Royal Road… why?

This has been my most asked question… why did you choose to share your novel on Royal Road? Well folks, buckle up because this is going to be a long one. (but I promise it’s a fast-paced read)

Let me preface this by saying that I, in no way, am saying there is any one way to do something. My neurodivergent ass knows better than that, and I live that fact daily. So nothing I am about to say should be taken as fact or law or whatever. I am simply sharing MY why, MY reasons for choosing to do things the way I have. As well as sharing how things might/will change moving forward. (spoilers will be spoiled - be prepared.)

I do not like being told no.

There. I said it.

I am a big baby when it comes to anyone telling me what to do or telling me I can’t do something. And, as already established, my neurodivergent ass LOATHES the idea of anyone controlling me, no matter how minimal.

As an AuDHD person, my brain exists in two modes…

1 - the Autism side… the craving for structure and rules and boundaries and gathering all the ducks in neat little rows.

2 - the ADHD side… the chaos and anarchy and “how dare you try to tell me what to do!?” (even to my own self)

SO… what that means is I constantly crave structure and routine, but the moment I place a routine in place my brain immediately rebels against it and madness ensues…

Sounds fun, right?

For me, yes… but that’s because I am a self-admitted chaos cupcake who thrives on the back-and-forth.

But I digress…

It gets crazy up in here on the regular. (God, if that sentence doesn’t share my age and elder millennial status, I don’t know what will.)

So suffice it to say that while I was drafting my first full-length novel, I had lots and lots and lots to think about as far as Indie/Self-pub versus Traditional publishing. I needed to know where in the Venn diagram my brain could fit in the crossover of what each of those worlds allowed and/or restricted.

I mean, ideally, I could just live out my feral raccoon fantasies and write to my heart’s content and never have to step foot into the actual world and just have all of my stories beloved by all with 0 marketing effort on my part.

Ideally.

Sadly, despite my feral raccoon energy, this cannot be my reality.

So then where on the spectrum of publishing do I fit?

The correct answer (an honest one) is neither.

Le gasp!

Dun Dun Dun!

(Insert whatever shocking discovery meme you want here.)

‘Tis true. Neither actually fits me. Both worlds have pros and both have cons. So in my quest to discover where I might fit, I was suggested Royal Road.

Now what is Royal Road exactly?

To my knowledge (mind you, I’m no expert… clearly), Royal Road came about as a platform for LitRPG writers to share their work since when it first came about LitRPG/Gamelits and other similar genres had yet to find the success they have now. And from what I understand, it helped pave the way for that success. It’s a platform where writers can share their stories daily/weekly, often called web novels or web serials, with a broad audience based on specific tags/tropes/etc. It’s a really great site and I highly recommend anyone and everyone check it out if you haven’t heard of it.

But where do I come into Royal Road?

For me, it gave me a place to test the waters. I’d finished book 1 months and months ago… and had just been kind of sitting on it, not making any decisions. My brain kept reeling with all of the possibilities, what-ifs that it could possibly muster, and I threw my hands in the air and literally said, “fk it. let’s try something”.

So as a way to test the waters, I used/am using Royal Road as sort of a “soft launch” release. By releasing it serially (sharing one chapter every week) I can ease into the feedback/idea of pubbing/anxiety/etc.

And for all intents and purposes, so far, it has offered just that. I have eased into things, come to terms with things, gotten past some anxieties and have actually grown a lot (myself, not in terms of social media or anything to clarify what I meant) just in the few months I have been posting.

HOWEVER, remember how I said Royal Road is more of a LitRPG space… yeah… while there are some urban fantasy series on there, it’s not the bread and butter or what people flock to the platform to read. And even of those urban fantasy stories on there, most are more serial or web novel formatted and structured and less regular novel structured. I knew this going in, don’t get me wrong, so I was not surprised when my story didn’t “take off” so to speak.

There is one major difference between publishing the book as a whole and serially releasing episodic chapters.

Pacing.

More people are more likely to keep turning the page through a slower part of the book in anticipation of the pace picking back up again or even have the option to skim ahead to see when it picks up in a full book. Less likely to return each week when they have to wait a whole week for the possibility of it picking up without any guarantee.

This is exactly where I am in my release schedule. I anticipated this to happen, so I am by no means upset; let me make that clear here and now. Currently, I am at Chapter 17 on Royal Road, which in terms of storyline goes, is at the lull before things go crazy and get hectic. Every book has that moment right before the main character makes the choice to enter the new world or stay in their norm. Savi is at that point.

Not to say it’s boring by any means. I mean some may disagree and that is perfectly fine. Writing/reading is subjective. But in terms of Royal Road and the weekly release, it makes it a big ask to request people come back each week and push through that lull. Now, on RR, they have a small section under each chapter where the author can post notes and stuff for everyone to read. Technically I could shout it from the rooftops there with something like “I PROMISE< IT’S ABOUT TO GET BETTER< JUST HOLD ON A FEW MORE WEEKS!” but how likely would that work?

Even for me, not so much.

We all want immediate gratification because, like I said, it’s not boring right now. There are some major page-turner questions popping up in anticipation of her making her choices; however, as such (wanting instant gratification), it can get annoying being denied that week after week because a few chapters build up to it. Especially when the build-up is slower.

And yes, the build-up here is slower for a very good reason. Partly because it’s dual POV, so you have to build BOTH POVs' anticipation for both their choices, but also because once it kicks off after the choice has been made, it doesn’t really ever let up.

I did this on purpose for a multitude of reasons, but the biggest being the juxtaposition of how “easy” or “slow” her reg life was compared to the chaos and newness she’s instantly thrust into. Another big reason that ties into that is because once she’s thrust into it, the fast pace leaves her reeling and, as such, directly correlates to the reason she makes choices going forward that she does and the consequences that arise from them.

There is a lot of subtle, nuanced comparison between the beginning and end and between specific characters that I crafted into this series. This is one thing I am highly proud of, but it also comes with it the caveat of “people won’t appreciate it ‘til they finish it and realize it when certain things come into full circle view” but in order to get to that point, they have to be able to finish it. Which, as stated, becomes a big ask for readers to come back week to week.

According to Royal Road alums, my project is a big FAIL on the platform. It has only gotten 3 actual followers, 1 of whom I know in person, and very little interaction with comments, rating, etc.

And you know what?

That is okay.

Because why?

It’s serving its original purpose for me. To be a slow ease into publishing and sharing my story.

Now, even looking at the analytics on the platform, I am seeing consistently 65 different readers/accounts/ips show up week after week.

If there were 65 people in my room right now, I would cease to exist.

I have seen that number start to dip as the lull has hit, but I would still cease to exist with the amount that still showed up even yesterday at the release of the latest chapter.

And this is with hardly 0 marketing to help it. That was also a purposeful choice from the get-go. I wanted it to be organic and be slow to start… see, original intent. Ease in.

So where does all of this lead now? What does all of this mean, and what did I refer to at the beginning of how things will be going forward?

Here’s what to look forward to.

Firstly, more blog posts. At least biweekly (Monday) posts, but ideally I want to do weekly (Monday).

Secondly, there will be changes on the Royal Road front with another story coming into play! (mini spoiler - it’s a gamelit.)

Thirdly, sharing where things are headed as far as The Whispers Saga goes. But this ties back to point one, and so on Monday, I will be sharing a post solely on what to expect coming soon and a peek at the new gamelit story coming to Royal Road. So definitely follow up on Monday to find out more about that or in the meantime you can join the Lockhart’s Whispers discord to get more info and behind-the-scenes info on anything and everything I’m up to.

For now, I think I have held your time hostage long enough but wanted to share a little on why I chose Royal Road for those who always ask. I might eventually do my own side-by-side comparison post of MY pros and cons to each side of publishing and my in depth thoughts about it, but for now, I hope this answers it… it was mostly a choice for sanity’s sake because there are SOOOOO many ways to do this author thing.

Cheers for now, and happy reading!

<3

Rhea