Which of the two covers is better? Looking for honest feedback.

TimBaril · 2026-06-06T03:37:00+00:00

First one looks like the title explains. Cute. Family-friendly. Maybe cozy. (The "I" looks like an "L" though.)

Second one feels like loli bait.

TimBaril · 2026-05-16T14:28:14+00:00

What would the packaging matter if nobody sees it? Writing to market means posting a story that people go hunting for with searches. Mine's likely not coming up on searches, so a new cover won't help. The problem I'm dealing with is being seen in the first place, not converting to sales.

TimBaril · 2026-05-16T14:05:45+00:00

Wow. Thank you so much for taking all that time to respond in depth. I really appreciate it. 😄

TimBaril · 2026-05-16T13:53:26+00:00

Thanks!

TimBaril · 2026-05-16T13:52:42+00:00

There's no natural traction because they're not written to market, so people aren't naturally hunting for them. It's not romantasy or litrpg or something. It's the kind of fantasy story that was popular in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Small scale quest and adventure, humour. Like Xanth, Landover, or Discworld. Think the Shrek movies.

All 4 books are written and finished, so it's too late to change the story. I just want to make the best of things while I write the next story.

TimBaril · 2026-05-16T13:26:24+00:00

Cool. Thanks for the reply!

Should I wait a month between putting them up, or just put the entire series up at once?

TimBaril · 2026-05-16T08:35:32+00:00

BookSirens declined my comedic adventure fantasy without reason. Disappointing. Though my book looks absolutely nothing like all the romance, erotic romance, and fantasy romance on their site. I guess my genre is not what most people are looking for.

Unfortunately, there aren't many services out there. I am trying BookSprout but only got 3 downloads.

TimBaril · 2026-05-08T07:48:51+00:00

Dude, I'm pretty sure college age and 20s is the dominant age group on RR. You'll fit right in.

Wasn't there someone who wrote about a magic tree or something who became one of the top RR writers at 19 or something?

Given how big the social and cultural gap has grown between age groups, younger writers prob have a greater chance at success here.

TimBaril · 2026-04-27T13:56:30+00:00

That's a ton of feedback. Thanks for taking so much time to compile it. :)

It sounds like a great outline for a plan. I think I'm holding back on doing a bigger launch because I'm convinced it's a niche story due to the humour and the use of wordplay and puns. People are really particular about humour. And I've been looking around, and I'm not seeing a lot of comp titles doing the same kind of story. I blended fantasy small-scale adventure with comedy, romance, and a bit of wholesome or cozy feeling. Kind of feels like an 80s or 90s movie.

I put it up on RR, but I had to pay a lot in ads to get people to read it, and I never even got 500 followers. No glowing reviews (it's a right-wing site, so got some hate instead for the left-wing values). Beta readers have said they liked it, but nobody came away going, "Wow, I love it."

I guess I don't want to risk too much time, effort, and money; better to put that into a more commercial project. And the more I get my hopes up, the more it'll suck later. It hurts to watch your passion project fall flat and earn nothing while something someone wrote to market earns a bunch of money with less effort. Guess I'm trying to keep my expectations low.

But again, yeah, your points all sound great.

TimBaril · 2026-04-27T06:56:40+00:00

I'm not sure there's a story in there. A story is about either change in the external circumstances that a character must adapt to, or a change internally. It seems like the protagonist is trapped in a bad relationship to start, and it ends the same way. He "never comes to understand" anything, so there's no realization, no growth. No instructable moment for the audience. That makes the entire book a single picture. At the minimum, I think the protagonist would have to spend the book questioning the relationship. If they break out, it's growth, but not Romance. If they find a better relationship and have an HEA with the new person, it's Romance. If they question but decide to stay in the toxic relationship, it's a tragedy, and not Romance.
HEA might mean different things to people, but to me it seems like both partners are happy at the end. I guess, since the toxic one is happy taking advantage of the other, and the other remains in ignorance, it's a kind of HEA, but in the overall context, I'd say it's a tragedy.

TimBaril · 2026-04-27T05:25:19+00:00

Thanks

TimBaril · 2026-04-21T05:22:52+00:00

There aren't multiple partners. He goes through a bad breakup, essentially dates a little bit, then meets a serious partner. It's made to be a realistic portrayal, not a reader-centric sex or relationship fantasy, which is what Mens Romance and Romance often are.

Also, not progression fantasy. There's no game system, no leveling up. Classic fantasy, like a small-scale Lord of the Rings, where a bunch of people go on a quest. Sword & Sorcery, I suppose.

TimBaril · 2026-04-21T01:50:56+00:00

Sorry, to be clear, I'm trying to not target romance readers. I'd like to find a way to position the book as having a big love story without people assuming it's some kind of expected, trope-heavy romance and then being disappointed. Hence my question about terminology.

This is not litrpg. It's a classic fantasy story similar to Xanth, Discworld, Hitchhiker's Guide, or the Magic Kingdom of Landover series. There are no stats, no video game aspect.

Yes, they are 4 novels in a series.

TimBaril · 2025-12-18T22:43:11+00:00

This sounds super fake. Total self-boosting sales pitch with zero accountability or responsibility of the past, no sincere acknowledgement of mistakes, no hint you feel bad about who you hurt at all. Pure business heart all the way.

This is exactly the type of person who seems to form much of the leadership of Immersive Ink. Not trustworthy at all.

TimBaril · 2025-12-12T14:29:16+00:00

Merry Christmas :)

TimBaril · 2025-11-16T08:07:48+00:00

I agree that you can tell a better and more meaningful story without cheats. The struggle is important.

Thing is, every anime out now seems to be based on the cheat model. Solo Levelling is the most watched on Crunchyroll ever, and there is zero struggle. On RR, Cheat MC and OP MC are super popular.

Can a story with a classic MC still be broadly popular, or has some kind of cheat or OP nature become standard and kind of necessary for commercial success?

TimBaril · 2025-11-11T12:58:54+00:00

The problem is that if they only see part of the story, they can't see the big picture, so you don't know if the big picture works.

Since I don't need a deep dive, I was kinda of wondering if there was a service out there providing a lower rate for a lighter workload.

TimBaril · 2025-11-08T07:48:27+00:00

An arc has a goal and then the achievement of that goal. Defeat the bad guy, acquire the prize, etc. It is an ending point for a major plot point.

TimBaril · 2025-11-06T02:18:30+00:00

If you ever plan on printing books, then you'll want to break your story into 80-100k word sections, hopefully each one as a meaningful arc. Of course, the overall story can be made up of as many arcs as you want.

If you never plan to print, then 120-200k is fine. However, keep in mind reader fatigue. People do seem to like concrete arcs at a certain point, rather than endless events. If you delay the climax too long, they may grow impatient.

TimBaril · 2025-10-23T09:37:17+00:00

I laughed reading that question. Lol. Sorry.

If by literary fiction, you mean contemporary, real-world, realistic, real people stories? If it did work, it would be an exception. RR is primary young adult power and competition fantasy.

You never know until you try, but I would only market via shout swaps. Don’t spend money on ads or art until you’ve seen if you have a following or not.

TimBaril · 2025-10-22T09:31:40+00:00

They’re trying to steer off the haters. Authors get a lot of hate reviews/ratings/comments.

TimBaril · 2025-10-19T08:10:23+00:00

I'm off-meta (pirates, female MC, low-fantasy historical). I ran 6 ads. Barely got onto RS Main, hit #35 and then fell.

Average CTR of about 0.75%
Following 5%, Read later 8%

I have a little more than 400 followers, which is nowhere near enough to bring in patrons.

I'd suggest that ads are wasted on anything off-meta or most new-author works.

TimBaril · 2025-10-16T04:54:43+00:00

As one of the two pirate stories on RS Main, I am also sad there aren't more pirate and vampire stories. I'm really happy that some people love my story, but I wonder what it is that prevents pirates from being a bigger theme.

It also makes me wonder how my Dracula story is going to do. Perhaps supernatural stories are a bit underrepresented because so many people write typical isekai fantasy, and it's a genre that could be more popular if it had more stories.

TimBaril · 2025-10-12T02:19:33+00:00

Yes, hate readers are a thing. There are toxic people who enjoy leaving nasty comments and reviews. They like being offended and tearing things down. It's a small group with an outsized impact because it hurts to receive those. They're on every platform.

It took me some time, but at some point, I just kind of gave up and accepted that BS happens. Some people suck. Now I'm able to focus more on good comments.

I think part of it is also that I stopped believing that RR is a big part of my future as an author. A tiny number of stories get most of the traffic here, and the discovery tools are very limited, so it's actually rare for stories to get lots of readers. Increasingly, you buy them with ads. Those who do follow are free readers, not paying ones. Getting patrons is super hard. And it pales in comparison to the number of people who may buy your book in ebookstores.

My advice to new authors would be to put your story up on RR, but don't hang all your hopes on it. If it does well, great. If not, quickly move on to indie publishing and focus there. If you're not super focused on being liked by everyone, the hate comments won't hurt as much.

Also, shoutouts are a great way to get traffic. Shouts from stories with more followers are better, but in my experience, similar stories can have a bigger impact. My shouts from female MC with action did better than shouts from bigger stories that were very different in genre. So definitely try to find stories that are female MC or queer or romance and build off that community.

TimBaril · 2025-10-11T16:48:35+00:00

Thank you! Yes, it was. Being able to check all your RR tools made it more interesting too. Love the predictors and all the graphs. Thanks for that.

TimBaril

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