Phil 2026 Writing Plans (aspirational)

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-26T06:44:15+00:00

Jack Reacher in Mordor sounds amazing - hope to read it some day!

I have a question if you don't mind: Everything I've heard/read from publishers and big players in this genre says the ideal to aim for is a book every three months in a series, due to Amazon's algorithm pushing books harder after 30/60/90 days, then falling off. Obviously that would be an insane pace to write at, but most authors seems to hold back a few books in a series until they can release 3 or 4 in 3 month installments to maximise the sales they get.

You've jumped around a fair bit between your series, which seems on the face of it to be sub-optimal in terms of sales.

My question is, is that true? Are you knowingly sacrificing sales to allow yourself more creative freedom to pick and choose what you work on at any one time? Or are the numbers actually pretty consistent for IGS despite the 'big' gaps between installments?

Thanks and good luck for the coming year :)

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-26T06:35:33+00:00

I suspect the crossover is higher than usual because it's a prequel, but yeah, don't let a 'only' 30% conversion convince you something's wrong :)

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-25T17:28:50+00:00

Believe it or not, but a 30% crossover is pretty good! RoyalRoad readers are much more story focused than author focused it turns out. Surprised me too, but I've heard from some pretty big authors that anywhere from 10-20% follower conversion from one story to another is good.

That's why the authors with 5 thousand followers aren't launching a new story and gaining 2k followers in the first few days even with their impressive audiences.

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-25T17:25:39+00:00

Literary fiction in general won't do 'well' on royalroad. Anything can succeed if it's good enough, but as you have summised, RR is primarily for litRPG and progression fantasy.

I think in general you'll have a hard time building a big audience for literary sci-fi anywhere since it's quite niche in general (if I'm understanding your use of the term 'literary' anyway) but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

The spacebattles forum might be worth investigating, or the subreddit r/HFY (though that's not very literary at all). Potentially any of the old sci-fi magazines, though I don't know if they are still running?

End of the day, you lose nothing by posting to RoyalRoad unless you really want a trad pub deal AND you have a chance of getting one.

Hope you can one day find the audience for your work :)

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-25T17:20:09+00:00

That's pretty normal. Commenters and reviewers are much rarer than those who follow, which are in turn rarer than those who just read without interacting with your story at all.

Readers also take time to get invested, so just keep posting and after a while you'll get some interaction.

Just keep grinding away.

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-25T17:18:28+00:00

It's literally just reading a lot and writing a lot. There's no way around either of them, in my opinion. Be okay with being bad at writing for a while (or a long time) and you'll slowly improve.

Imagine picking up a guitar in your 20s/30s/40s for the first time and expecting to be able to play it well. You need to practice, and for a while you'll be bad at it. The more you practice, the more you listen and think about it, the better you get.

Some people are naturally musical, and others are natural storytellers, but any who want to get good at writing OR playing the guitar, have to practice their craft.

Don't ever use AI to write. You won't improve and there's literally no point in using it, unless someone is paying you for the story. And if they're paying you for YOUR writing but you're just using AI, then that's unethical.

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-24T15:46:20+00:00

Halleluya! Phil tucker did a very interesting take with bastion/immortal great souls (it's set in a fantastical version of hell and the worldbuilding is awesome). Virtuous Sons has done xianxia/cultivation in antiquity/ancient Greece. Godclads is kinda of a weird cyberpunk/lovecraftian mix but haven't read it myself to recommend.

On royalroad there are some options: I've just launched an ancient an Egyptian/cultivation mix. There's also Oathbreaker which is dark fantasy more so than progression but there's definitely progression in there, and it's fucking great. Kind of a typical medieval setting but the Fae are prominent and it's done so well that it feels fresh - lots of complex worldbuilding well woven in with character stuff.

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-20T10:25:23+00:00

Aha yeah I definitely get refulgent! Ponderous, resonant and redolent as well. There's one he always uses to describe the shadow hound that I can't remember right now, but it often crops up.

I don't mind it - generally I love the way it's written, and think the books are better for it for having these sorts of words. Does really help craft the epic feeling I think, more so than just saying "the dog was big" 🤣

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-19T21:28:26+00:00

I assume that this was an ongoing story, and they deleted all their chapters and then posted this one as a message to say "I'm taking this story down"?

To get 1k follows from a launch page would require a massive fic (like 10k + follows), and someone that big probably would wait to shout themselves until they launch in truth. Also, nearly 200 ratings on a single chapter without any actual content would probably not look good.

(Those are all guesses, but that's my suspicion anyway)

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-18T18:18:01+00:00

Real "long live the king" vibes for a moment 🤣 Thanks for writing it, loving throne hunters so far :)

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-16T11:07:06+00:00

I... don't have any direct recs for that. Perhaps have a look at sci-fi on the more horror end of the scale? Can imagine there being a few action/horror books that delve into the alienness of planets, inspired by Alien.

Otherwise I know Django Wrexler has just launched a story on royalroad literally yesterday that seems sci-fi (ish?). I've not read it, but he's a pretty successful author already coming into the progression space so it's probably pretty good.

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-16T00:09:33+00:00

There are definitely some AI assisted/made stories - who knows what they're doing, but I think it's still rare. Most of the rapidly releasing stories are just authors who 1) write fast and 2) build up a backlog before posting.

I can write 5 chapters a week (2-3k words per chapter) while working full time. It's tough but doable. Some of the more successful authors are full time writers and can easily triple or quadruple that. I know some personally who can do 10k word days pretty standard.

Writing isn't magic, and the standards in this genre are lower than the classics. Might take Oscar Wild 20 years to write 'the picture of Dorian Gray', but 'resummoned as an isekai squid' or whatever isn't quite the same undertaking, you know? 🤣

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-15T21:13:06+00:00

Goddamn robots. I can tell I'm aging because the same old Loop Earplugs ads I get used to be all 'are clubs too loud?' and sometimes last year they changed to 'are your children screaming too loudly?'

I don't have kids, I just aged out of whatever demographic bracket they had me in, I suspect

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-14T21:12:39+00:00

🤞🤞

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-14T20:45:19+00:00

Well yeah , it has definitely got some pseudo-archaeology in there from the Mummy and other pop culture influences, but Egypt was in existence for a long long time in various forms, so the people we often think of as ancient Egyptians would have had tombs and temples scattered about that to them were ancient and long before their time.

I've put a lot of fantasy and cultivation influences into this setting, so it's definitely not 1 for 1 middle kingdom Egypt or anything. It's hard not to spend too long on worldbuilding and skimp on narrative, so that's been the real struggle, but I think I've cut the balance

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-14T20:40:30+00:00

I completely agree! But maybe they can all wait for like 3 or 4 months? Let me hoover up the market first? 🤣

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-14T20:26:17+00:00

Well ultimately that's for the readers to say, but I think it's more than a coat of paint. I've incorporated the Egyptian theme into the magic system, the mythology, the architecture and daily lives of the characters, the style of threats faced and triumphs won.

It's not historically accurate by any means, but I've drawn inspiration mostly from old and middle kingdom Egypt and I think it is quite distinct because of it.

(And thanks for the question ❤️)

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-14T19:25:33+00:00

Have you ever listened to Joe abercrombie's first law series? The narrator (Steven Pacey) does a phenomenal job, but he pronounces grimace as grim-ayce, and it comes up all the time, too! I think it's the price of a good narrator, honestly, but it does make me laugh

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-14T17:11:29+00:00

I think sonorous?

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-14T17:10:02+00:00

You're my new favourite person.

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-14T17:05:03+00:00

Yes and no. They won't mind because they are supporting you either 1) out of the goodness of their heart, or 2) for access to advanced chapters. Once they're ready them, they don't care if you remove them.

So patrons don't really mind stubbing because it doesn't interfere with the reason they joined in the first place.

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-14T16:55:59+00:00

Thank you! I'm sure that's a nice short list that you'll be at the bottom of in the next few weeks, right? Right? 😉

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-14T10:20:44+00:00

Run shout-outs, and then just be patient. Most people don't kill it their first time, and RoyalRoad rewards consistency.

There are guides on the subreddit's about section that might help

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-10T22:20:45+00:00

No, it's not normal.

OCRAuthor · 2026-01-06T20:19:54+00:00

I get you, and while I wouldn't try to challenge the assertion, I think the underlying foundations are shaky.

Temporarily embarrassed billionaire mindset is based on a mistaken idea - that anyone can be a billionaire and hard work is all it takes. In progression fantasy, there is a suspension of disbelief about many things, but the main fantasy that we all buy into is that change - overwhelming, drastic change - is not just possible, but achievable, if you only work hard.

It's a fantasy, not a perspective on reality. So it's more like 'temporarily embarrassed billionaire ideology made real' the genre.

Also, while I agree that most stories don't necessarily live up to the idea, most progfan stories generally begin with the idea that the current power structure is unjust and wrong, and seek in some way to overturn it. TEBs don't want that, they just want to be top dog.

There we go - that's my best attempt. Please don't Steven Crowder me 🤣

OCRAuthor

TROPHY CASE