Is launching a web serial with 500,000+ words already written genius… or completely insane? After launching one Royal Road series with an enormous backlog of a million words, I’m about to do it again. Here’s why.
Chapters/Timestamps:
00:00 Why Launch with 500,000+ Words? 00:15 The Royal Road Launch Strategy That Builds Momentum 00:55 Why Most Authors Launch Too Early 02:04 My First Launch was 1,000,000 Words 03:00 Why I’m Waiting to Launch My New Series 04:01 Preparing the Perfect Launch Window 05:47 The “Get Rich Quick” Trap for New Writers 06:40 Why Writing Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint 06:57 Should You Publish Standalone Novels on Royal Road? 07:29 Don’t Deter Readers, Embrace Them
All of this is predicated upon your series being awesome! Beyond that… consistency matters more than speed. A massive backlog can dramatically reduce stress while improving your chances of building momentum. If you’re thinking about serializing your epic novels on Royal Road, ScribbleHub, Wattpad, Inkitt, Reddit’s r/HFY, or any other web fiction platform, your launch strategy can make or break your series.
Whether you’re an aspiring web novelist or already published, I hope this video helps you build a successful launch strategy for your next one. Happy writing!
What is LitRPG? And why is it taking over the fiction world?
In this video, I break down this popular genre from the ground up, cover every major subgenre, and give you my honest Top 5 LitRPG series (including a couple of hidden gems most readers haven’t discovered yet).
Whether you found this genre through Dungeon Crawler Carl or you’re totally new to power progression fantasy in all its flavors, I hope you’ll let me guide you in figuring out what to read next!
🕐 Chapters:
00:00 — What Is LitRPG? (And Why You Should Care)
00:43 — LitRPG: A Type of Power Progression Fantasy
Royal Road is the biggest web serial platform in fantasy and sci-fi.
If you want a real shot at traction there, you need to write with the audience in mind. Because Royal Road is not Amazon, Webnovel, or Wattpad. It has its own culture and its own reader expectations. Some stories are an easy sell to the RR audience, and some are a hard sell no matter how talented you are.
Here are 7 likely reasons why Royal Road readers quit reading your story.
📌 In this video, you’ll learn:
✅ What Royal Road readers consider “amateur writing”
✅ What genres are easiest to sell on Royal Road
✅ Why power progression dominates the platform
✅ Why infodumps and slow openings kill retention
✅ Why multiPOV is a bigger risk than most writers realize
✅ The hidden reason “too much suffering” turns readers off
✅ What kind of romance and comedy works (and what doesn’t)
I’ve read many of the top trending Royal Road series (and I rate them on Goodreads), and I’ve personally hit #4 on Rising Stars. This is my analysis of what the platform rewards right now, and which writing styles (including multi-POV, present tense, and overly literary prose) might quietly sabotage your launch.
00:00 – Easy Sell vs Hard Sell on Royal Road
00:56 – #1: Amateur Signals That Kill Reader Trust
02:34 – #2: Genres That Don’t Belong on Royal Road
03:28 – What Genres Perform Best on Royal Road
04:13 – #3: Literary Prose vs Reader Expectations
05:15 – #4: Romance (What Works and What Doesn’t)
05:40 – #5: Comedy Done Right vs “Trying Too Hard”
06:21 – #6: Why Readers Hate MC Suffering
07:16 – #7: Multi-POV and Present Tense = Hard Mode
08:05 – Final Advice: Study Top Stories Without Selling Out
🔥 Happy writing! And good luck reaching for Rising Stars.
Timing a great launch window for your fantasy or sci-fi novel series.
00:00 When should you launch a novel series?
01:03 Launching during the Royal Road Writathon, or avoiding it
03:19 Which month is best for a Royal Road launch?
04:36 Is there an ideal time zone for chapter releases on Royal Road?
05:08 Weekends or Weekdays for a Royal Road launch?
Abby pays a lot of attention to the sci-fi & fantasy publishing industry, over 20+ years of taking writing seriously. Here’s her take on the latest controversy among indie authors who write progression fantasy, litRPG, isekai, superhero, wuxia, and web serials.
I just marathoned the audiobook editions of The Wandering Inn by Pirateaba, one of the largest web serials ever. I am agog.
10.1 million words, so far.
2.5 million of it is in audio, so far. That’s like 200+ hours of listening material.
The TWI series is actually bigger than my Torth series, which is a measly 1.1 million words in its entirety. TWI has more main characters, a larger world, and a bigger word count. It’s bigger than Game of Thrones and The Wheel of Time combined. The author is still putting out 2 chapters every week. They (no idea what gender the author is) have an active fan community, 4,000+ patrons on Patreon, and they (or their publisher?) hired the most talented female audiobook narrator I’ve ever heard.
And the series is awesome. I really got into it. Fair warning: The first book suffers from some amateur storytelling, including a main character that is hard to like or connect with until later on. I nearly quit a few times. But I’ve learned that my favorite series have problematic beginnings, so I pushed through, and I’m really glad I did. I’m ranking this one right up there with my all-time favorites. The author gets better and better, and the series is pure fun. It has the magical ingredient: Really outstanding interpersonal character dynamics.
It’s interesting that it remains addictive even without any majorly oppressive grimdark plot thread. Like Beware of Chicken and He Who Fights With Monsters and other SFF web serials that took off, TWI is light rather than dark. It’s fun rather than grim.
By comparison, I’m worried about how my series will fare on RoyalRoad. Mine just isn’t that light. It has a majorly oppressive galactic empire that needs to be defeated. One of my main characters goes super dark in Book 1, and spends the rest of the series on a redemption arc. Readers love that character–but only if they get past the beginning “gauntlet” of evil oppressive crap that he gets involved in.
I do have length on my side. 450+ chapters ready to go. But mine is finite. It has an ending.
I want a career like Pirateaba’s! They are incredible. They are the Brandon Sanderson of the web serial world.
You know what else? I think this whole web serial phenomenon speaks to the state of the publishing industry. The Wandering Inn is just as good and just as much fun as The Wheel of Time. If this was the 1990s, it might be the new Wheel of Time. Yet here in the 2020s, it’s an underground fandom instead of a trad pub juggernaut.
I think that’s due to the way algorithms are causing readers and literary agents to overvalue trends and books that are already popular, while also tamping down emergent stuff with unrealized potential. Pirateaba’s series has great word-of-mouth, which is allowing them to break out of the underground niche a bit and realize some of their vast potential. I’m sure 4,000+ patrons has enabled them to write full-time and hire an assistant and all that. But they only got there by writing an addictive series with millions of words and consistently adding new chapters. And even with their success, their fandom is still quite underground.
We live in unfortunate times for the arts, I think.
I’m really glad to have discovered Pirateaba, even if it was through underground channels where adventurous readers hang out. I think they have a great career ahead of them.
00:00 – Intro: The Wandering Inn Goes Retail
00:19 – Disclaimer: Web Serial vs. Retail Version
00:32 – Who Is Pirateaba?
00:50 – The Wizard of Oz Influence & Playful Societies
01:26 – The Antinium: Ant People Without Personalities
02:22 – Stitch Folk, Selphids, Gnolls
03:27 – Necromancers: Az’Kerash and Pisces
04:00 – The Blind Emperor & the Leveling System [minor spoiler]
06:11 – The Half-Troll Consort & the Series’ Massive Scale [minor spoiler]
07:08 – Rags the Goblin & Disabled Characters [minor spoiler]
08:12 – The Critique: Erin and Ryoka Are Hard to Like
09:50 – Side Characters, the Narrator, Abby’s Verdict
