How's my cover and synapsis?

[GreenStudio]

My novel's numbers have been pretty stagnant even after posting daily for a month (don't even get me started on Royal Road). Don't get me wrong, I'm really grateful for the readers I have and the comments they went out of their way to share, but I couldn't help but wonder if maybe my cover or synapsis is off-putting...

Would any kind soul be willing to check them out and share some honest feedback?

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/2244075/cursed-crowned-crimson/

Of course, this isn't to say that I'm complaining. I know my story is still relatively new, so I'm not expecting to hit the charts overnight or anything like that.

 

[Eldoria]

Your synopsis is actually quite good, offering an existential experience rather than just a plot summary. But here's the problem: if you're targeting the casual reader market, your synopsis isn't compelling enough to make readers care about your character. Why?

Because your fiction is more of an existential mythological tale, questioning the meaning of being a hero or a devil. This concept is too far for casual readers.

If you want your synopsis to sell better, you need to craft it into an emotional experience for readers. You need to make your protagonist more human than mythological. Build a protagonist identity that readers can relate to. Give him personal motivations (and stakes). Test the limits of his humanity.

This way, (potential) readers might be more empathetic towards your protagonist.

Note: My advice won't be relevant if your fiction is a mythological fantasy from the start without any human elements.

 

[Erysion]

That's not stagnation. You still get new readers. The number don't increase because some of your readers deleted their account or got banned. Some even might be no longer interested in your story.

 

[GreenStudio]

Your synopsis is actually quite good, offering an existential experience rather than just a plot summary. But here's the problem: if you're targeting the casual reader market, your synopsis isn't compelling enough to make readers care about your character. Why?

Because your fiction is more of an existential mythological tale, questioning the meaning of being a hero or a devil. This concept is too far for casual readers.

If you want your synopsis to sell better, you need to craft it into an emotional experience for readers. You need to make your protagonist more human than mythological. Build a protagonist identity that readers can relate to. Give him personal motivations (and stakes). Test the limits of his humanity.

This way, (potential) readers might be more empathetic towards your protagonist.

Note: My advice won't be relevant if your fiction is a mythological fantasy from the start without any human elements.

Yikes. And here I thought I had a good balance of both. Thanks for the advice, I'll see what I can do tomorrow.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

My novel's numbers have been pretty stagnant even after posting daily for a month (don't even get me started on Royal Road). Don't get me wrong, I'm really grateful for the readers I have and the comments they went out of their way to share, but I couldn't help but wonder if maybe my cover or synapsis is off-putting...

Would any kind soul be willing to check them out and share some honest feedback?

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/2244075/cursed-crowned-crimson/

Of course, this isn't to say that I'm complaining. I know my story is still relatively new, so I'm not expecting to hit the charts overnight or anything like that.

It's not technically bad, but I'm wondering: How is it that people call him a demon? Why, if he saves them time and time again?
It might just be the Hancock-effect or whatever, but I refuse to believe that people just think of their savior as a demon for no reason. And what caused them to believe he committed "mass arson"?
Technically, the synopsis isn't bad, but in fact, I don't like the questions it poses, because it seems vague.
Same goes for the cover. It's cool and all, I can even somewhat tell what's in it, but that only really works once I've opened the story and looked at the enlarged version, together with the synopsis, which tells me there's an angel stuck to his ass.
I don't know if any of that has anything to do with your reader count, it's just what I observed.

 

[JordanIda]

I found myself wondering "save the world from what?" But looking at your stats, you have almost as many drops as you have readers, so your retention challenges have nothing to do with the cover or the synopsis. The readers that are dropping have already given the book a try, so they've made it through the gate.

That the numbers are low might have as much to do with the venue as your work. It's really slow here. (And at RR, since you brought it up.) Most of the authors that are doing well at these places bring their readers with them. And those readers don't search for anything else. They mostly just link directly into work that interests them and don't see the overall website at all.

I'm going in to read a chapter or two....

======= aargh, fucking merge feature.......

"Chapter 0, Prophecy" is well written. Some grammar issues and some lexical discordancies that make it difficult to settle on an overall milieu (near future, deep past, decrepit present), but on the whole it's better written than much of what one stumbles upon around here.

I don't know if you intend this... I see it's listed as original work, and that's your prerogative, for sure, but the story's premise and plotline appear to be straight out of the motion picture, The Fifth Element. Probably just coincidence, as even in the time of Homer, every story had already been told.