John Q Developer's Blog

Defining Success for the RoyalRoad -> Kindle Unlimited LitRPG Project

Goal Release Date

1 Chapter / Day * 60 Chapters = 60 days after January 31st

Since I'm going with a 5 day a week release schedule:

30 * 5/7 = 21.4 chapters per 30 days

Do a 4 chapter drop on January 31st and Feburary 1st (weekends) for maximum visibility then proceed as normal

Chapter drop schedule is Monday through Friday.

Start asking for shoutout swaps on Jan 1 on the boards and try to fill the month of February in advance.

4 weeks = 20 shoutouts

First shoutout on Feburary 1st on Chapter 8 basically.

Backlog Burn Down

Goal backlog is 30 days so I'll burn down the initial 43 chapter backlog in the following manner:

5 Chapters for follower / rising stars goals

  1. 8 Chapters for the initial release drop
  2. 100 Followers = Chapter 1
  3. 300 Followers = Chapter 2
  4. 500 Followers = Chapter 3
  5. Entering Fantasy Rising Stars List = Chapter 4
  6. Entering Rising Stars Main List = Chapter 5

Financial Goal @ 60 days after release

  1. 30 chapters per month @ 2 hours per chapter / 60 hours per month
  2. 13*60 = $780 USD (minimum wage of $13/hr)
  3. 780/9 = 87 paying patreon members @ $9/month
  4. An average lifetime of 6 months of Patreon per patreon member, so I'd need to generate about 15 Patreons a month to sustain with churn the 87 patreon subscribers.

Misc Calculations

  1. Word Count = 2000 Words per Chapter * 90 Chapters = 180k words in Book 1
  2. Follower Count @ 2% Conversion Rate = 87/0.02 = 4350 Followers on Royal Road after 60 days
  3. Rule of Thumb = 1-4% Conversion Rate of Followers to Patreon (Using average of 2%)
  4. Go Kindle Unlimited when new followers dry up on RoyalRoad. Growth has stalled, so time to end the extended open beta / advanced reader copy project. Do not bother if less than 3000 Followers on RR.
  5. If below 3000 followers but above 1500 followers, consider a publisher and a shorter trilogy oriented version of the series.

Project Budget

  1. Chapter 20 = $110 on two ads on RoyalRoad (527k Impressions)
  2. Chapter 40 = $110 on two ads on RoyalRoad (if numbers look promising) (527k Impressions)
  3. AI = $25/month (mixed in with other AI uses) for Covers, ads, editing, etc.
  4. $60 / year = RoyalRoad Premium for detailed analytics and importing

Advertising Math

  1. Leaderboard and Rectangle are assumed to be equal in the sense they both convert at the same %
  2. Ads are run sequentially (i.e. Only one ad is run at a time)
  3. The goal with the ads is to get things onto the main rising stars list to get more organic conversion and maximize visibility during the rising stars run.
  4. 527,000 Impressions with a 2% Click Through Rate = 10,040 Clicks / Visitors
  5. 10,040 Clicks / Visitors with a 2% Follower Conversion Rate = +200 Followers
  6. 200 Followers converting to Patreons @ 2% = 200 * .02 = 4 Patreons @ $9/Month for 6 Months (Patreon Lifetime) = $54

So I expect, if I do a good job on the story, marketing, etc. to earn back about 50% of what I spend on ads. Not ideal obviously, but enough from a practical perspective when combined with making the run on rising stars to gain additional organic / algorithmic visibility to pull in additional views that hopefully make it break even.

Outside of a rising stars run or a Kindle Unlimited release, the ads are 100% worthless because 2% conversion rates are already on the optimistic side. Most people post stats with 1-1.8% conversion rates and I've seen as low as .5%. Of course, people claim higher but those aren't reliably duplicated even by the people with those higher rates.