Kennit Wrote:

VladThatGuy Wrote:

Kennit Wrote:

VladThatGuy Wrote: Any who have an answer, certainly, but primarily to the most popular authors here.

While I have bounced around and through some pretty entertaining fiction here, probably about 7-8 authors now, I have found, sincerely, that LitRPG and progression can't be my thing. I prefer a compact package, and pretty well secured in traditional lit to lit fiction. But I have read some pretty good stuff, without contemplating or even thinking to looks at the "views".

That said, I have read/heard, some authors are getting upwards of 20,000 to 50,000 views per chapter? This is certainly to be celebrated. Pretty amazing if these numbers are accurate. 

My question is, if one is drawing 20-50,000 readers, that is traditional publisher envy. Are these writers publishing in the traditional market? 

If not, why? 

It would seem a natural to me.

Now, I claim no special knowledge of either the RR brand of genres, nor the traditional publishing world, and maybe said authors feel right at home here alone. 

Any answer is a good one, I guess. Tip of the cap to all of you living the good life! 

The potential of KU is astronomical compared to everything else. Without getting into specifics, even the "smaller" authors who have published on KU earn 6 digit incomes.
It just makes financial sense basically.

Sorry, I'm new to all this. Don't know what KU is.... I was thinking Kentucky University.... and realized that can't be right! :)

KU is Kindle Unlimited.
If you just publish your book on Amazon, you don't have to take down any chapters available elsewhere. But with Kindle Unlimited, you can't have the chapters on KU up anywhere else. Every story that is "stubbed" on RR is stubbed because some chapters were removed so that the book could be published on Kindle Unlimited.

Thank you Kennit!
Brian Murphy also mentioned Kindle to me for my work as a more appropriate forum. 

Your input is valuable, thanks. I'll go have a look. I imagine they have contact resources.

Thanks very much!

Kennit Wrote:

VladThatGuy Wrote:

Buller Wrote:

VladThatGuy Wrote: Are these writers publishing in the traditional market?

I gotta ask this. If you make a lot of money online without ever having to sign your books with a publisher who will take a portion of your profits, why would you ever want it? A good chunk of the popular people here already sells their books on Amazon as well. They have paperbacks, hardcovers, audiobooks, and not once were they forced to sign to any of the major houses. 

It seems pretty easy to me.

Thanks. It seems the underlying tone here is that I should have known all that? It's why I asked, actually, because I hadn't a clue. 

I started writing two years ago, and have written a blue streak, without an ounce of intuition about any of it, and my "history" at this is a blink of an eye to many here. 

Good answer though. Certainly, I got a lot to learn. And how does a guy start?

Thanks very much.

Are you asking how to start writing to make money, or how to start writing? 

Because if you're just writing for fun, congrats! You already did it!

But if you're trying to write for money/as a job, then you need to at the very least figure out what people want to read, and more specifically, what people will want to buy.

Well, I might be in my own ballpark, but am certain of my 7 novels, there are three or four of them that should have commercial appeal. One horror and two thrillers, but one non-fic that I have to find the perfect deal, because it certainly has potential for the story that it is.

I started writing to write and anticipating finding the market with the work.

I am unable to write for a particular genre if it isn't "in me" to do so. 

So, yea, with the things I have done or in editing, I'm looking to bring to a market for income and "discovery". I might be late to the party, but certainly working my tail off on material. 

Thanks.

LambentTyto Wrote:

Buller Wrote: It seems pretty easy to me.

There are other factors as well. Writers only make around 9-14% of the sale when with traditional publishers. Not only that, the contracts they have you sign are awful. They maintain copyright for years and years and years even after your book is out of print, as well as owning the rights to the "world" preventing you from writing in that world unless for them. Typically, when you sign a contract with a trad publisher, you become "their writer" and you work for them for that book/series. It's not a mutual cooperation. You work for them.

YIKES! 

I haven't been indentured since my teens! This is an unappealing look at the world. Certainly makes me debate the traditional market's "value". Doesn't seem to be much.

Thanks Lambent!

VladThatGuy Wrote: My question is, if one is drawing 20-50,000 readers, that is traditional publisher envy. Are these writers publishing in the traditional market? 

If not, why?

Lots of big authors that started on RR have already been published by publishers like Aethon to Amazon's Kindle Unlimited. If something is a [stub] on popular this week, then it's been published on KU.

Personally I don't use publishers. Been publishing my books myself. It was a hassle to organize, but I keep 100% of the profits.

Quote:getting a book was the significant goal.

No.
Not unless the publisher markets it well. Often a traditional publisher is incompetent as fuck at marketing and flops the release or straight up lies about how many books were really sold. Also the % offered is generally disgustingly low.

Quote:there are three or four of them that should have commercial appeal.

Commercial appeal on WHERE?
Who's your audience? Where are you planning to market it?

There are two realistic, awesome and fun paths to make money with books as writer right now:

1)Amazon's kindle unlimited:
Path: finish writing your books and publish them on Kindle Unlimited yourself and spend a few thousand dollars on cover and marketing. If they're fun to read, they'll sell, if not they'll flop. It's a bit of a gamble.

2)Royal Road:
If you want to make money off Royal Road via patreon then you have to write 1 chapter everyday for several years with no breaks and it HAS to be stuff RR likes: wholesome, litrpg, rational, progression fantasy, time loop and etc. Study the book themes on PTW for RR commercial appeal audience analysis.
On RR a book needs to have a very solid catch to get on rising stars and then an explosion curve in readers to get 1st place.

VladThatGuy Wrote: Any who have an answer, certainly, but primarily to the most popular authors here.

While I have bounced around and through some pretty entertaining fiction here, probably about 7-8 authors now, I have found, sincerely, that LitRPG and progression can't be my thing. I prefer a compact package, and pretty well secured in traditional lit to lit fiction. But I have read some pretty good stuff, without contemplating or even thinking to looks at the "views".

That said, I have read/heard, some authors are getting upwards of 20,000 to 50,000 views per chapter? This is certainly to be celebrated. Pretty amazing if these numbers are accurate. 

My question is, if one is drawing 20-50,000 readers, that is traditional publisher envy. Are these writers publishing in the traditional market? 

If not, why? 

It would seem a natural to me.

Now, I claim no special knowledge of either the RR brand of genres, nor the traditional publishing world, and maybe said authors feel right at home here alone. 

Any answer is a good one, I guess. Tip of the cap to all of you living the good life! 

A lot of authors publish to amazon and audible and make like literally three to four times their patreon income. Maybe even more. 

MelasD Wrote: A lot of authors publish to amazon and audible and make like literally three to four times their patreon income. Maybe even more.

That's very interesting. Why do you think that is? I doubt much traffic from over here heads over to Amazon to pay again.

LambentTyto Wrote: That's very interesting. Why do you think that is? I doubt much traffic from over here heads over to Amazon to pay again.

Amazon is a bigger marketplace than Royal Road. They basically have a monopoly on book sales (at least in the US), so the number of prospective readers is much, much greater.

LambentTyto Wrote:

MelasD Wrote: A lot of authors publish to amazon and audible and make like literally three to four times their patreon income. Maybe even more.

That's very interesting. Why do you think that is? I doubt much traffic from over here heads over to Amazon to pay again.

RoyalRoad is just a litmus test for specific genres. If it does well on RoyalRoad, it'll likely do well on Amazon too. Obviously, there are a few massive fans who buy the book when it comes out since it's not only edited but they also want to reread the story from the start. But those usually only account for the first day of sales, and the subsequent sales comes from Amazon readers, not RoyalRoad. 

powered_by_coffee Wrote:

VladThatGuy Wrote: My question is, if one is drawing 20-50,000 readers, that is traditional publisher envy. Are these writers publishing in the traditional market? 

If not, why?

Lots of big authors that started on RR have already been published by publishers like Aethon to Amazon's Kindle Unlimited. If something is a [stub] on popular this week, then it's been published on KU.

Personally I don't use publishers. Been publishing my books myself. It was a hassle to organize, but I keep 100% of the profits.

Quote:getting a book was the significant goal.

No.
Not unless the publisher markets it well. Often a traditional publisher is incompetent as fuck at marketing and flops the release or straight up lies about how many books were really sold. Also the % offered is generally disgustingly low.

Quote:there are three or four of them that should have commercial appeal.

Commercial appeal on WHERE?
Who's your audience? Where are you planning to market it?

There are two realistic, awesome and fun paths to make money with books as writer right now:

1)Amazon's kindle unlimited:
Path: finish writing your books and publish them on Kindle Unlimited yourself and spend a few thousand dollars on cover and marketing. If they're fun to read, they'll sell, if not they'll flop. It's a bit of a gamble.

2)Royal Road:
If you want to make money off Royal Road via patreon then you have to write 1 chapter everyday for several years with no breaks and it HAS to be stuff RR likes: wholesome, litrpg, rational, progression fantasy, time loop and etc. Study the book themes on PTW for RR commercial appeal audience analysis.
On RR a book needs to have a very solid catch to get on rising stars and then an explosion curve in readers to get 1st place.

Thanks for the input.

There is a learning curve that I am well behind as I have read many books, thousands prolly, and none on websites, till I started doing RR in January. 

One thing I already know is the work I produce has little life on RR. My fiction is real life people and dramas. 

Far as creating a following, I have just been introduced to options other than traditional publishing - never having known an alternative. Even RR, I posted things for fun, just to stat familiarizing myself with the world of web fiction.

Appreciate the insight. 

What is a "stubbed story"? 

Read it a couple times, a story on Kindle Unlimited was "stubbed" on RR.

Is this a brief version? A truncated book with only a few chapters? 

Is this a requirement of Amazon/Kindle?

I appreciate the input greatly. I suppose there is a center where all this info can be discovered? Rather than hustling answers here. That really wasn't the intent when I asked the start.

In my naivete, I assumed, traditional publishing was THE aspired "best" approach because I was unaware of alternatives. 

Thanks for the good info all.

VladThatGuy Wrote: What is a "stubbed story"? 

Read it a couple times, a story on Kindle Unlimited was "stubbed" on RR.

Is this a brief version? A truncated book with only a few chapters? 

Is this a requirement of Amazon/Kindle?

On RR "stub" is basically a tag to indicate it's only a portion of the whole thing.

I believe KU (not Amazon/Kindle generally but specifically Unlimited, though someone with experience should probably verify that) has a requirement that no more than 10% of a book be available elsewhere. Though I have also heard having any content elsewhere can sometimes fall fowl of their automated checks. 🤔🤷

Cinn Wrote: Though I have also heard having any content elsewhere can sometimes fall fowl of their automated checks. 🤔🤷

It takes one pirate site with your story on it before amazon rejects your KU submission

Cinn Wrote: I believe KU (not Amazon/Kindle generally but specifically Unlimited, though someone with experience should probably verify that) has a requirement that no more than 10% of a book be available elsewhere.

You're only allowed to give as much away freely as amazon does with the free sample thing. Gets iffy since there's no official thing about it.

I am a medium-sized author, but I have some knowledge of how the traditional industry works and some knowledge about some authors.
Reasons publishers don't pick up much from RR are the following in order of importance: 

1. Agents-to-Publishers
Let's start by saying that the number one reason is that Traditional Publishers work in a bubble. There's no coherent scouting or discovery process. Usually, an agent will bring the writer's stuff to the publisher and that's it; this happens mainly because publishers work with volumes too large to be looking for more themselves. Some RR authors have an agent, but most do not. Finding a person you can trust is terribly hard and not every agent might be your fit. 
So, you can peg down the first problem to a lack of bridges. Publishers aren't looking at the right places and writers can't be bothered to deal with third parties. 

2. Young genre
As in it came up relatively recently. Go out and ask anyone what a LitRPG is, and no one will know the answer outside a very niche group of people. If you expect publishers to be better than the average Joe in this regard, you probably have no idea how out of touch people are in traditional industries in general, not just writing. And since the pick-up process at a publisher is done through editors - who are these people stuck with concepts from decades ago - even if a LitRPG were to fall in their hands, they would have no idea what they are looking at. 
Also, I firmly believe the genre has yet to peak. The current behemoths of the genre are big, but not even close to being as big as the 'big' of other genres. There's still a way to go before LitRPGs - since RR is 80% LitRPG - can pick up enough speed for a big jump. 

3. Publishing Online
As the traditional people come from traditional backgrounds, there's a bias against web publishing. If your book is already up online or in a store, it's not going to be picked up by a publisher unless you have an agent specifically working for that. (Look at 1. again) 

4. Web people
Many people on the web are reticent to get an agent or to go through the necessary steps needed to succeed. If you want your book to have success, you might have to get interviewed, do several public readings, and so on. The traditional publishing might not be good enough to put you through those motions themselves, meaning you would have to do the work on your own - at which point you might wonder why you went traditional. 

5. TV show and lack of the necessary industry to produce those
Several mangas and books have been picked up because the publisher dishes out contracts where they get a percentage of any derivative work. And, my brother in Christ, if you are working with the publish industry, that's where the real money is at. You earn very little from single copies sold because the chain of sale is too long; which means that if you want to go full-time without having a second job, you need TV show/anime money. But guess what, LitRPG are not easy to adapt unless it's a multi-million production - and good luck getting one with the genre being so unknown. On top of that, this is not Japan. There's no real anime producer outside Netflix - which might at some point pick up some stuff that started from RoyalRoad. 
You can think of audiobooks as the poor disabled brother of TV shows, basically. It's good money, but nowhere near the money you get to be produced into a show. 

_Fowl_ Wrote: Publishing Online
As the traditional people come from traditional backgrounds, there's a bias against web publishing. If your book is already up online or in a store, it's not going to be picked up by a publisher unless you have an agent specifically working for that. (Look at 1. again)

Thanks for this developed organized response.

Just to be clear, my questions that started this thread came from naivete, not a bias against web publishing. I have not been in writing circles, I have just returned to my writing two years ago, after decades of NOT, and I am producing substantial amount of work, some of merit. Didn't have a clue about online publishing. 

I found myself on RR on a recommendation from a friend to observe and explore - that's what I've been doing, and that's why I am asking. 

Regrettably, so much of "information" comes from a tenured effort/experience, my publishing investigation has been total of 15 query letters last year on 3 different books, and then reading on this forum.

And after all this, it's a new language, and still wonder how to go about it. 

VladThatGuy Wrote:

_Fowl_ Wrote: Publishing Online
As the traditional people come from traditional backgrounds, there's a bias against web publishing. If your book is already up online or in a store, it's not going to be picked up by a publisher unless you have an agent specifically working for that. (Look at 1. again)

Thanks for this developed organized response.

Just to be clear, my questions that started this thread came from naivete, not a bias against web publishing. I have not been in writing circles, I have just returned to my writing two years ago, after decades of NOT, and I am producing substantial amount of work, some of merit. Didn't have a clue about online publishing. 

I found myself on RR on a recommendation from a friend to observe and explore - that's what I've been doing, and that's why I am asking. 

Regrettably, so much of "information" comes from a tenured effort/experience, my publishing investigation has been total of 15 query letters last year on 3 different books, and then reading on this forum.

And after all this, it's a new language, and still wonder how to go about it. 

You probably want to put out ad campaigns if you haven't. Seems pretty complicated to me to get the keywords, tags, and marketing set up optimally. My personal plan is to get a bunch of books completed as you did before giving only the best one a budget for editing cover art, and advertising (at least for my own vanity to have a novel done as professionally as I can get it). If you want a career out of it seems to be a long slow game gradually working to the top, but at least it's not Hollywood, or the music industry though. Now the thing I'm thinking with the modern internet distribution of content, my uneducated opinion from watching other people do it is that you release everything free of charge trying to get as much eyes on it as possible that will maybe fund you later (loss leading your form of small business that also seems to  require being set up correctly for tax purposes). I wish you luck with the journey, and presuit of more information along the way.

J.Weed Wrote:

VladThatGuy Wrote:

_Fowl_ Wrote: Publishing Online
As the traditional people come from traditional backgrounds, there's a bias against web publishing. If your book is already up online or in a store, it's not going to be picked up by a publisher unless you have an agent specifically working for that. (Look at 1. again)

Thanks for this developed organized response.

Just to be clear, my questions that started this thread came from naivete, not a bias against web publishing. I have not been in writing circles, I have just returned to my writing two years ago, after decades of NOT, and I am producing substantial amount of work, some of merit. Didn't have a clue about online publishing. 

I found myself on RR on a recommendation from a friend to observe and explore - that's what I've been doing, and that's why I am asking. 

Regrettably, so much of "information" comes from a tenured effort/experience, my publishing investigation has been total of 15 query letters last year on 3 different books, and then reading on this forum.

And after all this, it's a new language, and still wonder how to go about it. 

You probably want to put out ad campaigns if you haven't. Seems pretty complicated to me to get the keywords, tags, and marketing set up optimally. My personal plan is to get a bunch of books completed as you did before giving only the best one a budget for editing cover art, and advertising (at least for my own vanity to have a novel done as professionally as I can get it). If you want a career out of it seems to be a long slow game gradually working to the top, but at least it's not Hollywood, or the music industry though. Now the thing I'm thinking with the modern internet distribution of content, my uneducated opinion from watching other people do it is that you release everything free of charge trying to get as much eyes on it as possible that will maybe fund you later (loss leading your form of small business that also seems to  require being set up correctly for tax purposes). I wish you luck with the journey, and presuit of more information along the way.

Thanks very much.

I think I am going to work both ways - I have a non-fiction that is mainline lit with my editor friend. It's an epic tale of survival, fetal alcohol from birth, mocked and abused through his entire life, and where that story takes this kid - now a 62 year old man - is beyond heroic... 5 plus years in penitentiary for being duped into some stuff... blown up in a gas explosion in his camper - homeless for more than half of his years.... he ends up saving homeless vets from the streets and more! All couched in his struggles with homosexuality and being born disfigured from the illness. I suspect I can find a home in traditional venue there. Will be trying it soon.

Then my more thrilling fic, horror, more of the pulp fiction material, I will explore Kindle Unlimited. And not even where to start there. :)

Like I said, all a new language to me. 

Thanks for your input. Good luck with your own goals and success.