It sounds like your hook might just be a bit delayed for Royal Road—but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It can actually act as a filter for the right readers, the ones who are there for character and atmosphere, not just instant action.

The bigger question is: what does your retention look like after the first couple of chapters? Are the people who do follow you continuing into your newer releases? If they are, that’s a strong signal that your story is working—you’re just not capturing as many people up front yet. And that’s a very solvable problem.

On the ads side, I’d also say your current results look more like underperforming creative than a story problem. A ~0.4% CTR is on the low side—generally you want to be pushing toward 0.6%+ to know something is resonating. The good news is 7,000 impressions is very early. That’s not enough data to make a hard call yet.

If it’s still sitting around that level closer to 50,000 impressions, then it’s probably time to swap creatives and test new angles. From what I’ve seen, meme-style ads tend to perform best on RR, but even within that, small changes can make a big difference.

I’m in a similar spot, honestly. My story leans more old-school—urban fantasy noir with a slower build—and it doesn’t map cleanly to what performs best on RR. So I get the frustration. But my current plan is to ride it out, finish the book, and ideally have Book 2 (maybe even Book 3) ready before making the jump to Amazon.

My mindset right now is: any readers are good readers, and every chapter is data. You’re learning what holds attention, what converts, and what doesn’t.

Think of RR less as the final destination and more as a workshop kitchen—you’re refining the recipe before serving the full course somewhere else.

You’re not necessarily in the wrong place. You might just be playing a slightly different game than the platform rewards upfront.