I got my first negative rating on Royal Road

[PBJ_Time]

Did you, by any chance, ever interacted with their forums, or worse, engaged in something called Review Swap?

Well, yes. Yes, I did.

 

[beast_regards]

Well, yes. Yes, I did.

We find your problem right here.

It's a little counter-intuitive, since we as the writers want our work seen, but on the Royal Road is dangerous to interact with people. Especially ones that frequent forums. Against bots, there is no defense.

 

[PBJ_Time]

We find your problem right here.

It's a little counter-intuitive, since we as the writers want our work seen, but on the Royal Road is dangerous to interact with people. Especially ones that frequent forums. Against bots, there is no defense.

True, but I guess it was tempting when you see some authors gain 100+ followers in just 30 days or whatever. It makes you wonder, "Wow, how did they get so successful?"

Often times, I learned it's because they ran ad campaigns more than anything. That and others are veteran authors who've been writing longer than I have.

 

[Ruti]

True, but I guess it was tempting when you see some authors gain 100+ followers in just 30 days or whatever. It makes you wonder, "Wow, how did they get so successful?"

Prior works perhaps, as well as having been in the community long enough to know to avoid certain people and partner with certain others for story sharing

 

[PBJ_Time]

Prior works perhaps, as well as having been in the community long enough to know to avoid certain people and partner with certain others for story sharing

Yeah, but sometimes, they have only one fiction under their belt. Then, I realized they wrote other stuff before promptly deleting them.

 

[Ruti]

Then, I realized they wrote other stuff before promptly deleting them.

Probably stubs because they might have gotten an exclusivity deal for money, and having stories with only some chapters that appear to not be updating is not exactly going to pass on RR for making you popular without the bad people appearing

 

[Amrasil207]

What merely posting on the Royal Road earns you at least one, if not more, anonymous drive-by low rating. Of course, that is assuming you didn't encourage interaction. Those are merely participation prize.

If you do encourage interaction, it's usually one of those unremovable reviews from the freshly created accounts, which mods pretend they are not seeing. You normally can't rate down the story by complaining that it contains words, or letter "a", or characters, or images, or toucans, and so on. But those mysterious accounts that appear out of nowhere only to bomb your story, those can. Because they are magic.

And then, there is the biggest mistake - Review Swap. You see, if you do a Review Swap, you will be rewarded by an automatic 0.5 star, which is considered completely valid. Since you need roughly 20 more 5-star ratings to compensate (or Good Bye Visibility). If you try to get back through more review swaps, you need more 0.5-ratings, appearing miraculously, usually in batches. But with twenty half-stars, you now need 400 top reviews.

Of course, you can decide to not do Review Swaps, but no one tells you they are essentially the suicide pact. I

What is this, a dark pact with a demon who will hijack your body for shits and giggles? Huh... Glad to know I just took one look and dip.

 

[Ruti]

What is this, a dark pact with a demon who will hijack your body for shits and giggles? Huh... Glad to know I just took one look and dip.

RR is simply a location to put stories you already have established in another site to gather more readers. Never do you start a novel there, unless your aiming to be a generic Isekai power fantasy novel writer, or are already quite experienced in writing, because while they do give some really good advice, god are they prideful, and will give advice In the most obnoxious way possible to any new authors with little RR experience, since why do they care about some small time author that no one's heard of? Known authors don't deal with this as much cause like, they are known, why start beef with someone who has a ton of supporters, when you can start beef with one who has 3 RR supporters?

Known users also have a lot more power mod wise, cause the mods too are prideful, and would just ignore you if your a new writer an don't have like 3 years of experience being in the forums and community.

 

[Dragon_SAMA]

The hierarchy is clear there. It's like going into a new college with a lot of Bully senior who are ragging you because you are new there. That's the feeling I got there

 

[Corty]

RR is simply a location to put stories you already have established in another site to gather more readers. Never do you start a novel there, unless your aiming to be a generic Isekai power fantasy novel writer, or are already quite experienced in writing, because while they do give some really good advice, god are they prideful, and will give advice In the most obnoxious way possible to any new authors with little RR experience, since why do they care about some small time author that no one's heard of? Known authors don't deal with this as much cause like, they are known, why start beef with someone who has a ton of supporters, when you can start beef with one who has 3 RR supporters?

Known users also have a lot more power mod wise, cause the mods too are prideful, and would just ignore you if your a new writer an don't have like 3 years of experience being in the forums and community.

This is the best analysis I have ever read of RR

 

[Ruti]

The hierarchy is clear there. It's like going into a new college with a lot of Bully senior who are ragging you because you are new there. That's the feeling I got there

exactly why you only post there while either an experienced reader (equivalent of being a senior transfer student) or a well known reader (popular kid) otherwise you get review bombed (seniors who can't stand not being popular) false reported (rumor spreaders) and can do nothing about it cause mods are to biased (teachers rather support bully then new kid)

 

[Seaspecter]

The thing is as harsh as the community on Royal Road can be I also got a lot of really good advice from them so if you got a thick skin you might as well stay.

 

[SigmaEnigma]

Gotta say, I'm not entirely bummed because I've got a better rating on this site, but man, that was still a kick in the balls.

Just got a 2 star rating earlier and lost a follower, feels like shit man. But i'll keep my head high

 

[Ruti]

The thing is as harsh as the community on Royal Road can be I also got a lot of really good advice from them so if you got a thick skin you might as well stay.

Yep. As long as you can deal with their pride and ego, you can really improve your story.

sadly, most of the ones who can deal with their pride and ego are authors who are already pretty well established and don't need the advice

 

[beast_regards]

What is this, a dark pact with a demon who will hijack your body for shits and giggles? Huh... Glad to know I just took one look and dip.

It's not something even remotely supernatural, it's plain and simple corporate greed.

Create the vicious cycle of negativity to increase the ad revenue, and to assure that only stories that they could receive the share from sales are visible.

 

[Alfir]

Same for me in RR... I managed to write a pretty decent story and then wham! They tend to do that, giving negative reviews without explaining even here in SH. It just hurts more in RR, because well it is RR..