Authors, do we need discord?

[Bimbanana]

Happy New Year authors!
This is the rookie webnovel author again
So, my first 2026 question is this:

i'm pretty happy that my series got decent views at SH and RR.
And i'm wondering why many authors set up discord for their works.
I tried to make one, but since i'm pretty much an outdated person (i dont even have tiktok), it confused me a lot!
What the heck is discord roles?! What kind of roles should i give to the readers?
Is it better to have one or not at all?

Yeah, those kinds of questions.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!

(and kick out those JAMs!)

 

[Eldoria]

Discord is a platform for your community. If you want to build a loyal fan base, creating a Discord account is worth considering. Personally, I don't have a Discord account and haven't felt the need to, as I write niche fiction (not popular).

 

[Zinless]

Get a friend who's well-versed in Discord to help you out, or get a template.

 

[Macha]

You need Discord so you can say "Let's talk in Discord!" And scams people like fufufafa with his 19 million jobs opening.

Hope this helps.

 

[Eldoria]

Sorry, @Bimbanana , off topic for a moment.
@Zinless do you put your fiction outside of SH and RR? This site clearly features your work. I also found it on some other sites when crawling.

 

[Anonjohn20]

Authors, do we need discord?

Nah. It's mostly for authors who want to see what their fans are thinking and/or want to communicate with their most loyal fans en masse. If you don't care about interacting with them, then you don't have to do it. Honestly, I find it a pain that every game, story, comic, etc., is now expecting us to join their Discord. For anyone who doesn't pay for Discord Nitro there is a limit of servers you can be in.

TLDR: You might want one, but you don't need one. Also, I gave a mini rant.

 

[Zinless]

Sorry, @Bimbanana , off topic for a moment.
@Zinless do you put your fiction outside of SH and RR? This site clearly features your work. I also found it on some other sites when crawling.

I see it as a form of flattery personally.

At least they credited my name properly.

 

[LeilaniOtter]

Our Discord server is about 6 years old now. These only really work though if you have something for people to do. It can't just be about authors, or writing, or whatever, as that will get stale quickly. We've had movie nights for years, we plan a D&D campaign this year, and have always tried to make the place seem more like an organized club. Give everyone a lot of exciting things to do, and I think it could succeed. ?

 

[ConansWitchBaby]

Sorry, @Bimbanana , off topic for a moment.
@Zinless do you put your fiction outside of SH and RR? This site clearly features your work. I also found it on some other sites when crawling.

First thing I see on the main page is, "get rich by eating melons." This is going to be one of those sites.

It'll become a ghost town if you don't sell your sociability. I'm one of the top 5 contributors to a server for a youtuber with millions of followers that still gets several hundreds of thousands of views per video. I got to the top posting memes and not talking.

 

[McPhoenixDavid]

Happy New Year authors!
This is the rookie webnovel author again
So, my first 2026 question is this:

i'm pretty happy that my series got decent views at SH and RR.
And i'm wondering why many authors set up discord for their works.
I tried to make one, but since i'm pretty much an outdated person (i dont even have tiktok), it confused me a lot!
What the heck is discord roles?! What kind of roles should i give to the readers?
Is it better to have one or not at all?

Yeah, those kinds of questions.

I love customisation. I had created my server last September and now it has 310 members. There is 109 roles, it is boasted twice and there has been even events. There is channels for everything and fun. It helps me see what people want and I can interact with people outside of comments.

 

[FRWriter]

Happy New Year authors!
This is the rookie webnovel author again
So, my first 2026 question is this:

i'm pretty happy that my series got decent views at SH and RR.
And i'm wondering why many authors set up discord for their works.
I tried to make one, but since i'm pretty much an outdated person (i dont even have tiktok), it confused me a lot!
What the heck is discord roles?! What kind of roles should i give to the readers?
Is it better to have one or not at all?

Yeah, those kinds of questions.

My Discord is not very active, despite 200+ members. It's kinda useful though, I use it to post news and ask people for help if I need it.

I wouldn't bother at your point. If you reach a couple of hundred active Patrons, you can consider it.

I mean, it's free, and nothing is stopping you, but I can tell you it's a waste of time. You also need to invest time and effort to keep it clean from spam/trolls, and add certain rules so you are not going against Discord rules. It's a lot of work.

Sorry, @Bimbanana , off topic for a moment.
@Zinless do you put your fiction outside of SH and RR? This site clearly features your work. I also found it on some other sites when crawling.

My stories are there as well. They steal semi-popular stories from the webnovel. You can't do anything about it.

They're not even bothering to delete Links to Discord and Patreon, though. It's just a messy automated service that rips chapters from Webnovel and uploads them there.

 

[Zagaroth]

I have one mostly because I already had one.

At one point, I had tested out becoming a streamer. Turns out, not for me, I am not good at being 'on' with a public, energetic vibe for 4-6 hours at a time, multiple times a week. But Discord was definitely part of that.

However, in that time, it also become a general purpose place for friends and family, as well as having a private section for my D&D group, and a small FF14 community. So adding a link for any readers who wanted to join and hang out too was easy enough, I just added a section focused on my serial.

I get more traffic from my readers in the other sections than I do in the book specific sections. :)