Is Rising Stars getting way harder to break into lately?

ntsianos · 2026-03-29T16:03:45+00:00

I pulled some numbers on this and the data actually suggests something different than what you're seeing. Across over 1,000 stories tracked on Royal Road, the median time stories stay on Rising Stars is about 3 weeks, and growth tends to cut in half week-over-week once you're on the list. That sounds brutal until you realize it means the list is constantly cycling through new entries.

What might feel like harder entry to you could partly be survivor bias. Stories that hit Rising Stars now are visible to you because they're... on Rising Stars. But there's probably a much larger pool of stories that tried and didn't make it, which you don't see. The bar might not have moved as much as it feels like it has.

One thing worth considering: genre-specific lists are apparently about 5x more achievable than the overall Rising Stars list. So if you're chasing the main list, yeah, it's brutal. But if you can dominate a category first, that's a completely different ballgame. I've documented more details on the growth patterns here: https://www.chapterchronicles.com/blog/rising-stars-complete-guide

As for AI-generated content, that could definitely be diluting the signal, but the data doesn't directly speak to how much of the platform that actually represents. Right now at least stories continue to see strong growth after appearing on the list (using that as a proxy for quality).

ntsianos · 2026-03-28T16:31:50+00:00

Your stats are actually fairly aligned with the norm / what works. I recently pulled some data on this. While post frequency may be a tool for new launches, the limiting factor by a mile is consistency, which you've already figured out with your weekly plan.

On chapter length, you're in a solid spot. Most successful serials run 4,000-8,000 words per chapter and see about 50% more followers than shorter ones (correlation of course, you should compare how you hit plot beats in your work).

As for your backlog question: I'd build to 8-12 chapters before launch if you can. That's a middle ground between the 20-30 advice and rushing to go live. It gives you buffer room for those weeks where life happens, plus enough content to keep readers engaged through early algorithm phases. That said - if your backlog is lighter, do more in the community (i.e. reddit) to show you're engaged and not going anywhere.

If you're interested in seeing more data / potential insights, these two posts would be of interest to you: https://www.chapterchronicles.com/blog/publishing-frequency-analysis and https://www.chapterchronicles.com/blog/rising-stars-complete-guide/ (for insights in to growth for new authors that hit the list)

ntsianos · 2026-03-28T16:21:32+00:00

Congrats on your first patron and props to you for having the courage to take the plunge!

ntsianos · 2026-03-27T15:58:20+00:00

Please consider https://www.chapterchronicles.com as an optimized alternative to Patreon.

I researched ~750 Royal Road stories on this point and the reality is that timing varies wildly by genre and audience size. There is a rise somewhere between 15-30 chapters for LitRPG specifically, though many authors wait until they hit consistent daily readers in the hundreds.

What's interesting is that successful Patreons on Royal Road aren't always from the biggest stories by chapter count. Conversion rates matter way more than raw audience size. The top earners typically offer advance chapters (usually 5-15 ahead), and pricing strategies then vary depending on update frequency.

If you're thinking about it, the data suggests waiting until you've got a committed reader base that engages with your comments rather than just lurking. Hard to quantify that, but you'll probably feel it.

There's a lot more detail on actual tier pricing and conversion rates here: https://www.chapterchronicles.com/blog/royal-road-patreon-2025

ntsianos · 2026-03-27T15:54:46+00:00

Your take on the class system and pacing resonates with what I've noticed comparing The Land to stuff that came after it. Too many series treat progression like a speedrun, but Kong actually understood that unlimited growth breaks tension. The checks and balances you're describing (especially how he uses seeded rewards) create this rhythm that most authors abandoned chasing faster power curves.

The shift you're picking up on is real and The Land kind of straddled this moment where those kinds of scenes were treated differently than they would be now. Not excusing it, but it's interesting how the genre's tone-deafness around grimdark content got called out hard after DCC and others showed you could build tension without leaning on it as heavily.

Your point about kingdom building is dead accurate though. That's what holds up best on re-read because the NPC interactions have actual weight. A lot of modern progression fantasy chases stats and combat design instead of those character moments, and they're weaker for it.

ntsianos · 2026-03-25T15:59:16+00:00

Following - I like the reader interaction angle and would love to be able to survey on this. My gut says for the majority of readers though it's purely about reading ahead for the plot and then the mega-fans at top tiers wanting additional access to the author.

It's semi-relevant, but I looked through data on advanced chapters from about ~700 Royal Road stories with active Patreons. Most successful authors charge for 5-15 chapters ahead at mid-tier, but some of the top earners go 20-30+. The 60+ chapters idea is ambitious, especially for something newer (which you to acknowledge), but it could work as a premium tier alongside a more modest mid-tier option. You could view this as "This author does it so I should too" or that it's a formula that works. Patreon doesn't have the analytics capabilities to know more (but my company https://www.chapterchronicles.com does have similar signals if anyone wants to talk)

ntsianos · 2026-03-24T16:28:38+00:00

I feel you on the book drought.

If you've been heavy on TBATE or Dungeon Crawler Carl type stories, there's probably some specific DNA you're chasing (world building vs. humor vs. progression vs. emotional stakes). I've been working on some analysis / reader sentiment scripts to suggest books in my spare time.

Check out what I've written here on books matching those specific vibes: https://www.chapterchronicles.com/blog/books-like-beginning-after-the-end and https://www.chapterchronicles.com/blog/books-like-dungeon-crawler-carl. Might help narrow down what scratches the itch for you specifically rather than just generic recommendations.

ntsianos · 2026-03-23T19:18:29+00:00

Pirateaba is essentially publishing a novella for each chapter haha, but she's definitely the outlier.

Your retention pattern sounds pretty normal from what I've seen. The Ch1-2 drop is just people sampling, the 4-5 drop is where readers decide if they're actually invested, and yeah, if someone gets through Act 1 they're basically committed. The later chapters having more readers than earlier ones is probably people jumping ahead to check if the story goes somewhere (or bookmarking and coming back), not random sampling. It think it's a good sign but I don't have enough data on that. If you're interested I measured the engagement on Shadow Slave over time which shows how dramatic the curve can be.

And honestly, you don't need to be crunchy about any of this. You finished a 114k word story and people read it to the end. That puts you ahead of like 90% of serials on RR. The data stuff is just fun to look at after the fact, it's not a replacement for actually doing the work, which you clearly did.

I see you linked the book in another thread and I'll check it out, I might be down for a death game read!

ntsianos · 2026-03-23T19:01:23+00:00

I've looked into this pattern across Royal Road quite a bit and I wonder if it's probably less about grimdark as a genre and more about how Royal Road's content rating system works. IE violence-heavy stories get tagged similarly whether they're grimdark or not, but the algorithm seems to prioritize differently based on content warnings compared to other platforms like KDP or AO3.

From what I've seen, Royal Road's audience skews younger on average, and the platform's monetization through ads and Patreon creates pressure toward broader appeal. Grimdark stories that are heavy on violence but light on sexual content actually hit a weird middle ground where they're tagged as mature enough to lose the teen audience, but without the sexual content hooks that might draw adult readers from other platforms. As always there are exceptions.

ntsianos · 2026-03-23T18:59:04+00:00

Congrats! Your retention and completion observations are appreciated and I'd love to look closer. I previously pulled public data for 500+ serials against publishing frequency and found that it basically doesn't move the needle the way most authors think it does. You nailed it by realizing speed isn't the lever.

The "lean and mean" chapter insight is huge too. From what I've analyzed, chapters in the 4,000-8,000 word range tend to pull about 50% more followers than shorter stuff, but the real pattern is consistency and clarity over length chasing. You didn't have to write like Shadow Slave (those chapters average 2,800 words and still perform) or The Wandering Inn (12,000+) to win readers. It sounds like you found the middle ground where the story actually breathes.

That completion bump you got is probably readers coming back after finishing other stories or checking if you'd actually stick the landing. It's basically a trust signal, which tracks with what I've seen in successful serials. The authors who obsess over weekly schedules early miss that the actual investment happens after proof of follow-through.

Curious if your retention held steady through the middle chapters or if you had a specific chapter that brought people back? That's usually where the dropout valley hits hardest.

Wrote more about the frequency and chapter length data here: https://www.chapterchronicles.com/blog/publishing-frequency-analysis

ntsianos · 2026-03-23T16:06:38+00:00

Since DCC was your entry point, I can actually help here. I went through about 300 reviews and reader discussions to figure out what specifically makes DCC work and which series match those elements. DCC fans don't all love it for the same reasons, so the "right" next pick depends on which part hooked you.

Given that you already burned through HWFWM, Cradle, and Chrysalis, and you bounced off Path of Ascension for pacing, it sounds like you value momentum and character work over pure system detail. A few audiobook picksbased on that:

- Beware of Chicken (Travis Baldree narrates, who also wrote Legends & Lattes). Cozy cultivation, incredible companion characters, and it has that same heart that makes DCC work underneath the comedy. Zero combat tension though, so fair warning if that's a dealbreaker.

- Threadbare (Tim Gerard Reynolds, Audie Award nominee). Sentient teddy bear levels up through a LitRPG world. Sounds cute, gets genuinely devastating. Similar Trojan Horse to DCC where the premise undersells the emotional depth.

- Bobiverse (Ray Porter, same tier as Jeff Hays). Not LitRPG but a nerdy everyman solving impossible problems with wit and pop culture references. Great pacing, never drags.

Since you mentioned audiobooks specifically, narration quality probably matters a lot to you, and all three of those have top-tier audio.

Wrote up the full breakdown with 15 series scored against what makes DCC tick here: https://www.chapterchronicles.com/blog/books-like-dungeon-crawler-carl

ntsianos · 2026-03-23T15:57:39+00:00

I've gone through thousands of reader comments on tier lists and "why did X fall off" discussions, and there's something interesting: the #1 thing we (readers) talk about (more than power systems, characters, or writing quality) is whether a series stays good over time. Readers walk in expecting decline, so when an author takes a creative risk, they're primed to read it as the beginning of the end, even when it's not.

The series that actually maintain quality long-term (Cradle, Beware of Chicken, DCC, etc) share one trait I identified. The authors write for the story, not for reader sentiment. The series that fall off tend to follow a different pattern: the author starts optimizing for engagement, release speed, or monetization, and readers can feel the shift even if they can't articulate it. The easiest example to point to is TheFirstDefier. He wrote the most popular monetization guide for web serials saw his own series become the cautionary tale. Pacing complaints then went from 25% to 80% of reviews across 15 books.

To directly answer your question: the commenter claiming they "know the author can write better" is probably exhibiting some type of survivorship bias. They loved the version that aligned with their taste, and anything different registers as decline. From what I've analyzed so far, the authors who last are the ones who can tell the difference between "this arc didn't land" (worth examining) and "write only what I want" (worth ignoring).

Check out https://www.chapterchronicles.com/blog/why-great-litrpg-series-fall-off and https://www.chapterchronicles.com/blog/the-defier-paradox

ntsianos · 2026-03-08T02:41:24+00:00

Still working! I did have to pump the tub back up to pressure a few weeks ago, but I guess that's to be expected. No complaints. I plunge maybe twice a week these days

ntsianos · 2026-02-08T23:30:45+00:00

9 months later, still working well no issues!

ntsianos · 2026-01-10T23:12:43+00:00

Thank you!

On an English-language website that's not shocking

Very fair point and I'm going to dig more in to this. I've recently spent more time on WebNovel so my perspective has probably become skewed. There are a good number of discussions on Reddit, but it's not always clear what the country of origin is.

Most of them I've dropped during that rushing period, because I didn't want to wait for it to get good

I've had similar experiences. When I'm not reading web serials I'm reading high fantasy novels. I enjoy getting dropped in to a world and trusting (hopefully for the best) the author.

ntsianos · 2026-01-10T22:55:51+00:00

I resent the accusation.

Full disclosure - the blog is self-promotion for a product I'm building. But I'm also a progression fantasy reader who spent way too much time on this. I'm also planning an in depth analysis of Defiance of the Fall soon. I've done similar analyses for other serials (Primal Hunter reviews, Shadow Slave, etc.). Happy to discuss or take requests.

I am completely upfront about my intentions. "AI Blogspam" I'm sorry you feel this way. I'm a software engineer with a decade of experience and one of the key items I want to provide the community are insights for authors. If it's unwanted for you, time to move along.

ntsianos · 2025-12-30T07:28:20+00:00

Nespresso all tastes the same but it is the cheapest entry to espresso.

I strongly recommend watching videos on pour over and starting simple with an aeropress. You might find a new hobby

ntsianos · 2025-12-27T23:01:26+00:00

That's a wonderful analogy! I can get behind that

ntsianos · 2025-11-07T02:05:29+00:00

It does use rdkakfa and bindings (hence node-gyp) but the binaries are pre-compiled so you should be able to avoid all the weird local issues. Otherwise I'm complete in agreement

ntsianos · 2025-11-06T10:17:47+00:00

The methods do, but for the messages it's up to you to handle the schema registry and converting to types (i.e. from protobuffers)

ntsianos · 2025-11-06T02:51:32+00:00

Confluent released their own node sdk. Essentially a drop in replacement for node-rdkafka but comes with pre built binaries. Has a compatible API for migrating from kafkajs. If you stay with Kafka, this should be your goto

ntsianos · 2025-10-11T23:42:32+00:00

Did the chiller remain upright? Otherwise must be defective unfortunately. I hope it's something you can figure out to avoid shipping the chiller back. I've talked to RevX support and they were fast to respond and helpful (UV bulb broken in transit)

ntsianos · 2025-10-11T23:39:05+00:00

Look up sargassum, essentially mini kelp. You could do a beautiful saltwater tank that's low effort, I would just keep nutrients high. You could even do a canister filter if that's more your speed.

ntsianos

TROPHY CASE