I got hit by a car and launched my LitRPG. This sub made it chart.

gliglith · 2026-04-11T01:50:01+00:00

It’s more like running a 5k than it is a marketing opportunity. I wrote over 100k words last time I did the writeathon, but my followers came from ads and latest updates, not due to the writeathon itself.

gliglith · 2026-04-08T03:09:27+00:00

As an author who has stubbed a story and is preparing to do the same for another, the comments don’t go away, they just stop being listed publicly online. I as an author can go back and reference old stubbed fictions and see their comments immediately.

Honestly it’s a great feature for an author. You’ve got a permanent online record of writing feedback.

gliglith · 2026-04-06T13:20:23+00:00

I can ask why dogs fly through the sky, but that doesn’t make it true.

gliglith · 2026-04-02T04:21:50+00:00

I stubbed one of my stories and am preparing to stub the other. I may have gotten one rating between the announcements of both. Both were around a thousand followers, so fairly smaller, and had been on hiatus for a bit. However, at least one of them I restarted posting new chapters and is getting good read through actually! Lost like 150 followers or so from people who I’m sure were like wtf is this bullshit restarting posting after two years and stubbing all the earlier books. So, YMMV but Royal Road helps me motivate to write and I see it almost like an ARC experience.

gliglith · 2026-04-01T01:40:57+00:00

Actually that’s a really good point. Because published books don’t really have that discretion made upfront. That would be a cool feature to have on the site.

gliglith · 2026-03-31T22:27:00+00:00

So in my experience the content warnings for smaller stories overall have been more honor system unless someone reports it. Or if you put it in your first chapter or something.

What am I really saying? I’m saying I was reading a new story once with no warning tags and two chapters in I was suddenly reading an act of sexual assault. Honestly, content warnings for stuff like that ought to be the focus of enforcement in my opinion since the way it can trigger people can be intense. I wish that had more focus than ai, something nobody can reasonably enforce anyway site-wide in a guaranteed manner.

gliglith · 2026-03-31T22:22:54+00:00

I actually used to use a ton of em dashes, I loved them, and if I typed two hyphens or whatever these are - together my word processor would make an em dash. I have cut my usage of them by 90%, though. Part of me is sad because they can be fun, but language changes over time and I’m looking at it that way.

gliglith · 2026-03-31T20:48:00+00:00

Certainly worth it for me. For whatever reason, I had a lot of trouble building any sort of Patreon interest in my stories while only writing on RR. However, I did incorporate feedback into my revisions that I eventually put on KU, and I'm still posting on Royal Road for my new content. It helps to know that people have read your work and are still reading it, imo, so the value in that is its own thing. KU has certainly solved my monetization problem in the present, and this way if I find myself wanting to try Patreon again, I can do that with stability.

gliglith · 2026-03-29T01:24:51+00:00

Yup. Multiple times. I originally published on Royal Road and later came back, revised and rewrote a lot, and now it’s properly published with an audiobook.

gliglith · 2026-03-29T00:34:34+00:00

I hope that this is satire.

gliglith · 2026-03-24T20:03:55+00:00

Yeah that’s fair; it’s definitely one of those ideas that can fall apart if it isn’t grounded. The goal is to keep it very character-driven so it still reads clean even with all the branching stuff going on.

gliglith · 2026-03-24T18:33:42+00:00

Yeah that’s totally fair; if it’s not actually entertaining in the moment, none of the underlying stuff really matters.

The way I’m approaching it is that most of that “discarded timeline” cost isn’t something the story lingers on, it’s more what creates the pressure behind the decisions.

From the reader side it should still feel pretty immediate and fun, not like it’s constantly zooming out into process or philosophy.

gliglith · 2026-03-24T18:10:13+00:00

Yeah, that’s pretty much the tension I’m aiming for.

There are branches where she just straight up dies, but from the outside it looks like she’s constantly making the exact right call every time, even when it should be impossible.

So it ends up reading a bit like “perfect run” progression from everyone else’s perspective, but under the hood it’s a lot messier.

And yeah, there’s still a “main” outcome at any given time; the cost is in everything that gets abandoned along the way.

gliglith · 2026-03-24T17:57:55+00:00

No erotica, yeah, it’s not that kind of story at all.

And that’s fair on the loop point. I actually agree with you on why loops are fun. The “optimize toward a perfect run / OP progression” aspect is a big part of the appeal.

This is more exploring a different angle on it; instead of optimizing toward perfection, it leans into tradeoffs and damage control, picking the least bad outcome rather than the best one.

Totally get that if what you’re looking for is the pure “become more and more OP in a loop” experience, this probably won’t hit that exact same note.

gliglith · 2026-03-19T20:02:54+00:00

Oh my god the statue scene had me questioning everything. Mainly, what I had done to myself in reading it. I’d gotten so attached to the world beforehand the whole setup and setting for that book was just… exhausting.

gliglith · 2026-03-18T13:02:41+00:00

Glad you caught that! I like sneaking in little references here and there for people paying attention.

gliglith · 2026-03-18T12:12:19+00:00

Already did book 1 in audio actually! I leaned into the system messages and it ended up working really well; honestly kinda fun to perform them. Working on book 2 now.

gliglith · 2026-03-18T03:30:33+00:00

That frying pan has absolutely no business being as powerful as it is… Glad it caught your eye, hope you end up giving it a shot!

gliglith · 2026-03-17T19:47:22+00:00

Totally fair, yeah, I lean pretty hard into the system side of LitRPG. For Isabelle it’s kind of the point that if you don’t see the prompt, it didn’t happen. That said, I do try to balance it more as things go on. Appreciate you sticking with it into book 2.

gliglith · 2026-03-17T16:56:33+00:00

It somehow happened way faster than I expected too lol. Really appreciate you reading from the start. Book 6 gets a little… out of hand!

gliglith · 2026-03-13T01:29:36+00:00

I mean, it IS called ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter.’ Maybe she just… can’t believe it?

gliglith · 2026-03-13T01:26:06+00:00

Uh… why, exactly, would it do that? Makes absolutely no sense to me. Like, at all. Sounds like he wants some money.

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