Discussion on being a small author, R4Rs, and etc

Hey y’all, I’m Dee! I have some opinions to share and questions to ask. :heart:

First off, being a small authors is difficult! I’ve done everything in my power to promote my story and my story still doesn’t have that many reads (384 reads). I’ve posted on Instagram, promoted here; on the forums, entered my story in contests/awards, requested shout-outs and reviews… I’ve even done the dreaded R4Rs.

If you’re a overlay creator, editor, template maker, owner/co-owner of an episode group, or friends will a popular author - I feel like it’s easy to get recognition (cause all those mention typically have a lot of followers) and I don’t have anything against that. I just wish it could be a little easier to gain reads, readers, and recognition. :woman_facepalming:

In my opinion I don’t think R4Rs work, because rarely does the person you’re doing the R4R with continues your story after reading the set amount of episodes. :woman_shrugging:

I wish people would leave fanmail, create edits/videos, share screenshots, and etc. I know my time will come (hopefully), but stuff like this motivates me to write. :sob: Normally good writing, advanced directing, and etc. helps. ( :arrow_left: I feel pretty good on this stuff.)

Anyways, Question time!

  • What is your opinion on R4Rs & do you think they work?
  • Is there any other ways to gain reads?
  • What makes you want to… (share screenshots, continue a story, leave fanmail, & etc.)

Feel free to share you opinion on anythings else.

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  • I have done so many read 4 reads. Sometimes I get ghosted but for the most part I have had good experiences. It allowed me to have a small fan base.

  • I believe s golden rule of helping each other out. After I do a r4r, I almost always share the story on my IG and usually the other person does also.

  • If I love the story, I always try to post screenshots and support the author.

Honestly, my story didn’t take off till after it was completed. It randomly became popular but I use this time that is it popular to expose other authors.

With that being said. I’m going to start reading your story and post it on IG :heart:

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What’s the link to your story? I could give it a try if you’d like me to. And maybe I could give some feedback if you’re open to it? Maybe it’s something in your story that’s making people not read it. I dunno

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Hey!!! I completely feel you! I’m in the same situation! I have done everything in my power to promete my story and it’s just stuck. I think Episode as an app should help a bit. Because these contest and editor pics are quite weird and selective and you don’t have really the chance to make it. (As a small author)

R4R it’s a big thing. I have meet incredible and amazing people because of that. Actually a lot of them help me so much promotion my story and I follow a lot of them in their stories! I mean I keep reading them. The problem is when they ghost you. And a lot of people here on the forums ghost you so bad. It’s seems that they don’t care. And they keep posting and posting R4R and I just think… what the he!!!

So the only advice that I have is still doing the same. Be active on social media, here on the forums and with a little bit of luck read will be increasing! :blush::blush:

We can do a R4R and help the other out :joy::four_leaf_clover:!

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Yes!!! She is one the best persons I have met around here! :heart::heart::pleading_face:

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You’re so sweet :heart::heart:

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Yes, I’m 100% open to feedback!! Here’s the link & thanks in advance :heart:

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@The_Saminator @iag1690 I’m really glad to hear that y’all have had good experiences with R4Rs, but for me it’s almost always the opposite. But I definitely believe in helping each other out!! I try to do it as much as I can. Do both of you have an instagram? I’d love to follow you :heart: Also, thank you so much!

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We follow each other already :heart:

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Mine is Anaiz16.writer!! I would love to follow you back!

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I have never done them. To me, it feels in-genuine.

From my experience, being a decent human being alone will get you some reads. I know a lot of mine came from people who saw my commenting things on the forums and they found themselves agreeing with me so decided to check out my stories too. Lol. Other ways are clickbait - having a catchy title and an eye-grabbing cover make a lot more of a difference than people realise.

I, um, tbh… My urge to share screenshots mostly comes when I read a story I hate and I send it to my friends privately lol. To continue a story or to leave fanmail, just comes down to whether or not I enjoyed it. I like stories for different reasons and it depends on my mood what I like but as long as there’s not so many errors that make it unreadable, I will most likely continue.

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I think read 4 reads are a great way to meet new people and discover new stories but I have also been taken advantage of doing read for reads and it’s not a good feeling.

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Your story is action. That already makes it more difficult to gain popularity for you, since the majority of episode readers flock to romance and drama.

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I just slog through and do R4R with reviews.

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Moved to Episode Fan Community since Promote Your Story is not for discussions. Make sure to check out our Forum Tutorial for more info about where to correctly create topics, and feel to PM me if there are any questions. :wink:

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Just wanted to say hang in there. Starting out is tough, but it gets better if you give it time.

What is your opinion on R4Rs & do you think they work?
I don’t recommend doing R4Rs. They don’t work. Most of the time, the other person isn’t actually reading your story, and you can tell when their only feedback is “I liked it, it was nice!” or something similarly vague. IF they even bother responding. R4Rs also don’t help you build a solid and loyal audience. And finally, if somebody actually does read your story for a R4R, they’ll most likely only read one chapter and that kills your reading engagement. Reading engagement is what Episode looks at to determine whether or not your story will be featured on a shelf, and it’s based off the percentage of people that start your story and actually finish it. This is why R4Rs for contest stories are a particularly bad idea. I remember when I started out doing R4Rs and would read through all of a story’s chapters just to get a vague “it was nice!” or no reply at all. Your time can be better spent on something else (which leads me to the next point)

Is there any other ways to gain reads?
Yes. Patience, promoting your stories, consistent updates, making friends, and a well written story with decent directing.
Patience is so important for your peace of mind. It’s better to have a realistic expectation of how quickly you’ll be able to gain reads. While a small selection of authors may instantly gain reads without even trying, the majority of authors gain reads on a long and slow (and often frustrating) trajectory. Many of the authors with hundreds of thousands of reads or millions of reads that you see now have been working to get where they are for months and sometimes even years. It is a slow and steady climb, and it will take all of the following:

  1. promoting your stories and forming genuine connections with people- continue promoting your stories in the forums and create an Instagram page to promote your story. Make friends. Make real friends. People know when you’re using them for reads and you won’t get far this way. Support their stories as well. Form genuine connections with people. Be respectful to others in the way that you promote your own story. That means knowing when and where to promote your own story. Randomly posting your story on threads in the forum actually repels people from reading your story. Promoting your story on other people’s IG posts or sending DMs to people who don’t know you asking them to read your story is also a good way to repel people away from your story. Promote on your own page and when people are asking for story recommendations. And if you’ve formed genuine connections and made friends, they will also promote for you. Also, find review pages on IG and submit your story to as many review pages as you can to gain more visibility in the community.

  2. Update as consistently as you can. This is important and something I don’t do often myself :joy: But update as frequently and consistently as you can and that will help retain your current reader base and gain more readers.

  3. All of the above doesn’t help if your story is poorly directed and badly written. Directing is a challenge and it’s going to take time. Your directing doesn’t have to be perfect, but if you have too many directing errors in one chapter, people are going to put it down. And the story needs to make sense. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve put down because of poor directing and odd dialogue. Slow down, take your time, and give yourself time to learn the platform before throwing something out there. There was a time when stories could do pretty well with poor directing, but that’s not the case anymore.

  • What makes you want to… (share screenshots, continue a story, leave fanmail, & etc.)

An intriguing storyline.

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This is probably the best advice I’ve read! I have been in the community of ages, yet I have a low number of reads; before, I had thought it was because of the style I was using, which was Classic, so I had changed to INK & Limelight – I had Instagram prior to my new story, but because I was part of a Classic-Episode-Community (where most of the readers i had weren’t exactly a ‘fun’ of the two upcoming styles, I had restarted everything - I made a new Instagram page, and a brand new/improved version of my Classic story in Limelight. I have to say that promoting on the forums on R4R’s is difficult, because they end up either ghosting me or they reply with vague replies (as you called them) after I write genuine thoughts on how I found their story.

So, enough of that, I would seriously love to say thank you.

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I’m glad it helped! Hang in there!

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I have 3 milion reads and I can assure you that and as much as the R4R section feels bad it is good because you meet people there. Those people will stick with you in your way as an Episode author and you don’t even understand how important and helpful it is

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