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what is the policy on linking your own stuff here I've been doing a ... thing since 2017, a mix of images and way too much text, and have begun to realize I should maybe be marketing it as a web serial instead of a webcomic (when I started I didn't know web serials were a thing) (I still barely know anything about web serials)
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May 16, 2020 23:17
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| # ¿ Apr 16, 2024 23:39 |
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alright, so in 2017 I started Blood is Mine, an interactive sci-fi / body horror story with (original) sprite art. I hosed up toward the end, so it doesn't stick the landing as well as I'd like, but overall I enjoyed working on it. People would post in the comments what the protagonist should do, and I'd write new pages accordingly; at the start I was updating 10 to 20 times per day, but the average size of each page eventually got so big that I had to slow it down. I learned a lot from my mistakes writing BiM, and November of last year I started My Delirium Alcazar. It's a sequel, but (hopefully) you don't have to read BiM to understand what's going on in MDA. MDA is more fantasy/isekai compared to its predecessor, basically split into two parts: the waking reality, which is still done in sprite art and is the same almost-cyberpunk world as BiM, and a less consistent, more fantastical dream world, which I illustrate with my lovely, sketchy hand drawn art. I'm trying to skate a litRPG line with a lot of videogamey elements, but without going face first into full blown "YOU DO 36 DAMAGE TO ITS HP" business it's a weird beast with a really dedicated reader base, but I'm struggling to expand my audience (partly because advertising sucks a fat one in 2020)
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May 16, 2020 23:54
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alright well this seems mostly--Hieronymous Alloy posted:If it's good, we want to read it! aww poo poo
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May 17, 2020 04:32
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I'm half tempted to start uploading something to Royal Road just for exposure, I just don't know what to actually upload 90% of my attention right now is on writing MDA, and I feel like just... reuploading that to there would not fly very well. The CYOA property is kind of important I also feel like if I start writing something new just to put on Royal Road it's going to suck convincing people to go to a website and try a new thing blows, I'm about to resort to paying twitch streamers for ad blocks because I've tried everything else. I miss being able to just, buy ad space on sites, instead of everything being an elaborate fifty thousand dollar campaign to get the most Synergy from your Brand or whatever
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May 22, 2020 23:58
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hitting up other serial writers is a good idea, though I'm going to have to figure out whose poo poo's still active adding the link to my av is also a good idea when I get paid, which is soon
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May 23, 2020 05:50
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I have started uploading MDA to Royal Road; I've got the first day / chapter up so far I have no idea if an image heavy, second person reposting of a CYOA is going to get any mileage there, but I don't have much else to do on weekends so gently caress it, I appreciate the free word count I have been contacting a bunch of webserial folks, but have not been lucky about responses. Beginning to suspect my e-mail has problems
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Jun 7, 2020 04:17
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I thought One Piece was nautical DBZ
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Jun 21, 2020 09:25
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I'm still looking into it, but I may have figured out what genre MDA is and it might be weird fiction which is a lot easier to say than eldritch horror sci-fi/dark fantasy a billion other things
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Jun 25, 2020 03:58
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I still wonder how many zombie outbreak stories got trash canned over the span of maybe a week
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Jul 8, 2020 06:17
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there is not a lot I would not do to make 7k a month writing
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Jul 17, 2020 23:43
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all things considered this feels like the place to post this while struggling with not being able to write myself, I designed a game around smashing other canons' toys together and also people filling in the blanks for each other, a game about writing where you don't actually have to write anything if you don't want to. It borrows a poo poo ton from E-feds and the structure of pro wrestling in general, with me basically acting as head booker and each "fighter" being handled by a different writer anyway: we finished the first episode, It Lives! to clarify, me and like nine other people wrote this; the ideas were 90% everyone else, I just typed it out and made sure it stayed consistent. I think it worked out pretty well, personally, but I'm curious what people not on the inside think. The current plan is to have one of these ready every sunday, if it stays fun and enough people can stay involved
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Oct 26, 2020 04:28
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I have started uploading arena arcadia results to royal road, for those that find that easier to get into than a forum
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Nov 10, 2020 20:20
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knowing when to say "good enough" is definitely a skill all its own
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Dec 4, 2020 03:17
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When you just plow straight through with whatever lovely filler you can manage to write down, you have the benefit of knowing exactly what weak writing you need to follow up on and exactly how to smooth it over or draw attention away from it. Compare that to the normal kind of bad writing where you don't realize it's bad as you write it, and thus everything that follows it either builds on its shittiness or unintentionally worsens it Like, I know exactly when I had to do the lovely writing because I was having a mental episode at the time, but my audience has already forgotten those moments because I made them forget those moments. hosed up a character's introduction? It's cool, write them better later when you feel better and they'll be everyone's favorite character it's tough because you have to have the confidence in your ability to improve on your worst writing; on your worst day, you have to buy that no matter how lovely this writing is, you can recover the play when you're back on your A game
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Dec 4, 2020 09:13
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sometimes I got it and sometimes I don't
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Dec 4, 2020 09:13
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yeah, the barrier of entry is lower than ever, and (separately) formulaic structures and strict adherence to genre are stronger than ever neither of these are inherently good or bad, but combined it's a bit like bleach and ammonia there's good stuff in there, somewhere, but if you want to find it you better hold your breath
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Feb 10, 2021 22:09
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Cicero posted:I don't think that level of output is very healthy depends on what the rest of your life looks like binge writing is real
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Feb 11, 2021 03:10
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I empathize with sham bam having hit the bad end head first, and instead of the thread pitching good stories everybody's just like maybe some people LIKE poo poo? Huh? Did you think about that, genius? the OP in this thread suggests Worm first and foremost, there is an entire convo going on about how bad Worm is web serials might be a hard sell, is what I'm saying
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Feb 11, 2021 03:53
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I have the copyright on gay space communism litrpgs
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Feb 16, 2021 01:42
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speaking of websites, mda.wtf is now mobile friendly or at least, less mobile hostile
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Feb 17, 2021 03:07
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Ytlaya posted:The best way to do numbers is to have them occurring in the background where the reader can't see them (unless they actively seek them out), like in Forge/Threads of Destiny. this makes for a storier story imo but I don't think it dingles brain dongles the way big honkin numbers slappin people in the face do
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Feb 22, 2021 08:09
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I think I'm throwing in the towel on trying to market my stories as web serials / attempting to push them in web serial circles there's surface level similarities but past that I suspect web serial readers are looking for a different thing than I am hocking
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Feb 23, 2021 09:35
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90s Cringe Rock posted:You'd think adding a bit of art would make it easier to read, but I just end up bookmarking your stuff for a later date in favour of plain text. Sorry. nah it's cool, like I said it's just not the right fit between pursued audience and actual product; I went through the same song and dance trying to call it a webcomic and slowly discovering the two audience circles did not overlap I think most of my current readerbase were pulled from gaming sites I've advertised on, which sucks, because the number of gaming subreddits/forums/websites you can advertise on is way more limited when what you're advertising isn't actually a game marketing sucks, folks
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Feb 23, 2021 10:02
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I think my new plan is to try and suck enough dicks before the next Superbowl to buy half a second of commercial time the football fans won't be into it but it'll get people talking
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Feb 23, 2021 10:05
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PoorWeather posted:Any of the authors here got any tips about how to get more exposure for a serial these days, beyond basic stuff like Top Web Fiction? I've come a pretty long way in terms of growth, but it's stagnated lately and I don't really see myself ever making it onto any of the top lists on RR. I used to be really tuned into the hot spots in the web serial scene, but have fallen off completely in the past year. I've been doing the Comicad Network (which was made for webcomics but you can use it to advertise other poo poo) and taking a swing at Taboola. You won't get a hyperfocused "normal" web fiction audience, but if you're like me and struggling to connect with that audience then trying to broaden your readerbase might not be a bad idea other than that getting exposure is an rear end
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Mar 12, 2021 01:19
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Plorkyeran posted:Obviously they shouldn't keep writing if they aren't having fun and aren't making enough money to care, but being disappointed about making $231/month after 6 weeks suggests they had some pretty unrealistic expectations. I wonder if they hit their first start of the month falloff and panicked. I can't begrudge anyone for wanting to bail on an environment that feels hostile to them, but also I would poo poo my pants on camera if it meant an additional $231/month
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Sep 10, 2021 01:30
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KamikazePotato posted:Ignoring the hostility bits as I don't know enough about that situation to comment, let's quickly break down the money the author was getting for writing the story. You don't start off making the big money all at once, though--I make way more than that now, but it took me longer than six weeks to start making $230 a month. Way longer. Like, I bailed on Royal Road specifically after maybe a month+, but that's because RR added literally nothing to my already established Patreon during that period. edit: to be clear, I don't blame them, but like someone else said those expectations seem... unrealistic. I waited yeeeaaars for the opportunity to start making a career out of my dumb poo poo, I wouldn't suggest anyone gamble on getting up to minimum wage in that tight of a time frame Lunatic Sledge fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Sep 10, 2021 |
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Sep 10, 2021 02:08
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then again, looking purely at patreons and taking into consideration how much time I spend drawing, researching and advertising, I can almost guarantee I'm somewhere below minimum wage after like four years of it so gently caress whatever I said, I'm a god drat moron
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Sep 10, 2021 02:27
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I had more luck paying for ads on SA than I did on RR also my theory is the key to making the big money is a fresh theme but keeping as many of the aesthetic trappings web serial folks expect as possible, it needs to walk and quack like a duck even if you're writing your golden goose. Every deviation is a gamble, don't make my mistakes Lunatic Sledge fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Sep 12, 2021 |
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Sep 12, 2021 07:45
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quote:Shadeslinger (Dwarf Online) imagine a class that buffs others by putting sunglasses on them just BAM shades for you, healer is now Super Sweet, BAM shades for you, the tank is now Totally Rad slap some shades on an enemy, BAM we cool now just loving https://i.imgur.com/h6pmaZX.mp4
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Oct 3, 2021 18:13
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John Lee posted:I thought about making an Old Man Yells At Cloud post about it, but yeah, what we call CYOAs, collaborative storytelling on the forums, are called quests on the majority of forums. I'm of two minds about it; quests were originally the art-based things, usually with parser inputs (like Homestuck), and it seems like the phrase mutated awfully fast, but on the other hand Choose Your Own Adventures are... rather different from the forum CYOAs, so it's not like it's any more inaccurate. Choose Your Own Adventure is also trademarked/copyrighted/however that poo poo works I don't know if Chooseco would go after forum posts but they did sue Netflix over, iirc, a Black Mirror episode
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Dec 6, 2021 22:09
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rest assured true believers I
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Dec 21, 2021 04:37
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The trick is to dip in and out of hiatuses so frequently and with such bewildering timetables that no one's sure the author was ever real at all, like some kind of cryptid. The schedule is never broken; there was never a schedule to begin with. The ancients say that when the moon is full, the winds are calm and the stars are right, some updates may appear
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Feb 3, 2022 08:15
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Megazver posted:I mean, you might want to do a "you're inside a VR" story without endless barf of blue boxes all over the pages. MDA is essentially this with magic VR I like the sort of narrative conceits and plot beats that a tangible stat system creates, but I also watched enough DBZ to know the dangers of making the numbers explicit and audience-facing. Thus, implied stats, also a lot of the real world/other world interaction stuff mentioned in other posts. ...But I'm also a huge list of examples of what not to write if you want to "make it," so consider this as potential anti-advice. Blue boxes sell, baby, people love stats show em da numbers
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Feb 26, 2022 02:18
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Does anyone have an account on topwebfiction and/or can they score me an invite to topwebfiction
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Aug 18, 2022 08:37
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Yeah, PM me the email address you want to use for it and I can send you one. TWF has fallen off a lot in clickthroughs and hits, though, as far as I'm aware. Everything has, nothing lasts, the world is garbage I am well past the point of being picky about scraps
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Aug 18, 2022 11:10
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DACK FAYDEN posted:I'm baffled by this because I don't know what "abandoning her for another writer" means. Like, if I like your books, I will buy and read the next one when it comes out. Why does the time frame matter? Obviously she wants more income to survive, that's fine, but what does "abandon" mean in this context? Do people just... forget that writers existed and then fall off the wagon and never pick them up again? maybe some of her income's tied up in patreon I personally can't wait to write myself into the grave twice as fast thanks to robots
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Aug 18, 2022 16:59
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Hungry posted:This might just be personal or anecdotal, but it feels like the web-serial reading patreon-inclined audience is a hell of a lot more forgiving and understanding of human limits, compared to the Amazon algorithm and some of the specific audiences most likely to be purchasing certain kinds of self-published fiction. this also makes sense I don't know what the hell then
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Aug 18, 2022 17:57
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to be clear my patrons are very cool, I just assumed it was a fluke and I am history's greatest monster for taking advantage of them
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Aug 18, 2022 17:58
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| # ¿ Apr 16, 2024 23:39 |
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Oh, I sing 'em real pretty, I sing 'em real sad And all the people in the crowd say he ain't half bad Well, they call me King Turd up here on poo poo Mountain But if you want it you can have the crown  I joke but this has actually bumped my numbers a little, which is the most numbers bump I can reasonably expect from anything anymore e: it's possible something else bumped my numbers but gently caress if I know what else would
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Aug 27, 2022 08:30
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