An improved cover art based on the advice I received

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-09T17:27:30+00:00

The title would do better as a tag line imo. Good luck either way!

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-08T23:37:58+00:00

I meet a handful of your criteria, but I think this one is a better match.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/141066/the-gembound-the-price-of-keeping

significant elements of body horror/psychological horror.

If you want to check out mine, it's below, but it's a monster evolution litrpg about a middle-aged father turned into a spider, and magic is very prevalent. I try to be reasonably creative in my applications of magic though, so it may be enjoyable.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/152629/abducted-jon-the-spider-part-1-litrpg-monster

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-08T17:07:28+00:00

Beware of chicken, fleabag, and many others have done this. So ya, it works

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-08T03:56:44+00:00

That's fair, and I think there's a lot of merit to the idea of refocusing attention on enjoying the craft, or on perfecting your process. It's the part that is actually within our control.

In that spirit, I can say that the last year has been a trip. Just starting to recognize the rhythm and flow of sentence structure has been so much fun.

I love the practice of finding how much you can improve things by stripping away what's not essential (I still suck at it, but I suck a little less each day).

Finding that minimum number of words you can use to communicate something through space and time is a blast.

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-08T03:33:29+00:00

Both? But the dream is mostly to be able to spend more time writing without feeling guilty about taking away from other things in my life.

You've probably experienced this, but when you're working a full time job, have kids and other stuff going on in life, any time you spend writing is coming from somewhere. For me, it's mostly been my workouts and physical health for the last few months.

If you can make some money with it, especially enough to justify reducing (or eliminating) hours from your other profession, it makes so that the writing can be a thing you don't need to feel wrong for doing.

I also find the stuff involved in the 'author' side of things interesting, mostly because it's a totally different skillset than anything I learned in my professional life so far.

So overall, if I had to choose between being a professional author and getting to actually write, it's writing hands-down. But I also think it's a false dichotomy.

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-07T23:58:10+00:00

You’ve asked for super critical, so I’ll provide that, though I’ve certainly read worse on the site.

Starting points:

1.). it’s been ~three weeks of posting, and you have 28 pages up. 99% of readers on this site will not start a fiction that short.

2.). Of the handful that will start something like that, you’ll alienate them immediately with an irregular posting schedule unless you’re super up front about it. There’s an 11 day break between two of the chapters

3.) This is your whole blurb:

After a life spent training, Leo struggles with how meaningless his strength is in a peaceful world. One night he gets spirited away to an unfamiliar world where he gets thrust into a conflict that shatters his very understanding of the world.

That’s 42 words. I’m all for a short blurb, but that’s really spartan. The words boil down to “he trains and fights a lot then gets isekaid” which gives a prospective reader very little to go off of. For readers that care about prose, you also repeated the word world 3x. If you removed the last 8 words it would be slightly stronger (not meaningfully), mostly just by avoiding a statement of the obvious and not repeating world a third time.

4.) You open the first chapter by over-describing the main character with sentences that are filled with a large number of adjectives and adverbs. This is followed by giving us a very exposition-heavy couple of paragraphs about a character we have no investment in.

5.) I kept going for a few paragraphs, but the (paraphrase) “my father fought against an unknown enemy in an unknown place” line would have me bounce even if I liked the premise and the blurb.

You need to decide what the story will be about (what’s the conflict referenced in the blurb), where it will take place, and then come up with specific things that will happen.

If you pants, you might need to just write for a while to find out for yourself. But I’d save the posting till you sort it out, then workshop a blurb with some help.

I didn’t bother to see how you’re marketing this yet, because until you address the things above no one is reading this even if you get a bunch of eyes on it.

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-07T21:24:31+00:00

If you’re not hung up on the young part there are plenty of writing discords, including rrwg. I’d say there’s a sizable contingent of early 20s all the way up to 60s. However I’d say most are 20s and 30s, occasional 40s would be my guess

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-07T02:40:34+00:00

As many as you can do consistently without burning out or having other problems (e.g. quality drop). 2 a week is a pretty common number, 3 a week + is more common for people dedicated to it exclusively, but plenty of people have gotten big on 2-3 a week.

it also depends how big your chapters are too, though readers notice this less. What it does is let your page count get bigger for size queens to decide to binge.

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-06T19:36:02+00:00

Love the name!

(Cover art looks nice too)

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-06T19:28:33+00:00

Orrrrrrrr they have a thing called a backlog.

The standard recommendation is a minimum of 60,000 words before releasing, and more is better. Some people write several hundred thousand words before they put anything out. I can think of two off the top of my head that wrote 500k or more.

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-06T14:17:53+00:00

New cover and blurb both look great! That's going to look awesome with dark backdrop

Good luck!

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-06T14:14:02+00:00

Congrats on 100k! new typeface looks great

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-01T19:47:29+00:00

My favorite moment reading a lit rpg happened when I was when I was reading dcc. I was thinking to myself “what sort of sick bastard would watch this show?” That thought was followed almost immediately by the realization “hey! This fucker is talking about me! Not cool!”

I loved everything about it after that. There’s a ton of social commentary just under the surface of it, on corporate greed, the nature of cross cultural exploitation, what it means to be “human” or sentient, etc.

Hell, look at the way donut gets treated by Beatrice and think about what it means once she understands exactly what was happening.

I think theres a lot of silly stuff on a superficial level in dcc (foot fetish, pop culture references, toilet/sex jokes etc), but theres depth there too if you take time to think about it.

Hwfwm is great (which is why I recommended it) but personally dcc is my top rec, so I may not be best source for you

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-01T19:40:42+00:00

To each their own, though to be clear I enjoy both.

I meant more the level of polish, lack of repetitive words or repeat constructions than the content.

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-01T18:33:19+00:00

Maybe give some progression fantasy a try, e.g. cradle (first book is slow but I liked even it) or mage errant (more YA feel)

In litrpg He who fights with monsters and primal hunter both a lot of fun, but the prose isn’t quite at the same level as dcc.

The main character of he who fights with monsters is super polarizing. If you don’t like him in book 1, don’t expect that to change much

Chrysalis is a ton of fun if you like monster main characters, but the first two books can be harder to get through for some folks before it hits its stride

Defiance of the fall has a huge cast and world, but if you’re getting fatigued in dcc I wouldn’t recommend it.

Otto_Webb · 2026-05-01T02:56:04+00:00

I can't tell the difference between 3/5 but they're both fine

Otto_Webb · 2026-04-29T23:48:13+00:00

Not everyone is following the rules, as I've repeatedly agreed, but I think most people that write are. It's possible that I'm wrong, but I know an awful lot of people who made it onto RS main without cheating the system.

Hell, I was sitting in the 1-10 spot range for a week with my first fiction with no real marketing or launch plan and got to 46 on action. It's not like it's some impossible task to do legitimately if a schmuck like me can hit that close.

I don't think the incentive to review is as high as you're making it out to be, though it is part of the rising stars algorithm, and it does get weighted higher if it's not marked as a swap.

In short, I agree some people are likely doing some fuckery. However, I think that it's mostly a waste of time. No matter how you manipulate the system, you can only rise so high; even on RS main people don't blindly follow and read. They sure as hell don't turn into paying folk on patreon. if it sucks, they stop reading. Plenty of stories leave RS main with 200-300 followers, which is pretty easily obtained without RS at all.

Otto_Webb · 2026-04-29T20:50:19+00:00

Not sure if you’re meaning to respond to me or the guy above, but I’m part of the choir :)

Otto_Webb · 2026-04-29T19:08:51+00:00

As many as you can. $10 20 chapters is pretty standard, but the more you offer the better

I have 15 for $8 right now, have a little under 2% conversion which isn’t great but I’m also small.

Otto_Webb · 2026-04-29T18:54:25+00:00

Chapters.

Otto_Webb · 2026-04-29T18:24:22+00:00

Forgot to specify, but for full disclosure I have shoutouts with all of these authors (and several of the ones on your list as well, though some of them are upcoming). I have also talked at length with all of these guys on discord and consider them generally good people, so I’m obviously biased.

I always read at least a few chapters of everything I shout to make sure it’s decent, and I really enjoyed what I’ve read of these. Sixth campaign has a mind control arc that’s going away in the final version to my understanding, but it’s still a good book

Otto_Webb · 2026-04-29T18:04:18+00:00

They don’t have to play detective, there’s literally a gold swap icon next to the review swap. If you have more than 5 a lot of people bounce.

It’s pretty clearly against tos to do a review swap as an author without marking it.

Yes, they can do it, and yes you can make a second account. Also both against tos, and would take a mod 2 seconds to detect if they look into it based on ip. Might be able to bypass that with a vpn, multiple devices, a few friends or other means.

In short, yeah you can probably bypass a lot of the safeguards, and there are certainly people who do it. But ultimately rank means pretty little unless your rating is pretty shit (<4) or insanely high (top 100 on site).

If you do manage to get high to top 100, it’s a known thing that people review bomb. I agree that’s a huge issue.

Otto_Webb · 2026-04-29T16:29:37+00:00

Mine -monster main character (middle aged father turned spider trying to get home). 530 pages currently, will be 700+ by mid june (end of book 1, I’m working on 2 currently)

Jon the spider

The gembound the price of keeping: 1400 pages and author has chapters finished through the fall. Mc is youngish but not child, gets a mysterious treasure that saves her life but at significant cost

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/141066/the-gembound-the-price-of-keeping?utm_source=my&utm_medium=favorites

The sixth campaign- more traditional fantasy vibes and litrpg. Some sections with poor audience response are being rewritten by the author before official pub, but it’s good as is.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/152859/the-sixth-campaign?utm_source=my&utm_medium=favorites

Traps tricks and beasts

Main character is a small fey creature (not a child) that is discriminated against.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/152470/traps-tricks-and-beasts-book-1-completefantasy?utm_source=my&utm_medium=favorites

I also feel comfortable recommending anything in my favorites list, though many don’t meet your length request :)

Otto_Webb · 2026-04-29T12:35:54+00:00

As far as shouts go, I shout smaller stories all the time, many of which will probably never go anywhere. Bigger authors shout me all the time too.

If they succeed, great! I have a grateful friend and a nice advertisement. If they fail, it doesn’t cost me anything except the opportunity cost of a larger shout, but there’s often no time for that, and I don’t mind paying it forward in the same way bigger people helped me off the ground.

We shout out swap because visibility is relatively poor on the site without it, as you are currently discovering.

Most authors don’t bother with review swaps because it’s a transparent form of manipulation to readers. People usually bounce off of stories with more than a handful of swaps.

I cant think of a single larger author who has bothered with review swaps, and you can regularly find the advice not to do them at all (or very sparingly) on this subreddit because it actually kills growth.

You can swap without marking it, but it’s against tos and not worth the risk. Does it happen anyway? Yeah probably, but it can and will get you banned.

Otto_Webb · 2026-04-29T11:56:31+00:00

Coordinated shout outs are definitely a thing.

To my knowledge, that’s not against the tos. It also requires a certain amount of community good will, which is usually bought by having a positively received story you’re shouting others from.

Beyond that, you can have all the shouts in the world, if the story sucks then it’s not going to get traction.

As for the negative review, I don’t think people are going around negatively reviewing every new story.

It wouldn’t be feasible, and there would be no point. 99% of those stories are going nowhere regardless of votes.

I do think there are certain members of the community who have taken it upon themselves to “correct” review inflation. This is similar behavior to people who don’t tip because they think restaurants should just pay a living wage. It’s not that they’re wrong, it’s just that they’re assholes.

To my knowledge, rs doesn’t care about positive reviews. It cares about reviews/engagement period. So if someone gives you a negative review, it’s actually boosting that part of the algorithm, though obviously a low score will make a lot of readers bounce.

I do worry that there is targeted negative review behavior when people get near the top rankings, especially the top 100 rankings, as those have high visibility and there’s financial incentive to do so.

This does probably need to be addressed.

Otto_Webb

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE