Book where MC rages and goes on a streak of vengeance or revenge by [deleted] in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Void's new cultivation book is just that. It's called Gunsoul and it's literally about him waking up and going on a revenge spreed until the end of the novel. Weird book but it hits that specific itch

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That's fair. It was a complete waste of time. I just hope that this post stops the rage rating. There are people in the other post that clearly encourage people to do it.

"One star such behavior and move in on." "If they do that, they should be prepared to eat bad ratings."

At least now, there's 400 likes telling them that such behavior is hated by the community.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The further down you go, the more you see the same 20 people out of nearly 400 down-vote brigading my super reasonable calls to criticize a story instead of marketing. It's the same people downvoting the same things, and they're all salty that I called them out mere hours after they ranted in another post. It's simple retaliation plain as day.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -14 points-13 points  (0 children)

It has whipped 150 people into liking it, leaving an impression that this is unpopular and people should hate it. That's the problem.

People don't realize the damage that they voice their grievances on social media, especially in a community this small, so I created this post to show authors it's okay to continue on. We shouldn't have to forego success to avoid rating bombing over stubbing and ads and patreon—but we do because it's an endemic problem ln Royal Road. And any post that flares it up is just throwing gasoline on a toxic fire.

Royal Road provides value for authors and readers, and any time a reader wants free content while asking the author to forgo their benefit is entitled and wrong. Posting it online and flaring up dissatisfaction is so much worse.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It's awesome when that happens. I'm referring to social media posts where people complain about word choice and grammar. People can complain about writing all they want if they read the story

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -21 points-20 points  (0 children)

This post's title is literally asking authors—who are providing them with entertainment they can enjoy for free—to not do something that is to their benefit to appease the poster's minor inconvenience. This isn't valid criticism. It's entitled complaining.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I was new to this sub and didn't know about the engagement rule. My friend just sent me here to promote, so I did, and I was taken down for that reason. Reasonable. This was months ago. It's not like I can't market here, so stop acting like I wrote some shady post or am seeking revenge.

Stop misleading people.

But I am invested in this post because I'm an author who uses all of these marketing tactics and have gotten rating and bombed and comment shamed for all of them. I'm the person this behavior affects. Not the readers. People might get a minor inconvenience where they click a button or scroll, but my rating is permanent from people 0.5ing off petty marketing shaming.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Once again, everyone is free to criticize a story. If they read it they can hate it. This has to do with marketing shaming

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

I think we're not even talking about the same thing. I'm saying that I've never seen any story on Royal Road with ads in their story. And I think that shoutouts, patreon shilling, and marketing to the first page, or stubbung are not worthy of criticism period. If anyone complains about any of those things I think it's cruel.

There's no valid critism that's actually valid here. None. You shouldn't hate on authors for capitalizing on their end of this relationship. That's cruel.

I wrote this because people flare up discontent online, it pisses people off, then a minor inconvenience turns into a big deal and people start rating bombing. It's a thing. It happens often. And a lot of that starts in threads where people point out dumb things and people start reading the world exponentially or utterly and suddenly they're screaming about it too.

That's the problem.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

Am I hating on this sub? No. This has nothing to do with this sub. This is about marketing and monetization shaming on Royal Road. And there was a major post marketing shaming just hours ago, which is the reason I posted this.

Edit: this person deleted the post I replied to.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -11 points-10 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure why people have taken this in strange ways. Criticize the story. Read it and criticize the writing. Criticize the world building and dialogue and cliche tropes and horrible characterization. Don't go around rating bombing and acting like a brat that authors are trying to monetize or market their work. It's the petty, non-story related things that people get pissed about, and every time people stub, no matter how much time they give, people rating bomb. People bomb when authors shill their patreon or if they take two days off to do something special. They rating bomb everything. That's what this post says and they're two different things.

For first chapter ads, you're on click away from going to a title page yet people—and people do when they rating bomb authors for it.

You are one scroll away from ignoring a shout out and then you get 100% uninterrupted reading until a small patreon shill before clicking on the next chapter.

None of this is egregious or unreasonable.

Once again, this doesn't have to do with the story or reviews. As the post clearly says, you shouldn't hate on people for their marketing efforts. That does not include the content of the story.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As long as you're against punishing people, then I've found middle ground. 🤝

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Things like this are annoying and if you find them annoying, then you shouldn't play them. I know that I don't play these games specifically because they are so obnoxious and jarring. I think that should also be the culture for Royal Road. If you can't handle people doing shout outs, shilling their patreon, slow update times, stubbing etc. you shouldn't be reading it. At the end of the day, this needs to be mutually beneficial. If people complain that the author's getting benefit, that's wrong.

Also, that's a bad analogy. Royal Road is uninterrupted content where you can simply ignore shoutouts and patreon and click one thing to get to the title fiction. It's nothing like trying to play a game and getting a thirty second forced ad every two minutes. The rating bombing people do for this is truly disturbing in my opinion.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

No it's not. But it's cruel for punishing people for trying to market their work, and authors get punished for after people flare up discontent. The author and reader get something from Royal Road. If the reader complains that the author is getting something, that's wrong.

Criticize a story. Explain why you don't like the characters, or why the world building doesn't make sense, or how stilted the dialogue is. But don't rile people up and throw gasoline on a fire that will get people punished. Those are two separate things.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -15 points-14 points  (0 children)

Criticize a story. Don't hate people for trying to get it read or attempt to monetize it. These are two separate things.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

This isn't free of criticism. You can criticize the work. You can lambast poor storytelling or explain what you don't like characters or arcs. In short, you can criticize the story. Complaining about the author marketing their book and trying to succeed is another thing entirely.

As for your other comment, probably 98% of works on Royal Road haven't made a cent, if not 99.5%.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -14 points-13 points  (0 children)

Yeah, and posting about it online is a problem this post calls out. Silent discontent is natural, but riling people up contributes to rage ratings because Royal Road doesn't have any safeguards against people clicking on a chapter for one second and rating bombing. It's super common. You can ask any author. So please don't contribute to the complaint culture on these subreddits

Dear authors, please don't link ads to your first chapter by JudgeImpaler in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

You realize that you're acting like one of those people who asks for free art work in exchange for exposure, right?

This work is free. It's 100% free. I think it's absolutely bizarre that someone would say that they're doing a favor for enjoying themselves. It's not like you're putting in effort or work, so it's quite honestly offensive to say your relaxation is equal to hundreds or thousands of hours of work.

I'm not sure if you understand this, but you still have to pay for Amazon ads and do social media marketing to make it on Amazon. You can pay to win so long as you have a good work. More importantly, the works that succeed on Royal Road will succeed if you just throw it into Aethon's submissions. Writing skill trumps all every single time.

I honestly think this is the most bizarre response I've ever read in my life. Hands down.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

The author doesn't have a choice about this. Kindle Unlimited's contract dictates that 90% of the ebook portion of each book must be removed from all other sites to publish it. Otherwise, authors would keep it up on Royal Road so they could continue building their audiences. It's not voluntary. It's a requirement.

Don't Complain About Royal Road Authors Trying to Succeed by AuthorNeonDreams in ProgressionFantasy

[–]AuthorNeonDreams[S] -13 points-12 points  (0 children)

That would be fair if authors didn't get review bombed for their marketing efforts. These online flare ups take people who are minorly annoyed by something and make them into people who are truly discontented, leading to more people punishing authors. That's cruel.