I posted
XNPC (almost) exactly one month ago. Here's what my stats look like so far. Considering that this is the debut novel from an unknown author, on a scale of 1 to 10, how am I doing?
Chapters: 20 (plus two interludes for stats)
Pages: 205
Scribble Hub:
Total views: 910
Average views: 40 on chapter one, then between 10 and 20 for the rest.
Followers: 14
Favorites: 3
Ratings: 5
Reviews: 0
Overall score: 3.8/5
Royal Road:
Total views: 4,324
Average views: 197
Followers: 63
Favorites: 8
Ratings: 5
Reviews: 3
Overall score: 4.38/5
Ratings... I hate them. They are a benchmark that implies how well somebody exposed their product, not the quality.
At least that's my opinion. First, let's cover the context, okay?
So both SH and RRL are rich algorithm-driven discovery ecosystems... sounds tasty. Anyways, early performance isn't really about the quality but rather how well ya hooked your readers, the first blurb of a synopsis clarity, how visible the cover is, just how much you update, how well the platforms' genre align with the readers' tastes, and how memorable the very first chapter is. Uh, you know, your first impression on the readers? Yeah, that. And that is important because readers need to be interested early or else the only way you'll be gaining more folks is if you're advertising it or someone else spreads the word that it gets better.
So, you had a month, right? Let's cover Scribblehub first.
What I can tell, that first month ain't catastrophic in the slightest, but it also can't be called a shinning star. Something must be up with that first impression. Reason I say that is because forty people read chapter one, but only somewhere between a half or fourth of them continued past that. That likely means the hook ya got going is good, but something in that first chapter isn't selling it for most of what you got peeking in there to keep going; your line snapped and the fishies got away.
Now, you also have fourteen following it out of over nine-hundred views. What is that... something like 1.5% conversion or something? Eh, for a month's debut, that ain't bad. Something like middle ground success, but it is on the low end of that mid-tier.
So, your novel is surviving. It's not bad at all, just not strong enough to reach the heights you want.
What about Royal Road now? This is a tad bit more interesting to cover because it is revealing you've got a stronger reader base there, and I don't mean that by them having more folks compared to us.
So, you got sixty-three following ya from... damn, 4,324 views. Okay, that's close to the same conversion as Scribblehub's,
but the counts of reviews are better and your rating is bigger, so that is telling us RRL is exposing you more. You're not breaking out as a rising star there, but you definitely are thriving more in that pasture.
That means you ain't failing. I don't know how popular you are, but twenty chapters in one month with a modest following, some reviews, and definitely unhostile ratings, that's pretty good; it ain't a flop.
But just keep in mind that ratings don't mean quality. They are something that represents the emotional impact per whoever is reading your stuff, that expectation alignment and genre satisfaction on whichever platform I mentioned earlier, and how well your early momentum ignited on this or that place.
Online novels are not judged the same as they are in a bookstore, got it? Think of your novel as something being presented through a noisy feed of a radio fighting against other stations; it might be a hit, but the readers really need to put in effort to tune in. You need to catch their attention and that's only gonna happen if your voice and beats are something for them to start rocking to.
Right now? If you wanna get a clear answer about how your rating is? Just average it between SH and RRL: it's a
six out of
ten.
Again, that's good, okay?
