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no harem Edition

Stubbed >>25615794

>What is /wng/ — Web Novel General?
A general for readers and authors involved or interested in the growing phenomenon of 'web novels', serialized English fiction posted to websites such as: Royal Road, Webnovel, Scribblehub, Wattpad, Archive of Our Own, Spacebattles, HFY, various personal author websites, and more

>Why read web novels?
Not for prose or tight editing or deep themes, frankly. As a whole, web novels are infamous for content sprawl and pacing issues. If you enjoy having millions of words to sink your teeth into to get to know the world and characters, though, you may be interested. Keeping up with other readers on a weekly basis to discuss the story's events unfolding is another perk, in the same way discussing an ongoing TV show might be.

>Why write web novels?
Ease of access & potential for Patreon earnings. Many successful authors gain an audience on their website of choice and funnel their readers into a Patreon. See graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators/writing for an idea of what some are earning.
Also, once an author has earned a fanbase, transitioning into an Amazon self-publishing career is several orders of magnitude easier than starting 'dry'.

>Advice for Noobs!

##READ THE FOLLOWING BEFORE ASKING FOR HELP##

Running your story like the business it is:
www.royalroad.com/forums/thread/116847

On writing web serials:
alexanderwales.com/how-to-write-a-web-serial/

Sanderson's Writing Lectures 2025:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEUh_y1IFZY&list=PLSH_xM-KC3ZvzkfVo_Dls0B5GiE2oMcLY

Recommended web novels
rentry.co/d2yvczro

Anon's guide to success
rentry.co/RRBasicGuide

FAQ
rentry.co/pytefpxn
>>
I did it bros... I finally finished 250 pages of creating and fleshing out my cultivation/magic system.
>>
Now post it here on /wng/ !
>>
what would be the genre name for harem-but-its-just-male-villains
>>
>>25626905
>im mean half the jap stuff is like eternal edging ... build harem yet plow no fields.
The idea behind a japanese harem stories is that the mc will "choose" at some point after the story and it is not done on-screen except maybe when the story comes to an end. The fans pick teams based on which girl they want to "win." If it is made clear the MC will never pick anyone and there will be no winner then the entire idea falls apart.
>>
>>25627113
if your shit doesnt have weather, seasons, trade, economy. then it wont matter how well your sequence system is. your story is gonna be filled with who thinks of who
>>
>>25627134
What is the point of all that? If I want to read a progression story why would I give a fuck about which roastie "wins" in the end?
>>
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What the best golden finger/cheat you've seen? I mean in terms of making sense, being satisfying, adding to the story, meshing with the world, etc.
>>
>>25627181
What does progression have to do with anything? I'm talking about how harem stories work.
>>
>>25626743
what does IOT mean?
>>
Over 100 novels release on amazon alone EACH DAY.
About 700 novels in the week around your release.
Webnovel release? Successful litrpg isekai or xianxia cultivation, in your genre? BOOM you are done.
Also, not only are you competing with other new releases, but the entire backlog of novels on every website or e-reader a reader uses. :)

Take all the "indie success stories" you can think of in the past 10 years and divide it by the number of writers in that time who have tried (again, 100 novels a day, 3000 a month) and there's your historical likelihood of "making it."

Patreon cut, publisher cuts, higher self-employment taxes, no benefits, no retirement, AND to top it all off: Your sales diminish over time, so even if you hit this "mediocrity lottery" you'll have to do it all over again in a couple years.

>He thinks that indie writing can provide a sustainable primary income in 2026
Hahahahaha

H O B B Y
O
B
B
Y
>>
don't care still writing
>>
>>25627295
just write 3000 novels then duh
>>
>>25627295
>and there's your historical likelihood of "making it."
no that's the likelihood of a random author
most authors are shit at writing and/or do everything wrong with marketing and publishing
odds are still bleak but not nearly as bleak as youre suggesting because not being retarded puts you in the 1%
>>
>>25627295
Who the fuck is trying to do this as a job unless they're a thirdie.
Even the successful authors are generally only getting 1-2k a month on patreon.
4k or more can be counted on one hand. If you're in a western country this was always a side hustle thing.
>>
>>25627345
>4k or more can be counted on one hand
not sure if I'm being pedantic but even patreon alone there are dozens, and if you add amazon probably hundreds in the litrpg/rr/webfic-y niche
there are at least 10 that make over 10k on patreon alone
>>
just marry a hoe that writes and pass off her work as your own
>>
>>25627295
I'm not writing for money at all though. I already have a job. I don't want two jobs, and much less pivoting to writing as the sole one with completely nonexistent safety net. I will never sell my soul to write a litrpg isekai for the sake of grifting people.
>>
>>25627345
I did a mass scrape of this data actually and there are more than 100 royal road stories linked to patreons making more than 2000 a month
there are 20 stories making 10,000 or more
there is money in the banana stand
>>
I'm thinking of writing native-isekai. Seems like an untapped market on RR
>>
I'm thinking of writing analog horror cultivation. Seems like an untapped market on RR
>>
I found a Japanese thread for low level webnovel writers! What do you think, anons? Do great minds think alike?

https://itest.5ch.io/mevius/test/read.cgi/bookall/1788998851
>>
>>25627573
>This state is a state in which a new reader who has begun to read for some reason reads the opening part and returns to the beginning and says, "This work is boring"
>“If you read it carefully, it will be fun later on!” I’ve been reading the latest, so there will be more readers!” It is an impossible illusion.
Trvke
>>
>>25627573
>90% of the posts are people seething about AI and people calling each other out for writing boring/poetic/escoteric shit that repels readers
>>
>>25627573
man i wish i could use narou why do i gotta be stuck with bum ass censorship heavy royal road
>>
>>25627670
I'm learning Japanese, currently around N2 level. It's insane to me that the endgame for RR is to slop around on Patreon while Japanese writers can get a manga or even anime adaption. I'm jealous! There really is no other pipeline like it in this world.
>>
>>25627687
It's actually a bit demoralizing.
>>
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>>25627573
Well, I guess so
>>
>>25627687
erm our pipeline is tradpub into dogshit netflix liveaction
lmao
>>
>>25627687
>that the endgame for RR is to slop around on Patreon
it isnt
>>
I feel like my series is not even going to get approved by RR. It's about most real life conspiracies being real (with occultism and magic also being real). The setting is real life right now.
>>
>>25627765
Nothing in the RR rules would stop them approving that. They say nothing about allowed genres. Just don't expect it to find an audience there.
>>
>>25628009
>Nothing in the RR rules would stop them approving that.
RR is pretty strict about real-world politics. Which most real-world conspiracy theories intersect heavily with
>>
>ya
why are they like this?
>>
>>25628104
bomboclatt
>>
name 1 winnie death sadder than Uncle Big Beard
>>
>>25628118
any character that unironically uses that will be jamaican from now on
just type out "yeah" you stupid nigger!
>>
>>25628142
Man, I do that with my characters cause I make 'em speak in regional dialects. Written language is just so fun to mess with
>>
>>25628142
ya mon ya see dose bombos whatfo'

(woman ya cute ya dun need no make up)
(woman ya CUUTE ya dun mek a man mud up)
>>
>>25628142
wallahi bombaclat, ya feel me?
>>
>>25628153
ya mon Allah don mak a man mud up
>>
>>25627687
Patreon sloppers make more money with their baby powerwank diary in a month than some of these LN authors do with three seasons of anime combined
>>
>>25627295
>Over 100 novels release on amazon alone EACH DAY.
That can't be right. They even had to limit daily uploads because people were shitting out so many books
>>
>>25627573
>Japanese thread
>for low level webnovel writers!
Does Japan even know how to write anything aside from the japanese emoji reaction faces in speech bubbles?
>>
>>25627687
Have you seen the recent anime? It's all made with AI, either full AI or AI assisted (generating frames, upscaling, converting wireframe visuals into actual anime visuals). Any sperg can do anime nowadays, even if you for whatever reason refuse to use AI, 95% of pre AI anime was literal low quality powerpoint presentation garbage.
>>
Why do people insist on talking about things they have no knowledge about?
>>
>>25628566
To gain knowledge? Did my answer grant you the knowledge you were looking for?
>>
>>25628566
It's human nature, just look at 99% of the internet.
>>
What are gu?
>>
>>25629244
The essence of Heaven and Earth that look like bugs.
>>
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>bro yeah the side characters are flat as paper but the main character is deep!!!!
If you can't write side characters, you can't write main characters.

99.999% of webnovel MCs don't have as good of a story as Wu Shuai.
>>
>>25629481
Can a clone be considered a different character from the MC?
>>
>>25629493
I mean the real Wu Shuai not the skinwalker
>>
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Who is Wu Shuai
>>
>>25629522
This Pepe is blurry. Why
>>
>>25629528
check your eyesight anon that's a normal pepe right there
>>
>>25629481
>side characters are flat as paper but the main character is deep
I'm too used to media where the side characters outshine the MC, which is probably the point in those kind of stories
>>
Failed to hit Rising Stars Main.

Cratered to sub-100 RS rank.

Suicidal ideation rising.
>>
>>25630202
UH-OH, CHUD, LOOKS LIKE YOU DIDN'T SHOUTOUT-CIRCLEJERK WELL ENOUGH! OFF TO THE NO READERS PIT WITH YOU! BUT WELL, YOU CAN ALWAYS BUY ADS FOR SHEKELS!
>>
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>>25630202
post it
ill save you with a good review
trust me bro
>>
>>25630238
i purposely used the niggerhell image so i wouldn't be tempted
>>
>>25630349
I mean we know it's you akaso
>>
>>25630355
>someone posted on /wng/ about webnovel writing it HAS to be /oneguy/
now i know for sure i can't reveal my handle so i don't become the second /oneguy/
>>
>>25630349
what do you have to lose
>>
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>Run my chapters through Claude asking it to Role-play as different readers leaving comments on the individual chapters: Diehard RR Lit-RPG reader, casual RR reader, etc.
>Decide to ask it to RP as a typical Redditor that subs to LitRPG and ProgressionFantasy subreddits
>Bitches about a character calling another a Cuck
kek
>>
>>25630437
30,000 acres of rainforest and 10 years worth of Michigan's fresh water supply was spent for this
>>
>>25630719
I’m having Claude vibe code a new writing software that is basically just Obsidian but worse. So I have him beat at the destroying the planet part.
>>
>>25627181
Well it a accessability thing I would say. Kinda like idols keep relationships secret because thirsty looser will think they have a chance and get mad at someone fucking their waifu.

So you present a menue of options but leave the choice open.

>>25627765

Hard to tell. Recent soccer controversy showed its pretty arbitrary
>>
>>25630825
ok so if it's just Obsidian but worse, why bother?
>>
>>25630825
Obsidian is free to use. What is even the point of this?
>>
What would Spectral Soul do in this situation?
>>
>>25631227
Kill!
>>
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>>25630967
>>25631149
Eh... I need it to do one very specific thing for me: the ability to grab and move paragraphs, sentences, words, dialogue tags, and the rest of the text will automatically reflow, just like when moving an image around. It even handles quotation marks and commas automatically, which is nice.
I often change my mind about word order, and having to drag over text, cut it, paste it, and fix the spacing issues gets really annoying after the five hundredth time.
That said, I lost the plot somewhere around the time I added godrays to a writing software. At this point, I just want to see how far I can push it.
Next up: maybe add character sprites to make it more like a visual novel.
>>
>>25631287
>grab and move paragraphs, sentences, words, dialogue tags, and the rest of the text will automatically reflow
Dude writes whole new software just to avoid pressing ctrl+x, ctrl+v
>>
>>25631287
theres a meme writing style that you can do on obsidian called horizontal writing. theres like 10 videos of it on youtube
>>
use vim
>>
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I use scrivener
>>
please no more docs vs obsidian vs vim vs scrivener
it's like repeat #40
>>
>>25627190
>What the best golden finger/cheat you've seen? I mean in terms of making sense, being satisfying, adding to the story, meshing with the world, etc.
If your cheat makes sense and meshes with the world, it's arguably not even a cheat. That's where you get shit like the "knowledge" cheat or just making the MC a normal dungeon master with no other buffs.

If you're gonna play up the cheatiness of a character's abilities and of your plot, the cheat should be something that fundamentally breaks reality.
>>
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>>25631445
I use LibreOffice :D
>>
>>25631479
Unironically what is the benefit of those apps over just using like a google doc. Hell the main thing google docs has over a notepad is formatting and spell check.
>>
>>25631559
lol, good one man. keep em coming
>>
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>>25631559
I'm not specifically going up to bat for Scrivener when I describe it, but the big advantage is it collates everything into one spot and lets me instantly compile my chappies into epubs and such for releases. Being able to pull up my notes in the same window while still having a draft up is very convenient. Mind you, Obsidian and vim can do these too so I won't act like it's a unique feature to Scrivener.

My first winnie was done entirely in Notepad, so it was nice to step up from that. But that also means you should just use whatever's comfortable for you.
>>
>>25631572
Hm. My take is probably because I kinda just keep notes and shit in the background and don't like having multiple screens open while writing. Maybe I'll try it tho.
>>
>>25631610
Like I said, Obsidian, vim, etc can do similar if not the exact same. Check the free alternatives first, they might be more comfortable for you.
>>
>>25631619
Wasn't really going for Scrivener. Just these writing apps in general.

Definitely ain't paying for shit tho.
>>
Book I'm working on right now is set to be like, 12 chapters that are each kinda long and episodic (As in, somewhat self contained plots but with a larger narrative across them) like a tv show.

Any recommendations for publishing? I want to do web novel but I'm not sure if only 12 chapters (per book if I do sequels) is good for that considering how long some others are.
>>
>>25631737
web novels are likely a bad fit for this. 1-book-length wns are extremely rare
>what's better
tradpub
>tradpub sucks and is gay
yeah
>>
>>25631737
Best publishing options depends on genre/content more than anything else, and all you gave was that you're going to write long chapters
If you ask bad questions you will get bad or irrelevant answers, anon
>>
>>25631809
the rare ones are the best ones, the ones I've read on the site were stand-alone that eventually finished. As long as you go into this without being a grifter in mind, you'll do fine. Just write a good story, draw with your heart a 50$ ad, make a sovl cover by hand, and just focus just finishing it regardless if you wake up from a nap and suddenly find blockbuster numbers
>>
>>25631809
The thing is I would be open to doing multiple books in like, seasons. So like book one would be 12 chapters, book two would be another 12, etc. If it was web published they'd all be in the same place.
>>
>>25631906
>12 chapters
>b-but long chapters
lol wtf, how many standard webnovel chapters? How many words???
>>
>>25631906
All hypothetical, but how much of the story is done already? it's easy to be your own ideas guy, but you're also still have to write all your grandeur that might not translate into more than one book
>>
>>25631877
>As long as you go into this without being a grifter in mind, you'll do fine.
Uh, no? Literally not true. Keep the retarded fake-positivity in your discord
Also,
>draw your own ad, make your own cover
Is active sabotage
>>
>>25632040
I don't have any discords though. At the same time I don't think it's good to encourage people to spin the llm generic o meter any good either. I've been seeing a rise of handmade covers lately and they're cool. I think people will still judge a llm'd cover and expect such invovled on page 1 even when there might not actively be any llm involved.
>>
>>25632061
It was spiritually a discord message
The issue is you gave "advice" that objectively hurts your odds of picking up readers. YOU might think handmade covers are better, but one look at Rising Stars or Popular This Week shows that AI covers reign supreme. The amount of people who
>judge a llm'd cover and expect such invovled on page 1
Is an extreme minority. They're just very loud and annoying about it, like you just were

Now, if you want to call that shit soulless and despicable, by all means go ahead. I'll think you're a hysteric but I wouldn't be bothered, really.
But you're retarded for framing it as something that helps you get readers. You WILL get less readers overall. There's overwhelming evidence for that fact
And finally, there's a lot more that goes into having a good shot at success than "just don't be a grifter lol! have soul! you'll do great! <3". Hate that fake positivity bullshit, it's just so obviously wrong.
>>
>>25632061
>I've been seeing a rise of handmade covers lately
That some author who hit RS with a Leonardo da Grok and then changed the cover to some mspaint doodle for shit and giggles doesn't mean "a rise of handmade covers"
>>
>>25632099
You're retarded but also correct by accident
>use AI cover
>get readers
>get money
>commission new cover
this is standard
>>
>>25632100
You made it sound like fleshbag covers somehow helped the author and aren't just flexing when he's already rich
>>
>>25632105
AI covers are rarely an author's first choice. They are something a person settles for when he can't afford a real cover art.
>>
>>25632110
nta, but you sound really lost right now. you're not responding to what he's saying
>>
>>25632118
I am not the guy he was originally arguing with, I interjected with >>25632100
>>
>>25632121
...i am aware
>>
>>25631996
Right now in google docs it averages around 20-35 pages a chapter (can't be fucked to individually check the word counts) but I'm not sure how much it transfers over with proper formatting.
>>
What kind of money do you have to spend to bribe 10k views into the first chapter of a webnovel? Assuming you're not an existing personality or are publishing anonymously. I'm debating whether I take the webnovel pill instead of trad publishing.
>>
>>25632304
Roayl Road is too niche to have a properly sophisticated botting service.
If you bot views only, the site is small enough people will notice, report you, and you'll get banned.
>>
>>25632316
Bribe legitimate views via ads, not bot.
>>
>>25632348
that'll be expensive as fuck then. the raw return on an ad is really low, theyre mostly just useful to hit RS
>>
>>25632066
It probably won't help get readers but it will make you stand out against all the template covers. And just to begin with, success is abstract, one person may find be content with a small audience but another may be chasing for higher and higher numbers and spam their stats asking if they made it a week in and they have 240 followers and 90 favorites, like nigger I would skin you alive and wear your skin to live your life among your family if I could have that same kind of success. Humble braggers should be hanged by street lamps. I just think it's good to rely on your completely own merits than rely on anything AI-generated; I take that has a complete lack of faith in one's self, but I am aware I am a lone wolf in this mentality. There are better ways to make a quick buck off suckers and it's not this, even if that merely suggets going from pumping out web novels to spinning cataloges of yt shorts of the same numbing variety. I'm just really happy to be writing as a hobby and without adding to worry if it's making me a profit or not, it is tragic we live in these times where the art is a afterthought and people just want money. From the looks of things he's in this for the money, and if the chapters are 25 pages long, it probably would be better to throw it on KU or something. It probably wouldn't hurt to do RR-KU route, just find the points where there's a cliff hanger or natural stop point and chop it up crazy and look into the OP for the best way to schedule them. OP's biggest hurdle is probably just rimming other dudes viciously and without restraint to even have a remote chance to compete with the avalanche of others doing the exact same thing.
>>
I see now that OP guide suggests having 90k words prewritten before posting/running ads. I guess at that point it's better to just write a full book as the potential first entry in a trilogy, shop it around with trad agents, and only dump it on RR to see if it takes there if you can't get a trad deal. I'm not really writing litrpg-ass-litrpg anyways, so maybe I'll give this one a shot in the market first.
>>
>>25632368
you're the one making it about money and not readers. its natural to want to have your work read by as many people as possible
your apparently abysmal success is probably due in no small part to you closing your eyes and plugging your ears to reality. hand made covers are in almost all cases a debuff. "standing out" means nothing if you stand out in a way readers dont like or pay attention to

stop fucking up your launch and front page material anons. its not grifting to launch properly and advertise properly, its just how getting attention works in the internet age of the content-glut
>>
>>25632371
Trad agents will take like 6 months to respond and who knows if they're even worth it these days

Probably better to just test the waters on RR because you'll immediately get some sort of reader feedback, and leave trad on the backburner as a plan B
>>
sometimes i think about my dogshit ass story in the shower and start crying
>>
>>25632476
End it
>>
I only just now realized reviews on RR show you what chapter they were on when they made the review



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