Rising Stars List without Shoutouts and with non-LitRPG & Progression Fantasy - stats provided
Hey all, I'm very new to Royal Road, and I realize what I write isn't the "core" of Royal Road (LitRPG, Progression, etc). I'm a straight up epic fantasy, and I don't really know anyone on the site and I feel a bit awkward about asking others for help. I was curious to see if I could hit the Rising Star list as a newbie. And today I did -(although at the very bottom). So I'm here to share what I did and how in the hopes that it will help others.
First a little background on me.
- I'm a hybrid author (have books published through self and traditonal routes.
- I've not really "tapped" my fanbase yet - I do plan on talking about Royal Road in an upcoming Newsletter but I've not done that yet.
- I have tweeted a few times that I'm posting free stuff on Royal Road, but I don't have a huge twitter following (13K).
What I'm primarily using Royal Road For:
- I have a few short stories (some standalone and some based in my primary world of Elan where my Riyria Revelations and Riyria Chronicle books are based. I did two individual shorts, and one that combined 4 shorts into a single title.
- I have two novels that have earned well over the years, so I can afford to give them away for free, so I made a single book on Royal Road and I'm currently releasing them a chapter at a time. Book #1 just finished up with it's last chapter, and book #2 will start in a few days
- I have a bunch of "bonus material" from some of my other books (novel recaps, glossary of terms and names, some delteted scenes, etc) and so I made it - and I'm going use Royal Road as a main depository for any type of bonus stuff.
My approach
- I posted my two short stories first - one is LitRPG, so I thought it would be good to have it "out there" they don't have a huge following by any means (one is ranked at 6,646 the other at 12,201.
- My short story collection (4 shorts) was next - and it's doing better (3,527)
- The novels - which is what I wanted to get noticed is now at 624 and has only 261 followers and 3,527 views (so still a baby by RR standards)
- I posted chapters daily for book #1 and I'm switching to three times a week for book #2 (trying to keep "continued content" going for longer.
- After making some of my bonus stuff available (deleted scenes from my most recent novel) I pointed people who emailed me about them to Royal Road to find them. And I did ask if they have read my Riyria Chronicle stories and liked them to follow or leave a review. Becaus these are existing readers (who like my stuff) my reviews are positive (4.99) although I don't have many of them (just 7 currently).
- While I said without shoutouts I did have one of my current fans" "stumble" over my novel I think under "recently posted" and they were nice enough to put a shout out in one of their chapters (3 days ago). Their following isn't huge - but I'm grateful for the offer to help out.
Things I did wrong
- I got Chapter #1 up in July (didn't know how long it would take for approval) and then waited for 08/01 to start posting chapters. That meant 15 days with just one chapter up. In retrospect I should have posted that first chapter closer to my 08/01/23 scheeduled start.
- I should have all my short stories in one title so that they would have more views
- I need to "tap my fanbase" - in other words send out a newsletter saying I'm on Royal Road
Tracking the results:
- As I said I'm not Progression or LitRPG (just Fantasy) and I hit the "Fantasy" Rising Star list about 4 (maybe 5 days ago). And just hit the main list today (at the absolute bottom - lol).
This is how my numbers played out
- 07/17 - 18 pages | 22,930 rank | 36 views | 3 follows | 0 favorites | 1 rating | 0 reviews
- 07/19 - 18 pages | 22,948 rank | 56 views | 4 follows | 3 favorites | 1 rating | 0 reviews
- 08/01 - ?? pages | 23,094 rank | 11 views | 6 follows | 4 favorites | 0 rating | 0 reviews
- 08/03 - 46 pages | 23,100 rank| 168 views | 6 follows | 4 favorites | 0 rating | 0 reviews
- 08/04 - 68 pages | 23,127 rank | 269 views | 16 follows | 14 favorites | 0 rating | 0 reviews
- 08/08 - 114 pages | 11,911 rank | 458 views | 38 follows | 37 favorites | 4 rating | 0 reviews
- 08/09 - 140 pages | 11,916 rank | 533 views | 46 follows | 45 favorites | 4 ratings | 0 reviews
- 08/11 - 166 pages | 6,397 rank | 633 views | 52 follows | 51 favorites | 8 ratings | 2 reviews
- 08/12 - 182 pages | 6,400 rank | 799 views| 53 follows | 52 favorites | 8 ratings | 2 reviews
- 08/13 - 199 pages | 5,020 rank | 884 views | 64 follows | 60 favorites | 10 ratings | 2 reviews
- 08/14 - 215 pages | 5,017 rank | 947 views | 68 follows | 63 favorites | 10 ratings | 2 reviews
- 08/15 - 226 pages | 1,577 rank | 1262 views | 177 follows | 170 favorites | 21 ratings | 6 reviews
- 08/16 - 244 pages | 1,392 rank | 1517 views | 204 follows | 192 favorites | 24 ratings | 7 reviews
- 08/18 - 275 pages | ???? rank | 1812 views | 225 follows | 212 favorites | 26 ratings| 8 reviews
- 08/19 - 285 pages | 1,1101 rank | 2022 views | 232 follows | 216 favorites | 27 ratings | 7 reviews
- 08/20- 302 pages | 935 rank | 2295 views | 240 follows | 224 favorites |29 ratings | 7 reviews #47 Fantasy Rising Star
- 08/21 - 316 pages | 933 rank | 2423 views | 242 follows | 226 favorites | 22 ratings | 7 reviews | #44 Fantasy Rising Star
- 08/23 - 316 pages | 884 rank | ???? views | 255 follows | 234 favorites | 22 ratings | 7 reviews | #44 Fantasy Rising Star
- 08/24 - 350 pages | 773 rank | 3207 views | 255 follows | 234 favorites | 31 ratings | 7 review | #41 Fantasy Rising Star
- 08/25 - 372 pages | 624 rank | 3534 views| 261 follows | 239 favorites | 34 ratings | 7 reviews | #39 Fantasy Rising Star | #50 Rising Star
Now it'll be interesting if I can "stay on" the list - I'm hoping that hitting it will start geting me some views from others on the site.