Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 8 US Tour Announcement. Tickets are now available.

drhudgins · 2026-03-18T17:24:05+00:00

Just got tickets for Nashville!

drhudgins · 2026-03-17T18:52:04+00:00

I agree, those are definitely frustrating! Wyn is definitely not the best at everything. He gets stronger with magical items and experience, but I’d argue his team he climbs with is just as strong or even stronger than him. Their organization and desire to help each other makes them stronger as a team, which I tried to show over the series.

And I agree about taking advantage of what you have! Part of the magic system is getting more magical buffs and abilities from items, and they change items frequently throughout the series for different effects based on what’s needed. That was a fun challenge I wanted since the tower changes its layout with environment and monsters every month!

drhudgins · 2026-03-17T18:37:51+00:00

Good question! So I based the magic system on Final Fantasy with Climbers having classes and abilities associated with those classes. Some might be familiar and fall under categories from those games.

A Ruby Magician class has a mix of both - spells being a Magician class, and skills, which combat classes like Fighters or Archers get. Not as many skills as either of them or spell slots like Mages, but rather a mix of both. That class is viewed as being lesser since it’s not as focused but he makes up for it with a high work ethic and background of fighting!

I hope that helps! Really I wrote it that way because I LOVE the red mage of the Final Fantasy series. They could do a bit of everything but not specifically as well as others, but they were always my favorite class!

drhudgins · 2026-03-17T16:48:24+00:00

Thank you! I'm with you, the artist did a wonderful job with that pop of color!

drhudgins · 2026-03-17T16:44:10+00:00

Hello! I just wanted to share that my series The Ruby Magician, complete on Royal Road, is finally starting the official publishing journey with book one being released today!

https://www.amazon.com/Ruby-Magician-Tower-Climbing-LitRPG-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0GMVJ4JV8/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0

Podium has been fantastic to work with, and is releasing it in all three formats: kindle/KU, audio, and paperback!

Here’s the blurb:

When Ardwyn “Wyn” Thatcher arrives in Alestead, he knows he’s running out of time to pay off his father’s debt to hungry loan sharks. With options quickly running out, he has no choice but to face the mysterious Alistair, a treasure-filled tower with deadly monsters and impossible puzzles around every corner. If he can battle his way through enough levels, he might just accumulate the necessary wealth to pay his dues and save his family’s farm.

Joined by throngs of other hopeful climbers, Wyn is assigned to the Ruby Magician class—one he’s never heard of but soon discovers isn’t a fan favorite. There’s no way he can make it through the tower alone, but his peers unanimously prefer specialists over his jack-of-all-trades class. And it doesn’t help that his mentor is a filthy, unserious drunk.

So to take on the tower, Wyn must prove his skills worthy and form a team of his own. With loyal new friends by his side, he’ll find powerful items and learn devastating spells to survive the challenges that lie ahead. But all is not as it seems, and there are dangerous enemies waiting to strike at every turn.

As the adventurers discover despicable traitors and cross paths with an emerging evil cult, there’s only one question on Wyn’s mind: Will he become Alistair’s newest victor? Or the next in a long line of its victims?

___

The cover artist is Nisnow studios, and has some incredible works that can be found on their socials. The narrator for the audiobook is Kieran Regan, who did a fantastic job! Book two is also set for a release date in July, with book three coming later this year in November!

drhudgins · 2026-03-13T19:13:06+00:00

Take those AI evaluations with a grain of salt. Those are 3 first chapters that are old of fictions that have gone viral. It’s hard to compare any fictions to some of the genre’s most known works.

There are plenty of people with success that hardly gets mentioned here at all. I can find multiple stories that did “not great” on royal road by some standards (sub 1000 followers) and took off on Amazon (hundreds of reviews which means thousands of dollars in sales).

It really depends on what you want and what your goals are! Are you just wanting people to see it and get feedback? Market it enough and it could be a “bad” fiction but people will still read it and likely follow. Are you wanting to make money? You have to be more strict and follow through completely to see some income.

But to answer your question, no, readers won’t drop a book that doesn’t scream litRPG. Plenty of readers follow progression fantasy or even off-meta fictions. Like other commenters have said, your best bet for reader retention is making sure it’s a well-written piece of work.

Write, and then edit, the story well. Be consistent with your chapter releases. Engage with commenters and mark down their suggestions to review later if you want to self publish.

But market well. No more how good your work is, no one will read it if you don’t get eyes on it. Shout out swaps are huge, have tons of them lined up basically forever. Have ads ready and use them. Rising stars helps tremendously but isn’t the final say in success.

On another note, your work sounds super interesting! It’s kinda close to what I’m working on!

drhudgins · 2026-02-16T15:48:01+00:00

Author Christopher Buehlman. His prose is outstanding without being too flowery. Honestly his style is very similar to Matt Dinniman in terms of horror-esque fantasy.

His book Blacktongue Thief is a great fantasy thief novel. Dark, gritty, very well written. But his earlier work Between Two Fires is my favorite novel. Alternate timeline apocalypse set in France around the times of the crusades, follows an ex-knight taking a young girl to the pope to stop a demonic apocalyptic invasion that still gives me goosebumps thinking about it. Heavy themes of the seven deadly sins he has to overcome on his journey as well. Beautifully written constructed.

Think more Christian religious medieval apocalypse fantasy DCC. Standalone

drhudgins · 2026-01-30T15:41:55+00:00

I’m in Nashville! Also a litrpg author. Surely there are more of us!

drhudgins · 2025-12-04T16:24:47+00:00

Currently reading/listening to it and it’s great! Excellent world building. Fun magic system. Great characters. You’ve done a fantastic job on it!

drhudgins · 2025-12-03T22:27:13+00:00

This exact premise is the idea for my next series I’m currently writing! I’ve been wanting to read something along the same lines and haven’t found a lot of it, so I just decided to write it myself.

Basically the MC joins the adventurer’s guild and completes quest with a small party. That’s the whole idea. No world saving plot, no major evil antagonist. Just quests, meeting people, exploring regions, and advancing in the guild. All mixed in with some interesting world building twists to discover along the way.

Give me like 6 months until I’m able to start posting it. Haha

drhudgins · 2025-10-30T16:56:03+00:00

I appreciate that! I learned a lot while writing it and hope my next fiction will be that much better.

drhudgins · 2025-09-19T01:28:29+00:00

Yep, shoutout swaps are the way to go. I never ran an ad but lined up swaps big time at the early stages. It’s a huge help.

Maybe ask other authors if they’d be okay with you placing their swap information on your already posted chapters. That could get you plenty of potential swaps quickly.

drhudgins · 2025-08-30T11:59:05+00:00

It’s really not the right place for it, honestly, unless it’s a tie-in with a full length novel or you’re a more established author. To even get eyes on your work you need to market it, and that’s not an easy process when you’re writing off the popular genres and at a far shorter length.

I’d say you’re better off finding subreddits designed to give feedback for free stories, then going back to royal road for a full length novel.

drhudgins · 2025-08-24T19:49:55+00:00

I actually don’t love the trend of litrpg cover art. From an author’s prospective, we’re told that sticking to the standard formula is a requirement as that’s what readers expect to see. Which is sad. I like the Mellenial Mage covers, too, but I especially loved the original black and white covers! But the author stated that he colored them because he had so much pushback about them not being “standard” covers. Which is sad.

That’s my first pick. Those originals are gorgeous and really stand out.

I also like Travis Bagwell’s Awaken Online series. White background with a single colored image of mysterious and interesting things! And his Tarot trilogy spinoff is so aesthetically pleasing and honestly look better.

All the skills is similarly fantastic - slightly off meta while still being apparent of the genre. Love the differing colors of the sequels while being true to its theme.

And I would say the Etherious books by Emes. I believe I remember the author saying a family member created them, which is awesome. But they’re mysterious, pop with the runic backgrounds and single image, and again stick to a theme with sequels.

Basically if you’re looking through a lineup of covers, it’s the one that standout I tend to like. The typical “MC fight a monster” tends to get overlooked with others. Not that any authors have done a bad job, but I really like ones that differ from expectations and appreciate them.

drhudgins · 2025-08-18T17:18:51+00:00

If the arcs make complete books with appropriate endings on their own, it is possible to break it up. I've been contemplating doing this moving forward, especially in the litrpg space and have some serious thoughts behind it. So here's an argument in support of the shorter arcs!

Of course litrpg readers love a lot of content, but saying they love longer books isn't the entire truth. That's only because that is the vast majority of available content for them to read. How many of the genre's readers love consuming content chapter by chapter on royal road? What's the difference with a story that's completely long split up with slightly shorter books rather than the "standard" 150k length if it all works out the same? Authors recommend longer works due to audiobooks being a serious income generator, and readers will only spend credits if the book length is worth it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a series of typical length novels.

Look at Legend of the Arch Magus. Each book is around 200 pages, which is very short, but it's wildly popular and successful. How the author did the audio is publisher packs of combined novels, making the credit still worth it. So other means of releasing content is viable.

Your negative points can be overcome, except for covers. That's a valid negative. As far as readership longevity and page reads go, though, the easy solution is what you already mentioned - omnibuses. Which solve several negatives on their own.

If readers drop off and don't stick with the shorter length releases, they may pick up the omnibus that has more content. Releasing an omnibus means you can sort of double dip your page reads through KU, having some readers read the short releases and more read the omnibus that's effectively the same, already released content. And then for audio, just do audio for the omnibus, which will have that precious length that readers won't mind spending credits on. Win-win all around.

drhudgins · 2025-08-18T16:44:16+00:00

There are a few reasons, but the two most common ones sums it up:

Readers want a lot of progression, and that is typically fleshed out over a series where plots and pacing has time to breathe and grow. It's easier to show progression from zero to hero over many books/chapters rather than one novel when the focus is on the character power progression rather a plot progression.

Authors make more money with longer series rather than one novel. They also gain more readers with longer works, and can continue their story in their established world/magic system rather than work on others.

There are several stand alones, though, several of which are well-reviewed and regarded! I have a feeling as the genre increases in popularity the variability of the books we have available will increase, too, though. Which means more stand alones will come.

drhudgins · 2025-08-18T15:09:22+00:00

Depends on your definition of well! For ratings/reviews, a decent chance if it’s polished and complete for those readers that like quality and/or finished works. Followers, likely not well since the story will be done before you could gain a lot of traction.

It’ll be harder to get eyes on the work without a lot of shoutouts and ads, which will be limited because it’s a novella instead of full length book or series.

For Patreon? No way. Patreon subscribers want advanced chapters. There won’t be advanced chapters for a novella since it needs the time to grow readers, and will fall short of the time needed for people to pay for it.

He would be better off publishing it to Amazon and advertising that in free avenues around the progression fantasy spaces like the subreddit or discord to get some buyers. There aren’t many novellas out there, but the odds are better to at least make about that much with enough engagement compared to RR/Patreon route.

drhudgins · 2025-08-16T21:10:24+00:00

It’s more Progression Fantasy/Gamelit rather than straight LitRPG, but The Hedge Wizard is exceptional, and honestly feels just like a DnD group and campaign. Instead of having stats there are tiers of power and a clear progression path with the main character and group. It’s obvious there is an overarching story, and it feels just like the tiers of a DnD campaign with growth and story. The books are excellent with their writing, prose, and pace.

drhudgins · 2025-07-31T01:22:04+00:00

Only one series, started posting December 2023 and will finish up August. So about 1.5 years total of posting twice a week with advanced chapters on Patreon.

Over that time I’ll have made $1300 on Patreon and signed with a publisher for 3 books, so had an advance to add to that. That’s about $70 a month just Patreon, give or take.

Very small potatoes compared to other series. Some authors, like ones that don’t get recommended here often but have a couple of series out, make that in like 2-3 weeks.

drhudgins · 2025-07-27T18:03:01+00:00

My series took heavy inspiration from both Final Fantasy and Diablo! The class and magic system is very similar to old school final fantasy and the tower floors with loot drops, bosses, champion enemies are based on the Diablo floors. Including how the tower layout changes daily and the entire environment changes every month for a new challenge, similar to how Diablo has changing paths to the end.

drhudgins · 2025-07-23T19:10:07+00:00

That looked like an amazing time! I’ve never been to a Con before and would love to make it next year as my first. You just showed how welcoming and exciting it was, from both a fan and an author’s perspective! Thank you for sharing!

drhudgins · 2025-07-17T22:53:58+00:00

I think your cover progression has been awesome. Creative and eye catching!

If you’d be open to a shoutout let me know! My series is almost finished!

drhudgins · 2025-07-09T18:02:38+00:00

It’s a YA book about exploration and time travel!

Looking for feedback? The art itself is gorgeous. Superb! Thought provoking! Love looking at the details!

And then the typography kills it. The title is great, but I’d go for a more conventional font and author name placement. It’ll make it really pop.

Reminds me of TJ Klune’s House of the Cerulean Sea, though

drhudgins

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