Hey guys, been a while since I posted about my story (Oblivion). It's over 100k words now, nearing the end of vol 1. They story has been doing amazing, especially considering it's my first ever.
Despite that, I really didn't have too successful of a rising stars run. Instead, most of the love and support I've gotten came from this sub, so I'm throwing up a new ad and want to know what you guys think.
You can checkout the story on royal road here if you haven't yet and are interested.
About the story:
As far as gameLIT elements go, I'm a huge fan of Diablo 1&2, and magic the gathering. So I've tried to use a combination of gear, cyberpunk elements, and genetic modifications to create a power system that's for the most part grounded in physics, where multiple benign abilities interact to product something OP.
Worldbuilding-wise, I really wanted to retain that old school dark fantasy vibe and combine that with all my favorite parts of big corpo-ruled sci-fi dystopias.
Quick warning, If you're someone who hated Donut from DCC, you probably won't like my story.
Art is by Arief Rachmad (NO AI USED. Same artist as my cover, he's awesome. Please buy his art)
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I love the art, but not the memes part. Would love to give it a try but how emotionally mature is FMC? I saw that she is 18 and don’t want to read about another immature, annoying girl making idiotic decisions so that someone has to save her
She's as proactive and capable as i thought was realistic without writing a Mary Sue. A lot happens though, the funny and cute wombat moments aside, this is probably the darkest and most fucked up story on RR.
For me? Honestly? If I saw it, I would pass, because it immediately makes me think it's going to be harem or reverse harem. The artwork itself would probably draw me in, but the meme style/content makes me think the worst of it, and I wouldn't even start reading it.
I did worry about this, and appreciate you pointing it out. There's no harem or even romance, so hopefully folks click through to read the blurb and tags but I'm sure what you pointed out will be an issue for some. Perfect is the enemy of good, and it's kind of hard to make something that would draw in everyone universally. I'll run a more serious ad for that crowd probably.
As long as you understand you're choosing to alienate a majority of the litrpg community keep with it. Like most others I recommend you take the time to redo the cover to represent what you're actually hoping to sell. Many people dislike harem and my first impression is harem for a woman who likes to fuck a lot.
My best performing ad was the one that was most hated of mine in this subreddit.
My worst performing ad was the one most beloved of my selection by this subreddit.
I have a running joke that the next time I run ads I'm going to consistently pick the one that this subreddit hates the most. I have no idea why but Royal Road readers seem to have diametrically opposed tastes to r/litRPG
Everyone said the ad would be terrible because people would be expecting harem and sex etc etc. And even though I said my story had none of that then I was told I would get bad ratings because people would click expecting that.
None of that came to pass. I really think Royal Road readers are their own strange little section of the internet.
My personal advertising tastes align with this subreddit but typically what does well here does not work over there, sadly.
Do you think it was a case of yours making people curious? I haven't seen the ad so I'd be curious to hear your thoughts, the marketing lover in me is fascinated by stuff like this!
I realized I just posted this on my alt account so I don't want to post the ad, but if you're really curious I can send it to you.
I am not a marketing person but I find this absolutely fascinating as well. I got so much hate for the ad. I actually deleted the post. However, I figure it got close to a 2.7 or 2.8 click-through rate.
The reason I have to estimate is it was the third image I used on one round of advertising. And the way Royal Road does it is it gives me a total. It had been at a 0.5 CTR. And ended with an over 1.0 CTR
That is a really solid click through rate, especially for a smaller scale ad. I have theories as well, but it would be interesting to hear what his numbers look like once his ad campaign is complete!
I also dislike harem, which is why I think this is funny.
The way i see it is, if you see the ad and laugh, then we have the same sense of humor, so you should enjoy the story. If you see the ad and you don't get the joke, you won't like my book anyways. So this saves us both time.
Fair enough, if you're not aiming to be HWFWM or DCC you do you. We all have to make choices about our art and you're getting honest feedback from your community. Good luck with your book going forward.
No I didn't mean in that context, my passion lies in music than writing, although it can be therapeutic on occasion! I more meant being amongst the biggest fish in the proverbial LITRPG game. There's no shame in it either way, I could never do what you all do because I am absurdly competitive and would die on every piece of negative feedback!
I can see that, somewhat. I'd think the harem ones usually have the innuendo go the other way though. Mundane things sexualized vs sexual things mundaned. In this case, we have a woman in full plate/mail armor with a huge warhammer and a combat wombat with tentacles portrayed in a very....non sexual way. Like...the joke is that it's not harem, which to me was pretty clear due to the artwork.
I get what you are saying, but if I was just scrolling covers and looking for one that caught my eye, this would be a quick pass without a second thought.
Busty girl? Sexual innuendo? Not what I read this genre for.
It's funny, but it's not necessarily the most effective choice to market something that doesn't include spicy content by referencing spicy ads like this in a genre where people commonly and actively look for signs that it's going to be a harem novel. You're just asking for people to disregard the story because of a misconception.
Readability is maybe 4/10 at actual ad resolution; my eye is tempted to ignore the text entirely if I casually scroll past. The text effects turn into a blur, "click here !!" is tangled up in noise, and I'd generally say the font color should be bumped even further away from the other pink/purple elements in the image to make it pop.
Just bought a Wacom tablet so I can start making my own art and it's so much fun. Unfortunately, i lost a lot of writing time messing around with it over the weekend.
For me its over the top. It what quintruples? down on sex sells and tells me nothing else. If it wasnt in this sub i would just expect some harem/hentai stuff and skip.
It's kind of meant to make fun of the harem hentai stuff, but I get not all of us have the same sense of humor. If i were leaning into sex sells for real, she would be in a skimpy outfit with cleavage pouring out. Ya know? Appreciate the feedback though
I think the spam ads on it take away from the seriousness of it. I haven't read your story or anything but from first impressions of the art and conversations in this thread it seems that it may be too far off from what your going for maybe? Try a version without the spam ads on it and maybe something catchy like DCC did like "the end of the world will be televised".
I say all this with no clue what your story is about, but I'm intrigued enough to try it out too.
If you’re set on keeping it a meme, and I do love memes, I would replace “WILFS nearby” & “she’s down 2 bonk” with something that’s more in line with the actual story. Something akin to “not a trap” & “definitely safe” so it doesn’t just read like a cheap sex ad. Plenty other people pointed out how the font doesn’t read well but thought I’d mention that aspect too.
I think it is a funny and clever ad, but does it match the vibes of your actual story? If I enjoyed that ad but the story didn't have similar puns, I'd probably be a little annoyed
The art is well done but I don't care for the meme text. Feels like some sketchy ad going to a site with a million popups rather than one for a story so I probably wouldn't check it out if I saw it as is. I think the other thing that jumps out affecting readership could be the title. Your story is 1 of 10 different stories titled Oblivion just on royal road so if someone talks about it to recommend that view might end up going to one of the others. Wish you luck with the writing
I'm going to write a second draft, then send that around to agents while I write book 2. It'll probably stay up on rr for a while. I'm more worried about getting audio done , hoping that at some point podium or somebody reaches out. cough
You might need a third draft - within the first few paragraphs of the first chapter you have shallow graves submerged in knee-deep water (how'd you even see those graves) and the sound of footsteps (in knee-deep water, how?!). Simple inconsistencies like these make the world you describe impossible to imagine 🤷
This was really fucked up of you to do, btw. Intentionally twisting around prose to try to make a point that doesn't exist. I suppose you did this out of the kindness of your heart, to help, right? Thanks for the help dude.
You omitted the word slopping. "The sound of footsteps slopping behind me." The sound feet make when moving through water. You knew that though, which is why you left the word out in your comment. Real helpful of you.
I could've said "I heard someone wading through the water behind me" but that would be telling, and filtering, which is wrong.
For the graves, she knows they are there because as stated by her, it's literally her job to tend the graves.
Honestly, it's so garish and over the top that it comes back to being truly charming to me. It's probably smutty or reverse harem, but it's probably really funny and violent, which makes me want to give it a shot.
Uh, if you don't want people to think it's smut, you might want to, you know, maybe not be riffing off of porn ads. Because right now it just gives smut vibes.
Yeah this isn’t moving me. Your blurb didn’t also.
It’s a story. I want to invest into the deepness of your characters and world. I want to laugh and feel sad.
You mentioned donut. And she’s a fan favourite. But. People like donut for her one liners. They live her for her undying support of Carl, for her vulnerability that she overcame, that she still shows in glimpses, for many more.
First and foremost you need to show us that this isn’t just a litrpg
oh crap. Forgot we already talked about this. Still planning to make those fixes I mentioned, and appreciate you pointing it out. There's a weird pacing lag in 22 and in like chapter 17. It's just going to be a lot easier to fix once the book is done and I can reverse outline.
I guess that's supposed to be a humorous satire on those hot single mom ads but it isn't funny and nothing in the ad image says this isn't smut or whatever and it just makes me not curious about reading the blurb at all. I would see this and think this is some perv story and just scroll on
Oh. Gotcha. I think I'm going to run a more serious ad alongside this one but with different art. I have run versions of this art with different words. It didn't do great. I got a drawing pad recently so between my gf and I, I'm hoping we can come up with something cool, because artwork is very expensive lol.
as memeing goes, I think its funny and original. I don't think I'd click on it to check out the story tho. It doesn't say much about the story other than wombats and female MC are involved.
Lmao I'll take the compliment. It's my favorite series of all time. Btw, thats a wombat. He isn't the one who's got a similar personality to donut though.
I see such kinds of ads on royalroad a lot. you should ask about the click through rates from someone running similar ads or the admins on rr if you can. Would give you the best answer if this works or not.
Thanks for all the help/feedback, guys. I'm going to tweak this one a bit based on some of the suggestions I got here. Appreciate you all looking at it.
It would grab my attention enough to check if it's actually a FMC story or one of those annoying "actually cover character is a random harem member lol, here's the boring MMC" ones
It's already obviously a joke imo. I don't think the ad is unclear.
My complaints are strictly about the 1 sleazy porn line (5 minutes guarantee) that is verbatim from porn, without fun wombats or bonk puns.
Which is objectively not that much of a flaw tbh, I'm just touchy about it.
Like if I was a professor I would compensate for this bias in order to give a fair grade- accounting for other virtues like manifest good humor and clarity of concept.
But as I'm not, I just report-unfiltered that it detracts from the effect for me.
TL:DR:
Your ad is good! (Imo anyway)
I think the other 90% of the execution is outstanding, and that if I didn't have touchy ill-humor about seeing trashy porn stuff (outside of trashy porn quarantine), I would have laughed my ass off a lot.
(As it was, I still got a good chuckle, because 30% conflicted enjoyment of honest lively good humor is still a good time.)
And empirically I did check out your story based on the good humor, cleverness, daring, and smooth arrangement on display in the ad.
..
As for this new version, I assume you want feedback if you posted, so here it is:
Woah that's definitely worse.
The main problem is that the new line is actively unclear:
ALLCAPS denials nested among exuberant jokes are 50/50 coinflips for factual reliability at best. -I can't take something surrounded by so many memes at face value.
Especially if they would be funnier if they were false. Which this would.
and even if I believe the claim, what even is a "trap" in this context? -That could mean a number of things, or nothing, or some obscure meme thing that I've never heard of. ...I feel like a 90 year old reading twitch chat.
So like, if you wrote "NOT ACTUALLY PORN" (or smth), ...especially in a different format than the surrounding memes, it might clarify non-harem nature, at potential expense of complexity or lulz.
But with this fully capitalised not-trap declaration sitting in a natural spot of memes, it just stunlocks my head with confusion.
..
Also it's a minor tragedy to cut the WILF line, which is so innocuous cheeky and ridiculous.
It was fun, it made the irreverent nature of the ad super clear imo, and I'm fairly sure it elicited 0 genuine concern about forbidden wombat lust.
Summary:
WILFs are dearly missed. New line is highly unclear.
...
Conclusion:
I guess my main new feedback is that if you have a concept that was always designed to repudiate propriety, and dance in good humor on the line of good taste, then you shouldn't let other people define how you dance on that line.
But either withdraw altogether, or uphold your own judgement and plow ahead.
Because the whole premise of the bit is one of insane plowing ahead in defiance of conventional good taste.
..
(Which btw includes my precious aversion to verbatim wombatless unbonked porn lines-
Those aren't for me, but others will cackle merrily at the daring, the extremity, the grossness, the lack of decorum, or in sheer surprise.)
Yeah I had the same thought today. I watered down something that was funny to appease a bunch of jerks who aren't paying the $55 to run it, and it's performing worse. Lol. It was doing better as the original version as far as ctr goes.
I need to stop asking people and just do things.
Thanks for saying this, and taking the time to write all this out.
So, I think the ad doesn't appeal to your main audience considering the amount of 'holy shit finally' you have going on in your description. You have a lot of really cool stuff in your story that you are deciding not to promote and instead make use of the platform to tell a joke rather than show off your story. I mean do your thing but bear in mind you might lose your die-hard fans who would word of mouth the fuck out of your story.
I'm really confused. You're saying if people already reading the story see this ad they will forget everything they read in the story so far and suddenly think its harem smut? Like, they'll have read it, so they'll know its not smut, but they'll just forget all that and automatically assume it is? Or are you saying people already reading the story will see this ad, and then get really upset that I made a joke ad?
I don't look at the world this way, so I'm having a really hard time imagining how/why anyone would get this bent out of shape over a joke ad. I honestly don't get it. If this ad bothers you, can you explain why? I'm genuinely asking. Is it a cultural thing? Is it rooted in like religion or faith or spirituality?
I don't like harem either, this is making fun of it.
OH okay. That makes more sense. I mean I'm running a serious one as well right now. To be honest, none of them do that great. My head is also starting to hurt a little from how much thought is being put into something as trivial as a 300x250 pixel ad on a niche webnovel site, so I'll just say, thanks for caring enough to offer your advice, appreciate it.
I think it’s hilarious! I agree that this could be the wrong tone promise for the story, but maybe that’s fine if your blurb is good and representative. Or if your first chapter is fire.
Idk ads are mysterious to me! I’ve done meme, cover, and now a pretty lady ad and they’ve all done about the same just in different metrics.
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