#also found out that there's not a restriction algorithm that if something 'isnt up to igs standards' you will get ✨ restricted✨

[castielsprostate]

day 46 of asking misha to put his hands around my neck and choke me lightly

day 1 of asking misha to put his hands around my neck and choke me lightly

[fyeahwebnovels]

hi, feel free to delete if this isnt appropriate! im an aspiring webnovel writer and i was wondering which platforms is best to post original works w lgbtq+ themes & how to get traction?

thanks so much for ur time and i hope this isnt too much trouble!!

opening this question up to followers as well--i'm not particularly good at the marketing side of things.

my personal experience is that there really are not good webnovel platforms; websites like royal road and scribblehub have content guidelines which i've found too restrictive to host my own writing, and the platforms themselves are built to encourage inhumanly fast update schedules. this is part of why they're overrun with power-level-up litrpg serials that update multiple times a week; their algorithms favor that kind of schedule.

as a result, i've defaulted to hosting my writing on my own website. i use neocities to host, which i generally recommend to anyone who doesn't mind learning a bit of html; their free tier is completely serviceable to host a simple text-based website, and their paid tier is leagues cheaper and less restrictive than any equivalent hosting you can buy off google or aws.

this means that my marketing is pretty much entirely done through social media, and again, i'm not particularly good at that. however, i will say, the absolute best thing you can do is network. i don't mean for financial gain, very genuinely, the absolute best thing for visibility in the creative world, in my experience, is to be in a social group of other creators who make similar things to you and constantly be hyping up each others' work. (this also means you get to look at your friends' cool indie art all the time and collaborate on projects, which is a bonus.)

i'm quite lucky in that i was already in a social circle of digital artists, videographers, and writers long before i started writing my own web serial, and finding that kind of social space isn't particularly easy. my main tips are: post your work in a way that welcomes social interaction (for example, respond to comments personally), comment on mutuals' work, and don't be afraid to send private messages to people you want to get to know better. if you don't have a private discord server already, making one is a great way to create closer connections with online friends you haven't spoken with privately much.

i'm also considering making a tumblr community in the future for webfiction authors to connect and network, so keep an eye out for that if that's something you'd benefit from.

and again: i don't have the best feedback for this, because my own stint doing web serial marketing has only been going on for four months, so if anyone else has more targeted & useful suggestions, sound off in the notes, please!