RoyalRoad- aka Censorship Road

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Paul__Michaels

Paul__Michaels

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AuroraAvengarde said:
So I had a particularly bad experience on RoyalRoad, simply from trying to post my first story there. I'm thinking about coming over to ScribbleHub instead, as a result....and without trashing RR too much, I just wanted to see if anyone else has had an experience like mine?

Essentially my submission kept getting these vague rejections like "We allow sexual content on this site, but it can't be the focus of the story blah blah blah, we are worried your submission may be too suggestive blah blah blah" and I was really flabbergasted. Because keep in mind, my story wasn't erotica or smut or anything like that. It was a genderbender/mecha title...kind of like Evangelion or Gundam Wing. But it wasn't fanfic...it was an original universe. And the first chapter obviously has zero sexual content.

And it even included this disclaimer in the synopsis:

"There is romance. It may have some of the elements of a harem, though that is not the primary element of it, and its definitely not the type you typically see in anime. I also marked it for having possible sexual content, though I haven't planned any as of yet. It may be included in specially marked chapters later on if I feel it fits."

So a moderaror kept rejecting it with these vague messages, despite that disclaimer being there from the start. So I removed the sexual content tags entirely, and sent in an angry support ticket like "I just wont include it at all then. Fine. Its a Gundam style story anyways so its not that important to the plot! So stop rejecting it. Jeez. Right?

Then it gets rejected AGAIN. This time he wants me to change the cover because he says it's 'incredibly sexual.' And demands that I change the cover art...which I paid money for. So now I'm really upset by this point and was just like...what is their malfunction?

The cover art was pretty modest. It was just a curvy girl in a kind of body hugging space suit. Like the kind you see the females wear in some sci-fi/mecha (non-ecchi mind you) anime/manga. She IS thick. Maybe a tad overweight (but notnquite chubby). But fully covered from head to toe. No skin showing below the neck. No transparent sections either, in the suit itself. And her pose was a neutral standing pose...not anything suggestive.

So I'm super mad. I flat out refused. Now I'm waiting for one of the site owners over there to review the case (since I asked for an escalation above that mod). But he said she is "stricter" than him. Which is even weirder. So whatever, we'll see I guess.

But listen guys, am I the crazy one here? lol.
I just feel like they are straight up banning any images of women who's bodily dimensions exceed some vague skinny parameter. Like she must be in violation of RR's rules, subsection Double-D or something. (lol!)

I mean she was sexy...but that was it. It wasn't to a crazy level.

For reference here is my 'incredibly sexual' cover art:

Click to expand...
Listen, you are dealing with a few factors with RR. One, they just launched there app to go on Android and Apple stores so they upped their annealness on covers. You can't show shit for women's bodies even if they are clothed.
Second, they are a Israeli business and they are weird about anything sexual in nature. Countries with heavily run religions make for heavier censorships.
Third, I think the owner doesn't want anything remotely close to romantic or sexual on their site. There's ways around it but you have to jump through their hoops to get your shit on their site.
It's not impossible but just be prepared to run into roadblocks on occasion.

So, if you want your book to be approved then you can only show your MC's head shot. Nothing below the shoulders. And no swear words in the title or synonyms. My book's title had Shyt and they didn't like that.
beast_regards said:
That would be ... an explosively bad call!
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?☠️
 
whitesculptor

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I had mine taken out by the mod team because the protagonist 16 years old(medieval era) was going to duel a guy on a tournament and if she lost, she had to marry him in the future.
The feedback I've received from the top dogs is that site only good to write about virgin MC doing a whole progression story or wuxia/cultivation related.
Only good thing about that site is bigger community, even if a great part of it has their values twisted to the point of reporting anything sexual or simply ecchi enough to make them upset, or with romantic inclination. But again, in a world where the propaganda attempts people not to marry and to be anything what they were born to be... shrugs
 
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beast_regards

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AuroraAvengarde said:
So I had a particularly bad experience on RoyalRoad, simply from trying to post my first story there. I'm thinking about coming over to ScribbleHub instead, as a result....and without trashing RR too much, I just wanted to see if anyone else has had an experience like mine?
Click to expand...
Many people have similar experiences.

Most of them eventually bent the knee, some of them left.

Keep in mind, the Royal Road, despite the fact they host web novels, aren't reliant on the web novels beings actually present.

They don't operate as a publisher.

They operate like social media. Instead of actually delivering the product (I.e. novel), they are reliant on traffic being present for their ad revenue.

Facebook doesn't want you to show you the pictures of your family, friends, and their pets, or whatever is applicable, they want to show you the things to anger you, to make you argue, to keep scrolling to stay on site, to click on ads.

The Royal Road business model is exactly the same with added benefit. They are subcontractors of Amazon and make money from the purchases you make on Amazon. Just like Facebook and photos, the Royal Road doesn't want anyone to read the story. They want people frustrated, arguing, down voting for each other, pointlessly review swapping, without anyone (but them) getting what they want. Only what matters is the traffic on site, not the content, and Royal Road owner are more than happy with their no-show jobs where they get all the profit, and you get all the struggle.

Only way you get the story you want out of the Royal Road is to buy it on Amazon, and then, they will get 10% from the transaction.
 
RedMuffin

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beast_regards said:
Many people have similar experiences.

Most of them eventually bent the knee, some of them left.

Keep in mind, the Royal Road, despite the fact they host web novels, aren't reliant on the web novels beings actually present.

They don't operate as a publisher.

They operate like social media. Instead of actually delivering the product (I.e. novel), they are reliant on traffic being present for their ad revenue.

Facebook doesn't want you to show you the pictures of your family, friends, and their pets, or whatever is applicable, they want to show you the things to anger you, to make you argue, to keep scrolling to stay on site, to click on ads.

The Royal Road business model is exactly the same with added benefit. They are subcontractors of Amazon and make money from the purchases you make on Amazon. Just like Facebook and photos, the Royal Road doesn't want anyone to read the story. They want people frustrated, arguing, down voting for each other, pointlessly review swapping, without anyone (but them) getting what they want. Only what matters is the traffic on site, not the content, and Royal Road owner are more than happy with their no-show jobs where they get all the profit, and you get all the struggle.

Only way you get the story you want out of the Royal Road is to buy it on Amazon, and then, they will get 10% from the transaction.
Click to expand...
You mentioned them 5 times in this post. Post 5 cat pics as punishment.
 
ThisAdamGuy

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RR runs on nepotism. If your story is popular (translation: makes them lots of ad revenue) you can do and say whatever you want and face no consequences. I got banned for expressing opinions like "pornographic books shouldn't be marketed towards teens and tweens," which apparently some of the more popular RR authors took issue with. There were no warnings, I just woke up one morning and found out my account had been shut down. When I asked about it, they couldn't name any specific rules that I had broken. All they could say was that I was "argumentative."
 
beast_regards

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@AuroraAvengarde

In case Moderator "Code Name Mary Jane" John rejects your cover again, send him (them) this one. It was carefully selected by me and thus there couldn't be possibly anything wrong with it.

1735420133853.png

By the way, I forget to mention it, in case you select "Sexual Content" or any other "Warning" on THAT SITE (which name I couldn't say along without causing a spontaneous appearance of cat pictures in my profile) it is good to know that those cause your story to be hidden in any and all searches unless user verify their age. Which, of course, could be bypassed, but not on their "Special Needs" phone app through which they want you to interact with the site.
 
CarburetorThompson

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My RR cover got rejected because they thought a 90 yo photograph of an airplane taken by a random Spanish solider was a copyright protected work.

Eventually got approved after I appealed and told the mod how much of an idiot they were, but I’d already given up on RR at that point. The discoverability is nonexistent, unless you’re established there is no reason to post there
 
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CrimsonGenius

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I post my story here, royal road, Ao3 and fiction press. What does it say about me?
 
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