u/Ash_Fowler

I want to essentially write my story as a semi-episodic show, with 7500-10000 word "episodes".

I also like to write by following four-act structure. It just makes sense to me and helps me write. The recommendation I always see is to release 5-7 chapters weekly.

But I much more like the idea of each chapter being an act, and having one " episode " come out each week. And I struggle to split them into 5 sections when I write them as 4 sections.

Is one less chapter gonna make a difference, if the weekly word count is the same? Are there newer successful stories that release 4 chapters weekly?

I've consumed lots of guides abt RR. Many say you wanna post multiple times per week, but some also mention that some very successful stories get away with positing once per week, or every once per month. Only example I know of is Trailer Trash, but I always look at things that got popular years ago with a grain of salt bc what worked then might not work now. Also it has posted even more infrequently since and still seems successful?

But my question isn't necessarily about that specific example entirely. It's about a hypothetical one. Can a story that posts one (polished) 10k-word chapter a month be a successful story on Royal Road?

Not successful as in "Writing makes me happy and that is success". Sure that is true, but as in potentially making enough money to have more time to write at least.

I am learning, but I don't really have the writing and grammar skills totally there yet.
But I do feel like I have a good core concept and story. At least to me. It's the execution I am learning.

I haven't really read on Royal Road much, but I am writing progression fantasy in a way that fits serialization, so it seems like the best fit.

But I am not sure I have the time to do editing as comprehensive as I would like while also keeping up with chapter releases.

I haven't launched my story yet, but I say this because I have been trying to establish a daily word count while I build up a backlog, so that I can release consistently with relative ease when the time comes.

From what I have seen, it is somewhat normal to have mistakes and update them after reader feedback, and stories maybe aren't held to the same standard as traditional publishing. But I am not really sure to what extent that all is the case, or where the line is.

I am ultimately writing because it's a story I badly want to create and a skill I want to develop, but I still want to set it up for success as best I can.

Should I take even longer than it takes to build my backlog to do a lot of editing, or is it better to release it with minimal editing and do more after it's all out and you've gotten feedback from RR readers?

I posted it on some relevant subs and discords, and it got some more views. It says it's at 78 on the actual vid, but now the analytics page says 66. Which is annoying because yesterday I watched it continuously go up until it hit 74 or so.
I posted my vid on similar placed when it first came out, and only did some more to see if I can get some traction since the analytics are good but not getting impressions. So I'm not really sure why this time some of the views were undid. With so few views, I find it hard to imagine this was an estimate that it is now correcting.

I have wanted to make YT vids for a while now, but get overwhelmed by just how much goes into making one. So I decided to focus on something smaller to learn how to edit. Made an AMV. I ended up spending like two-dozen plus hours on it actually though, I'd guess. Was pretty happy with it. Threw together a thumbnail and posted it. Next day I realized the thumbnail was terrible after looking at it on my phone.

So I remade it, and it had absolutely zero effect. I was a bit shocked by that. Maybe I am missing something wrong with it, but I have some experience with graphic design, and used thumbsup to see what it would look like on YT. Really thought made smth I thought was good. Like my video.

My video has a CTR of 14.3%. And except for one period, it was higher than that for most of my video being up. My retention is not great. Averages at 1 minute for a 4.5 minute video. I'm not really sure what I could have done there. The AMV I made is to a song that alternates between slow, somewhat down parts, and intense and angry parts. The visuals reflect that pretty well, I feel. But the retention drops off sort of when the first slower/buildup part is I think.

But besides that, I don't have many impressions. 28 in total. 48 view in total, I think. From what I read, it seemed like other ppl got more impressions on their first videos. I'm not really sure why YT isn't testing my video more.

I did post a link to it on an AMV subreddit and a subreddit for the show the AMV is of. Could that have messed up analytics up?

I just honestly thought my video was decently comparable multiple successful videos from the same niche, in terms of it's quality and the quality of the thumbnail.

I find my perception of how good something I've made is can be pretty unreliable, though. Sometimes a bit after I'm done, I realize it really is not nearly as good as I thought. But I've also had projects I was insecure about basically get raved about by my professor.

I am not trying to make excuses or ignore any flaws of my project. I just don't really understand what to take away from how it has faired so far, or what I can learn.

Maybe it's just bad luck or it's too early to really say and learn anything, but it's hard not to want to figure out how to do better when seeing other ppls' new vids do much better in a similar amount of time.

This is the first thing I've ever edited and I spent an embarrassing amount of hours on this, so I hope that effort comes through