My sci-fi story exploded and is #1 trending on Royal Road, now what?

If you want to go the trad route with it you probably need to try an agent that 'thinks different'. The obvious one to at least touch base with first is Stevie Finnegan at Zeno Agency in the UK. She is the agent for Travis Baldree but is still relatively junior ( https://zenoagency.com/agents/stevie-finegan/ ) I spoke with her at Boskone last year about how that relationship came about and apparently she is on all the socials and did reach out to him seeing how well Legends and Lattes was doing. She seemed nice enough (but theres a limit to what you can tell from a 10 minute conversation) and that agency usually partners with Jabberwocky agency for US deals which obviously is one of the top agencies here (thats Joshua Bilmes Agency, who represents Brandon Sanderson, as well as other well known autors like Charlaine Harris, and Elizabeth Moon and then newer authors like JT Greathouse Clay Harmon, etc)

I don't know that that is the *right* way to do this, as my, and I suspect everyone here, have probably zero expereince with this. Hopefully someone who has self published can comment.

The other thing you could do is talk to people involved with small presses as they are usually very accessible (I have talked to various at places like Wolrdcon, boksone, readrcon and I'm sure wherever your local con is may have some - at least they would probably say so on the cons webpage). Or you could try just direct reaching out. I think Apex now has a book imprint and a few of their editors are members here but not sure how often they come on.

Anyway, don't take any of the above as 'advice' - I don't know what you should do or what is the best approach, but just free wrote on what I might think about doing based on my limited knowledge - Good luck, let us know how things go

ps one thing I forgot to say was I *imagine* for the trad route to work, you're probably going to have to have the entire novel finished 

First off, congratulations! Having a novel light up like that on any platform is outstanding and a great opportunity. After writing a compelling story, the really hard part is getting a loyal following. Whether you go trad or indie, you need to build your author platform and a good "followers" email list. That's the key to future sales ... even trad publishers are far more likely to sign you if you have a sales base (dirty secret - they suck at marketing, and the heavy lifting is likely going to fall on you anyway, so if you have loyal fans who are willing to actually pay for your work, you don't need the publisher and will make more money without them).

Just putting your book on Amazon or waiting a year or more for a trad publisher to get your book out there isn't going to leverage this momentum. You're going to need to do the hard work of marketing. There are a lot of resources out there to help you, but also a lot that just want to take your money. A few of the "good guys" I'd recommend are Dave Chesson at kindlepreneur.com and David Gaughran at DavidGaughran.com. 

Short stories make great "reader magnets" once you set up a simple author site, which you'll need in order to capitalize on this. I don't know anything about Royal Road - does it give you any way to share a link to your social media and website? If so, get on it! 

The only problem I'm aware of with the freebie sites is that many of those readers aren't willing to pay, even to get books of higher quality and great value, so there's no guarantee that they will convert to paying customers (I assume that's what you're after). But if even 5% of those who are avid "free" fans find your work that compelling, you'd have a huge leg-up on building a loyal following for your work.

So keep writing, and try to find a way to capture those readers and make them perma-fans! Put in the work, and best of luck!

@gideonpsmith 

Thank you so much, I'll definitely reach out to her, she seems like a great fit!

Of course I need to finish the first book first (and ideally do an edit pass before sending out the manuscript), but I rather be ready and already have some contacts with literary agents / publishers than lose weeks waiting for them to get back to me and possibly ending up with the worst choice because others didn't yet have time to look and respond.

Posted by: @dommichaels

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First off, congratulations! Having a novel light up like that on any platform is outstanding and a great opportunity. After writing a compelling story, the really hard part is getting a loyal following. Whether you go trad or indie, you need to build your author platform and a good "followers" email list. That's the key to future sales ... even trad publishers are far more likely to sign you if you have a sales base (dirty secret - they suck at marketing, and the heavy lifting is likely going to fall on you anyway, so if you have loyal fans who are willing to actually pay for your work, you don't need the publisher and will make more money without them).

Just putting your book on Amazon or waiting a year or more for a trad publisher to get your book out there isn't going to leverage this momentum. You're going to need to do the hard work of marketing. There are a lot of resources out there to help you, but also a lot that just want to take your money. A few of the "good guys" I'd recommend are Dave Chesson at kindlepreneur.com and David Gaughran at DavidGaughran.com. 

Short stories make great "reader magnets" once you set up a simple author site, which you'll need in order to capitalize on this. I don't know anything about Royal Road - does it give you any way to share a link to your social media and website? If so, get on it! 

The only problem I'm aware of with the freebie sites is that many of those readers aren't willing to pay, even to get books of higher quality and great value, so there's no guarantee that they will convert to paying customers (I assume that's what you're after). But if even 5% of those who are avid "free" fans find your work that compelling, you'd have a huge leg-up on building a loyal following for your work.

So keep writing, and try to find a way to capture those readers and make them perma-fans! Put in the work, and best of luck!

That sounds disheartening, and very similar to game publishing, where publishers won't touch applying games till it's practically already finished (so the applicant no longer needs the publisher's millions of dollars for development) and already has a Discord channel full of users/steam wishlists/mailing list/X amount of people playing the demo (so it doesn't need the publisher's marketing either). What the game publishers are good for, I don't know, because they only show interest after you no longer need them for anything and they can just swoop in to take a cut of the profits at zero investment, zero effort, and zero risk.

I can set up a website and publish it there too and build a mailing list/discord channel, I already have a few discord channels with a couple hundred users that I can start out with. Will have a look at the people you recommended.

I just really wished the publishers or agents would take the PR/Marketing off my hands so I can focus on the writing, as I already have a very demanding full time job and don't really have the time and energy for a third gig.

I'm just wondering how the site you posted this on works. I was able to follow your link and start reading your work without logging in to anything, meaning it is publicly available. For most agents and publishers that would count as being published, first rights all used up. I would imagine that your only option will be to self-publish it.

Posted by: @pdblake

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I'm just wondering how the site you posted this on works. I was able to follow your link and start reading your work without logging in to anything, meaning it is publicly available. For most agents and publishers that would count as being published, first rights all used up. I would imagine that your only option will be to self-publish it.

I'm sorry, but that's not what happened to The Martian (published publicly on a blog), 50 Shades of Gray (first posted publicly as serialized Twilight fanfiction), Warbreaker (first published on Wattpad) and Moonquill has published dozens of books and made comics from content that was first published on Royal Road.

You'd think a publisher cares about making money and having a story stands out from the crowd on a highly competitive platform like Royal Road (where thousands of stories are published each month) it proves there is a demand/market/audience and the story has had the opportunity to collect some degree of feedback and revisions, so there's less risk and more profit for them if they pick it up.

Posted by: @cube

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Posted by: @pdblake

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I'm just wondering how the site you posted this on works. I was able to follow your link and start reading your work without logging in to anything, meaning it is publicly available. For most agents and publishers that would count as being published, first rights all used up. I would imagine that your only option will be to self-publish it.

I'm sorry, but that's not what happened to The Martian (published publicly on a blog), 50 Shades of Gray (first posted publicly as serialized Twilight fanfiction), Warbreaker (first published on Wattpad) and Moonquill has published dozens of books and made comics from content that was first published on Royal Road.

You'd think a publisher cares about making money and having a story stands out from the crowd on a highly competitive platform like Royal Road (where thousands of stories are published each month) it proves there is a demand/market/audience and the story has had the opportunity to collect some degree of feedback and revisions, so there's less risk and more profit for them if they pick it up.

 

In that case good luck. I hope you have the same success.