This is part of the WriteZero Top 10 Book Promotion Sites Guide for Authors & Publishers
This Top 10 List covers the best book promotion sites for promoting LitRPG books
The Top 10 – The Top 10 LitRPG Book Promotion Sites
- Bookbub
- The largest and most effective book promotion site for Fantasy and Science Fiction
- This makes Bookbub the top choice for promoting LitRPG books
- Bookbub has 10 to 15 million readers, including 3 million+ readers for Fantasy
- Bookbub accepts only 10% to 20% of books submitted to it
- There is no special consideration for LitRPG being a newer category – If you don’t have a very well polished book they will not accept your book
- The largest and most effective book promotion site for Fantasy and Science Fiction
- Books Butterfly
- The 2nd largest Fantasy book promotion site, making it the 2nd largest LitRPG book promotion site
- Books Butterfly has 4 million readers, with 1 million Fantasy readers
- Very Strong in nearly all LitRPG categories
- Books Butterfly only accepts LitRPG books with professionally designed covers and book length over 150 pages
- Disclosure: Books Butterfly is our sister company which has successfully run $1.9 million of book promotion packages
- eReader News Today
- A very large and trusted site that has been helping authors since 2010
- eReader News Today has between 500,000 and 1 million readers
- Strong in Fantasy which makes it strong in LitRPG
- Very good results and very reasonably priced, making it a must have for your LitRPG book promotion and marketing
- Robin Reads
- A very effective and good book promotion site that has been growing fast
- Strong in Fantasy which makes it a good choice for LitRPG
- Very selective and accepts less than 10% of books submitted
- On the flip side, almost every single book they take does very well
- Book Barbarian
- A fast growing book promotion site specializing in Fantasy and Science Fiction. This makes it a great choice for promoting LitRPG novels
- Good results for most authors
- Only accepts well polished books and is reasonably priced
- Book Sends
- A large and trusted book promotion site with over 250,000 readers
- Book Sends has been helping authors since 2012
- Gets good results for Fantasy which makes it a good choice for LitRPG
- The Book Sends website has a list of requirements to get approved
- A large and trusted book promotion site with over 250,000 readers
- FreeBooksy & BargainBooksy
- Freebooksy & Bargain Booksy are sister companies which are Top 5 in promoting free Fantasy Books (FreeBooksy) and Top 10 in promoting paid Fantasy Books (Bargain Booksy)
- Together they have over 750,000 readers
- They get good results in Fantasy and are a good choice to promote LitRPG novels
- Fussy Librarian
- A good book promotion site that does decently well for Fantasy Novels making it a good choice for LitRPG book promotion
- Gets decent results for most authors
- Very low priced promotion packages, making it a great add-on to your book promotion with a bigger LitRPG book promotion site
- To Be Finalized
- We are considering various book promotion sites and will update the #9 and #10 spots in the near future
- To Be Finalized
We recommend these book promotion sites strongly for your LitRPG novels
These book promotion sites all do well for Fantasy. That makes all of them a strong choice for LitRPG
- Your LitRPG novel, provided it is well written and well polished, should do well in 6 or 7 out of these 8
- A very well polished LitRPG novel, which is also placed in the right book categories, should do well in all 8 of these LitRPG book promotion sites
LitRPG is still an emerging category, so you will have to be patient and figure out what works for your book, and what doesn’t
Honorable Mentions – LitRPG Book Promotion Sites that just missed the Top 10
- Genre Pulse
- Free Kindle Books & Tops (FKBT)
- One Hundred Free Books (OHFB)
- Book Gorilla
- Kindle Nation Daily
As LitRPG is a very new book category, many of the top book promotion sites are yet to focus on it. As a LitRPG author you will have to use their Fantasy and Science Fiction lists to promote your books
We will update the Honorable Mentions section as and when we find additional good LitRPG book promotion sites
Detailed Insights on the Top 10 LitRPG Book Promotion Sites
To Be Updated
We will, later on, add detailed insights for the Top 10 Mystery Book Promotion Sites
Increasing Your Chances of Getting Accepted for a LitRPG Book Promotion with the Top LitRPG Book Promotion Sites
LitRPG is a very new category and you will either want to submit in Fantasy (ideal) or Science Fiction (also acceptable). In general, you will get better results when submitting in Fantasy so that is the category you should submit in
All the top LitRPG book promotion sites specialize in Fantasy and Science Fiction and not specifically in LitRPG. So please keep in mind that the bar is quite high because Fantasy and Science Fiction are a lot more competitive than LitRPG
You will have to work A LOT on the quality and finish and polish of your book
The good news is that these improvements, which are necessary to get approved by the top LitRPG book promotion sites, will also help your book sales for the rest of your book’s life
There are 8 Main Factors that the top LitRPG book promotion sites look for
- The Book is actually LitRPG
- Please make sure you understand what LitRPG actually is and that your book is a LitRPG novel
- Trying to put a Fantasy novel or a SciFi novel into LitRPG just because it is a fast growing market is a bad, bad idea
- Good Reviews and a high review rating
- A review is a reader vouching for you and your book
- Readers trust readers more than they trust anyone else. So Reviews are absolutely critical
- You also need to have a review rating over 4 stars out of 5 stars
- A very well done, professionally designed book cover
- You can shoot yourself in the foot and make a book cover yourself or get a $10 cheap cover
- That will guarantee your book sales are always 1/10th of what they should be
- It will almost certainly guarantee that none of the Top 10 book promotion sites for LitRPG novels ever touches your book
- The better option is to get a world class book cover from a top designer such as GoOnWrite.com or Damonza.com
- You can shoot yourself in the foot and make a book cover yourself or get a $10 cheap cover
- Quality of the Writing
- The Bar in LitRPG is not as high, because it is an emerging category
- However, you must still write well
- It also helps to rewrite the book so the writing is smooth and the story flows
- To the novice writer it seems – how could anyone ever figure out whether a book is a first draft, or it has been rewritten 3 to 5 times
- To anyone with experience, it is painfully obvious whether a writer has poured their heart and soul into a book, or the writer is trying to get by with a half hearted effort
- The book is professionally edited and professionally proof read
- Professional editing is an absolute necessity
- Professional proof reading is also an absolute necessity
- The Book categories and sub categories are set correctly
- LitRPG novels usually go into genres such as Fantasy LitRPG, Science Fiction LitRPG, Fantasy, Cyberpunk, Gaming, etc
- You must figure out the right book categories and sub categories for your book
- You must place your book in those Exact categories and sub categories
- The book is a good fit for that specific LitRPG book promotion site
- Every book promotion site has a very specific set of readers
- You might say – Bookbub has 15 million readers. Books Butterfly has 4 million readers. Every book should do well
- Reality is that there are 7 billion people on the planet
- US alone has 330 million people
- So 15 million and 4 million are a very small fraction of total readers
- The top LitRPG book promotion sites have certain types of books that do well with their readers and certain types that don’t
- If your book is not the type that does well, it won’t get accepted and it’s just an unfortunate mismatch
- The book is worth the reader’s time
- A reader is not just paying money for your book
- More precious than money is time
- Readers are giving you 4 to 5 hours of their irreplaceable reading time
- Is your book worth that time?
- Is your book worth being the only book that reader will get to read that week/that month?
- The book is long enough to be a great, satisfying read
- Nearly all the top LitRPG book promotion sites only accept full length books
- The reason is simple – only full length books sell well
- A book has to be a proper 5 course meal. It can’t be an appetizer
- A reader has to go through 3 to 10 books to find a book they really like
- If the book they really like is a short story or a novella, there is no proper ‘pay off’ for going through 3 to 10 books to find a gem
- On the other hand, if it is a full length novel, then they have found a real prize
- Even better if you have a lot of books or a long book series
- The MAIN reason people don’t buy short stories is that there is no possibility of a big payoff. Even if the short story is good it is over before the reader can get their prize for sorting through 3 to 10 mediocre books to find a well written one
- People who actually write short stories and novellas seem completely oblivious to the fact that people prefer full length novels by a 10 to 1 margin
- Here are two simple tests that every short story author should try out
- Test 1: When is the last time that you yourself bought a short story. We guarantee that 50% of people who write short stories haven’t EVER bought a short story
- Test 2: When is the last time you went to a restaurant and ate just french fries and didn’t eat the burger?
- Here are two simple tests that every short story author should try out
- So, that brings us to the painful reality
- The best and perhaps only way for a short story writer to become successful?
- To start writing full length novels
- The best and perhaps only way for a short story writer to become successful?
- Nearly all the top LitRPG book promotion sites only accept full length books
There are also 8 additional factors that most top LitRPG book promotion sites will consider
- The Book has won a significant award
- If a book has won a very well known award – Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, etc. then it has a very high chance of getting accepted
- The Author is a bestselling author (based on one of the BIG lists)
- Only 2 bestseller lists count
- New York Times Bestseller List
- USA Today Bestseller List
- Wall Street Journal Bestseller List
- Only 2 bestseller lists count
- Exceptionally good writing
- Book promotion sites are always looking to please their readers
- A very, very well written book will almost always get accepted
- Exceptionally good fit for LitRPG
- LitRPG is a massively under-served book category
- If your book is an ACTUAL LitRPG title it’s chances of getting accepted are higher
- Strong background as a gamer or RPG aficianado
- If the author is a gamer that usually means they understand what LitRPG readers are looking for
- If the author loves RPGs and games and has lots of experience, they can incorporate the elements very well
- Exceptionally strong reviews
- As we discussed above, a review means a reader is vouching for your book
- If reviews are very strong, your book will sell well
- Book promotion sites generally love taking books that have very strong reviews because they sell very well
- Please Note: Fake reviews always back fire. Please don’t use any fake reviews. Zero reviews is better than fake reviews
- Very Beautiful Book Cover
- An exceptional book cover works very well because readers ALWAYS judge a book by its cover
- Attention to Detail
- Very high attention to detail in the book cover, book description, and author profile usually indicates that there is very high attention to detail in the book
- Readers love high attention to detail
LitRPG is a new category so most book promotion sites are very careful when taking books. You have to make it crystal clear to readers and to the top LitRPG book promotion sites that you have put in a lot of effort and attention to detail
You also have to make it very clear to both parties that your book is actually a LitRPG Novel
LitRPG Book Promotion Sites – Biggest Mistakes to Avoid
LitRPG is a very new category. However, that doesn’t mean you can get by with a half-polished book or with a book that isn’t LitRPG
When you see that LitRPG is a big opportunity, you should
- See it as – An Opportunity to do very well if I provide readers with a very good LitRPG novel
- Not as – An opportunity to ‘Easy Button’ my way to making money with a half baked book that is vaguely in Fantasy/SciFi and might be LitRPG
If you do want to do well in LitRPG, please avoid these 11 mistakes
- Writing books that are not LitRPG and thinking they are LitRPG or wishing they are LitRPG
- LitRPG is a clearly defined genre with a clearly defined audience
- Above all, your book should make LitRPG readers happy
- You have to understand the LitRPG book category and make sure your book is LitRPG and follows all genre conventions
- If your book isn’t LitRPG you cannot just ‘wish’ it into being a LitRPG title
- Write an actual LitRPG novel if you want to do well in LitRPG
- Promoting a book that is not ready to be sold
- Let’s say you’re in the market for a Fridge
- Would you buy a Fridge that had a door that wasn’t polished and good looking?
- Then why do you expect readers to buy your book with a $5 cover or a Photoshop self made cover?
- Would you buy a Fridge that no other fridge buyer had written a review for? That you didn’t know actually worked?
- Then why are you not focusing on getting reviews?
- Would you buy a Fridge that had not been worked hard on, and polished into a high quality product?
- Then why are you not polishing and rewriting your book?
- Would you buy a Fridge that had a door that wasn’t polished and good looking?
- The #1 reason authors are unhappy with book sales is not extrinsic (someone else’s fault)
- It’s INTRINSIC
- Authors whose books are not selling well, are usually not selling well because they are not polished enough, or they are in the wrong book category
- Let’s say you’re in the market for a Fridge
- Putting your LitRPG book into the wrong book categories and sub categories
- Over the last 12 years of there being ebooks and ebook stores, authors have tried every single trick in the book
- One fine day you get up and think – Wait a minute. What if I put my LitRPG book into Thriller. It could … technically … be a technothriller. That’s such a genius move. Why has no one thought of that before?
- People have thought of it
- People have abused it to such an extent that now it backfires
- There was a period in 2010/2011/2012 when you could classify a book into 10 completely different and unrelated categories and you would get 3 to 5 times the sales of putting it in the right book category
- Every author jumped on that trend
- Until readers just threw their hands up and stopped buying books categorized into multiple categories
- It stopped working in 2012
- Yet, even in 2020 authors are still trying that same trick
- There are very few ‘tricks’ that work
- Over the last 12 years, authors in their vampire hunger to get read have played so many tricks on readers that readers now simply don’t trust anything authors do
- You have to put the book in the EXACT right book category
- If you take any liberties, readers will start thinking you are untrustworthy and will just skip your book
- Cutting corners on the Book Cover
- No matter how many times the experts tell you, your natural desire, deep in your heart, will be to mess up your book cover
- Instead of having a professional book cover designer design it, let me do it myself
- Instead of getting a high quality cover, why not save money and get a $10 piece of rubbish cover
- Surely, true readers don’t judge a book by their cover
- When they see an absolutely atrocious book cover they think – that author is making such a bold and poetic statement. I must really, really buy this book
- Unfortunately, readers judge a book by its cover because any serious author will put a lot of time and effort into getting a very high quality book cover made by a professional book cover designer
- As an author what you think is ‘a beautiful book cover that will sell books’ is completely different from what an actually beautiful book cover that sells books looks like
- You have to let the professional (professional book cover designer) do the work
- No matter how many times the experts tell you, your natural desire, deep in your heart, will be to mess up your book cover
- Skipping on a professional editor and a professional proof reader
- The difference between a book that is not edited professionally and one that is
- Is equivalent to the difference between a McDonald’s Happy Meal and a meal from a Michelin Star rated Chef
- If you want to ‘edit it yourself’ or ‘have your friend edit it for you’ then at least See Reality As It Is and embrace the reality that you are serving your readers a Happy Meal
- Don’t be expecting success equivalent to a Top Chef if you’re giving people Happy Meals
- A professional proof reader is necessary because any mistakes and typographical mistakes pull the reader completely out of your story world and bring them back to the mundane life they wanted to escape
- A book that is not professionally edited is like a movie in a theater that has a commercial break every 3 to 5 minutes
- You don’t think professional proof reading is important, so you are OK with your readers getting thrown out of your story every 3 to 5 minutes
- Really? Are you really Ok with that?
- The difference between a book that is not edited professionally and one that is
- Skimping on Quality and Fit and Finish
- It’s very difficult to polish a book
- It’s difficult to get it from ‘barely good enough’ to ‘very good’
- Even tougher to get it to Exceptional
- If you have a ‘barely good enough’ book, you will sell a little bit
- If you have an exceptional book, then you will be very successful
- Your extent of success will depend on how polished and high quality your book is
- The more you want to succeed, the more you have to work on your book
- Writing a Book for a Market that doesn’t exist
- Within LitRPG there are certain markets that exist (types of book that succeed) and there are certain markets that just don’t exist
- Please make sure you write the type of book that is proven to succeed
- Writing only one book
- Firstly, your first book is going to be terrible (compared to what you are actually capable of)
- Secondly, with just one book readers have nothing else to read
- Thirdly, the more you write the better you understand the LitRPG category and the better you get
- Nearly all the very successful authors have lots of books and/or long series of books
- You have to write a lot of books if you want to improve your chances of doing well
- Not understanding your readers
- LitRPG readers are very different
- LitRPG readers are into games and RPG and they are not ‘societally programmed’
- In fact, they are sometimes the exact opposite
- LitRPG is a bridge between video games and Literature
- It’s literally in the name -> LitRPG -> Literature + Role Playing Games
- Getting frustrated if your first book isn’t a hit
- Almost no one has a hit with their first book
- People like to pain this picture of ‘fast success’
- Angry Birds – people claim it was an instant success
- They never mention that for TEN YEARS before Angry Birds that game studio was building games for other companies and learning their craft
- Widget Smith for iPhone – people claim with one app the guy made a million dollars
- They never mention that for FIVE YEARS that developer was building widget type apps for iWatch
- When iPhone added Widgets he had the Perfect Product – all his hard work met the right opportunity
- You will have to work hard and learn your craft
- Being impatient
- It is a marathon
- Even though this is a hot, emerging, and fast growing market
- You will still have to run a marathon
Perhaps the biggest key to success as an Author is learning from the mistakes of authors who have come before you. Avoid the mistakes that prevented other authors from becoming successful. The above 11 mistakes are mistakes you should avoid at any cost
LitRPG Book Promotion Sites – Improving the Results of Your LitRPG Book Promotion with the Top LitRPG Book Promotion Sites
There are 11 key things you should do to maximize the results of your LitRPG promotion with the top LitRPG book promotion sites
- Place your book in the EXACT RIGHT book categories and sub categories
- Depending on your LitRPG novel, this will be a mix of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Gaming, LitRPG, and other categories
- Please be sure to read a few books in each category and compare and contrast with your book
- You want to be where the readers ALREADY expect something EXACTLY like your book
- First Polish, Polish, Polish and only then Market & Promote
- Authors like to throw an unpolished book out and hope it catches fire
- That never works
- Never ever
- You have to first polish your book very well
- If you don’t polish your book very well, get a beautiful cover, get it professionally edited and proof read, then spending money on marketing and promotion is equivalent to burning money
- Authors like to throw an unpolished book out and hope it catches fire
- Get some very good reviews BEFORE you start promoting
- Make sure to have at least 1 good review, and ideally 5 to 15 good reviews BEFORE you spend anything on book promotion and marketing
- Make sure your review rating never goes below 4 stars out of 5 stars
- Good Reviews can lead to 2 to 4 times more sales than no reviews
- Sometimes, no reviews means no sales
- Get a World Class Editor with experience in LitRPG or Fantasy
- An Editor is what will take your book from a ‘sort of good’ book which gets 1 review for every 1,000 book sales to
- A ‘wow’ book which gets 10 to 30 reviews for every 1,000 book sales
- That, in turn, can be the difference between having writing books as a Hobby and writing books as a career
- An Editor is what will take your book from a ‘sort of good’ book which gets 1 review for every 1,000 book sales to
- Get a Professional Proof Reader
- A book with close to zero errors does many, many times better than a book with errors
- Think of a book that has not been professionally proof read as a product that has not been tested
- Would you sell a Laptop without first testing for errors?
- Then why sell a Book without first removing as many errors as possible
- The ONLY person who can do that well is a Professional Proof Reader
- Get a World Class Book Designer with experience in LitRPG or Fantasy
- People judge a book by its cover
- People make a 5 second decision whether or not to go to the book page based on the cover
- The Book Cover is EVERYTHING and the most important marketing aspect initially because if the Book Cover can’t get the reader to click on it and go to the book page, you can’t get a book sale
- Make sure you convey the book categories to readers in a crystal clear manner
- Each of the following 5 elements must clearly and unambiguously convey book category to the reader
- Book Cover
- Book Title
- Book Description
- Book Categories chosen at the book store
- Author Profile
- Most authors will make it a puzzle for readers to figure out what the book category is
- Readers want to decide in 15 seconds to 2 minutes
- No reader will ever spend half an hour trying to figure out why you choose completely different and clashing categories for your book
- If readers see ambiguity, they worry the book will be not in one of their favorite categories and will be a waste of their time and money
- Imagine if you went to the Grocery Store and were looking for a baguette. Except this Baguette was different
- The Baguette was placed in the ice creams aisle (wrong category)
- The Baguette was in a bag that said ‘Popcorn’ (wrong book cover)
- The Baguette brand name was ‘Stewart’s Fresh Eggs’ (wrong book title)
- The Baguette was manufactured by a detergent company (wrong author profile)
- The Baguette description said ‘The best cupcakes you can buy anywhere’ (wrong book description)
- Would you think – Wow, such an interesting puzzle. This might be a baguette or this might be something else entirely. I’m feeling adventurous today. I’ll take a chance on this Baguette and if it turns out to be something else (ice cream or popcorn or eggs or detergent or cupcakes) then that’s OK
- OR Would you think – let’s just get a different Baguette which is not going through a mid life crisis and is 100% sure it is a baguette
- The reader cannot go into your head and get reassurance that the book is indeed a LitRPG novel
- It’s the author’s job to reassure the reader and make them completely confident and calm
- Each of the following 5 elements must clearly and unambiguously convey book category to the reader
- Tell Readers very clearly what your book is and what it isn’t
- The reader needs to know the book categories and sub categories
- The reader needs to know what similar authors are
- The reader needs to know what similar books are
- The reader needs to know what other readers are saying (Reviews)
- The reader needs to know book length
- The reader needs to know whether the book will match genre conventions or not
- The reader needs to know exactly what they are getting into
- Have 100% Clarity on what you want from your book and from your Author Career
- There are lots of diverging paths you have to choose from
- Do you want to become a bestselling author?
- Do you want to make money from selling books?
- Do you want to get a Publisher book deal?
- Do you want to get your book read?
- Do you want to spread a message?
- The more clarity you have about exactly what you want, the higher the chance you get it
- If you can get to 100% clarity, then you have a much higher chance of being successful
- There are lots of diverging paths you have to choose from
- Gather as much data as you can on what works and what doesn’t
- Every marketing push is a Golden Opportunity to collect data on what works and what doesn’t for your book
- The more high quality data you gather, the better you can allocate your time and money and resources
- Listen to What the Market is Telling You
- The Market will tell you everything you need to know to succeed
- One book category buys your book, another doesn’t
- Focus on the book category that buys your book
- Readers tell you in reviews what they like and what they don’t
- Listen to them
- Readers will even tell you in reviews what the book’s correct categories are, and who comparable authors are
- Treat that information with special respect
- One book promotion site works for you, another doesn’t
- Focus your marketing efforts on the book promotion site that works for you
- One type of marketing and promotion works for you better than other types
- Focus on that particular type of marketing
- Figure out why that type of marketing works better
- One book category buys your book, another doesn’t
- The Market will tell you everything you need to know to succeed
Most of these points are about making it easy for readers to Take the Decision to Buy Your Book and about making it easy for you to Figure out How to Do Well
These are all absolutely critical. Please take these very seriously. Often authors will come in thinking writing and selling books is a walk in the park. It’s not. It’s just like any other highly competitive creative profession – The Top 1% do very well, another 5% do decently well, and the remaining 94% struggle
The gap between Top 1% and the bottom 94% comes down to how seriously they take Books & Publishing and whether or not they learn from the mistakes and experience of authors who have come before them
The Critical Importance of Book Genres & Sub Genres when Promoting a LitRPG Book
LitRPG is easy and difficult when it comes to selecting book genres and sub genres
- Firstly, as there is no dedicated top level LitRPG category, you don’t have any structured set of LitRPG sub categories
- Secondly, almost every LitRPG book will go into Fantasy or Science Fiction. However, what LitRPG book should go into which Fantasy sub categories and which Science Fiction sub categories can vary a lot
- Thirdly, there are various other book categories and sub categories that Lit RPG books can go into
- This includes obscure ones like Game & Movie Tie Ins
- This includes categories like GamerLit and Virtual Reality
- Fourthly, to complicate matters the different ebook stores all have different book category structures
- In some ebook stores you will have to use book categories from ‘Books’ (physical books) as the options for eBook categories for LitRPG are low
- Fifthly, it takes a bit of work to figure out what categories and sub categories your LitRPG book actually fits into
- This is work YOU should do, and you should not try to have readers do this work for you
What is the solution?
Well, one step towards a solution is that almost all LitRPG books should go into the Fantasy category. It’s a good category for LitRPG books and readers expect LitRPG books to be there
Another step towards a solution, and perhaps the most important step, is to do some market research and see where your book fits in. These are some sub categories to consider (these are for the Amazon Kindle store)
- Under Science Fiction & Fantasy under Books (not eBooks)
- There is a Gaming sub category
- It includes – Dungeons & Dragons, Strategy, Trading Card Games, Battletech, Call of Cthulhu, and additional categories such as Other Role Playing Games
- This is one good choice
- Depending on what your LitRPG book covers, you also want to look at the following Fantasy genres (these are eBook Categories)
- TV, Movie, Video Game Adaptations
- Epic Fantasy
- Dark Fantasy
- Gaslamp Fantasy
- Military Fantasy
- Superhero Fantasy
- In some cases (rarely not always), your book will fall into one or more of
- Adventure
- Fantasy Adventure
- Thriller
- Gaslamp Fantasy
- Steampunk
- War
- Military Fantasy
- These categories are all available for LitRPG novels PROVIDED they are a good fit
Though it can take quite a bit of work to find the right categories and sub categories for your LitRPG novel, it will be well worth it
If you find the right place to put your LitRPG novel, you will get more sales and more reviews and find more loyal readers
LitRPG Book Promotion Sites Insights – The Importance of Catering to Gamers and RPG Lovers
Luckily most LitRPG authors are gamers so they get this. If you are not, then it is absolutely critical to familiarize yourself with gamers and what they love and what they like
LitRPG = Literature + Role Playing Games
GamerLit = Gamer Literature
It’s all about catering to people who play video games and love video games
In many cases, these are people who have been playing video games since the Amiga and Nintendo and Arcade Games. Doom, Diablo, Wolfenstein, System Shock, Bioshock, Zelda, Mario – you have to connect with your readers and it takes quite a bit of work if you’re not a gamer
Figure out where they are and visit – Discord, Twitch, YouTube, Reddit
See what they talk about. See what their culture is
There are 2 billion video gamers in the world. Yes, that’s TWO BILLION. People are growing up and still playing games. So the number is rising and not diminishing. They want to read books about what they know and love – games
Why is catering to Gamers so important when writing LitRPG?
Two reasons
- Firstly, only gamers read LitRPG
- Secondly, as discussed above, there are 2 billion gamers worldwide and more and more of them are discovering LitRPG
- LitRPG has not even scraped 1% of its total addressable market
If someone were to give you a choice of
- A stable market that has near infinite competition and has 100,000+ authors and the number of readers is not going to vary by more than 5% over the next 10 years
- VERSUS
- An emerging market with almost zero competition (just a few thousand authors) and the number of readers could grow 10 to 100 times over the next 10 to 30 years
Which market would you pick?
Becoming a Bestseller – Leveraging the Top LitRPG Book Promotion Sites to Become a Bestseller
LitRPG is a fast growing book category, with lots of sub categories of various sizes and not too much competition. It’s ideal if you’re aiming to become a bestseller
The one downside is that because it is not YET a very big category, it can be tough to get enough sales to become a New York Times Bestselling Author or an USA Today Bestselling Author
There are three types of Bestseller Status you can aim for
- LitRPG Category or Sub Category Bestseller
- Amazon Top 100 Bestseller
- New York Times or USA Today Bestseller
Some quick thoughts
- Becoming a Category Bestseller in large Fantasy or Science Fiction categories is quite tough
- It is especially tough because you are competing against Fantasy and Science Fiction novels which have a considerably larger audience than LitRPG
- We strongly recommend that new authors avoid trying for this
- We also recommend not trying for this with an unpolished book
- Becoming a Category Bestseller in LitRPG categories, in smaller Fantasy categories, and in smaller Science Fiction categories is quite easy
- You can take a shot at this anytime
- Please be sure to save all date on what marketing methods and what LitRPG book promotion sites worked for you and what didn’t
- This data will be very, very helpful down the line
- Becoming a New York Times Bestselling Author is extremely difficult
- Firstly, LitRPG does not have its own category and can only try in Fantasy or Science Fiction
- Secondly, Fantasy and Science Fiction are tough categories even for Fantasy and Science Fiction books
- Thirdly, Fantasy and Science Fiction has some really heavyweight authors such as George Martin and Neil Gaiman and you are going up against some tough odds
- Becoming a Sub Category Bestseller is almost trivial
- LitRPG and Fantasy and Science Fiction have so many sub categories, and many of them are so small, that becoming a Sub Category Bestseller is rather easy
- Still, make sure your book is polished
- Getting to Top 100 in the Amazon Kindle Store is a bit difficult, and still possible if you can get Bookbub and 2 of the 3 next biggest LitRPG book promotion sites (Books Butterfly, eReader News Today, Robin Reads)
- Bookbub has an outside chance of getting you into the Top 100 by itself
- However, because LitRPG is a ‘part’ of Fantasy and Science Fiction categories, it is advisable to also supplement Bookbub with 2 or more of Books Butterfly, eReader News Today, and Robin Reads
Let’s look at a few key aspects
5 Key Things that will help you Become a Bestselling Author
It’s going to take a lot of money, a lot of time, and immaculate planning to make your Bestseller Push work. 5 key things that will help a lot are
- Making sure your book is very, very polished BEFORE you spend a dime on marketing and promotion
- A professionally edited book
- A professionally designed book cover that matches LitRPG conventions perfectly
- A professionally proof read book
- A book that is in the right LitRPG categories and sub categories
- A decent level of understanding of how book promotion works and the level of polish required to make book promotion successful
- Some very good Reviews
- A review rating of at least 4 stars out of 5 stars
- One or more very good Reviews
- Ideally, 5 to 15 or more reviews
- Your LitRPG book placed in the perfect right categories and sub categories
- LitRPG specific categories
- Fantasy categories that are ‘friendly’ to LitRPG
- Science Fiction categories that are ‘friendly’ to LitRPG
- A good understanding of what the top LitRPG book promotion sites and marketing methods are
- You have to know this beforehand
- A very good understanding of the timelines
- Example: For New York Times Bestseller Lists and USA Today Bestseller Lists a week long period is considered
- You must get the required number of sales within that week
- Example: To get to the Top 100 Amazon Books list you must have a build up of at least a few days, and then a 1 or 2 day stretch where you get as many sales as possible
- Example: For New York Times Bestseller Lists and USA Today Bestseller Lists a week long period is considered
As you will be spending a lot of money, and as you might never get a similar opportunity again, it is very important that you do all of the above things very well
Becoming a Category Bestseller
Becoming a LitRPG Category or Sub Category Bestseller is quite easy if you pick the right categories
You can email kdp.amazon.com Help/Support and set up to 10 book categories
Ideally, you combine small and big categories to cover the best case scenario and the worst case scenario
- 3 Big LitRPG or Fantasy Categories
- Avoid very big categories such as the main Fantasy category
- However, these should be larger categories such as Epic Fantasy
- 3 Medium Sized LitRPG or Fantasy or Science Fiction categories
- Here you can have categories such as Cyberpunk (under Science Fiction), Gaslamp Fantasy (under Fantasy), Steampunk (under Fantasy), Gaming, etc
- Please be sure to only pick categories that match your book
- 4 Small or Tiny Categories
- Categories such as Game & Movie Tie Ins, and Gamer Lit
- Look for the smallest categories that are still a good match for your book
- In the best case you become #1 in a medium size category early on, then rise up and become Top 10 in a large category
- In the worst case you only become #1 in a small category and Top 10/Top 20 in a Medium Category
- However, as you have picked a category relevant to LitRPG, you still get to #1 in a LitRPG sub category
- The Purpose of putting your LitRPG novel in some small categories is
- To ensure you become #1 in at least 1 book category
- You get at least some visibility in the store by becoming #1 in a category (albeit a small one)
- You become #1 in some small categories, and Top 10 in other small categories early on
- This gives you a good, early boost in visibility
- The purpose of putting your LitRPG novel in some large categories is
- It starts showing in the Top 100 lists in these categories
- As lots of readers check these lists, even showing up at #99 gives a good amount of visibility
- Gives you the opportunity to take a shot at becoming Top 10 in a big book category
- Hope for this, just don’t expect it
- It starts showing in the Top 100 lists in these categories
You should spend 10 to 20 hours doing research on what book categories to put your book in. Get a keyword tool. Check the actual store bestseller lists. Ensure everything is set up well
Number of Sales Required to Become a Category Bestseller
This is based on actual sales results of successful bestseller campaigns. However, you should consider these as just estimates. LitRPG is an emerging category and it also has to compete with Fantasy and Science Fiction
- [Not Recommended] Very Large Fantasy or Science Fiction category – 500 to 1,500 sales over a week
- Large LitRPG Category or Large Fantasy or Science Fiction category – 200 to 1,000 sales over a week
- Large LitRPG Sub Category or Medium Size Fantasy or Science Fiction Sub Category – 70 to 200 sales over a week
- Medium LitRPG Sub Category or Small Fantasy or Science Fiction Sub Category – 30 to 100 sales over a week
- Small Lit RPG Sub Category or Very Small Fantasy or Science Fiction Sub Category – 10 to 50 sales over a week
- Very Small Lit RPG Sub Categories – 10 to 30 sales over a week
- Please Note: As LitRPG is not a ‘separate genre’ in the book stores, there are very few actual ‘very small’ LitRPG sub categories
If you can get all sales within 1 or 2 days, then you can become a category bestseller with slightly lesser sales than listed above. However, we strongly recommend setting sales up to be over a week, with the maximum sales push on Day 4 or 5
The best bet is Bookbub
The best choices to support Bookbub are – Books Butterfly, eReader News Today, Robin Reads
If you can’t get Bookbub, then you must get 2 or 3 of Books Butterfly, eReader News Today, and Robin Reads
You can supplement these with Facebook Ads, and if you are looking for even more sales, then with Amazon Marketing Services
Becoming an Amazon Top 100 Bestseller
We don’t really recommend this for LitRPG authors unless you can get Bookbub
If you get Bookbub then it’s definitely all systems go for the Top 100
You want to set up your book promotion as
- Bookbub Featured Deal book promotion as your main book promotion site and set up on Day 5
- Facebook Ads on all days
- Books Butterfly as your Bridge book promotion from Day 3 to 7
- The overall structure would be
- Day 1 to 3 – smaller LitRPG book promotion sites and Facebook Ads
- Please Note: Facebook Ads continue all 7 days
- Day 3 onwards – Books Butterfly as it has 3 to 7 day promotions and will be the ‘bridge’ between all other book promotion methods and your Bookbub promotion
- Day 4 – a Top 10 book promotion site for LitRPG such as Robin Reads or Book Barbarian
- Day 5 – Bookbub and ideally Robin Reads and eReader News Today to add on to Bookbub
- Day 6, 7 – smaller book promotion sites and more of Facebook Ads
- Day 1 to 3 – smaller LitRPG book promotion sites and Facebook Ads
This is a tried and tested book promotion structure that is fool proof. Set this up and provided you have a very well polished book and you have put it in the right LitRPG book categories and sub categories (the ones it belongs in), you will be good
Becoming a New York Times or USA Today Bestselling Author
At this moment in time we do not recommend this. We will, however, detail what method you can use
Please remember that you will be going up against Fantasy and Science Fiction books and they have much bigger audiences. So, always aim for a number well above what you think will be required to become a New York Times Bestselling Author
Firstly, you have to keep in mind that there are some basic requirements
- Sales must be within a one week stretch
- This applies to BOTH New York Times Bestselling Authors List and USA Today Bestselling Authors List
- At least 500 of the sales must be outside of Amazon.com and the Amazon Kindle Store
- That means a book that is exclusive to Amazon will not be considered
- You either get 500+ sales from Barnes & Noble Nook, Apple, and Kobo
- For that the main two book promotion sites are Bookbub and Books Butterfly
- Or you get 500+ hardcover or paperback sales
- This is a bit risky as some bookstores don’t report sales properly
- Please do your due diligence and find out which book stores are counted, and market and promote in those book stores
- You will need a very large marketing budget
- We are talking about $5,000 to $50,000
- Ideally, somewhere in the $10,000 to $30,000 range
- It is much better to wait until you have enough money to ensure a lot of sales, than to spend $3,000 or $7,000 hoping for a miracle
- Make sure to not go up against big name authors
- It’s simply a bad decision to try and fight a heavyweight author during their launch week
- Your book must be very well written
- Your book must be very, very polished
Secondly, there are some things you can do to greatly improve your chances of success (they will still be low)
- Your book must be discounted
- $0.99 for ebooks works
- $8 to $14 for paperbacks works
- You can create a 3 book Box set to increase sales
- Box Sets of 3 Books at $0.99 (total box set price of $0.99) can outsell standalone single books by 3 to 1
- Box Sets can sometimes really take off
- Of course, it is almost impossible to get cheap paper Box Sets, so in this case you would have to rely massively on the ebook stores
- You can collaborate with LitRPG or Fantasy or SciFi authors and create a multi author box set
- This massively increases your marketing budget
- You can also tap into your individual reader bases to stack them up and make your existing readers a force
Thirdly, let’s look at the figures for number of sales required
- You require 5,000 to 15,000 sales within a one week period to become a New York Times Bestselling Author or an USA Today Bestselling Author
- There is no LitRPG section, so you have to go for the Fantasy or Science Fiction list
- It means you are competing with the Big Boys now
- At least 500 out of those sales must be either paperbacks or hardcovers or from Apple iBooks or from Barnes & Noble Nook
- You absolutely cannot do anything illegal
- Authors have tried almost every trick you could imagine
- Don’t risk your entire marketing push by doing something illegal
When you consider the massive number of sales required (5,000 to 15,000) and the short time frame (a week), you will see why we are always requesting that you measure what marketing methods and what LitRPG book promotion sites work for you, and what don’t
When you have to make a big marketing push, that information is invaluable
How to Increase the Number of Reviews you get after promoting your LitRPG Book
LitRPG is a very interesting book category when it comes to getting reviews
- On the one hand, it is under served and fast growing
- Readers are happy to leave reviews if they like your book
- On the other hand, it has very strong genre conventions and very well defined reader expectations
- If you don’t match them you will get a negative or lukewarm review instead of a good one
It’s absolutely critical to understand that you can’t just take your Fantasy or SciFi novel and start calling it LitRPG or GamerLit. You have to write it as a LitRPG from the first word
There are a few key pre-requisites before you start thinking about increasing the number of reviews
- Is your book a LitRPG book?
- It has to be. There’s no flexibility
- Is your book well written?
- New and fast growing genre so readers are patient
- However, the better you write the stronger your brand will be
- When LitRPG becomes massive you will really wish you had focused more on building a strong brand
- Is your book well polished?
- Same as above – the more well polished it is, the more readers will think of you as the ‘go to Author for LitRPG’
- Imagine if you could be to LitRPG what Stephen King is to Horror
- That opportunity is there for the taking
- Is your book in the exact right LitRPG categories and sub categories?
- LitRPG categories are so different and there is very little overlap
- Make sure you get your categories and sub categories right
- Do you fully understand that LitRPG in the long term is going to become a massive book category like Romance and Fantasy?
- How much respect would you show LitRPG if you knew that there is a 25% chance that in 10 to 30 years LitRPG is going to be just as big as Romance and Fantasy and Biographies & Memoirs
- Look around you – everyone from 6 year old kids to teenagers to Moms and Dads are playing games
- How much respect would you show LitRPG if you knew that there is a 25% chance that in 10 to 30 years LitRPG is going to be just as big as Romance and Fantasy and Biographies & Memoirs
- Do you have a way to reach LitRPG readers?
- Half of Marketing and Promotion will be figuring out where you get good results for your book, and focusing on those marketing methods
- If you can find 5 good ways to reach LitRPG readers, where other authors only have 2 or 3, you have an unmatchable lead
- Do you have a way to reach the EXACT sub categories of LitRPG readers that your books fall into?
- This is super critical
- You have to be able to reach the Perfect readers for your book
Your Success in getting reviews, after you have considered and executed on all of the above, will depend on 5 Key Things
- Selling a Lot of Books
- A very well written book will get 5 to 15 reviews for every 1,000 books sold
- A well written book will get 1 to 3 reviews for every 1,000 books sold
- A decently written book will get 0 to 3 reviews for every 1,000 books sold
- The simplest way to get more reviews – Sell More Books!
- When combined with the below 4 points, you can super charge your review gathering efforts
- Asking For Reviews
- This is ABSURDLY effective
- A long time back we had a competitor leaving fake negative reviews on our Apps (we also make apps and games for phones and tablets)
- All our best selling apps would start getting these fake reviews and it would drop the review rating and scare off customers
- At a loss, we finally decided – Why not ask people playing the Games and Apps for reviews?
- It sounds really crazy
- People already playing the game/reading the book and not leaving a review
- When asked to leave a review – will suddenly start leaving reviews?
- Yes, they will
- It really is that simple
- Just ask people reading the book for a review, while they are reading it
- It sounds really crazy
- Not only did they start leaving reviews, they left so many good reviews that the fake negative reviews would get drowned out within a few hours of being posted
- It works EXACTLY the same for books
- PROVIDED you have a well written book, and are promoting it to readers in the right book genres
- You will MASSIVELY increase the number of reviews you get by asking readers to review the book
- Improving Your Writing
- Readers leave reviews when they really like a book
- Improving your writing skills is one painful and very effective way to get more reviews
- It also leads to much better word of mouth and more sales (above and beyond what reviews will generate)
- Improving the Fit and Finish and Packaging of Your Book
- Reading a book is an EXPERIENCE and a Journey
- You might think that whether or not your book cover is beautiful doesn’t matter
- It does, very much so
- You might think that a professional editor won’t make that much of a difference
- They will make a massive difference
- You might think a professional proofreader who brings down errors in your book from 200 to 20 won’t matter
- They will matter a heck of a lot to readers who can read a book with only 20 interruptions instead of 200
- Improving the amount of polish of your product is one very effective way to get more reviews
- Marketing to the Right Readers
- This is so critical
- Let’s say you have a LitRPG focused on Japanese Style Anime RPGs
- The people who are dying to read such a book, are the ones who are most likely to leave a glowing, positive review
- This is such obvious common sense and yet hardly any authors do it
- If you have a LitRPG with a Diablo style hack and slash RPG story
- Target people who love Diablo and Diablo clones
- It will take them back to all their fondest moments of playing Diablo
- That almost guarantees a high number of good reviews
- You have to market to the right readers
- They buy more, they review more, they become life long customers
- They turn you from a hobbyist author to a really strong big brand author
You need to excel in all three aspects
- The Core Value aspect of having a very well written Lit RPG novel
- The Product Market Fit of knowing exactly what your book is and promoting it to the right set of LitRPG readers
- The ‘Ask and Ye Shall Be Given’ aspect of Asking for Reviews
Getting Reviews is an Art and a Science, and with practice you will become very good at it. Hang in there!
LitRPG Book Promotion Sites vs Facebook Ads
LitRPG Book Promotion Sites and Facebook Ads are the two best promotion and marketing methods for LitRPG books. Each has their place and they actually complement each other quite well
Facebook Ads have some pretty big strengths
- Facebook has 2 billion people
- Firstly, even assuming only 10% read books, that’s still a very strong 200 million figure
- Secondly, there are over 500 million gamers on Facebook and some of them will be open to reading LitRPG books
- Facebook Ads are very good for targeting specific sets of readers
- This is crucial for LitRPG books because you can target people interested in video games that live in a particular country
- You can also target people specifically interested in movies and TV shows about video games
- You can target people who play or love a particular game
- Really, Facebook allows for such amazing levels of targeting that you can reach an incredible number of sets and subsets of gamers and LitRPG readers
- Facebook Ads work for books at all prices
- Most of the top LitRPG book promotion sites specialize in promotion $2.99 ebooks, $0.99 ebooks, and $0 books
- Facebook, on the other hand, can be used to promote books at higher prices and also hardcover and paperback books
- Facebook Ads, if you can get them to work, allow for very good Return on Investment
- For some authors, Facebook Ads are just not going to work
- For some other authors, Facebook Ads will work and at the same time they will not be profitable
- There will, however, be a set of authors (roughly 25% to 40% of authors who try Facebook Ads) who will get positive return on investment from Facebook Ads
- Facebook Ads, while a bit difficult to learn and master, are much better than other Ad Networks
- Amazon Marketing Services is very erratic
- Google Ads and Bing Ads are saturated and very expensive
- Facebook is the best of all the Cost Per Click Ad Networks
These are some very significant strengths – the combination of 2 billion people, very specific targeting, and readers on Facebook being willing to buy books at all prices is an incredibly powerful thing
Facebook Ads also have some weaknesses
- You have to master the skill of running Facebook Ads, or you have to hire a Facebook Ads marketing agency
- This is a real skill and it takes time and effort. It also costs money to learn this skill
- Please Note: All online Ad Networks are difficult to learn. Facebook Ads is still the best online ad network for promoting books
- Facebook Ads cannot create a big spike of sales
- Every incremental sale (within the same day) gets more and more expensive
- Facebook Ads is very good for creating a slow and steady stream of sales
- Facebook Ads keep becoming more competitive
- Sometime within the next 5 to 7 years, Facebook Ads will become as expensive as Google Ads and then authors will get priced out of the market
- Facebook Ads simply won’t work for 25% of authors
- For another 25% to 50% of authors, Facebook Ads will not generate a positive return on investment
- The opportunity cost of learning Facebook Ads is very high
- If you invest that time in writing skills or learning how to research for good markets, those are skills that will last a lifetime
- Facebook Skills might not be relevant in 5 to 7 years as Facebook Ads becomes more competitive and authors get priced out of the market by people promoting payday loans and credit cards and kitchen sinks
- Facebook Ads are necessary and we recommend hiring a marketing expert if you cannot figure out Facebook Ads within a few months
You will notice that Facebook Ads have weaknesses that are partially covered by the top LitRPG book promotion sites. These sites are – able to create sales spike, have zero learning curve, and are composed of 100% readers
They can and should be used together
LitRPG Book Promotion – Facebook Ads vs Amazon Marketing Services Ads
Amazon Marketing Services Ads (AMS Ads) are a smaller, less effective version of Facebook Ads
AMS Ads are going to work for 20% of authors, approximately. For these authors –
- Amazon Marketing Services Ads can be used as a good third marketing method after Facebook Ads and the Top 10 LitRPG Book Promotion Sites
- Amazon Marketing Services Ads are worth the headache of learning a brand new skill (making AMS Ads give positive return on investment), and relearning it when AMS changes (it changes every 1 to 2 years)
- You have a back up in case the top two LitRPG book marketing channels (Facebook Ads, top LitRPG book promotion sites) don’t work well for your book
AMS Ads are not going to work for 80% of authors, approximately. By ‘not work’ mean that you won’t be able to get them to work at break even or a better level of Return on Investment than Break Even. For these authors –
- Amazon Marketing Services Ads can be used in some exceptional cases such as trying for a Bestseller List
- When price per sale/price per download does not matter
- AMS Ads are basically a more complicated, more expensive version of Facebook Ads
- AMS Ads are not really worth the headache
- Please keep in mind that making AMS Ads work is yet another skill set
- Plus AMS changes more often than Facebook Ads so you have to keep testing and relearning what works and what doesn’t work
Facebook Ads are a much better choice. However, it is worth doing a little bit of testing and seeing whether AMS Ads work for your book or not
The 3 Core Skills for Authors
The 3 Core Skills for Authors are the most important skills an author should know
- Knowing What to Write
- This is the skill of writing for The Right Market and writing The Right Book for The Right Market
- Writing Very Well
- This is the skill of writing a superb book which leads to good reviews, follow up sales of your other books, and creates life-long customers that are loyal to you
- Marketing Very Well
- This is the skill of finding the right readers, marketing to them, and closing the deal (getting them to actually buy your book)
These are The Foundation. If you can become very good at all 3 skills, then you 100% have a career as an author
The one downside of The 3 Core Skills is that you cannot skip any of these. You have to be at least ‘good’ in each of these three. Even if you become ‘best in the world’ at one of these 3 Core skills, you must still be at least ‘good’ in the other two
Please also read this post on Levels of Mastery of The 3 Core Skills to better understand the 3 Core Skills for Authors
How the 3 Core Skills apply to LitRPG Book Promotion
In the previous section, we told you that you have to be at least ‘good’ in each of the 3 Core Skills
Now, we are going to tell you something interesting
As LitRPG is at a very early stage, and competition is relatively low, you can go with either
- Short or Medium Term Focus and focus on just 1 or 2 of the 3 Core Skills
- The big pro with this is you can start getting good sales faster
- The big con with this is you will not build a loyal readerbase
- How would this work?
- Focus on one or two skills – either Writing for The Right Market, or Marketing, or both
- Master it and utilize it to sell your books
- As you are not focusing on Writing Very Well, your books will not turn readers into lifetime customers
- However, you will be able to get good sales
- This is a poisonous decision in the long term because you will lose out to authors who focus on all 3 core skills
- However, in the short term it gives you a big strategic advantage as LitRPG readers are starved of books
- Long Term Focus and focus on all 3 of the 3 Core Skills
- This is what we strongly recommend, even though this is much tougher than the previous option
- Make sure you become very good in each of
- Knowing What to Write i.e. finding what categories and sub categories in LitRPG are under-served, and which categories are growing very fast
- Write for those categories
- Writing Very Well i.e. understanding the LitRPG category and understanding gamers and games and writing very well for that reader base
- Marketing Very Well i.e. figuring out how to reach these LitRPG readers (for the categories and sub categories you have chosen) and how to seal the deal and get the book sale
- Knowing What to Write i.e. finding what categories and sub categories in LitRPG are under-served, and which categories are growing very fast
- The biggest thing this tougher approach will do is that each reader who reads your book has a very high chance of turning into a loyal reader who reads every single LitRPG book you write
The 3 Core Skills are even more important to LitRPG because in other categories
- The 3 Core Skills help you have a strong career
In LitRPG, the right use of The 3 Core Skills will give you
- A strong career
- A shot at becoming the Stephen King of LitRPG or the Tolkien of LitRPG or the George Martin of LitRPG
- These sorts of opportunities do not come around very often
- A shot at getting movies and TV shows made of your work
- What are some movies and shows made on games?
- The Witcher
- Assassin’s Creed
- What are some movies and shows made on books etc about games and gamers?
- Ready Player One
- What are some movies and shows made on games?
The 3 Core Skills dictate EVERYTHING
The 11 Golden Rules of LitRPG Book Promotion
These are the 11 Golden Rules of LitRPG Book Promotion which will help you do well as a LitRPG author
- Know your Target Audience very well
- We keep bringing this up because gamers and RPG enthusiasts who read LitRPG are VERY different from readers in other categories
- You have to get a very good idea of what they expect from a book
- You have to write a book that satisfies their needs and desires
- Know the LitRPG Genre very well and choose the right LitRPG sub categories to write in
- The Game is Won or Lost in the Selection of Book Categories
- Firstly, make sure LitRPG is the right book category for you to write in
- Secondly, do the market research to find a LitRPG category that is lucrative and has low competition and is fast growing
- Thirdly, do additional market research and find the right book you need to write for this market
- Fourthly, write a book for this market that delights the readers. LitRPG genre conventions and what readers expect is very different from Fantasy and Science Fiction
- Fifthly, keep adjusting to the market
- You might have to change what LitRPG sub category you write for
- You might have to change what your LitRPG books deliver
- Product Market Fit is more important than every other factor combined
- Product Market Fit = Writing The Right Product for The Right Market
- This (Product Market Fit) is more important than everything else combined
- Why?
- Because people only buy what they want to buy
- Marketing & Sales experts would like you to believe that they can sell Fridges to Eskimos
- However, in reality only two things result in sales
- First -> Creating a Product that Customers are ready to buy
- Second -> Showing a Customer that your Product will Meet their Needs
- That’s it. There is no other way to get sales
- By the way, Eskimos do buy fridges – to keep things from freezing
- By far the easier way is to make EXACTLY what the customers are already dying to buy
- That is the Art of Knowing What to Write and it is the most important Skill you have to master
- The Market Always Wins
- The LitRPG reader with his wallet in his hand, ready to make the purchase, wins every time
- That reader makes the decision
- Some authors listen to what readers are saying (they vote with their wallets)
- Some authors don’t listen and think that they (the authors) know better than the readers (the Market) what books should sell
- Readers always win. The Market Always Wins
- The best thing you can do as an Author is simply embrace the Cruel, Harsh Reality that the Market doesn’t give two hoots about your feelings or your emotions or dreams or your personal investment in your books
- The Market buys what it wants to buy
- Listen to the Market
- The LitRPG reader with his wallet in his hand, ready to make the purchase, wins every time
- The early successes have a disproportionately high chance of becoming long term legends
- This is only true for a few fast growing, emerging markets such as Clean Romance, LitRPG, and Technology Books
- The early successes will have a massive advantage over everyone else
- If you can write what the market is asking for
- If you can write A LOT of what the market is asking for
- If you can build a loyal reader base by writing in very good quality
- You have a chance at building up a massive reader base in an emerging market
- You will become to LitRPG what King is to Horror and what Tolkien and Martin are to Fantasy
- There are going to be between 5 to 20 LitRPG authors who within 10 to 30 years will have TV Series and Shows and 10 million+ sales and become THE AUTHORS of LitRPG
- If you want to be one of those 5 to 10 superstars, start working hard and smart and long now
- AFTER Product Market Fit, you have to do Almost Perfect Marketing & Sales
- Life is Tough
- You did all this hard work to find a great LitRPG category to write in
- You figured out what The Right Product for this Right Market is
- You have a book ready
- Now you have to do Almost Perfect Marketing & Sales
- Read the right readers
- CONVINCE them that your book meets their needs
- Close the Deal
- AFTER Marketing & Sales, the Quality of Your Product will determine the Extent of Your Success
- Life gets Tougher
- You’ve gotten the right book into the hands of the right readers
- Now a completely different battle starts
- How good is your book?
- Is it just good enough for reader to fell OK about it
- Is it very good and reader is happy
- Is it so good that the reader is delighted and becomes a loyal, life-long customer
- The paradox is that quality of the product has ZERO value until you can get it into the hands of the right reader
- Once it is in the hands of the right reader, Product quality becomes paramount
- Readers trust Other Readers more than anything else, which makes Reviews absolutely critical
- The better written your book is, and the better job you do of getting it into the hands of the right readers, the more reviews you will get
- And the better the reviews will be
- The more good reviews your book has, the more readers will buy it
- A good review is a reader vouching for your book
- It’s a very powerful thing
- When a reader comes to your book page, the reviews are telling the reader
- This book is worth your time
- This book is worth your money
- Yes, you can buy it
- A good review is a reader vouching for your book
- Reviews are perhaps the single biggest and single most effective marketing tool you have
- The better written your book is, and the better job you do of getting it into the hands of the right readers, the more reviews you will get
- Picking a LitRPG sub category you are passionate about (and/or a gaming category you are passionate about) is Extremely Important
- When we do something we are passionate about we naturally do a better job
- If you pick a Lit RPG category that enthralls and excites you (AFTER first ensuring it is The Right Market)
- You will naturally do more work
- You will put more effort into research
- You will put more effort into rewrites
- You will ENJOY crafting your masterpiece
- You will ENJOY learning more about the market and the customers
- Your work will be 2 to 5 times better if you pick a LitRPG category you are passionate about
- Sadly, the ONLY way to do well in books is to do your very best. You can’t succeed with your B game
- Which means picking a category you are passionate about is the only way to do well as an Author
- The Amount of Time required for writing LitRPG is prohibitively high, and time management is incredibly critical
- LitRPG is very different from other book categories
- With a known category like Romance, you already have a lifetime of knowing what romance is, what type of books romance have, and so forth
- With LitRPG you need time to
- Learn the 3 Core Skills
- Knowing What to Write
- Writing Very Well
- Marketing Very Well
- Actually write and polish your books
- Play video games and understand the gamer mindset
- Do research on the Internet, including interactinv with gamers on forums and Discord and Reddit and understanding what they are looking for
- Watch and read movies and books in the LitRPG category
- Learn the 3 Core Skills
- As LitRPG is a recent book category you don’t have 10 to 40 years experience of knowing what it is
- It requires an EXTRAORDINARY amount of time to be a very good LitRPG author and you must make sure you become an expert at prioritization and time management
- LitRPG is very different from other book categories
- Your Book must Satisfy Gamers and Delight RPG lovers
- LitRPG readers will revolt if you try to change what LitRPG books should be about
- Gamers are a wild and free set of readers
- They want LitRPG that ENTERTAINS
- They NEED LitRPG that matches their worldview and their dreams
- You have to see what gamers are excited about and what they want
- Then you have to deliver EXACTLY that
- LitRPG readers will revolt if you try to change what LitRPG books should be about
LitRPG is one of the biggest opportunities in books
If you follow the above Golden Rules to the largest extent you possibly can. If you write The Right Product for The Right Market. If you focus 100% on delighting LitRPG readers and 0% on satisfying your own desires and needs and your beliefs on what LitRPG readers should read
You can become one of the top authors in a fast growing, emerging book category which has a very good chance of becoming an Eternal Book Category like Romance, Fantasy, Mystery, Non Fiction