Friend and I are beginning to do a webnovel. Y'all got any advice? Thank you. Namaste.
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Jul '23last reply
Jul '23- 8
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What kind of advice are you looking for? Writing tips? Promoting advice? A little bit of everything?
I do have a few general tips that might be useful:
Have a schedule (Not only is it good for your own work ethic to have a deadline, readers like knowing when new chapters are coming out. Make use of that Schedule option!)
Don't expect a lot of growth right off the bat. (I would even say don't worry about the numbers at all for a little bit, till you have a decent body of work, maybe around 10-15 chapters? Then start to really promote your work. The Forums here are a great place, also any social media you have.)
Have Fun and take care of yourself! (posting your work online for the world to read can be pretty scary. If you need to ever step back, then step back. You might lose a few readers, but it's better to take care of yourself.)
You are your harshest critic (Don't beat yourself up to much, especially with a new project, mistakes will happen, it's part of the growing process. And even though you might not see it you are always improving!)
Oh I meant stuff outside of all that lol. Like other places to post... what do people like in their webnovels... when do you usually do images... what're the most popular genres... etc. etc.
When you mean post, do you mean to post your webnovel? I personally use a few different sites and believe that you should try to keep your net as wide as you are able, but be careful not to extend yourself too far.
I personally use three different sites (one of them is Tapas). The sites you pick to publish on should be somewhat based on the genre of work you are writing. Tapas has a pretty robust community of everything, but romance and action-fantasy (particularly Isekai works) seem to perform a bit better. LGBT+ works also have a very safe and welcoming home here. I know there are sites dedicated to horror and mystery works. I would recommend you do a few searches around and try to find the sites that fit you best.
For me personally I also use:
- Wattpad (though it's my fourth platform that I update my backlog onto randomly every handful of months. Wattpad is a mixed bag, but romance is also what tends to do best here.)
- Royal Road (Really good place if you want some honest (and a tiny bit ruthless feedback). They only do Isekai fantasies though and anything that's not system based won't do well. there's also no money to be made here, unless people chose to donate.)
- Inkitt (an 18+ plus friendly website that pays some authors nice royalties for their works. Female lead romance is what does well here, especially if its "adult".)
As for pictures inside my novel, I don't use any, except in the character profile index or a map. I personally feel that pictures can be a little distracting in a web novel. Though that is my opinion and some one else might have better advice.
"What do people like in their webnovels?"
This is a very odd question. Are you asking about popular tropes? How to better write for an audience? Or are you asking what will sell the best?
if it's the last one I would heavily recommend rethinking writing a novel. Novel writing is not an easy feat and if you're going into it for the money you are doomed to fail from the start.
Write a story you want to tell.
I'd always wonder if people actually would read a novel I post on Wattpad or whatever. It seems to me like the commitment needed for one is way higher than the commitment to reading something like a comic you know?
As a reader, I know that it's true for me. I'm far more willing to give a comic a quick glance through than read an opening chapter. But on the other side, I'm far less likely to stop reading a novel than I am to stop reading a comic.
Other more novel-based sites due have a better book readership than Tapas, but you need to be careful about terms and money. The few I listed above don't have any claims to your work unless you choose to partner with them. (That's why I can post on multiple different sites with no problem).
As someone who has had webnovels in the past, here is my advice:
Forums work wonders--BUT, if you're looking for readers who will always be genuine, Instagram or really any platform that you already have a good following on will work.
For what readers want? That really depends on the reader. But from what I've seen here are things you want to avoid:
- Info dumps
- Long paragraphs (especially at the beginning)
- Going a long time without dialogue
- Cliche's
- Bland/already used plot.
And my advice as a creator?
Write most of your novel before posting it. It's VERY easy to go into burnout if you write knew episodes and post them within the same week. Trust me. And not only that, you may want to change things in the story that you wouldn't be able to change if you already had episodes posted.
Before you start writing, know what kind of story you want to write. This is different from picking your genre and plot. Ideas have natural "expiration" dates. This basically means that a great action story might not go anywhere after 20 chapters. Writers like to tack on extra storylines to keep the series going, but readers do notice when a series starts getting ridiculous. I started writing serial fiction because my story did not follow novel conventions. Web fiction will be a million times easier if you know what type of fiction you are writing.
Shop for a platform. Novels don't do well on Tapas. You will still get reads, it's just harder in the long run. A lot of novel platforms tend to cater to romance fiction, so you have to keep that in mind as well. It's easier to build an audience, when you are in a position to get consistent reads.
This ties in with my previous point, but have a plan for your novel. You might want to sell it. You might not. Either is fine. But writing web fiction takes a lot of time. I know the same can be said about comics, but comic artists have a little more freedom than writers do in earning income online. Having a plan gives you a little more sanity when trying to navigate online publishing.