Aligning to My New Decade Plan, I will finish what I started by 2025. I created this series back in 2006, lingering in and out of cache servers for many years. No more will it remain a shadow or figment of imagination. I'm making this series a real deal. Here is how.
To be completed on Scribble Hub and TapRead. Working through manuscript edits for an ebook release. I wrote this story in 21 days. It's short and dark, since I was in a bad headspace when I wrote this.
Synopsis
Love between an angel lord and a devil's cannon fodder triggers the onset of a cosmic war.
Syn was tired of being a shadow stalker. A human soul repurposed to be cannon fodder for an Underworld devil lord. As a shadow stalker, he preyed on the weak; increased terror and fear upon the living, called the Physical, under orders from his lord, Asta.
He wants out, due to his intimate connection with the commanding angel lord, Gabriel. It wasn't meant to happen, but Gabriel had bonded with him. It was a pleasant, manly, connection that fed hope into Syn's blackened soul heart. With all of his free will, he will not let his connection to Gabriel be severed.
Syn can leave for Gabriel if he successfully corrupts the Clock Tower, which is the portal to Earth and the Ethereal Realms. He faces the loss of his soul hope, connection to Gabriel, and free will if he doesn't satisfy this requirement.
Genre mix: Action, Boys Love, Dark Fantasy, Mature, Seinen, Smut, Supernatural
Welcome to the start of my Novel Failure Notes. This series is on my novel sharing experiences. It captures my failures. Why? Because my failures could give insights toward your success. Why experience it when someone else has? You may be able to avoid traps or see how your experience can be better.
The book for discussion is my recently to be completed Only Fools Pray for Mercy in the Underworld that was posted on Scribble Hub. It’s completed, but I’ve yet to release the final chapters.
Now, before I get into the dissection of this epic failure. A bit about me.
Who Am I?
I’m an author who has been around the web novel scene since 2006. You may go, “has web novels been around for that long?” And I will say yes. Although, before that, they used to be live journals and similar types of sites. It wasn’t long that journals became fiction blogs, especially when WordPress and Blogger released their editing tools. Now, that my tenure is out of the way, and I was reminded of how ancient I am...
What are my qualifications?
None. Well, if you consider Wattpad Ambassador and a writing mod on a discontinued discord server a qualification, then I guess.
The truth is that I’m so undiscovered that my claim to fame is existing on many writing site cache servers. However, like the persistent onion weed that I am, I managed to nab my own Google Search thing> Me Thing.
It pays to be the first persistent Veronica Purcell on the World Wide Web. And also be a regular target for shady spambots and scrappers feeding alligator, er, aggregator sites. They keep my author brand rooted and well-oiled in the search engine.
On to the EPIC FAILURE!
I wrote a BL story about a former human, turned devil cannon fodder after they had died, who has an intimate relationship with an angel lord. For those not aware of what BL is, check out my article on the subject. So, the story is a supernatural theme where the protagonist has to complete a wacked task, so he can live a happy, lovey-dovey, free eternity with his angel lover. However, doing the task will incite a cosmic war.
Does this sound interesting?
From my experience, posting this story on regular updates to Scribble Hub. No. SH readers don’t want this kind of stuff. Let’s sum up what potentially has gone wrong with this story’s success there.
Novel Failure Breakdown
Cover — boring couple that doesn’t give the vibe of supernatural action. For SH Readers, this type of cover isn’t what they expect or go for. Popular SH covers tend to be anime-based to grab the fast-paced, low attention span audience. This cover screams mature, slow, and serious, which is the pace and tone of this story.
1:1 Cover designed for story
Audience Target Mature — The story has graphic sex in some chapters. And as the couple is gay men, not many readers feel comfortable reading these kinds of scenes. BL genre, in general, at that site is the lesser read compared to all others. So, the target audience is few, and discovery chances are competitive.
Chapter Word Count — For Scribble Hub readers, I’ve noticed that the best word count per chapter is 500–900 words. The reason is technology. There is no specific reading application for this site, so if you’re reading on your phone it would be through a mobile browser. And that can be painful, but SH does make the experience on Chrome a lot easier with some reading features. However, the shorter word counts work better with their mobile version. Most readers will be phone users.
My average words per chapter weren’t too bad. Around 1001 words, but some chapters ran on to 2000 words. I was aware this wasn’t ideal, but the flow of some chapters would have been prematurely broken if they were split into two. I pretty much couldn’t half an in-flight action scene. It would’ve been like doing the splits in midair and having to literally split you down the middle to be two parts. So, it was a risk I undertook.
How do I know this is a failure?
Aside from the wonderful charity-like. I do say charity because there were no other interactions to confirm the reader was doing more than passing through. It’s likely they read the chapter and did like it. But the story wasn’t compelling enough for them to continue it. Or there wasn’t enough content at the time for them.
The aspects that told me this story didn’t hit a mark at the end.
Views per Chapter
The site calculated each chapter had an average of 27 views. It looks impressive enough, but when I considered the total views against chapters, the view per chapter was approximately 67 views. So if the average is 27, I sort of worked out (with my wonky math mind. I need to note that I’m not a mathematician) that at any given time of the view total, each chapter had on average 1.5 readers scroll through it. It’s likely that 1.5 readers were me due to proof checking on different devices at one time.
I need to add that 7 readers did add this story to their list, but visibly didn’t progress past chapter 1. And one of those readers was me. I had added and removed myself due to error. So, that could be another reason too. If the read counter hasn’t gone up, it’s likely this book was unread and also removed from the reader’s library.
No verbatim or book interactivity
The biggest measurement for a story's success is reader interaction. If there are none, the story was:
— Undiscovered throughout its active lifecycle.
— Discovered but not interesting to readers.
People can argue that there are silent readers who enjoy a story but don’t comment or hit the like button. My truth of the scenario that I’ve experienced is if a story doesn’t move a reader, they won’t talk about it or show their support in some way.
Silent readership = meh or spambot.
What to take away from this experience?
Questions for next time, and maybe for another chance at success for this story.
🤔 Is the story suited to the audience for the genre at the novel sharing site?
🤔 If yes, what is the book package expectations (cover, blurb, metadata)?
🤔 Do I need to pimp my writer’s soul in the forums to get noticed?
🤔 If yes, how can I not pimp my writer’s soul in the forums by relying on the site’s discovery system?
🤔 If it’s not suited for novel sites, should I query this story to be traditionally published? Note that the story would need to be written offline and never shared online.
Taking a knocking, keep on rocking!
Every epic failure is another learning opportunity to see how the next experience can be better and, hopefully, be the success story.
Awesome you. ⭐ If you read through this article, thank you. Keep writing! Hopefully, your story can be a success. Please follow me for more Novel Failure Notes.
The premise is where love can defy all odds. The protagonist is cannon fodder for a devil lord, due to a previous collaboration with the angels, he connected to an angel lord named Gabriel and so begins their love affair. So, this story is supernatural boys' love where the couple is devoted to each other. This devotion creates ripples to the cosmic order and triggers a war.
This month has been the worst. I'm sure it has been for a lot of people. I've faced a myriad of experiences to sink my mind into depression. So, having the privilege to write a story and re-organize my feelings and mental capabilities this way helps. It's probably the first time I was able to finish a story within the same month. I guess it's not all doom and gloom.
I think as NaNoWriMo comes up, doing a challenge like this might help the mind heal or clear out any issues lingering in there.
At least, getting this story done has helped me be more ready to finish off my main works in progress. Hopefully, my luck will pick up from there.
I published the first completed volume for BL romance title, Clumsy Mr. President: Work Hard Don't Die. The first volume is titled, Vol.1: Plonked by a Potted Plant.
Unless it exists on illegal aggregator sites, the latest update isn't available anywhere else.
Only on Google Play for various reasons, but also mainly for the flexible costing options. I can set all my 20K+ word #epibooks at $0.69 cents. A perfect price for a bitty BL experience, and some.
The format is PDF fixed, as I was able to format images better this way. With Acrobat's enhanced image resolution capabilities and phone computing improvements, PDF seems to be the way to go these days.
Hopefully, it nabs a sale. If not, another to add to my Goodsread portfolio.
This title release makes my strategy plan a reality. And I'm excited about it. Going forward, all my stories will be released this way.
