moderators please delete this

[SapphireStargazer]

moderators plese delete this.

 

[Eldoria]

Welcome to SH. By the way, I have some advice for you if you want to increase your engagement with your readers.

First, create a visually appealing cover — anime/light novel style covers are recommended.

Second, if you want more readers, market research is a must. Unfortunately, your sports novels tend to be unpopular on SH (I often see sports novels with hundreds of chapters but still have less than 10k views). Some genres that are quite popular are fantasy, LiRPG, and of course, isekai. You are free to write anything, but if you want your novel to reach a wider audience, writing popular a genre is worth considering.

Third, it is recommended to update your novel 2–4 times a week to gain exposure. Don't update many chapters at once, it will not increase exposure.

Fourth, the average SH reader is a silent reader. To encourage interaction with readers, you can provide polls or author notes in chapters.

Maybe that's all I can say. I wish you success with your novel. Best regards.

 

[rainchip]

Hi,
Thanks for that. My cover isn't anime and it's only tagged as "sports" because the main characters are figure skaters but it's about way more than sports. Maybe I'll un-tag it from sports, or maybe I'll just not bother posting any more of it here. And yes... after several years of apparently "silent" readers, I'm fully aware that I may never know whether anyone's actually reading it or not. I guess it doesn't matter at the end of the day. I think I'm just caught up in the nostalgia of how writing forums used to be 20 years ago. I appreciate your time and your reply, in any case.

I skimmed through your work and it’s genuinely really good. This isn’t about your writing it’s more about how stories are packaged and sold these days. There’s such a huge market right now for Light Novel, anime-inspired, Chinese, and Korean-style storytelling that it can be hard for more traditional works, for lack of a better word, to get real visibility. You can absolutely still succeed it’s just a bit tougher on sites like SH or RR.

Adjusting your genre tags might help a little, though I wouldn’t say you need to drop sports. It’s niche and still has its audience. Maybe consider a less realistic human cover? A drawn or illustrated version of the same scene might appeal more to the current crowd. I’ve seen similar covers do well, though they’re often tied to more indulgent or smut-focused stories which doesn’t seem to be your thing, so that’s just something to keep in mind.

For what it’s worth, I totally get what you mean about the silence being discouraging. I used to write fanfics about ten years ago and only recently came back to writing my own stuff. I’m used to a much more vocal audience, so it can definitely feel like you’re shouting into the void sometimes. But readers are out there sometimes it just takes a bit of luck to find them.

Edit: Your chapters read like full-on novel prose. They’re thick and heavy in a good way. The only thing is, readers these days tend to prefer shorter updates, around 2–3k words, something they can get through comfortably without feeling like they’re drowning halfway through. You might consider breaking each chapter into smaller parts like I, II, III, IV, or just numbered sections like many of us do. Later on if you decide to self-publish, you can always merge and edit them back into full-length chapters that fit a traditional novel format.