Scribblehub vs Royalroad

Discussion in 'Author Discussions' started by Konstantin, May 8, 2020.

  1. Konstantin

    Konstantin Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2016
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    111
    Reading List:
    Link
    So, as most beginner writers in litRPG/wuxia genres, I post my stories on both of those sites. Those are my observation about the difference between Scribblehub and Royalroad.

    1. If you want to earn cash (any), go for Royalroad. I don't know a reason, but it seems people from Scribblehub aren't willing to pay for more chapters. On average, a novel on Scribble with 1k Readers wouldn't get you any $ no matter what you do, lol. And, on the contrary, if your novel got as much as 1k Followers on Royalroad then you can earn about 1k$ per month if you set about 20-30 bonus chapters on your Patreon for 5-10$. Those are conclusions I made after checking tens of different authors on both sites. I never ever seen any author who could earn even 100$ by posting only on Scribblehub exclusively, even if they have more than 1k Readers and a lot of views.

    2. If you want to test your story for popularity potential or just want to get some motivation, then it is better to use Scribble. Why, you ask? Because it is much friendlier to new authors. Also, it allows you to see how many views your story gets and how many people read the first chapter after reading your description. On Royalroad you only can see statistics from chapters, so you have no way to know if it is your description, title, or cover that sucks. My most popular story got about 500 readers on Scribble and only 70 on Royalroad - because it is absolutely ruthless to new authors unless you are extremely lucky. Only be getting in trending do you have any chance to gain any sort of popularity and for that, you need to write at least 80 pages and get at least 100 Followers from zero in less than a month. On Scribble, it is much easier to get popular if your story is potentially interesting to the readership. Basically, you can know if your story would be popular or not just from the first chapter. If it was able to get 50 Readers in the first 1-3 days, then it means you hit the spot. You can just post new stories until you get that special one (well if you want to get some popularity and not just writing for lulz).

    3. Apparently, on those two sites, different genres are more favored. On Scribble, stories with more fluff are preferred - isekai harems, gender bender, slice of life, etc. On Royalroad - guess what? LitRPG, system apocalypse, monster MC - those genres give you a little bit more chances to get in trending even if you aren't an amazing writer yet. Here is one interesting fact - my new novel that has only 70 followers on RR is more popular on Scribble than some other stories that got thousands of followers on RR. It is one of the things that keeps me motivated, btw. xD

    Conclusion? If you want to write a fluffy story without any thoughts about monetizing it then you can ignore RR as it would make you lose motivation. Just use Scribble. If you want to earn with your writing - use both at the start (to see statistics), then switch to RR completely when and if the time comes (though if you are a nice person you'll probably still end up using both sites to avoid disappointing the readers on Scrb).
     
    Bellilelly, asriu and Lenux like this.
  2. Lenux

    Lenux Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2019
    Messages:
    53
    Likes Received:
    107
    Reading List:
    Link
    as a bonus, you can go to webnovel slave your readers for money
     
  3. Konstantin

    Konstantin Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2016
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    111
    Reading List:
    Link
    From what I know it is the other way around. It is webnovel that slaves the writers. xD
     
    .Lance likes this.
  4. GDLiZy

    GDLiZy Wise Deepsea Mermaid

    Joined:
    Jul 14, 2017
    Messages:
    2,915
    Likes Received:
    2,801
    Reading List:
    Link
    Scribblehub favour more fetishes and good times than Royalroad, which favour LitRpg and fantasy.

    Adult, Harem, Smut, Gend-bend, Yuri, Yaoi and some more are the gateways to trending in ScribbleHub
     
    Westeller and asriu like this.
  5. Lazriser

    Lazriser Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 25, 2016
    Messages:
    8,258
    Likes Received:
    6,254
    Reading List:
    Link
    Why stop there? One begets two, two begets three, and three creates all things. (I can't exactly remember the saying, but yeah~)
    It's a full circle, minus how seemingly bad the contract is for them. Slave working is an understatement, it's downright sacrificial human cauldrons.
     
  6. runsing

    runsing status : bleeding, health -10/s Novel Updates Staff

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2015
    Messages:
    3,383
    Likes Received:
    6,845
    Reading List:
    Link
    that story with 1K followers that was able to net its author 1K/month, how old is it? the story, i mean.

    what i mean to say is, while some stories has less followers, but it is a mature story (story's age, not reader's), it might have a more long-time, loyal fanbase that's more willing to cough up money, compared a story that has more followers, but relatively young.
     
  7. Konstantin

    Konstantin Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2016
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    111
    Reading List:
    Link
    Nope, it is just not true. On the contrary, older stories aren't getting as many followers as the new ones. Because a point when a person is the most interested in getting new chapters is just after he read all the released chapters at once.

    Here is one of the new stories that got 4k per month for 4k subscribers.
    https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/30321/unbound

    Do you want to know the most interesting fact? It is also posted on Scribble and it only got about 200 readers or so

    https://www.scribblehub.com/series/114084/unbound/
     
  8. runsing

    runsing status : bleeding, health -10/s Novel Updates Staff

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2015
    Messages:
    3,383
    Likes Received:
    6,845
    Reading List:
    Link
    c1 on RR : feb 20
    c1 on SH : april 25

    assuming readerbase contributes to some percentage between each other, there's no real way to know if that 528 patrons comes from which site, is it not?

    what i mean to say is, there's a lot of contributing factors that will be interesting if we can see or know how many of the 528 that joins which tier, and from where did they came.

    RoyalRoad has more long-time readers, while SH were propped up from NU's readerbase, which also might be another factor to why, despite the amount of readers, there are quite low in monetary stats

    this might be just a nitpick of mine, but ppl probably are just not intuitive enough to SH's 'Tip' button. they needs 'patreon' spell out in clear text like RR does
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2020
  9. Konstantin

    Konstantin Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2016
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    111
    Reading List:
    Link
    Lol, just check the other works. It isn't hard - you can check about 20-30 novels from trending on both sites. I'm not here to prove you something I found out after putting some work into it. You can either believe my word or check it yourself.

    The thing is - stories that are popular on RR get a lot of Patreons. And stories that are popular on Scribble and not popular on RR don't get almost any. Well, it isn't exactly 0$ per 1k readers on Scribble, more like 100-200$ depending on your story.

    BTW it is ridiculous for you to assume that he got any Patreons from Scribble. I never have seen a story on Scribble that would earn more than 100$ with less than 1k readers, ever.

    Here is a novel four times more popular on Scribble than the one I linked before.
    https://www.scribblehub.com/series/100820/demon-lords-succubus/

    With 800 Readers it has 3 patrons willing to pay 3$ for 5 advance chapters... I think it should tell you a lot about Scribblehub and the willingness of people there to pay.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 8, 2020
  10. LaDyViL

    LaDyViL New Member Staff Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2015
    Messages:
    10,042
    Likes Received:
    23,527
    Reading List:
    Link
    I can say the same to you for assuming the patrons are solely from RR. Like he said, unless you can see where the patrons came from, it's ridiculous to assume they originate from just one site.
     
  11. Konstantin

    Konstantin Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2016
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    111
    Reading List:
    Link
    You can calculate an average tier easily. And I can guarantee you that there is no way to earn anything from Scribblehub with 200 Readers. My own story has 500 of them and I didn't even add Patreon yet - it would be useless.

    How you explain a novel four times more popular with only 3 subscribers? Lol. To prove me wrong you should find ANY novel that is exclusively posted on Scribble that gets enough Patreons. There is none. But there a lot of stories with a lot of Patreons that are exclusive for RR. So yeah. I actually can assume as much with all the info I have. Actually, Unbound already has had 2k Followers and earned 2k$ on Patreon even before being posted on Scribblehub... The only correlation between earning on Patreon was the number of Followers on RR. And it is the case for any novel I found that was posted on both sites.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 8, 2020
  12. runsing

    runsing status : bleeding, health -10/s Novel Updates Staff

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2015
    Messages:
    3,383
    Likes Received:
    6,845
    Reading List:
    Link
    no one is trying to prove you wrong, at least not me. nor am i making fun of you in any way. if any, i'm trying to address the possibilities of other factors that might caused of why is the difference is so.
    also, on your original post, you put zero links. nada. just claims and conjectures. if you did, then we could've skip all this back and forth.

    anyway, your few replies has made it clear of how sure you are, and not willing to explore other possibilities, and other people are ridiculous for suggesting differently than you.

    so that's it then. i'm out.
     
  13. Konstantin

    Konstantin Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2016
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    111
    Reading List:
    Link
    Exactly. Because I know for 100% what I'm right here. Why? Because I actually did the work to find out how it works. And then I posted the results of my work for free, so anyone could use it. You can believe whatever you want. As I said, I checked tens of different novels and analyzed the results. Any person with brains who will try to do the same thing I did will reach the same conclusion.
     
  14. LaDyViL

    LaDyViL New Member Staff Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2015
    Messages:
    10,042
    Likes Received:
    23,527
    Reading List:
    Link
    You are just sharing what you said is the results from your unverified analysis that you said you had done on a number of samples that you said measures around tens. See the pattern here? It's just your words, a few lines and you want us to take that as facts. Don't think this a charity because you're saying you're sharing it for free. We can't even cite this because all of this are just your words, some nobody on the internet. It doesn't even show the analysis that you did. This is an example of an analysis that can be cited under some circumstances: https://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/novel-updates-analysis-feb-2020.100478/

    I feel like I'm treated like an idiot. There is no discussion to be done here. You just want us to agree with you and your results. This is a dead end. I'm out.
     
  15. Konstantin

    Konstantin Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 11, 2016
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    111
    Reading List:
    Link
    Why I should show any analysis? Anyone can check it if they want. I just share the results. I'm not here to prove anything or for any sort of discussion, I only give the ready answer. If you don't believe "some nobody on the internet" - then you are welcome. Waste your time to achieve the same conclusion, I don't care. You are too lazy to even check one of my links, why I should give you ten or so? More than that, this one link I gave is more than enough to prove that it is impossible to earn from Scribble. 800 Readers converted into 3 Patreons - if it doesn't tell you anything, then you are not as smart as you think you are.
     
  16. Westeller

    Westeller Smokin' Sexy Style!! Staff Member

    Joined:
    Apr 3, 2016
    Messages:
    8,169
    Likes Received:
    24,948
    Reading List:
    Link
    A lot of the most popular webfiction is hosted on multiple platforms - AO3, Royal Road, Scribble Hub, and so on. There's no particular reason an author can't - or even shouldn't - post their story on multiple platforms. Rather, you already do, personally. There's a lot to be said about reaching the widest possible audience in this way.

    I will say that I, personally, have only ever supported authors I first discovered on Scribble Hub, via Patreon. That's not to say I'm biased towards that platform or anything. I read quite a bit on Royal Road and a little on AO3, too, and would be equally willing to support authors using those platforms. It's simply that Scribble Hub was the first of the three to introduce me to an author I wanted to support - and nab some advance chapters from, of course. In fact, every author I've subscribed to so far has posted their work on multiple sites concurrently, and it's sheer coincidence that I first discovered them on Scribble Hub and read their work there. I may have, in time, found the same novels elsewhere. I found them when I did, however, because those authors made the effort to put their work out there, on more than one site.

    By the way, thanks for the unintentional novel recommendation. I'll check it out later.
     
  17. Liyus

    Liyus Laksha's Desu~ Cat

    Joined:
    Nov 10, 2015
    Messages:
    4,216
    Likes Received:
    4,757
    Reading List:
    Link
    according your analysis, it better to post on royalroad(7 year old site) instead of scribble Hub(few month old site)?
    i don't see how you managed to compare the userbase of a site only few month old with one that is there since 2013.....additionaly since you can post on both sites why limiting yourself to only one? for an author even if 1 of those 300 people on scribble hub support him can make a difference.