YABookgate

[Hirbowedge]

While there definitely a large difference between actually reading a book and listening to it, I don't want to diminish audiobooks. They are a great way to enjoy a story while doing some mind numbing task. Most books out there don't really require the total focus you have while reading. I've listened to the Dune series on audio, and it was a great experience. I am confident I retained most of what I've heard.

But they aren't for everything. I tried listening to 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' while running, and I remember practically nothing from it. Nietzsche can be challenging when you are actually reading, so trying to listen to it, even without the distracting activity of physical exertion is a bad idea.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

For these types, the true fetish has less to do with guys fucking each other in the ass and more getting to overrun yet another site with content aimed at young men with an alternative aimed at retarded foids and faggots.

don't forget, if they get criticized, they just immediately call you a nazi.

This genuinely fucking terrifies me. When I was a kid schools were pushing literacy HARD. I am surprised to see that they apparently just stopped doing that? Is it because of COVID? Niggers?

When I have a kid we are working on reading non-stop. No spawn of mine is going to be too retarded to read LOTR.

with how things are now, we're especially in the era of "teaching the test" and going at the pace of the slowest kid in the classroom. Don't recall if it's "no child left behind" but it's been pretty fucked up since modern kids don't get consequences for fucking up.

Artists and authors are generally quite retarded and desperate for a romanticized big break. Companies like Webtoon take advantage of this gullibility to profit.

it's even funnier now because they're all acting like they're the next big "milestone maker" for progressive causes.

What I heard from one of these hags is that they don't target boys because they're too busy playing videogames.

"Boys want action and stuff. They are all too busy playing videogames to read." Is exactly what she told me.

sounds like stereotyping, that's not progressive!

 

[Wodanaz]

I didnt retain anything of Don Quixote while listening to the audiobook, which is rare considering I normally consume 95% of books via audio with no issues. Dropped it after the second sally, also wasn't very interesting to me. Not sure if it would have been if I had been physically holding a book, I tend to think not, because I generally don't drop anything.

 

[spiritofamermaid]

I am normally against audiobooks (not for everyone, just me) just because I read so fast, as well as for some reason the way people read bothers me. I've been listening to books on archive.org though using their TTS and have no issues, so I could just be weird.

I'd probably have issues retaining anything listened via audiobook that's heavier than the writing craft technique books I've been listening to.

Also do those BookTok people listen to audiobooks? I read a considerable volume and don't listen to them, so I didn't think they did either.

 

[SpumbleSplabloo]

I have a friend who exclusively listens to audiobooks and refers to it as reading; it makes me irritated every time. It's crazy to pretend that someone reading to you and reading yourself are at all the same, especially given how many obvious things she either fails to retain or completely misses when "reading." Of course, she's positive her retention is equal to or better than actually reading, despite how frequently I bully her.

 

[Wodanaz]

the way people read bothers me

This is a large consideration. A good narrator can enhance the story, a bad one can ruin it. George Guidall is one of the greatest narrators of all time. Rob Inglis for LotR and Lenny Henry for Anansi Boys also stand out in my memory.

 

[Gnillik Yot]

sounds like stereotyping, that's not progressive!

She's right. BookTok & Twitter have accelerated the dominance of women over the YA world. As @Windows 10 Upgrade pointed out above, books that make money in YA are given out by the publishers to the most popular BookTok reviewers to hype up. Nearly all the breakout YA hits in the past few years have gone down this route. This is why when you step into any store with books, they a have a "As seen on BookTok" stand. The strategy works for these stores as it does for the publishers & their authors who go this route. And who populates the booktok ecosystem of reviewers and readers? Woke girls, that's who.

In short, if you're a publisher of YA who wants to make money and that is your main goal, you market to woke girls. This is awkward truth to many, but that's just how it is. It's similar to how if you're a video game company, you don't go out and brag about working with Sweet Baby Inc. That will lose you money and potential players.

Anti-woke young men are a big demographic in gaming, just as woke girls are the largest demographic of YA. Makes sense the industry is catering to their base. They're doing the cold, pragmatic thing. Imagine what would happen if a YA publishing house started pumping out books primarily aimed at young men instead. Would the BookTok reviewers be just as interested? If not, the publisher needs an alternative eco-system that will be just as lucrative as BookTok. Where is it? Royal Road? This is not a rhetorical question.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Rob Inglis for LotR

I heard Andy Serkis did a really good job for the new audiobook edition.

 

[AngryAboutInternets]

In order to get traction, you need "Discord gay ops" or to basically beg for a shout out from the writers at the top of the pyramid ... There are a few business relationships going on behind the scenes that Royal Road, those writers, and others simply do not disclose despite the ethical issues involved because it would make it dramatically clear that organic growth has long since been done away with.

This is a slight PL but frankly your post inspired me to do it, hopefully I don't dox myself accidentally but whatever. I want to add more onto this in agreement, because everything you said here is 100% true and I hate it.

Spoiler: My experience on Royal Road, fairly anonymized

I have a story on Royal Road. I will likely never update it again except maybe to take it down. I spent the better part of two years desperately trying to attain organic growth simply by updating frequently and consistently. I took an amazing outline for a story and essentially gutted it to try to make it appeal more to the RR audience. I engaged readers as much as physically possible in the comments, and never in a negative way. I thanked every person who made a review. I got two offers to swap shoutouts with other authors and took both only after taking the time to read their work to ensure I liked it enough to recommend it. I never sought out review swaps, I don't use discord, and I never engaged in any retarded behind the scenes faggotry of any kind.

So what did I have after two years? ~450 followers, over a million words, and a story that kept getting hit with mysterious anonymous 0.5 star ratings every time the overall rating went above 4.5 or the overall rank broke around ~250 or so. I even paid for premium during this period to see what the actual FUCK was going on, but they conveniently don't allow you to see the names of people who just leave a rating. I attempted to talk to the admins, pointing out that leaving a 0.5 on the first fucking chapter of a story with over a hundred and thirty (at that time) was obviously fucked. I even showed how the ratings only came in whenever my overall score went above 4.5, with evidence. I was blown off every time. I then got to read on the forums as other authors of larger stories bragged about getting those same types of ratings removed as illegitimate.

Meanwhile, I also watched as slop so fucking bad that it might as well have been written by an LLM designed to write like an ESL skyrocketed to 1000+ followers in days. Repeatedly. I watched as people used the exact same fucking story outlines over and over and over to rake in patreon money and top the charts. Stories so similar that if you read them back to back you wouldn't even be able to keep them separate in your head because every plot beat was similar. I watched as, completely inexplicably, good stories from new authors that were doing well never hit Rising Stars despite doing better than ones that did, and then got dogpiled with negative ratings until those authors quit.

Eventually I just stopped for a number of reasons. I always intended to go back and finish what I was writing, but the more I think about it the more I hate the idea. I basically ruined my own story in the outlining and drafting phase to try to make it something people on RR would like, and it still got nowhere because I didn't want to join a discord and suck down all the right sausage. I was posting well over 10k edited words a week during my most productive period, never missed a chapter release even once, and had very little negative feedback at all in both comments and written reviews, and I never grew at more than a trickle. Even the swaps barely added to my follow count. Going back to finish it would be pointless, I'd be better off just rewriting it entirely to fix it.

And so, what was my mistake here? What did I do wrong? I tried to write a non-LitRPG that was approachable for people who liked LitRPG but also good on its own merits. I tried to write characters who grew and changed in believable ways, who weren't just paper outlines of people and tropes but actual full individuals with flaws and personalities. I tried to write fiction for a predominantly young male audience that wasn't pandering but was still enjoyable, and might even make them think about things they wouldn't have thought about otherwise. I tried to do all that without being a shady, duplicitous fuckhead who goes around manipulating the algorithm to kill off competition and monopolize attention.

Yeah I'm still salty about it.

All that is to say that when it comes to serialized web fiction the scene is just as corrupt as, if not more corrupt than, trad publishing, the people at the top are just different. If I had known that going in I would have just thrown my story onto a blog or something and not bothered agonizing for years over growth and ratings. I also wouldn't have fucking ruined the plot of my own story with a bunch of pandering bullshit and simplified huge sections of the original outline to try not to scare people off, because in hindsight I don't think the quality or content matters at all on RR or other similar sites. I wasn't really expecting to make money, but I didn't expect my effort to be totally wasted either.

For anyone else reading this: Do not fucking post your story on Royal Road unless you're just trying to game the algo before the bubble pops. You deserve better than what you'll get there if you're writing something that isn't slop. I don't know where you should post or self-pub your work, but I sure as fuck know that any of these popular web fiction sites are not a good place to do it. Anyone who tells you that success in those places is a function of hard work is a fucking liar. You either game the system or you lose, that's it. No other options exist.

 

[spiritofamermaid]

I like FictionPress, but the ability to filter stories is nowhere near as good as other places.

 

[Mola Ram]

I want to add more onto this in agreement, because everything you said here is 100% true and I hate it.

This sounds not unlike my experience with Wattpad. I was a low level success there -- won a Watty and was briefly a "Wattpad Star," which I'm not sure they even do anymore -- but no real movement toward publishing or adaptations, despite being offered a shopping agreement. Obviously not every project gets picked up, but I could get absolutely zero feedback from the admins about what they were doing to shop my stuff or what I might improve to get better movement. The only difference seems to be Wattpadders prefer different flavors of crap.

I ditched them during the Summer of Floyd. I was already heading for the door, but when they started having racially segregated Zoom calls and diversity & inclusion seminars (required if you wanted to keep your Star status) and insisting you sign a new "values agreement" pledging fealty to checking your privilege and fostering diversity -- including a statement from management that Wattpad was moving from a free speech friendly platform to one that emphasized inclusivity -- I told them to fuck off as politely as possible.

Still not a runaway success novelist, but at least I've sold a few stories to non-crazy outlets since then. How is Wattpad doing these days, anyway? I know they were bought by Webtoon, but beyond that I haven't paid much attention.

 

[Deus Exica]

true and I hate it.

Just want to say as someone who was looking into releasing some fairly generic, but no less heartfelt, fantasy action slop on Royal Road that this was a very elucidating post. It's disheartening, to say the least, but I guess it's to be expected. Everything is so gay and miserable now that even something as stupid as free fiction websites need to be embroiled in secret fuckery and gay ops for Discord.

I feel a bit aimless now, not sure what to do with my story. I may still upload it there just for the sake of having done so, but I'm no longer likely to gut the internal mechanism of my story to make it function for the Royal Road audience. So, kudos.

Maybe we just need to make our own website, with fantasy blackjack and night elf hookers. Call it Based Books . Org

 

[AngryAboutInternets]

I'm no longer likely to gut the internal mechanism of my story to make it function for the Royal Road audience. So, kudos.

If nothing else, this makes it worth having typed all that shit out. Don't ever compromise artistically if you're self-publishing, nothing can destroy your drive to finish a project faster than that. It's better to be totally unsuccessful and proud of yourself than slightly less unsuccessful and hate what you made.

Spoiler: Extended rant, collapsed because it's autism

When I realized that I basically had to cut entire character arcs from the first volume, including one for a major villain who ended up practically 1D as a result, because if I released them in the "preferred" format for RR (2-3k word chapters) it would mean several weeks in a row without a fight scene (big no-no) it frustrated me greatly. When I found out that I had to write almost as much in author's notes as I did in actual text just to make sure people could understand things like "implication" and "foreshadowing" (due to spending many hours explaining very obvious implication and subtext in the comments to people in many chapters) it killed me inside. That was about the point that I realized that I had made a mistake, but I figured I could just power through it. Didn't work out.

To this day if I think about that story, I remember all the shit that I should have put in there but didn't because it "wasn't what the RR audience wanted". I remember all the conversations and scenes I had to cut for space that helped to flesh out everybody. I remember literally 200k+ words worth of worldbuilding that was supposed to be spread through the story and helped to clarify the politics, history, and religions of the region so the dialogue and events made more sense under scrutiny. I remember how almost every message and metaphor that I worked into the original outline so well couldn't be executed on because I wouldn't be able to trust people to understand them.

I'm working on some other stuff in private these days, some more slop-like than others (got a very fun twist on the "superhero isekai" with around 70k words in it for example), but I will never not regret wasting years corrupting one of my best ideas until it was total fucking shit. The original would have been long, rambling at points, probably a bit too mature for the target audience, and maybe even a bit overly introspective, but one thing it wouldn't have been was stupid. What I turned it into was stupid slop.

Don't ever compromise.

 

[Three Gorillion Dollars]

All that is to say that when it comes to serialized web fiction the scene is just as corrupt as, if not more corrupt than, trad publishing, the people at the top are just different.

Yes. This is a key thing for anyone to take away from these posts. These people are basically trying to set up a publishing scene that they control and can profit from. There are people making big sums on Patreon, more than most trad authors will ever make in their life, that are now trying to take a percentage off up and comers in ways that are roughly equivalent to the scummy "hybrid publishers" you hear about. But trad publishing, as awful as it is, does have some ethical codes and social norms that ensure that bad actors don't bring the wider industry into disrepute. The serialized web fiction scene has nothing like that, just people who want to get rich, and who know that the audience is made up of people who aren't good with money, and the creatives are people who do not know what a publishing contract should look like.

How is Wattpad doing these days, anyway? I know they were bought by Webtoon, but beyond that I haven't paid much attention.

My understanding is that it's flooded with crap, has poor discoverability, and was quickly twisted into driving people to pay money to Webtoon itself.

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

This is a large consideration. A good narrator can enhance the story, a bad one can ruin it. George Guidall is one of the greatest narrators of all time. Rob Inglis for LotR and Lenny Henry for Anansi Boys also stand out in my memory.

Jim Dale for Harry Potter is another perfect one

 

[Cryptojew]

Maybe we just need to make our own website, with fantasy blackjack and night elf hookers. Call it Based Books . Org

If you actually did this I'd use it. Hell, I'd even help make it. Would be better then posting my work on a wordpress blog where nobody will read it.

When I realized that I basically had to cut entire character arcs from the first volume, including one for a major villain who ended up practically 1D as a result, because if I released them in the "preferred" format for RR (2-3k word chapters) it would mean several weeks in a row without a fight scene (big no-no) it frustrated me greatly. When I found out that I had to write almost as much in author's notes as I did in actual text just to make sure people could understand things like "implication" and "foreshadowing" (due to spending many hours explaining very obvious implication and subtext in the comments to people in many chapters) it killed me inside. That was about the point that I realized that I had made a mistake, but I figured I could just power through it. Didn't work out.

Wait, so are RR users just retarded or something? I've never used the site or interacted with it's userbase but foreshadowing and subtext are pretty basic storytelling elements and I have a hard time imagining anybody who reads not having at least a basic understanding of them.

 

[AngryAboutInternets]

Wait, so are RR users just retarded or something?

I'll be diplomatic and say it's more that they're often fairly young and have near-zero background in book-reading. They might have read some stuff in school, but that's probably about it. To give an example of something similar to a piece of text I was forced to explain in detail, here's an incredibly basic scenario.

There are three people, two men and a woman. Man 1 is the viewpoint, and is friends with the Man 2. Both men know the woman, but neither are explicitly involved with her. Man 2 often talks to the woman, and even flirts a little bit, but is frequently rebuffed. However, Man 2 also has spent the night at the woman's home a few times but neither speak about it. When Man 2 leaves, possibly never to return, the woman insults him to Man 1's face in anger when he is brought up. When Man 2 returns, the woman is kind to him.

What is the relationship between Man 2 and the woman, specifically what does the woman truly think of Man 2?

1. She hates him and is manipulating him
2. She doesn't care about him romantically but wants him around because she is lonely
3. She wants him around because Man 1 is with him
4. She does care about him deeply, but is insecure in her feelings
5. She is confused and irrational, possibly crazy

In the rough analogue of this example that I had, the most common suspicion of the readers was 5. 1 was the next most common. A single person thought the answer was 3. By my estimation, these readers were about average in terms of media comprehension for RR members.

For the record, the answer is 4, but 2 would also be acceptable. The real version of this scenario was significantly more complex and nuanced due to the nature and professions of Man 1 and Man 2, as well as the woman, but even then it was pretty obvious that they shared a connection.

 

[Welf Welf]

Wait, so are RR users just retarded or something?

Many are zoomers or even the oldest of alphoids, still in high school or just starting college. They're young and poorly-read, and struggling with social media addiction and social media-induced alienation in many cases. It's a miracle any are reading at all.

I think the problem is deeper than simple youth and social media, though. For the past 5 or so years, I've noticed an increasing trend: the inability to read between the lines. Especially for American readers. I think a significant portion of blame can be put on the U.S. public education system. From what I hear, the way children are taught to read these days is a complete clusterfuck, at every age level. Now the oldest of these kids are online and their failure to read critically or read into subtext is readily apparent when they face a challenge like the above scenario. They take things at face value, and nothing more, because they don't comprehend there might be something more than the raw text. Some don't even want to comprehend (see: social media addiction, they want the dopamine hit and they want it now).

I know every generation has been griping about kids these days, all the way back to the bronze age. But it's disheartening to see this play out.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

If you actually did this I'd use it. Hell, I'd even help make it. Would be better then posting my work on a wordpress blog where nobody will read it.


Wait, so are RR users just retarded or something? I've never used the site or interacted with it's userbase but foreshadowing and subtext are pretty basic storytelling elements and I have a hard time imagining anybody who reads not having at least a basic understanding of them.

worked in modern education. they teach the tests. a lot of kids aren't literate and just memorize words.

there's no repercussions for their bullshit. teachers are basically glorified babysitters now and just teach the tests because it's what they're told to do. if a kid's able to do exceptionally well, then they're left on their own.

i was reading at my grade level by the standards of the 1950s, which put me at a 2000s era college level. I've met 13-15 year olds who can't even parse a paragraph of Charles Dickens or Rudyard Kipling.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

What is the relationship between Man 2 and the woman, specifically what does the woman truly think of Man 2?

1. She hates him and is manipulating him
2. She doesn't care about him romantically but wants him around because she is lonely
3. She wants him around because Man 1 is with him
4. She does care about him deeply, but is insecure in her feelings
5. She is confused and irrational, possibly crazy

In the rough analogue of this example that I had, the most common suspicion of the readers was 5. 1 was the next most common. A single person thought the answer was 3. By my estimation, these readers were about average in terms of media comprehension for RR members.

For the record, the answer is 4, but 2 would also be acceptable. The real version of this scenario was significantly more complex and nuanced due to the nature and professions of Man 1 and Man 2, as well as the woman, but even then it was pretty obvious that they shared a connection.

Now come on, everyone knows women are always confused, irrational and crazy! How could you lament those poor lads for being confused when you put a woman in the story? Uh, come on now! - Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Personally to me, it sounds like the female character and man 2 had a relationship that fell apart and neither has gotten over it; and they both want to get back together, but the conflicts which drove them apart are still unresolved. Was man 2 a soldier or an agent for some tyrannical government?

Have you ever considered rewriting your story to be more inline with what you first envisioned? Seems like a waste to throw this much effort and years of toil away because royal road is a trash heap ruled by petty tyrants.