Hey there! Looking for advice

Hey there. I’m new to episode. I literally just released my first ever story A Diamond In The Rough a few weeks ago. It’s really bad, to the extent where chapters 2 and 3 don’t even have content but just filler. Lol. I was lazy. Anyway, I only have 16 reads from like 3 weeks of being published:( and only 3 followers haha. So yeah. I’m actually working on a newer story right now, which is better than my first one, since i’m learning more about episode coding and stuff. So yeah. But um… idek how to promote my account. Once I’m able to release the story I’m currently working on I’ll probably delete my first one (if that’s possible lol). But it would be good to know now how to promote my account more. I’ve looked up strategies and a lot of them are Instagram related, but I’m a teenager and am not allowed Instagram yet. If you know some other ways to gain reads and follows (quickly maybe?), please let me know! Also, I would really appreciate it if you could try reading my first story (even though it’s bad), maybe leave some feedback, and follow me? My name on episode is “sofia” but you could also look up my story “A Diamond In The Rough” and find me that way. Let me know here in forums if you’ve done any of these things and give me your acc, I can read one of your stories and follow back, maybe, if you want? Not really a “read for read” as much as a thanks for getting me started lol.

Anyway, thanks a lot and I hope you guys can help!

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Welcome to episode :wave:

Here's some non-instagram related tips to promote your account/story
  • Follow heaps of people on the app - aim for people who have a small amount of followers or people who are only readers (people who haven’t published anything), since they will get the notification that you followed them, they might follow back and/or check out your story.
  • Use lots of tags, even if they have nothing to do with your story. Things like gangs, pregnancy, bad boys are really popular on the app, so if you include those tags and people search for them, your story is likely to come up (the same thing works with putting your story in genres that have fewer stories in them, but I wouldn’t recommend doing that because it’s sometimes annoying to think you’re reading a horror story and it turns out to be a drama).
  • Make some friends here on the forums. If they like you enough to read your story, they’ll check it out and then suggest it to some of their friends.
  • Include your link on your forums profile. It’s just handy if anyone’s trying to stalk you, they’ll be able to find you easier.
  • Promote yourself on forums. Here’s some promote your story threads I’d recommend:
    Share your Stories!
    Let’s talk about your story
    Share your underrated stories here

Disclaimer: none of these methods have really been proven, but it’s what I do since I also don’t have insta, and it’s worked well enough for me

There’s also this guide episode made
https://forums.episodeinteractive.com/t/episode-explained-series-tips-for-getting-readers/118430?u=amberose

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I would add two things to Amber’s list:

  • Make sure your grammar and directing is good enough and your story is well-structured. Preview your story as many times as possible, ask for reviews and try to improve your writing
  • Update as often as possible because this way you will not only keep your existing readers, but you may get new fans, which can help you to boost up your rank in the longer term.

Edit: these may not seem to be promoting strategies, but they are, indirectly, because the more readers you have the more chance you get that someone will like it enough to help you with promoting :slightly_smiling_face:

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I haven’t publish any stoey yet, so these advice may not be suitable.

*Check grammar - there are some threads on forum which some people kindly provide help on previewing you story for grammar & spelling mistakes
*story plot - make sure your story is clear and make sense
*Diversity - give your characters different skin tone and religious, it’s not necessarily but it’ll make your story more interesting
*promoting your story - there are a lot read4read threads on forum and you can do read4read with people. It’ll gain you reads and if they’re interested in your story they will continue reading.
Hope this helps!

Hmm if you’re looking to advertise I suggest you do read for reads, it’s a fair way of getting feedback whilst also learning from other people’s mistakes/ ideas.

  • Getting an expert writer to help would really benefit you, whenever you have any troubles with coding or whenever you want to advance to advanced coding and make your episodes look better, you could ask them for some advice.

  • Always check grammar/ spelling, it’s a common pet peeve in the episode community even though it’s not really shown, it gets annoying when the amount of mistakes reach a certain extent.

  • Take your time when you’re writing an episode, it’s your time so it’s up to you on how you’re going to spend it. Don’t rush when you’re making an episode otherwise it will reflect obviously onto your episode. Do it whenever you feel like it.

  • The story can be cliche, but it can’t be predictable and be another copy of another episode, add interesting twists to create an intriguing plot to attract poeple’s attention. If you’re looking for plot twists, you might want to plan your story beforehand rather than making it up on the spot.

  • Make sure characters don’t go “off-character” unless there’s a character development involved, it’s hard to maintain the same personalities as you’re the one who created them and you’re writing the script, which may lead to the characters to be too similar, so be aware of which character is what/ and how they should act like.

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This probably isn’t the best way to get readers, but if you’re genuinely just after feedback, maybe ask for reviews on the forums? I personally won’t read a story if the author keeps telling me it’s bad lol.
You mentioned that the story only has one episode? I know I’m not alone when I say that I personally don’t usually read stories unless there are at least three episodes (the exception would be if I know that the author will actually update). One way to get reads is to simply have more episodes and keep updating :). If you don’t think your story is very good, why don’t you revamp the first episode before continuing?

For getting reads, I posted this before and maybe some of these suggestions might help?

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