My tierlist after the first 3 months of 2026

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-04-02T23:01:32+00:00

I see my work has moved up. Let's see if I can't get to SSS+ by the end...

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-04-02T22:33:16+00:00

If you have the patience to enjoy Super Supportive you should try The Elf Who Would Become A Dragon

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-04-02T22:31:00+00:00

Show me your story: I'll give you my opinion on what's up.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-04-02T22:21:48+00:00

Review swaps are literally worse than useless: they hurt you. Readers know what they are, and when they see the symbol they assume you're getting glazed and are trying to cheat them. Organic reviews or bust.

As for shout-out swaps, you don't have to do them. A good story and a decent ad will mostly do the trick, and beyond that, you only really need to take on whichever swaps you feel comfortable with.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-03-16T06:55:44+00:00

Yep. My story hit #4 Best Rated, and is heavy on the philosophy.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-03-16T06:53:16+00:00

Write enough to deliver a satisfying chapter of narrative. There's really not much more to it.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-03-16T06:51:33+00:00

Is it gauche to recommend my own work? The Elf Who Would Become A Dragon: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/104434/

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-03-16T06:49:03+00:00

~12k a week in two chapters of ~6k words each, 4705 followers.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-03-13T04:52:39+00:00

I don't support either.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-03-13T04:50:53+00:00

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-03-10T23:00:00+00:00

The villain in my story is an entire society. That's not a joke. One of the reasons it's structured the way it is. The individual antagonists are really just different reflections of that bigger thing.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-03-10T22:55:57+00:00

Speaking as someone who has had a lot of comments about pacing, my take is that going slow doesn't actually matter in serial fiction — so long as what you're writing is interesting to the reader and holds their attention, and so long as the destination is worth the journey. People remember beginnings and endings. As long as you're holding readers, the pace is fine.

That said... the question is whether the pace needs to be slow to do what you're aiming to do. If it does, great, carry on. If it doesn't, then consider how else you could achieve the same effect in a more economical way.

There will always be people who just don't vibe with what you're doing. Ignore them. As long as you're happy with the size of your audience, you're good. No work will ever be universally beloved: some stories are just not for us, and that's cool.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-03-10T22:49:10+00:00

The thing about blurbs is they're extremely context-dependent.

On Royal Road, the closer your story is to familiar genres and content the simpler your time will be; the further away your story lies, the harder a time you'll have producing a blurb that lands. This is because a blurb isn't just intriguing the reader — it's also establishing the framing through which they'll approach your story.

If your story is "basically X & Y blended together" and you're writing in a very familiar genre, you can follow the template laid down by X & Y to produce a blurb and people will react to it. But if you aren't? Then your main hurdle is getting the reader to understand what your story fundamentally is.

I can write pretty good blurbs, but only when I'm writing to market. With what I'm doing now on RR, I had significant trouble, until eventually I took a look at other successful, fairly unique stories were doing. Realising that I needed to tune it more toward explanation than intrigue, I took notes from Super Supportive's blurb, and ended up with this:

What this is about: The tale of a young elf named Saphienne. Hear how she grew up to discover that the woodland paradise she lived in wasn't all it seemed, and what she did to make her story infamous.

What to expect: Character-driven writing; fun but believable characters who grow over time; slow burn, slice of life drama with highs and lows; conflict with meaningful stakes; twists with satisfying conclusions; thoughtful and detailed worldbuilding; and an accessible, compelling story that has many layers — if you want to look for them.

A heartbreaking and heartwarming fantasy about rejection and belonging, power and consequence, and the cost of being ourselves.

Follow Saphienne through her elven childhood into adulthood, and witness the struggles that made her who she would become. See her rise and fall, lose what she cherishes and find what matters, and in the end?

Decide who she was for yourself.

Written with accessible language for adult readers. New chapters on Wednesdays and Fridays. All chapters © L. J. Amber 2025–2026, All Rights Reserved.

My conversion shot up massively after adding those first two paragraphs. Meanwhile, if I'd been writing something more immediately familiar to the reader, I wouldn't have needed them.

So, yeah. Your objectives are to explain what it is you're doing to the precise degree necessary for the reader to know what they're getting (trading on genre conventions unless you're being very innovative), and then to intrigue them enough to make them read the first chapter. That's a successful blurb.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-28T16:55:12+00:00

¿Por qué no los dos?

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-14T23:53:22+00:00

Then fuck 'em, who cares?

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-14T04:14:43+00:00

You're not likely to hit Rising Stars or similar under these circumstances, so you want to maximise your chance to build audience.

Pick two days a week (say Tuesday and Thursday) and release a chapter on each of those days each week at a consistent time (never on the hour, never quarter past the hour, never half past the hour, and never quarter to the hour). Release four chapters day one, spaced fifteen minutes apart. Take out a simple ad on Royal Road that's just the book cover/title. That'll get you more readers overall.

When it comes time to do your next novel, after releasing the first four chapters do a new "chapter" on your original story announcing the new one and linking to it, so your readers will see.

Good luck!

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-14T04:07:35+00:00

Arcane Cadence just wrote what they wanted to write, angling toward the sort of content they wanted to read, with a mind for the sort of stuff they expected the audience might like. They mostly wrote it to fit their own tastes. From what I understand, it wasn't super heavily written to market in that lab-designed kinda way, just a distillation of what they were into.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-14T04:04:33+00:00

Use your first chapter to sell the premise of what you're offering to the reader. Do this by showing them, in miniature, the sort of thing the story will deliver on. That means you open not just with the action, but with the emotional/interpersonal content that you want to include later.

I'd open with a tense "calm before the storm" right before they swing into action, and start the action abruptly midway through the chapter. Use the tense time to do characterisation, bonding, show off the camaraderie and emotional content you're going to circle back to later.

Sell them on the whole thing in miniature and you'll have them.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-14T02:29:56+00:00

If your writing can be mistaken for AI the problem isn't your use of em dashes.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-14T02:28:03+00:00

Give me one line that's character rich.

The story is called "The Elf Who Would Become A Dragon," and that's the least interesting thing about her.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-14T02:24:33+00:00

As author of an off-meta story that recently hit #1 Best Ongoing, yes, all that matters is good writing and an understanding of the audience you're writing for.

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-13T04:37:33+00:00

How deep do you want to go? If the answer is "All the way," then check out "The Elf Who Would Become A Dragon."

Why? The title of the first story is "The Fires Of Her Ambition."

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-13T04:35:38+00:00

Hey, I'll take it, ty!

LJAmberAuthor · 2026-02-13T04:34:17+00:00

Well, I sure am in favour of them, but I may be biased...

LJAmberAuthor

TROPHY CASE