

There was some other smaller things I did, but that's what I got off the top of my head. Also considering starting up a Discord, a TVTropes page, and maybe expanding to some more sites I might not have tapped into just yet.

You've surely thought of this given how closely the history of the sites are related, but if Spacebattles worked as the origin point, maybe SV?

OTOH maybe the overlap between the sites means it'd end up being less successful than it otherwise might be because a chunk of your potential readership there would already be on SB?

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Very cool. Congrats on the success.

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Nice!

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Curious as to how much content you put out per month?

My wife has been begging me for years to write and whilst I used to love writing (I have not done it in years), this would possibly incentivize me to do it. Wouldn't expect anything like your income but just knowing I had consistent readers would be enough.

Congratulations from reading everything in here it sounds like you put a lot of work in, so you deserve all the success you're finding. I hope you continue to find success in your writing endeavors

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Congratulations!

This is going to drive me nuts, can someone who has the link PM me? I have a hole burning in my pocket

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I can't read

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Congratulations buddy! I'm really happy for you.

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Im a sucker for these type of stories.

I ended up reading like 2000 chapters of a Chinese one with pretty bad translation at one point, so needless to say, Im 7 chapters deep right now.

That sounds like a backhanded compliment, its a good one of these so far, and I mean that.

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This is so cool, congratulations!

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Considering you'll probably only go up from here that's really impressive to be getting 1k a month. Nice job man.

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Good job man!

KamikazePotato posted...

-Make the title of the story quirky and intentionally long to stand out among a list of names

Which is exactly why light novels in Japan tend to have long titles.

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Thanks for all the kind words everyone! It's nice being able to share this here.

xp1337 posted...

You've surely thought of this given how closely the history of the sites are related, but if Spacebattles worked as the origin point, maybe SV?

Original fiction does awful on SV for the most part. That site is for fanfiction and Quests. It's an option, but not one that I think would pan out particularly well.

ShatteredElysium posted...

Curious as to how much content you put out per month?

My wife has been begging me for years to write and whilst I used to love writing (I have not done it in years), this would possibly incentivize me to do it. Wouldn't expect anything like your income but just knowing I had consistent readers would be enough.

My current update schedule averages about 4.5k words every 3 days. It's a fairly standard update schedule by internet serial standards, although that doesn't make it an easy one! The market is just really competitive. Some of the most popular ones update literally every day and that's bananas to me.

I can't guarantee you'll get any sort of consistent readerbase, but I will say that you'll have a much better chance if you do some market research and utilize the meta. A lot of people just start posting somewhere and hope for the best, and while that CAN work, it's like winning the lottery if it does.

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Daggum, Congrats on that KP! Hope it continues to go well.

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This is AWESOME, and reminds me of our Show discussions re: the crazy amount of talent on this board, and how much posting here has put us all miles ahead of the average millennial/zoomer in terms of writing, defending an argument, making a project, etc.


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Yeah that's insanely successful for being so new, congrats man!

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