I seen this a couple of times where a writer post chapters here and on their own site. And there maybe a story on the author's site but not on RR. I wonder why?

I understand if it's someone who has a commercial/selling book but everyone else?

I still fairly new on RR, so I don't know what the majority of the readers loves or who the audience are?

Should I make my own site? Are there stories that are not welcomed here and put somewhere else?


Hope to receive some thoughts and opinions.

'node.' pid='824996' dateline='1497132102' Wrote: I seen this a couple of times where a writer post chapters here and on their own site. And there maybe a story on the author's site but not on RR. I wonder why?

I understand if it's someone who has a commercial/selling book but everyone else?

I still fairly new on RR, so I don't know what the majority of the readers loves or who the audience are?

Should I make my own site? Are there stories that are not welcomed here and put somewhere else?


Hope to receive some thoughts and opinions.

Well, it's more about ambition... I guess? There are variety of reasons authors go for having their own sites. The top ones I believe are: Money, from ad revenue; Hope, that their thing can be something bigger... something tons of people look forward to, to come to their site for; Filters, to filter out reviews or comments should they feel uncomfortable about them; Curiosity, believe it or now, curiosity too it is a major reason for many.


There are more reasons, probably, but these are all the popular ones I could think of.

Hope it helps answer your question!

A whole number of valid reasons, but to put it in the most basic terms: They hope to create a franchise of their own.

By joining any publishing site, you're becoming a part of its own franchise. This is very much alike to publishing a book at a well-known publisher with an established reputation and a strong reader base. They give you a place to post, an audience and they firm you with their name and reputation. In return, your story adds up to their reputation and helps them reinforce their franchise. An anonymous reader who stumbles upon your story over here will remember it as 'a RRL story'. You'll be lucky if they remember your name - and even if they do, they'll remember you as an 'RRL author'. You get substantial benefits, but majority of your fame automatically goes to the website.

A personal website foregoes all the benefits of publishing on a larger  website for the single virtue of personal publicity. If you publish on your own site, your readers won't associate your story with anything else. They will remember you, and all the reputation you gain - good or bad - will be yours alone.

As for whether you should make your own website: From personal experience, only if you have the confidence that you can break through with your own power. It's not impossible - look no further than Wildbow - but you basically need to build all the publicity on your own. Reaching your target audience, advertising, finding partners, obtaining reviews, making your website visible, getting features - it's all your job, no website will do it for you. Depending on your personality, disposition and life circumstances, it can be either a thrilling challenge or a gruelling, hopeless grind. One thing is sure, though - it doesn't come easily.

As for stories that are welcome / unwelcome on RRL, I asked the same question on the welcome thread. I found some answers there; hopefully, so may you >.<
[/url][url=https://forum.royalroadl.com/showthread.php?tid=97572&page=5]

I think the site keeps a motivation to write, it can even inspire. You see the result of your work. Nowadays, it is not that difficult to create a website, you do not need to know coding. There are tools with which you can create, like WordPress. The other thing that it is not that difficult to promote the website. Of course, it is time-consuming and the person may not success in the promotion but it is not that difficult to do. Getting SEO knowledge and expanding social networks' profiles make a person popular. At the end more readers who like to read what you write. That can even more inspire.

'node.' pid='824996' dateline='1497132102' Wrote: I seen this a couple of times where a writer post chapters here and on their own site. And there maybe a story on the author's site but not on RR. I wonder why?

I understand if it's someone who has a commercial/selling book but everyone else?

I still fairly new on RR, so I don't know what the majority of the readers loves or who the audience are?

Should I make my own site? Are there stories that are not welcomed here and put somewhere else?


Hope to receive some thoughts and opinions.

I was wondering have you ever created a website? Do you have coding skills?

as reader (n' maybe writer too if i ever decide to write), i'd just stick with RRL since most fictions 're posted here, it's more convenient to just check only 1 site for all fictions
as useless+misleading as it is, the review feature 'd still be a big help
n' certainly other filters (genre, tag, etc.) n' search 're quite convenient

Quote:

I was wondering have you ever created a website?  Do you have coding skills?

I can only dream of having coding skills and I'm just so lazy to learn.

I had never created a site before. I did sign-up for wordpress a couple of years ago for curiosity sake and did nothing with it nor learn how to use it.

I can't speak for others, but I setup a blog with bloggers mostly to try and do it and learn something new.

I learn a bit of html, and how to add disqus comments on the chapters, and stuffs. It's not really hard :)

'Reya Dawnbringer' pid='826652' dateline='1501485829' Wrote: I can't speak for others, but I setup a blog with bloggers mostly to try and do it and learn something new.

I learn a bit of html, and how to add disqus comments on the chapters, and stuffs. It's not really hard :)

That's a very good way to start! 

But, I still wouldn't prefer doing that. Unless of course it's only to sate your curiosity; My reasoning? Well, let me just say this-- Nowadays there's not a story good enough to have it's own exclusive site (2). 

...there are some variables which might prove that statement false but, generally, it's the truth. You WILL need RRL or any other parent site to boost you up. While an intriguing story and a descent amount of chapters might get you some temporary traffic--- Well, it will be temporary; People will forget about it. There will be merely 1/3 (or even less) amount of readers truly checking for updates... yada yada. You get the point, right? 

"An anonymous reader who stumbles upon your story over here will remember it as 'a RRL story'. You'll be lucky if they remember your name - and even if they do, they'll remember you as an 'RRL author'."

I will have to disagree with that. It might hold true over a fraction of viewers, but no. It simply isn't like that. 


but you basically need to build all the publicity on your own. Reaching your target audience, advertising, finding partners, obtaining reviews, making your website visible, getting features - it's all your job, no website will do it for you. Depending on your personality, disposition and life circumstances, it can be either a thrilling challenge or a gruelling, hopeless grind. One thing is sure, though - it doesn't come easily.
That's not a very good advise. No, let me rephrase that--- that's a VERY bad advise. No offense to you OP, merely anyone doing that will be losing more money than that person will probably have ever the fortune to earn back with a novel. And unless you are writing a novel as a hobby and have plenty of money to spend on it, so that you get readers, I wouldn't suggest that.Let's say you write 20-30 chapters and make a website, you have the resolve to to go on with 1 chapter per 3-5 days. You, to make your novel/website visible start a month long campaign with the keywords 'webnovel', 'online fiction' and... 'novel', I guess. Well, It's just an example; Continuing on, each keyword will probably cost you around 20 cents per click for a US visitor... probably more.  And many of those visitors won't even stay to read for obvious reasons (2). So if you had invested a thousand dollars in your campaign, you will probably get like 500 (exaggerated), permanent users.  What's more, you might lose your resolve and move onto something new. Now tell me, is it worth it?



(1) Those variables include being J. K. Rowling or any other tier 1 author (It still won't be very famous). Wait, besides we are talking about webnovels aren't we? Something very different from conventional books? So cut that. 
Shinsori, a good example of how you can have originals on your website and have them receive traffic while receiving an indirect boost from a parent site (NU in his/her case). But, you will have to learn translation for that. Or somehow think of an ingenious plan of posting something related to novel, and have that related 'something' receive a viewer boost from a big parent site. Not a very feasible idea, is it?
Besides, Shinsori is very active on posting his novel on here, nowadays. So maybe... you get the idea.

(2) Obvious reasons like, 'it's not my preferred genre', 'meh~ I will check it out later... and then forget about it', 'absentmindedly checking the site, seeing it hosts only a single novel, lose interest, leave (I have done that), 'read some chapter, put it on hold... forget about it'. Well, you will lose most of your viewers due to lack of instantaneous interest, or forgetfulness. 


I would actually prefer you start on RRL, or your preferred website. Check the response you receive, and continue with the novel or start a new one depending on that. Write enough chapters so that it can be made into a book, publish it on amazon! Ta da~ 

Oh and, don't forget to pester the admin to expand RRL with a better business model for authors as well. RRL has a very big advantage currently, let's hope admins make use of it and make RRL big enough to have it's own monopoly. (Don't read into it, this is in no way related to any third party. Merely some healthy pressure from a reader who hopes RRL is better than ever before.)

PS If you ever drop curvi out, I'm willing to invest my way in.

'Aere' pid='826675' dateline='1501514068' Wrote: That's not a very good advise. No, let me rephrase that--- that's a VERY bad advise.

That's not an advice, that's an explanation. The OP asked why some people make their own websites. I'm trying to answer. And I agree, it's by no means a good idea. It doesn't stop many people from doing it, though. Some even succeed.

That said, there is a lot of ways of gaining publicity other than drowning money in pageviews. Most of them involve building a rapport with others (including but not limited to your readers), and these generally yield far better results. It doesn't change the fact that they're an investment, naturally, and one that's not guaranteed to pay off. All in all, I'd strongly recommend to think twice before you commit to it.

Keep in mind the word I used. "Franchise". You don't build a franchise by throwing money into the pageview sinkhole. You do it by making people emotionally invested into you and your work.

'Aere' pid='826675' dateline='1501514068' Wrote: I will have to disagree with that. It might hold true over a fraction of viewers, but no. It simply isn't like that.

Could you please elaborate? Why it simply isn't like that? It was exactly like that on every other publishing website I've seen. If RRL is different, that'd be a real game-changer. I'd be thrilled if that was true, and all more thrilled to find out how and why.

'Aere' pid='826675' dateline='1501514068' Wrote: Or somehow think of an ingenious plan of posting something related to novel, and have that related 'something' receive a viewer boost from a big parent site. Not a very feasible idea, is it?

To reply with a quote, I will have to disagree with that. Perfectly feasible, for at least two reasons. One starts with 't'. The other starts with 'f'. It has been done before, both by professionals and amateurs. No ingenuity required, just a bit of touch with reality and the will to make huge personal investments. Just to be clear: no, 'personal investments' don't mean money.

'Aere' pid='826675' dateline='1501514068' Wrote: Oh and, don't forget to pester the admin to expand RRL with a better business model for authors as well. RRL has a very big advantage currently, let's hope admins make use of it and make RRL big enough to have it's own monopoly. (Don't read into it, this is in no way related to any third party. Merely some healthy pressure from a reader who hopes RRL is better than ever before.)

PS If you ever drop curvi out, I'm willing to invest my way in.

Who are you talking to? The admin?

If you are talking to readers and authors then the answer is no. I'm glad that RRL is successful but I won't support any "monopoly" of anything. It is in the best interest of the community to have choices and therefore authors having their own sites should be something to be promoted and encourage. 

and FYI, accepting "investment" from someone who is demanding to drop someone is not a good idea. No, let me rephrase that--- That's a very BAD idea.

Well, for one thing, if you make your own site, you control the infrastructure.

Like, okay -- let's assume you're making a decent amount of money off of making fiction available for free. I only (currently) know two people who are really doing it -- Wildbow and pirateaba. I don't know about Wildbow, but I know pirateaba posts The Wandering Inn both on here and on their own wordpress blog.

Now, let's just say that, for whatever reason, RRL collapsed tomorrow. If pirateaba only had traffic coming in from RRL, then they'd be screwed six ways to Sunday. Sure, the situation isn't technically better just because they have a wordpress, thought I doubt wordpress is going to collapse anytime soon, and they'd still have their Patreon, but because they don't have all their eggs in one basket, they're a bit less likely to reach the level of catastrophic failure.

Most business people (and, by extension, business-savvy authors) have their own site because that means they control everything. They get control over what stats they see, what formats they can offer, how the page looks, what prices they use, if people can see their blog, offer deals for their newsletters -- everything. Sure, having things outsourced to other sites is easier, and you can get more traffic, but you also have to trade something to get that, and sometimes people aren't willing to pay for that trade off, or at least don't want to pay it completely.

That's the general logic behind it, though there might be more specific reason from author to author. Generally, it's probably just because they're trying to take this more seriously, or have seen other people doing it and think that's what they're supposed to do. Sometimes, it really is just that -- copying what other people are doing.

As a Mac user, I can suggest several options for you . Personally, I ended up with 1&1 website builder but there are other options. I assume you can use something more simple like iWeb, 1&1 My website etc. There is also a list of more advanced tools like Wordpress, RapidWeaver.  Let me know if you need more information.