Sep 2020
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Sep 2020
Sep 2020
IntoTheTempest
Sep '20

I only started posting here on Monday and I'll admit, I have a hard time engaging. Like, I market myself on Twitter with every update, but I'm having a tough time using the forums. It seems everyone just shoves links to their work everywhere possible and hope for the best.

I think what your describing here is a book club and they come with their own set of problems. It can be hard to gather everyone who wants to participate in one place, get them to... stay true to their word, dole out punishment when they don't etc.

cherrystark
Sep '20
DWaM22

I think if you started a thread like that where EVERYBODY can step up and read each other's stuff with clear rules/expectations, I can see people jumping on board. I have seen "review train" threads that have worked.

domisotto
Sep '20
DWaM22

Yup, that's exactly like the bookclubs work on Wattpad with a few variations, some of which are impossible on Tapas, like the Comment Spam variety.

But be prepared to impose penalties on people & chase after them, because trust me, a huge number of people do NOT do their assignments.

nostalgicroxas
Sep '20

As an honest person: I'm blunt, I'm too busy, and am an introvert.

Anything that even shows the sign of this site becoming a R4R community immediately sends up red flag warnings for me. Active communication on the forum generally spirals into nothing but R4R broken up into threads of "do mine!!" seperate threads, and "horror only!" "cute only!" "girl MCs only!!" And then any active communication that the forum may have had before stops within a few months as everyone jumps on the bandwagon of R4R threads and multiple threads of such, and you either join in, or leave the forum at large.

And I state this as a person who has seen many a site's forums and general community either die to, or become overrun with nothing but R4R. Mibba and Wattpad as two large examples. And I mean overrun to the point of:: if you do not interact with the R4R industry market, you are invisible. You are nothing. You might as well not even post on this site.
And that is a horrible and negative mentality that, at it's core, the R4R is trying to discourage, but ends up happening par the course.

That said, the current trend on this forum R4R is largely not applicable to me. "I'll read the first two chapters!" "First five updates!" That's nice. I don't care. I need input on stuff I'm currently working on, which is thousands of words past that point.

If, and big if, this forum adopts the R4R model as a community, I'm out like it's a building on fire. The only way I've ever seen this work both for people like me who need later stuff looked at, and the people who want the first sections looked at, is something called Random Excerpt Time

A RET is what we call Random Excerpt Time! Whenever someone calls one, that means it's time post a random snippet of something you've written! It can be the last scene you wrote, or even from an older project! It could be random, or someone might request something of a theme, like "opening scene of a story" or "terrible weather happens."

As far as RET etiquette goes:
- Spoiler-tag your quotes and check for formatting! Gaia eats indents, so please put a space between each paragraph to keep it from becoming a wall-o'-text!
- Try to keep it under 500 words! Remember, it's an Excerpt, not a whole novel!
- It's courteous to read and comment on everyone's posts! You don't need to go into long paragraphs of critique; a line or two is perfectly fine!

I've seen and used RET in action on my GAIA online writing group - both as part of NaNo and just "we're bored!" And we get people who come out of the wood work who don't normally post to give feedback on what worked, what didn't work, what was funny, 100% constructive and conversation building :thumbsup:

kmlangleyauthor
Sep '20

See, this sounds super fun and community oriented while I’m 100% not okay with R4R. I feel like RET would be fun and creative and a MUCH less stressful way of helping other authors out :slight_smile:

domisotto
Sep '20
nostalgicroxas

I loved the threads on Wattpad where people posted last written paragraphs or opening paragraphs for critique (under 200 words), but it always required someone to remind people to critique a paragraph above, because, of course people wanted to just post theirs to wow the world, but not to pay forward, heh.

DWaM22
Sep '20
nostalgicroxas

Hey, whatever works best. Again, my ultimate goal isn't R4R, but get people to engage with other people's work beyond just all of us dumping links to topics, like most of the Novels category pretty much is. If this is the better way to go about doing it, I'm all for it. I dont' have enough experience or the foresight to know how bad some things can get; thankfully, other people clearly do.

The only thing I'd probably add to the etiquette would be prohibiting the same person posting an excerpt again until a certain amount of time passes, so they don't potentially completely fill the topic.

domisotto
Sep '20

From what I have seen, the "Critique the Last Few Para You Wrote" or "Post the First Few Para of your Novel" needs the following to be successful:

  1. a firmly stated rule that you must critique the guy above
  2. someone to enforce that rule (otherwise no engagement)
  3. word limit--nothing kills the thread faster than a guy who dumps 600 words
thedude3445
Sep '20

I haven't had time to read anyone's stories on Tapas in ages but I do think the self-promo stuff here is almost completely useless and people would highly benefit from starting an actual book club, even if it's a one-off one-weekend event where committed people spend a whole weekend reading other peoples' stories.

NellieVP318
Sep '20

I feel like all the self-promo stuff is hard to keep up with everyone's stories. I'm gulity with the self-promo stuff but I think there should be a better way to organaize everything so everyone can promote their work.

I do like the idea of people reading the first chapters of other's people's work. Usually beginnings are what people get hook to certain stories to see if the pay off is worth it. It's a tough thing to decide.

essem
Sep '20
1

I've only been on Tapas for three minutes. Here are my two observations:

  • The forums here are a breath of fresh air compared with the spittoon of social media more generally (incl. those places populated mostly by wannabe writers)

  • Tapas needs either to promote itself purely as a forum for comics, or it needs to go and attract a critical mass of novel readers across all of the genres it lists.

domisotto
Sep '20

They already do. That’s why you see people getting 250 subs in a month because they hit the sweet spot and without the helping hand. That’s why someone who got 50 subs gets to 200 in one week after being added on staff picks. The readers are there.

But readers will never be distributed evenly between writers. Online is reflective of the creative sphere as a whole. 1% that have 90% of attention and popularity and the remaking 99% splitting—and not evenly so—the 10% willing to look beyond the top 10 lists or look for something of the beaten path.

It is what it is. Like in every sport, there could only be one champion, and the rest will be the also ran. And they can be at it for years, if they enjoy competing, even knowing that there always will be someone surpassing them, an old champ, the new talent, just never ever them.

Nobody would make readers read all books equally. You get your place on the fresh list here, visible for like 24-48 hours, which is by far more generous than you will have in most platforms.

The fact that Tapas is smaller is what gives a new writer a fighting chance. On a bigger site, you stand zero chance vs the heavy hitter that already have millions and hundreds of thousands of reads.

rajillustration
Sep '20

I see Read for Read as better than Sub for Sub, because there's no pressure to read, but I only do it if it's like...a critique thing or if I'm really bored. Tbqh I've only done it like 2 times. Otherwise it's still just gaining maybe a sub or two at a time. That's a lot of work for so little subs.

It's still best to go off this forum to do your promotion, except in the cases where staff are looking for works to put on front page lists. But those opportunities are few and far between youknow?

This forum really is a place to talk shop--and so I'd be down for a bookclub, but of books that have tons of readers so I could learn about what other people think works or doesn't work--so I could put those techniques into my own work. A book club to read stuff from other people on this forum--I've probably already read your work at one point or another.

essem
Sep '20
domisotto

You're claiming there are as many readers of novels as there are for comics on Tapas??

foxnflames
Sep '20

Whatever we’re doing, sign me up. Feedback, critiques, reading, helping homies out, etc.

@IntoTheTempest what’s your story :thinking: link it in your bio

nostalgicroxas
Sep '20
domisotto

@domisotto @DWaM22

the way it generally works is as a round of sorts. In the thread one person will call for an RET and the group posts something, stopping at about 500 or 1000. Then as we read them, we @ the people and give feedback to alllll of them. So you get generally 3 to 10 inputs.
But this happens inside another thread rather than being a standalone. It's generally done with people posting and reading within 48hrs :smiley:

liamhernandezlucas
Sep '20
1
cherrystark

I started a review train for comics once, and it was one of the most useful things I've done. I got some useful feedback and insights and a couple new subscribers.

It was pretty time consuming, since I promised to make sure everybody got at least one review even if I had to pick it up, but it was fun. It was through that that I discovered Aegis by Hexigate, a really underappreciated comic.

After that thread died, I started making a community driven magazine for webcomics and webnovels, and Hexigate was on board for it along with a couple of others. It's still growing steadily, but since we mostly engage people through the forums, we're kind of stuck at getting only creators to see it, and not enough pure readers.

Hopefully, someday, it'll grow enough to become a valuable resource.

If anyone here starts a special project to make exposure for novellists, please let us know, so we can inform our readers and discordees and they can check it out.

domisotto
Sep '20
nostalgicroxas

Yeah, I expect that to end up with me giving and never receiving any feedback. That seems to be my pattern with not enforced exchanges

DWaM22
Sep '20
nostalgicroxas

I personally don't think this forum is as massive or fast-moving to really make sense to just start them up in random threads. Especially since it might arguably rude to seemingly hijack a topic for that.