The popularity of GameLit and LitRPG has given rise to many communities of writers and readers enthusiastic about the genre. Royal Road is one of the more popular and bigger online community of people interested in GameLit fiction.
Royal Road Website
The website suggests that it has been operating for 7 years and originally launched in 2013. It is currently run by Noah Bradley, a published author and artist who has created his own fictional world in ‘The Sin of Man’.
The website offers a platform for fictional writers, authors and artists from all over the world. Users can read submissions posted by others and contribute their own works of creative literary skills as well. The website only allows authors to submit their own work or work from another author with their express written permission.
They have an amazing community of talented writers and artists. Many of them write on the website as a hobby but you can also find professional writers and artists who can write works of fiction as well.
Royal Road is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
User Submitted Fiction and LitRPG
The website has more than 7,000 members with over a thousand active users. They have a forum for making suggestion and getting support for fiction writing tips and technical help.
There are more than 650 completed fictional stories that you can read on the website, free of charge. There are also more than 20,000 ongoing fictional story projects. There are more than 130 LitRPG web books at various stages of completion.
You can find the type of fiction you want to read based on more than 15 types of genre including action, comedy, fantasy, romance and sci-fi etc. The website has strict criteria for approving and publishing submissions. The community of members helps out in selecting work for approval.
Once an author has started writing a novel, you can subscribe to their work and get updates when new chapters are added to the book. Readers can grade work for quality and leave comments on each chapter as well.
How to Write
Submitting work is quite easy on the platform. All you need to do is create an account on the website with your email address. You can also log in with Google+, Facebook and Microsoft.
Once logged in, you will be taken to your dashboard with a navigation panel at the side. You have some options to customize the settings, send and receive messages or set up your reading preferences. If you click on the ‘Write Your First Story’ link it will take you to a submission page where you can write and publish chapters.
You can add tags and a title for the book and the chapter on this page. There are separate text boxes for adding synopsis and chapter content. You can also add cover art and images to each chapter.
Overall it’s a good platform for aspiring writers to start writing your new fictional book and get an instant audience. The website also allows readers to make donations that go to the author. Although you won’t get paid much for writing on the Royal Road, it does provide a platform to get noticed and attract paying publishers.
Premium Version
Since there are no charges for reading fiction and LitRPG on the website, it is funded primarily through ads and donations from users. The platform also offers two types of premium accounts for readers and writers.
Readers can get a subscription for $3 per month to remove ads and get push notifications through mobile widgets. Writers can get a subscription for $5 per month to get everything readers get plus data analytics tools and some advanced technical features like autosaving of text input and export in EPUB format.
LitRPG on Royal Road
Let’s look at some of the LitRPG books published on Royal Road.
Street Cultivation by Sarah Lin
This is a wuxia/LitRPG hybrid novel. The wuxia style of fiction follows the life journey of an ancient martial arts expert from China. This novel tells the story of Rick, a young martial artist going through financial difficulties. It is an interesting read in the LitRPG style.
The author started the story on Royal Road which helped get some recognition and writing experience. The full book was later published on Amazon and Kindle. It generated enough interest to get a sequel which was published recently.
Sarah also wrote and published a LitRPG trilogy New Game Minus and The Brightest Shadow, an epic fantasy.
Endless Online: Oblivion’s Blade by MH Johnson
This is a history/alien based LitRPG that was written and published on Royal Road back in 2017-2018. The complete book was available for reading on the platform. The author later published the book on Amazon which received much praise and sold quite well.
The author has since written four more sequels building an intricate world of history and cosmology. It goes to show that you can build a successful fictional writing career even if your start from scratch.
Ideascape: An Adventure LitRPG by Falc0n
This is a new, ongoing LitRPG that is still being updated by the author. It has a gripping story with many twists and turns so far.
It tells the tale of Victoria Gale, a lone wandering lesser storm elemental as she goes through changes in her world, gaining experience and stat boosts. The story is told in the first person and has quite detailed attributes. It has a good dash of humor and takes a dig at popular tropes while still offering enough plot to keep readers interest engaged.
The Guild Core: Dragon Bourne by TJ Reynolds
This is a fantasy based LitRPG that is complete and the author is going through some revisions and additions to the plot. The next step will probably be to get it published online through Amazon.
The story involves a young, wannabe adventurer Kai who starts out in a humble town. He is joined by a ragtag band of adventurers, each with their own motives, as they challenge and battle the evils of greed and ambition. The story doesn’t rely too extensively on LitRPG elements and looks more to be on the side of fantasy fiction. Nonetheless, it offers enough originality that will attract fans of LitRPG to give it a go.
Summary
Royal Road offers a good platform for new and emerging fiction writers as well readers who want to read good original material for free. The community is still in its infancy, but it has helped in launching the career of several writers.
It offers a place for fiction and LitRPG fans to come together and share ideas on what makes fictional writing great. The platform can also be of help for writers who want to get an ebook published and make a name for themselves. It should be on the radar of every fan of fiction and LitRPG.Have something to add? Let us know!