I suspect the oldest form of serialized fiction is the bedtime story, where parents tell children ongoing tales to help them fall asleep. I do it with my children, and I suspect my ancestors did it with their children going back to the dawn of time.

Serialized stories took root in written works like Arabian Nights, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and those from Charles Dickens, who famously wrote ongoing stories in installments in the 1800s. Even in the 20th century, Conan the Barbarian came out in serialized short stories, and the story of Spider-Man was told every month in comic books.

The internet has made serialized storytelling surprisingly easy. Authors can tell a story chapter by chapter to large groups of people on platforms like Wattpad, Royal Road, and Substack.

How do you write serialized fiction, and how can you figure out if it’s the right fit for you and your audience? For most authors, serialized fiction doesn’t work, but when it does, it can work incredibly well.

I interviewed Seth Ring, who has successfully written serialized fiction. He’s the author of more than 25 fantasy books and multiple bestselling series. He also co-hosts the WorldCraft Club podcast and community, a world-building resource for game masters, authors, and anyone who enjoys world-building.

How did you get started with serialized storytelling?

Seth: I got started as a reader and fan on Royal Road. Royal Road was a translation website that translated a story called Legendary Moonlight Sculptor and posted the chapters in English.

On the forums, people started writing their own fan fiction and eventually started posting their own stories. Readers I knew from the forums were posting their own stories, and I thought to myself, “This can’t be that hard. If these other people are writing these serialized stories, I can do it too.”

Then I discovered it was way harder than I thought it was going to be. But as I sometimes do with my hobbies, I got a bit obsessed. I just started writing and writing and writing. I would post content for a while, then get bored of the story I was writing and move to a different one. I was very much an amateur. At the beginning of 2017, I had posted 15 chapters of a story that was fan fiction of another popular story on the website. I didn’t like how the original one ended, so I wrote my own version and made some changes I thought would be interesting. Then, I got a comment on my story that legitimately changed my life. It said, “This story is terrible, but there’s a story in here that I would like to read.”

And I thought to myself, “Wow. There’s a story here that I would love to read.” That’s exactly why I wrote it. I just wasn’t skilled enough to fully bring it to life yet. I spent the rest of 2018 polishing that story—writing, expanding the world, and building characters who truly resonated with me. I went searching for that story, and I found it.

At the time, I wasn’t reading novels or anything offline. I was only reading web serials. I resonated with the format because I grew up reading Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Louis L’Amour. Though they wrote novels, their stories were built for the serialized audience with that same high adventure, pulpy feel, and I loved that. That’s my favorite kind of fiction, so the style of writing spoke to me.

As I started refining my own craft, I fell into this world of serialized fiction and ended up posting a story on Royal Road and eventually on Wattpad that got millions of reads. From there, I transitioned into a Patreon community and to Amazon, and as they say, the rest is history. But all that means is that I just kept writing, releasing stories, and finding and growing my audience.

Thomas: Royal Road and Wattpad have leaderboards. You can see what’s hot, what’s trending, what’s perenially popular. Any leaderboard like that naturally follows a statistical pattern known as the Pareto distribution, where popularity fuels even more attention simply because you’re already popular. It’s a marketing psychology social trigger called social proof.

Jesus addressed this phenomenon when he said, “To him who has, more will be given, and to him who does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away.” In academic literature, this concept is often called the “Matthew Principle,” as scholars first identified it in the Gospel of Matthew. Interestingly, the same idea appears in other gospels as well, but academics stopped at Matthew and attributed it to Jesus’ teaching there.

If you can break into those leaderboards, it can significantly boost your visibility. That visibility will help you reach voracious readers and solve the platform problem.

Did those readers follow you on Patreon and buy your book on Amazon?

Thomas: Did those readers follow you on Patreon and buy your book on Amazon? Or did you leverage your Royal Road and Wattpad audience to get a new audience on Amazon?

Seth: a very small percentage of those people will follow you to Patreon. Many people who go to Patreon will also go to Amazon. If you’re looking at an audience of 5,000 to 10,000 followers on Royal Road, you might get 200 to 500 people who will pay for your content or advanced chapters on Patreon. All of those people will likely buy your book once it’s on Amazon, and they might even buy it in multiple formats.

There are distinctions between web serial communities.

There are really two kinds of consumers who are interested in web serials and are willing to pay for them. First, the most common consumers are the people who really like web serials and will read whatever is available because it’s what they do for fun, and it’s free. There’s such a serious amount of content that they don’t ever have to pay for anything. They don’t mind waiting until a new chapter comes out.

The second group consists of people who love a particular story and want to know right away what happens next. They’ll pay for advanced chapters. Then there are the people who just love the story and characters and want to support the author, so they subscribe to the Patreon.

The two communities are built on content or participation with the author. The two customers want very distinct things. I started by building a content-based subscription service, and within a year or two, I figured out that’s not how I wanted to build my career. So, I’m in the very slow and laborious process of switching to the other style of community.

However, I will say that the pay-for-advanced-content community is much easier to build than an interaction-with-author community.

Thomas: You have to be a celebrity in the minds of your audience before they value interacting with you.

Seth: They have to believe that interacting with you is going to be really valuable, and there are a couple of ways you can do that. Christopher Hopper is a science fiction writer who does a fantastic job of building community. He has a great subscription community built on connection. He calls every single person who signs up for his newsletter and has a conversation with that person. His conversion is unbelievable because he invites them to a weekly Zoom call where they can chat with him and play games. People join his community, and they know him because he’s called them.

Thomas: Many introverted listeners just died a little at the thought of calling every subscriber. People are lonelier than ever. Each year seems to set a new record for loneliness. This year is worse than last, and last year was the loneliest year on record.

This is a growing problem, but the beauty of a connection-based community is that anyone can create it. You don’t need to be a celebrity to foster meaningful connections; you just need to be willing to engage with people. Talk to strangers, pick up the phone, and genuinely care about others. It starts with liking people and being open to building relationships.

Seth: It doesn’t even have to be a phone call. It could be something as simple as a personalized message on social media.

One idea I shamelessly borrowed from Christopher Hopper is replying to social media comments with a video. It’s a game-changing interaction. Imagine leaving a comment on an author’s page and then receiving a personal video response. It communicates, “You’re important enough for me to pause what I’m doing to actually speak to you as a person.”

Hopper says, “People don’t want to be notified; they want to be noticed,” and that concept completely changed how I think about building a connection-based community. That insight reoriented my approach to my subscription community and started me on a path to shift how I engage with others.

People don’t want to be notified; they want to be noticed.

Christopher hopper

Up until the end of last year, I was releasing between five and ten chapters of advanced content to my community every week. I had to maintain that pace of writing that far ahead. At times, we were three or four books ahead of what was actually published. So, people in my community had read three or four extra books in all of their favorite series.

That pace worked for a while. And if I was writing a single series, I’d be able to keep up that pace. But because I write multiple series and because I have a family and a life outside of writing, I decided that pace was not sustainable for me in the long term.

I really wanted to build my career in a sustainable way, so I had to shift. That said, from a financial point of view, the most successful subscription services are content-based services.

Thomas: That focus on content helps you improve your writing faster because people are paying you to be beta readers and give you feedback.

I didn’t realize it at first, but I’ve actually been reading a lot of books that started out on Royal Road. Many litRPG stories begin there, and the most successful ones get turned into books. From there, the very best become audiobooks, and the cream of the crop is promoted by Audible. Without realizing it, I’ve been enjoying the top-tier stories and paying a premium for them. Meanwhile, there are plenty of people who read these stories for free as they were being serialized a year or two earlier.

As an audiobook listener, I’m happy to pay extra for the convenience and the filtering process that brings the best stories to me. What’s fascinating is that releasing a book in a serialized format doesn’t cannibalize its future sales. The serialized fiction readers and buyers of the final product are often entirely different communities.

It’s a bit like being a baseball player working your way up through the minor leagues. When you’re playing for a small-town team, you have a crowd cheering you on. Then, as you move up to the next level, it’s a completely different group of fans cheering for you. Along the way, you bring the skills and experience you’ve gained. Maybe a few core fans follow you all the way, but by the time you reach the major leagues, all that practice has prepared you to face the big challenges, like hitting a 100-mph fastball. You couldn’t get there without first learning to handle the 85-mph fastballs in the lower leagues.

How did serializing your stories help you improve you craft?

Seth: There’s no doubt in my mind that the process of writing serialized fiction, combined with the intense pressure of releasing content on such an aggressive schedule, propelled my craft forward like nothing else. It catapulted my growth as a writer.

Deliberate Practice

There’s a principle I came across after doing this for three or four years, and it perfectly explained the experience I’d been through. It’s called deliberate practice, a methodology of practicing something with the goal of improvement rather than for sheer enjoyment.

I thought I loved writing. But when it’s Sunday night, and you have two chapters due on Monday, two more on Tuesday, and then every day through the week with no backlog to fall back on, love quickly stops being the driving force. It becomes about getting the work done, meeting the standards your audience expects, and avoiding the inevitable flack that comes if you fall short. At that point, it’s no longer about passion; it’s about discipline and commitment to the craft.

Deliberate practice requires a clear goal, immediate feedback, and subsequent iterations.

A Clear Goal

You need to know exactly what you’re doing and what you’re delivering. For me, that meant writing 2,500 words twice a day, five days a week.

Immediate Feedback

The immediate feedback came as soon as I posted a chapter. Comments would start rolling in right away. Things like, “This is a dumb decision. Why is this character doing this?” or, “Why did you make that choice?” On the flip side, there were also encouraging comments like, “I love this!” or, “I really like where this is going.” And there were always helpful notes like, “Hey, you have a typo here,” or, “You missed one there.”

That instant feedback loop was invaluable for improving my craft.

Thomas: Stats are another form of immediate feedback.

Seth: Yes. I could evaluate how many people were dropping off in a certain chapter and how many people were reading it. I could see how many people clicked immediately when the chapter came out, which told me how many people were waiting for it to drop.

Iteration

The final step of deliberate practice is iteration. With serialized fiction, every chapter is an iteration based on the immediate feedback of comments.

One of the blessings of coming up through the minor leagues of Royal Road is that I got my practice time in, and it set me on a trajectory where I have watched my average reviews on Amazon go up with every new book I release.

That’s a clear indication that I am finding my audience, and they increasingly enjoy what I write. Serialized fiction has more benefits than just the potential monetary reward. It can be very rewarding because you get that added benefit of getting to practice. I know a lot of people who write serialized fiction and make zilch, but they still get the practice.

Thomas: And you’re talking about deliberate practice. For a lot of people, Deliberate practice means working for a coach, editor, or teacher. That person’s opinion of excellence defines you, and you’re very dependent on whether that coach is any good.

When you’re writing serialized fiction directly for your readers, it completely reorients your approach to writing. Instead of relying on feedback from an editor or a pub board, you’re guided by what thrills your readers and keeps them subscribed. The statistics, comments, and feedback come straight from real readers who are invested in the promises you made when you presented your book.

The promises are conveyed through the cover, the blurb on Royal Road, and the genres you chose to attach to the story. Every one of those elements is a promise to your audience, and your success is judged by how well you deliver on those promises and how effectively you thrill your readers.

I suspect that, over the long term, as many of today’s successful authors retire, a significant number of the new top-shelf authors will have risen through two main paths. Some will come from the short story world, where they honed their craft, writing contained, polished pieces and getting them in front of readers. Others will emerge from the serialized fiction world, where they worked their way up through the “minor leagues,” refining their skills and building an audience.

It’s important to be clear: when Seth says most people make no money from writing, that’s not entirely accurate. The reality is that almost everyone makes no money, with a tiny group of exceptions. This reflects the Pareto Principle, a universal rule of distribution. It’s the same in sports. Nearly everyone who plays baseball doesn’t make a living from it. In fact, there are probably more professional baseball players than traditionally published authors and certainly more than New York Times bestselling authors. That’s how small the group of true success stories is.

For perspective, while authors writing litRPGs or popular stories on Royal Road might never hit a bestseller list, they can still make a living. Seth, for example, you’re providing for your family as the sole breadwinner.

Seth: Yes. In the beginning, the serialized fiction was almost half of my income. That has shifted over the years as I’ve changed my focus, and now I write full-time, and I’m very blessed to be doing it.

How does writing faster change your strategy?

Thomas: You also learn to write quickly, which is crucial for anyone making a living from their writing, especially fiction. Writing fast is a game-changer because it shifts all the math. You don’t need nearly as many readers if you can offer your current readers more books. It’s really basic math: the faster you write, the more books you can sell to your existing audience.

Seth: Some people think they need to write a truly amazing, incredibly good book. I don’t want to downplay the importance of writing a great book—if you can do that, you absolutely should. But what many don’t realize is that the average reader doesn’t need a masterpiece.

What readers are really looking for is something that entertains them or gives them the feeling they want, and they’re willing to pay for that feeling. Your audience would often rather have slightly lower quality delivered more frequently than wait eight years for an exceptional masterpiece.

Thomas: Your audience wants something very specific. If they want to read a masterpiece, Dracula exists. They can read Dracula for free. In fact, all the classics from the 1800s and before are free. I download free audiobook versions to burn onto a CD for my daughter. She’s listening to Little Women right now, and she really enjoys it.

Why would anyone read your book over masterpieces like Dracula, The Count of Monte Cristo, or Les Misérables? Because they want something more specific. If your readers want dragons, none of those masterpieces scratch that itch.

I think almost any classic work of literature with the phrase “with dragons” added to the title would find a market. It’s about thrilling a specific group of readers.

What makes a book good?

Thomas: There are different ways to define what makes a book “good.”

A book might be considered good because it wins awards. Or it might be called good because people tell you it’s good, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is. What truly shows a book is good is when someone buys copies to give to their friends. That’s the ultimate endorsement. It’s proof they genuinely think it’s worth sharing.

Now, if someone knows you’re an author, they might buy your book just to support you because they’re your friend. Of course, they’ll tell you it’s good. They’re not going to say, “I’d rate this an 8.2 out of 10, with 10 being The Count of Monte Cristo.” Friends don’t give that kind of feedback.

That’s why I appreciate the statistical tools available on certain platforms. They provide real, measurable data on how well your book resonates with readers.

What are some of the differences between Wattpad and Royal Road and other platforms you’ve tried from a technical perspective?

Seth: There are quite a few platforms, but these are three of the big ones.

• Wattpad
  • Predominantly female audience.
  • Focused on fanfiction and similar genres.
• Royal Road
  • Predominantly male audience.
  • A lot of fantasy, sci-fi
  • Primarily used by professional authors testing material, leading to higher-quality content.
  • Features the best discovery engine of the three platforms.
• Scribble Hub
  • Predominantly attracts readers looking for translated works.

Thomas: It’s so good that Royal Road is able to compete with Amazon and that Amazon buckled before Royal Road.

Seth: That’s right. When Kindle Vella came out, many of us could see that Amazon clearly understood the serial-to-novel pipeline, but they missed some key pieces. Royal Road already had such a market share that it was really hard for Amazon to take that specific audience.

Since Royal Road has a predominantly male readership, they have a lot of fantasy and sci-fi. Since I write in those genres, Royal Road typically works better for me. That said, I don’t release many stories on Royal Road anymore. I was on that train for a while, but since I write so much and so quickly, I don’t have the bandwidth to manage everything that’s necessary for maintaining a good presence on Royal Road.

Thomas: Have you thought about hiring an assistant?

Seth: I have, but I’ve never pulled the trigger. One of the biggest challenges is that if you’re not directly engaging with the people commenting on your story, the feedback loop gets corrupted. It just isn’t as effective.

You need to have such a deep understanding of the metrics that you can immediately assess a chapter’s performance and figure out what’s working. That means filtering through all the positive and negative comments to extract valuable insights within each one.

In my opinion, you can’t do that well if there’s a layer of separation, like having someone else handle posting and engagement for you.

Thomas: It’s a lot like a stand-up comic testing out a new joke at a comedy club. They’ll come back the next day with the same joke but a slightly revised version, performing it for a different crowd. This process repeats for months before they go on tour and start selling out arenas.

The audience at a comedy club knows they’re getting rough-draft versions of jokes. And sometimes, even a famous comedian might bomb. If they’re well-known enough, the audience might at least give them a pity laugh.

For the comedian, it’s all about listening to the laughter and gauging how people respond. It’s an immediate feedback loop, which helps them refine their material in real-time.

Seth: Even if you’re a famous comedian and get a pity laugh, you can still tell the difference between genuine laughter and a laugh that’s more of a polite acknowledgment because of your fame.

As an author, it’s the same with comments. If I get the usual “Oh, this is great!” responses, I can often sense that something is off, and nobody wants to tell me. That’s when I have to dig deeper. I start analyzing and dissecting the feedback to figure out what’s wrong. Sometimes, that means reaching out to my friends with questions like, “What’s wrong with this? How can I improve it?”

What value does the author get from these platforms?

Seth: One of the real values of any subscription service or any free platform like Royal Road, where people consume the content for free, is the feedback.

Thomas: Royal Road has no premium tier and no paid subscribers, so your next step is to go to Patreon, where you can build your own community, and people can pay to read your work.

Seth: Patreon really changed the game for people because Patreon took something that was doable and made it easy. They’re not typically considered a great platform, but they have market share because they did it first.

Patreon can be a challenge. I actually moved off of Patreon because it became too much of a challenge. I realized at one point that I disliked the management of it so much that I was simply going to stop posting and give up my entire subscription income because of how much I disliked managing serialized content on Patreon.

Thomas: Patreon was not made for authors or novelists. It was created by a YouTuber predominantly for YouTube creators to be able to sell YouTube videos to their super fans and have greater interaction. It was an easy step for them to serve podcasters in addition to YouTubers.

Patreon works better for me as a podcaster than it does for you as a novelist, and part of that is the nature of the content.

Because of the nature of my nonfiction Novel Marketing content, listeners and patrons can jump into the community or discussion at any point. However, Patreon doesn’t have a good way of showing people how to start on chapter one of a serialized book.

Seth: There is no way to do it. Readers have to scroll back forever. They can try and search, but Patreon’s search is totally broken. It was a nightmare for me to manage my content.

If you want to have graduated content that trickles down, you have to manually adjust every single post. At one point, I had over 300 chapters that had to be manually adjusted, and I quit.

Thomas: Because each chapter goes first to your platinum members, then to your gold, and finally to your silver members.  

Seth: Exactly. In a content-based community, the more you pay, the further ahead you get in chapters. Managing this setup can quickly become a nightmare, especially when you have multiple books and different tiers accessing different books. On platforms like Patreon, I had to manually click through each chapter, with no “next” button to move from one post to the next. You can’t just go back and edit posts easily. Instead, you have to search for each post or open a new one. It was awful.

Then, someone I know launched a platform called Ream Stories, which is like Patreon but designed specifically for novels. Their management tools are incredible. On Ream, I can upload entire books at once, set rules, and automate the release of chapters for different tiers. What used to take me six hours on Patreon now takes just 15 minutes. It’s a game-changer.

Thomas: Ream Stories solves the subscription and payment side of things, but it doesn’t find readers for you. That’s your job, and platforms like Royal Road are where you start. On Royal Road, you’re competing with 10,000 other authors writing similar types of fiction. The best authors rise to the top, and that’s where you can build your core fan base.

Once you’ve established fans on Royal Road, you can invite them to Ream, saying, “Want to know what happens next? Join me on Ream, and you can read the next chapter right now!”

Once they’re on Ream, the subscription tiers come into play. For example, a fan might start at the silver level, but upgrading to gold gets them access to the next chapter immediately. Then, platinum unlocks even more chapters in advance. This setup allows readers to choose how much they want to pay based on how much they’re enjoying your content while keeping them deeply engaged.

This creates a natural pipeline. Royal Road builds your audience, Ream monetizes your core fans, and eventually, your story makes its way to Amazon, where you release it as a $4.99 ebook.

Seth: That’s exactly right, and it’s where the real value lies. This pipeline helps generate income between releases or during the gaps when Amazon payments are delayed. But the true value is in the feedback loop. You get immediate feedback from your readers, which helps you improve your story and stay closely connected to what they really want. Then, when you release the book on Amazon, you’ve already got a core group of fans who buy it right away.

These early buyers teach Amazon exactly who your ideal audience is. Since they read similar books on Amazon, it shortcuts the process of Amazon trying to randomly figure out who to recommend your book to. If Amazon doesn’t immediately know your target audience, it wastes time experimenting. If it still can’t figure it out, your book gets buried, and Amazon moves on to one of the 9,000 books released each week—or maybe that’s per day. Either way, it’s a massive number.

However, if your readers from platforms like Patreon or Ream buy your book, and they also read other similar authors, Amazon immediately connects the dots. When more readers from those platforms do the same, Amazon knows exactly who to target. This creates a snowball effect, giving your book early traction and leading to more sales over time.

In my opinion, this approach provides a more stable and reliable way to build a long-term career as an author.

How does the editorial process work for serialized fiction?

Thomas: Many people want to serialize their novel, but rather than truly serializing, they simply want to release one chapter at a time of a book they’ve already written. But that’s not what Royal Road authors do; they release almost a prerelease version, and the finishing touches are collaborative.

It’s almost like a choose-your-own-adventure where people weigh in on what action a character should take. Through that feedback, you get a sense of what readers want. Do they want subversion? Did your character come across as selfish when you didn’t want him to?

How do you work that into the editorial process? How do you edit your books as they’re on the path between Royal Road and Amazon?

Seth: I have two different processes depending on the kind of content I’m releasing and who I’m releasing with. I work with a couple of different publishers right now and have two different pipelines. I have my serialized pipeline and my non-serialized pipeline.

Non-Serialized Pipeline

The non-serialized pipeline is easy. I write the book, send it to the editor, get it back, make changes, and send it off. I have a beta reading process made up of people who genuinely love my fiction. Many of them have paid to be part of this process, and they represent my perfect readers. They handle a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to editorial feedback.

Serialized Pipeline

The serialized version is where I’m writing chapters and releasing them. By the time I hit the end of the book, many people have read through the beginning of the book. They know where it’s going. As I see them speculate on where things are going, I know how close or far off I am from their expectations. I can tell how well it’s going. I then make changes based on that.

Once they’ve read all the way through the book, I send it off to the editor, get it back, and make final changes. The interesting thing is that I typically make very few changes to later chapters and more changes to earlier ones.

That’s partly because as I go through the book, I get a better sense of where my reader’s expectations are heading, and I know how to tune the beginning of the book to make sure I hit the right notes so the end of the book feels satisfying.

I make more changes in early chapters and fewer changes in later ones because I have more information when I’m writing the later chapters.

Thomas: Readers are more likely to bail on a book early. People rarely give up on a book once they’re 80% finished. Readers typically stop reading in the first half and, more often, in the first few chapters.

Seth: My 12-year-old daughter has read all my books and loved every single one. She recently picked up one of my newest books, which has received some of the best reviews of my career and has people genuinely excited. She read the first few chapters, then put it down and said, “I’m not excited about this. I’m not going to read it.” And that’s okay.

This book was written in a more classic fantasy style, and many of the readers who are calling it “the best thing you’ve ever written” come from a traditional, classic fantasy background. My daughter, on the other hand, doesn’t. She’s grown up on my books and others, which are fast-paced, pulpy stories that dive straight into the adventure.

This latest book, Chain of Feathers (the first in the Iron Tyrant series), has a slower start. It focuses more on setting up the world and giving readers a feel for the space. It didn’t go through my serialized editorial process. If it had, I would’ve caught early on that the first two chapters were too slow for a significant part of my audience.

Thankfully, I have a strong and dedicated readership. Many reviews say things like, “The beginning felt slow, but I’m so glad I stuck with it because I really loved where it went.” I’m incredibly fortunate to have readers willing to push through, but it’s a dangerous gamble.

Thomas: You have to earn the right to open with a slow birthday party by first writing The Hobbit and having it become everyone’s favorite book. That kind of opening doesn’t work for a debut. If The Hobbit hadn’t come first to establish Tolkien’s audience, The Lord of the Rings wouldn’t have gained traction. Even so, The Lord of the Rings didn’t become an instant hit. It didn’t break sales records in the 1950s. It wasn’t until the 1960s when people were graffitiing subways with “Frodo Lives,” that it truly found its footing and became a cultural phenomenon.

How will serialized fiction impact the future of writing and publishing?

Seth: I believe serialized fiction is, to a great extent, the wave of the future. The next generation of great writers is going to come from the internet. They’re already emerging from this space. For example, I recently read a review of Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl, where the reviewer called it “modern-day Douglas Adams.”

These writers are honing their craft specifically for the modern-day reader. They’re not sitting in university classrooms learning old techniques and then expecting everyone to love their work simply because those techniques worked 50 or 200 years ago.

That’s a common trap many writers fall into. They think, “Well, it worked for the classics, so everyone should like it now.” But modern readers have entirely different sensibilities. They read on the internet, they process information differently, and their language skills are different.

All these factors combine to favor a new breed of writers who were trained in the scrappy, competitive world of the internet. Climbing to the top of Royal Road is not easy. There’s intense competition, and standing out requires skill, adaptability, and an understanding of the modern reader.

Thomas: Those writers also have to learn how to handle the feedback.

Earlier, you mentioned a comment that said there was a good story somewhere in the mess of what you wrote. Most people would have focused on the mess. Or they would have focused on the good story bit, and they wouldn’t have been able to use that feedback constructively.

A key skill for anyone creating content on the internet is learning to navigate comments without letting them inflate your ego or crush your spirit. A big part of this is understanding that most of the time, comments are more reflective of the commenter than your content. They reveal who the commenter is, what they expect, and what they want.

Once you realize this, it becomes a helpful tool. You can think, “Oh, this is what you want. Am I trying to provide that but failing? Or are you expecting something I’m not offering?” If it’s the latter, you can recognize they’re not your audience and disregard the comment.

That said, about 1% of the time, a comment contains genuinely useful feedback that can save your book.

Dungeon Crawler Carl was starting to get overly political, and it was noticeable in the writing. Fortunately, the author received that feedback early and made a smart pivot. He realized, “I can tell this story using space politics without diving into current-day politics, and it will be just as good.”

The adjustment worked. He even brought on The Critical Drinker to voice one of the characters in the audiobook, and any lingering frustrations from readers were forgiven. But if he hadn’t recognized that the political elements of the book were pushing readers away rather than drawing them in, he likely wouldn’t have achieved the massive success he enjoys today.

What principles of serialized fiction apply across genres?

Thomas: The path to success isn’t about copying Seth’s writing style or trying to create the exact type of book he writes. Your path lies in learning how he identifies his readership and then thrills them.

It’s the same concept I’ve talked about for years on this podcast: finding your Timothy. Your Timothy is going to be different from Seth’s. For example, He Who Fights With Monsters and Dungeon Crawler Carl are both in the same general genre, but they’re tonally and thematically very different. One leans far to the left in terms of worldview, politics, and spirituality, while the other leans far to the right.

Understanding your audience and what they expect is key. Some readers will enjoy both books. But there are also readers who get tired of one or the other. Identifying what resonates with your audience specifically is what will set you apart.

How does reader feedback differ from feedback from an editor or publisher?

Seth: That’s not the kind of feedback you get from publishers or editors. It’s the kind of feedback you get when a lot of people yell at you. If you never have the chance to hear directly from fans, you risk getting that feedback too late.

To your point, Dinniman received that feedback early enough to realize, “This isn’t why people are here. It’s not drawing them into my story; it’s pushing them away.” That early realization was critical.

Getting feedback like that is vitally important, but it only happens if you have a process that enables it. Serialized fiction provides that process.

Thomas: Once your book is on Amazon and starts getting reviews, it’s too late to use that as your primary way of getting feedback from readers. Sure, it’s better than nothing, and it has changed writing significantly, but it’s not enough, especially if you’re writing a series.

If readers aren’t enjoying or finishing the first book in your series, the rest of the series is doomed. You can only sell book two to people who bought, read, and enjoyed book one. So, if your first book isn’t thrilling readers, you shouldn’t be writing a series yet.

The key is to learn how to write a book that people can’t put down, and when they finish it, they’re eager to pick up the next one in the series. Until you master that, the later books won’t succeed.

What advice do you have for writers who want to try serialized storytelling?

Seth: My suggestion is to start reading. Dive into the kind of content you think you might want to create and see where it leads you. You might discover that you love writing pulpy stories but prefer to craft full-length novels rather than working in a serialized format.

I recommend heading over to Royal Road and browsing the stories. Look for ones that catch your attention and keep you hooked. Once you find those, you’ll start identifying what types of serialized work interest you the most.

There’s a wide variety of genres and styles in serialized fiction, each with its own tropes and key elements. The only way to truly understand them is to read them. Find the stories that excite you, skip the ones that don’t, and eventually, you’ll land on something that inspires you enough to create your own.

Connect with Seth Ring

Thomas: I want to point people to your website because it’s an excellent example of a well-done author website. If you’re looking for inspiration, visit SethRing.com. Seth writes litRPG, but he also offers valuable advice for authors. He has an entire section dedicated to helping writers, especially those navigating their way through platforms like Royal Road.

He also has a fantastic YouTube channel where he offers short, focused episodes on specific aspects of writing. It’s especially useful if you’re into fantasy or science fiction, though there’s some solid general writing advice there, too.

Featured Patrons

Jeremiah Friedli, author of CORE Deception

In a world where the government’s CORE systems see and track everyone, seventeen-year-old hacker Seth Alvarez is determined to save his sister from a reeducation facility. Armed with a cryptic letter, Seth embarks on a search for cyber master keys that can set his sister free. But with only three weeks remaining, he finds himself wedged between two powerful forces who will stop at nothing to get those keys first.

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