Just as the title suggest, I would like to share my experience of going multiplatform with my novel. And there is some stuff to share. This is mostly for newer authors, or those who would like to start writing. Now, I will compare two different sites, and tell you pros and cons of each. Mind you, this was MY experience, and therefore it might be different to others. But anyway, let's start this long post.

Webnovel VS Royal Road

Some people might claim that Royal Road is bigger, it's not. Webnovel is a bigger platform, therefore you have much bigger chances of gaining more readers here. When it comes to userbase on both sites, I have mixed feelings. I've been on Webnovel for I think over two years, but a registered user for almost two years. This site is rather welcoming, and although you might get a few trolls or angry people here and there, I found the experience to be rather pleasing.

Royal Road on the other hand, not so much. I only published there recently (I no longer publish there as well), but with an edited novel to a much better standard, I didn't expect such hate. There will be people who don't like your novel of course, but what I experienced back at Royal Road, isn't simple not liking something, it felt to me like a targeted attacks.

Reviews

Which points me to the review and ranking system. A lot of people complain that webnovel's ranking system is rubbish. Royal Road is not different, if not worse. On webnovel, you can see who gave you a review, their accounts are linked to them, and you can even ask that person for more reasons or communicate. On Royal Road, not so much. On Royal Road people are able to give you ratings, but you don't see who gave you those ratings. For all I know, one guy could give five 0.5 star ratings (Yes they can give half star ratings there), and I would never know who. You can't contact them, because you have no way of knowing who gave you what.

On both websites, ratings are tied with your rank. On Webnovel, you at least see who gave you what ratings and they are required to write at least 140 characters. But, Wenovel has a voting system implemented as well. People use their stones in order to vote. Royal Road doesn't have that, and your ranking is tied to your ratings and reviews.

In a way, this is good and bad. When you have a voting system in place, the more people vote (Even if your reviews are lacking) you can get a good ranking. On the Royal Road though, you can't simply get a good ranking. Because your rank is tied to reviews and ratings alone, readers can actually threaten you with 1 or half star ratings. This is not nice to experience.

Another difference between those two sites, is the ability to delete content. On Webnovel, you can remove reviews. It is a controversial topic, but thanks to that, authors cannot be threatened with 1 star reviews. This alone is a big plus. Of course people can abuse this power, and people do. But as long as this is used to remove harassment, I don't have a problem with that.

You can't delete comments though. Webnovel doesn't allow that, and the comments are there to stay. You can report them, or sometimes people will delete those comments themselves, but as an author you don't have the power to delete them. This is not the case at Royal Road. You can remove comments, but you can't remove ratings (as you don't even know who posted them), nor can you remove reviews. You can PM the reviewer, report it, but nothing else really.

Webnovel doesn't have a "full" rating system for reviews either. You can only like the review, not dislike it. At Royal Road, you can do both.

Userbase

Yea, both sites have bias towards something. Although that is true, Webnovel in my experience is more accommodating. Webnovel is biased towards Romance, System, Reincarnation and similar tags. Those novels generate the most views. If your novel is not in that category, you might have to struggle for a while, before gaining some views. This is no different at Royal Road. The site is biased towards RPG, game elements and such. People have bias over there, and rate accordingly.

From my experience, novels with many, many more mistakes than mine, had better scores just because they were litrpg (Another reason I don't publish there anymore). You can't escape bias, if you write a novel that doesn't contain those tags. Webnovel though, although people can be biased, but not to such degree. They would usually rate your novel for what it was. It might not be interesting to them, but they will not leave a 1 star review just because of that. They are required to rate stability, quality and so on. Royal Road, only overall rating can be posted, without substance.

Before I get comments replying "people post hate reviews at webnovel". Remember that those can be deleted here. Royal Road, you are stuck with them forever.

Quality

Webnovel is much, much more forgiving for quality, especially if you write something outside of popular tags. Royal Road is that lofty mate of yours, who will point out anything, just to make you look miserable. I had people nit pick at the smallest details, and so leaving angry reviews because "I want to know what happens next". (Mind you, they received like 8 chapters in a week, not 1ch in a week).

Not everyone is born with English as their first language. Shit, even those people make mistakes. Therefore I would recommend Webnovel for the beginners, based on that alone. As a beginner, your writing will not be perfect from the get go. Writing is a skill to be learned. Even if your first language is English, you might've an easier time starting up, but time will prove that you can improve.

Author Support

I saw people complain about inkstone here, you should have a look at Royal Road. Yea, you can edit your text there, but boy the website is so outdated. You write your novel in something like forum posts. Looks rubbish in my opinion, and you have a small window in which you write your text. At Webnovel, you have a full sized page, where you can write a title and content below. Looks clean, but you can't really edit the text in any way (At least not now).

Then there is the spell check. Webnovel believe it or not, has a basic spelling checker implemented. The site will highlight mistakes (not everything) and that is something. Royal Road has none of that. Whether you write a comment, chapter or review. They don't even have a basic spelling checker implemented. In a way this is good, you can check your writing skills without any help from software. I actually like the idea, but boy is it annoying. Sometimes you just mistype something on your keyboard, and don't notice that during editing. This basic spell checker has at least a chance to point it out. On Royal Road, it doesn't.

For new writers, this is very useful. Having a spelling checker is a plus. Of course you can get external software, but we are talking about websites, not external software.

Royal Road allows you to post your patreaon and paypal links. They will be displayed at each chapter and at the general overview of your novel. This is great support for authors, because those interested are exposed to your paid membership or monetary support options. Whereas at Webnovel... they censor that stuff out. A dick move in my opinion. You can have those links in your synopsis, but if you comment your links, they will be censored (mildly but censored either way). If you post links in your author notes, those can't be copied.

Although a dick move (a bit), this protects you as well. You can't easily copy the text of each chapter, because you can't select any words. On Royal Road, anyone can just copy your stuff without much issues.

On webnovel you can get contracted. If your novel does well, you can make some money. At Royal Road, you can't be contracted, you only get paid from your patreon and paypal (if you have them). This means, your book can be paid or free at webnovel, but it will be always free on Royal Road. Free on Royal Road because Patreon is not Royal Road, it's a different site. The benefits you offer there for people who sign up, has nothing to do with Royal Road.

On Webnovel, yea you have the contract. I chose not to take it, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't either. You gain more popularity due to contract, whereas on Royal Road, nothing changes. If you have 1 or 50 supporters at Pateron, Royal Road might just stay unaffected, all is tied with ratings and reviews.

Overview

I think I talked about most crucial points here. So this will be conclusion (By the way, good job getting this far, if you actually read all of that). I recommend Webnovel to new writers, and staying on Webnovel for a while first. If you think your skills are up to par, or your story is doing well, by all means try publishing on both platforms. (Maybe even other platforms if you wish. Stuff like Wattpad and so on).

If you want to start at Royal Road, bare in mind the quality, and the ratings you might get. You can surely make it there, I just think it's harder for new writers to do so. Going on both platforms at the same time is viable, but remember that you can't get a contract with Webnovel, if you go multiplatform. They will want exclusivity with your novel, when you sign. Maybe you could get to some kind of understanding, if your novel does really, really well.

Don't let my experiences stop you though. I'm just one guy, while there will be loads of people who will tell you Royal Road is great. I think otherwise, and you can probably see this bias in my words here. But, I tried to be as objective as I could be, and give you pros and cons of both websites.

I will also say this. I didn't write this post for compassion. I'm writing this for those who wonder where to start and if they should go multiplatform. There are benefits going multiplatform, on any websites you choose. More views means more recognition, or income or whatever your agenda is. The disadvantages are well, you need to spend more time now, as you have two or more website to worry about. Your novel can be good at one site, but have worse rating on the other. Either way, what you decide is up to you. I will be going with multiplatform in the future again, but not with Royal Road. There are other websites, where you can publish your novel. I mentioned those two, because I had experience with those two. Thanks for reading, and see ya I guess? :D

    Edit: the posting interface made me reply to Precell which is incorrect.

    Good write-up. I don't agree with it all, but you clearly stated it's your personal experience.

    RR chose to mix together the rating and review system. I'm honestly unclear as to why.

    RR limits your reviews to one per story, and you can edit all aspects of a review you have written, and you can actually find every review you have written. In that sense I find RR superior (for reviews -- not talking about ratings).

    RR supports formatting of text, but you're supposed to write it with yóur own software. That pretty much makes RR useless if you write on a phone but at the other hand superior if you write on a computer (since you'll write in a proper word-processor to begin with and just copy over the result).

    On average stories on RR are superior from a language point of view. That comes with all the drawbacks you have presented (snide remarks et al).

    If things don't go BOOM with a gaming interface to check out the actual numbers of the BOOM in your story, then you can pretty much skip RR. You're writing explosions for a predominantly male readership there.

    RR arguably has a superior forum compared to Webnovel. It's also the playground for small cliques of people, which sucks if you're new there.

    If you do happen to get on the inside on RR then the writing support available to authors is so much superior on RR it's not even funny to compare. There's the part of spending half a year to get accepted though.

    Just like yours, these comments of mine reflect my personal experience since summer 2015 on RR.

      You tag the wrong person. hahahahaha. But thank you for the information I am not familiar with RR at all.

        StenDuring And I will reply to that.

        Yep personal experience, but truth at the same time. Sure other can have different experience, yet I still recommend people to use other websites.

        StenDuring RR limits your reviews to one per story, and you can edit all aspects of a review you have written, and you can actually find every review you have written. In that sense I find RR superior (for reviews -- not talking about ratings).

        I'm aware of that. What I referred to was simply someone making multiple accounts and leaving ratings, not reviews. And that, you can't do shit about actually. It also counts to your overall ranking, and this alone places trolls and such at a huge advantage. As I said, they can make your story look shit in one day, just like that.

        Reviews can be edited, sure. I guess that is a good thing (should've mentioned it). Doesn't change the rating system they implemented or they heavy influence of people who can just destroy ratings... just because. (I think I have a guess as to why I suddenly received those ratings, but I digress).

        StenDuring RR supports formatting of text, but you're supposed to write it with yóur own software. That pretty much makes RR useless if you write on a phone but at the other hand superior if you write on a computer

        It is useless, and the websites shouldn't tell me what to use, in order to write. Webnovel's inkstone looks much better, modern and refined. Doesn't support formatting (again yet, maybe they will add it), but it does have a spelling checker. Royal Road only has formatting going for it, which is not a lot. You can write books without bold, italic and shit like that. The top rankings here prove it no problem. Besides, I compared what those have, you straight out tell people "its superior!" (You used that word a few times mate).

        StenDuring On average stories on RR are superior from a language point of view.

        Nope, show me numbers supporting your claim. What I wrote, is that expectations of the userbase is higher, not that the novels are better on average. Royal Road has a fair amount of shit novels too. I didn't write that, but I will now. When you have a shit novel on royal road, that is about game (rpg and so on). It will receive better ratings (views and so on), than same quality shit but different genre. I've see it myself, when I compared a few novels together. That is the bias I talked about, and you are fully aware it seems.

        StenDuring RR arguably has a superior forum compared to Webnovel. It's also the playground for small cliques of people, which sucks if you're new there.

        Arguably. Forums should be inviting, not suck because you are new. How is it better then? I've seen the forum, and it's dead. I visited it a few times, then stopped. At webnovel at least something is going on, there? Nothing. I'm not that hot on forums, but I do agree the content on Royal Road forums was much more useful. The problem is, it's the old content. Old tips, old techniques and such. Those were the most useful to me. The rest? Rinse and repeat.

        StenDuring If you do happen to get on the inside on RR then the writing support available to authors is so much superior on RR it's not even funny to compare. There's the part of spending half a year to get accepted though.

        What support? You mean this?
        Everything from Reader Premium
        Detailed Analytics (free with webnovel)
        Review Push Notifications (don't care for it, free with webnovel)
        Customizable Fiction Header (not worth it)
        ePub Export (free with other provides, such a google)
        Find & Replace (free on any web browser or text editor software)
        Automatic Draft Saving (Wow, google has that too, free) <- if I write on external software, why is this a paid feature? Was I not suppose to write outside of Royal Road?

        You said it yourself. People write outside those websites, and copy stuff in. Why would I pay them for free stuff? If you mean something else, never heard of it. I've been on Royal Road for a short time I admit, but never saw specific authors being especially promoted (if they won some kind of competition, then perhaps). Not convincing at all. Webnovel does help you when you get a contract. They can give you tips, editors and such. Yes you wait for that, but its not laughable in any shape or form.

        I'm starting to defend webnovel, which I don't want to do either. Webnovel has its own shit going on, and its not the best for sure. But, comparing bad and bad, webnovel looks to be a lesser evil. I left it for those who wish to start new or do multiplatform, to decide. Were they poorly informed? I don't think so. The only validity I took out from your response, is that reviews can be edited at Royal Road. The rest is "This is superior", "That is superior!".

        You claim this was personal experience. I understand, but at the same time, you are making claims that don't support personal experience. If you don't have numbers to prove it, you are just talking bs.

                      DarkRay

                      Hmm, I never intendeed to aggravate you, but it seems I was unclear. Let's go through the points one by one.

                      The rating system at RR sucks. I'll hand you that, and I didn't even try to defend it. The review system (bar the idiotically included ratings), however, is superior. Webnovel runs a joke. One reviewer, one story, one review. Anything else is moronic. The limit of one for one makes the option to edit a must.

                      That I can't even find the reviews I've written on this site is a bad joke.

                      Webnovel runs with its own version of the botting idiocy for creating "review"-spams. I'll give you that at least you have a handle for the bots here.

                      As for formatting I simply disagree with you. This is definitely a matter of personal taste. I don't want Webnovel's hamhanded spellchecker to interfere with the word-processor I have thoroughly whipped into obedience for my needs.

                      I agree that the forum style layout on RR is rather ancient though.

                      Non-existent support for formatting is as close to a dealbreaker as you can get. It's a huge impediment here. Internal monologue becomes all but invisible and you can't highlight words in a decent way.

                      If I wrote litrpg, which I don't, Webnovel is useless. Status displays need to be formatted. (And no, I personally am not a fan of litrpg in any way). Btw, notice that I'm able to highlight words in this forum but not in my stories here?

                      I've reviewed enough stories on both sites to see the difference when it comes to the mastery of the English language. While I initially thought the English on RR was substandard it's nothing compared to the atrocity that defines the average level here.

                      I'm not in any way arguing that the stories are better told at any of the two sites. Narrative, characters and setting are equally well or awfully presented on both sites.

                      I'll fully agree with you that RR is a place for written explosions to be read by boys. That kind of story will get better ratings there. Arguably the same bias in favour of romance goes for both Webnovel and Wattpad (to mention a third site).

                      Then the activity on the RR forums have died down. In that case you're right. I haven't been active on those since summer. Given decent activity the diversity concerning topics and subtopics made the RR forums far better than Webnovel's. With no activity any forum is shite.

                      My comment on support tied in on my opinion about the forums. Automated help is all but useless when you're in a cinch while writing. Nothing compares to the input from another writer. I'm used to an active RR where such help will come from several directions whenever you ask for help. With no activity on the RR forums that kind of support falls to the same level as Webnovel, ie nonexistent.

                      The main problem with RR was (and probably still is) that you have to become a known entity before anyone gives a crap, and that sucks balls.

                      Btw, idiotic ratings on RR can be removed. In difference from Webnovel there's an active staff that actually responds to input. I've had two drive by shootings removed from my own stories there. In my case I refused to accept a below seven minutes total reading activity to rate book seven with an average of 60 k words per book. I'm a fast reader, but bloody hell :D

                      Webnovel and RR are different entities. RR is a publishing platform whereas Webnovel is a publishing house. I expect to see better marketing done here for the novels they promote. I guess Wattpad and Webnovel would be a better pair to compare in that departement.

                      I hope that clarified my standpoint.

                          StenDuring And yet you published on both. I checked. Even more so, you should be more than aware how royal road doesn't appreciate you. Even your reviewers there told you that this is not the website for your books, and how narrow their tastes are as to what they read (the other part was by one reviewer). On one book at webnovel you have almost 800k views, which is double of what you have at royal road with ALL your books (13 of them). Yep, I counted that as well. Around 361k views on Royal Road (Even if you combined those 8 books into 1 at webnovel, royal road is still half of that at best)... Yea, I don't think royal road does you any good mate.

                          I saw much more but I will limit my own response to just that. This alone is weird to me that you would defend royal road like so (Your first response). As I said, I will not defend webnovel. I only compared things together, and gave an overview. Based on those numbers, I can say webnovel is much better for stuff that is not games. If you want a diss at webnovel, I can provide loads of shit. I'm a prominent critic of this website, and I do criticise them a lot. Yet, I'm still here, and not at royal road. Which already explains some stuff, right?

                          As for the other stuff, I mean I pretty much quoted you. You say you didn't argue about certain things, but quotes are there. I used them for a reason. You either make a u turn or change your position now. I will give you an example even.

                          StenDuring On average stories on RR are superior from a language point of view.
                          My response:

                          DarkRay Nope, show me numbers supporting your claim. What I wrote, is that expectations of the userbase is higher, not that the novels are better on average.

                          This is another problem I had on royal road (This can be encountered at webnovel too). People imagining their own reality. Yes, a lot of your points are valid when it comes to webnovel. I won't argue with that. What I argue with is your misrepresentation. I didn't fit everything about royal road into my post, true. But I compared a lot of things, and told people what they can expect there, as well as what they can expect at Webnovel. Your first response was basically "Royal road is superior", then 2nd response was "I agree with a few things, but I make a u turn here". That sort of stuff. (Additional note: Removing ratings is something I simply don't see happening. I don't see mods running around removing 1 star ratings for authors, because they asked. Reviews, perhaps. You can report them after all. But if they do it, great I guess. Thumbs up for mods at Royal Road).

                          By all means, I'm not trying to convince you. I just stated what I know about both websites. And in my view, starting out on webnovel is easier. That was my conclusion. Read my overview again, if you want the real representation of my stand. Everything is written in my post. When I read your replies, I feel as if you are trying to create your own straw man, then burn it.

                          Basically I used quotes for a reason. If you have any diss at webnovel, great! It's not like I will defend them. What I responded to, was basically either acknowledgement (That I missed something), or argued because you misrepresented something, or made claims that you couldn't support. That is that.

                                  DarkRay

                                  My stories are a horrible match for RR :D However, that in itself shouldn't colour how I assess the platform in question. Ie, that my main story fares much, much better here isn't part of my evaluation of the sites. To use the third platform, Wattpad, as an external example. Publish litrpg there and burn in hell -- doesn't change to what degree Wattpad is a good or lousy place to publish stories in general.

                                  Still, sure, don't go publish fluffy romance on RR. You'll have no readers. Go publish rapey romance on RR and I won't even promise you'll have your account left.

                                  As for the "language point of view" my evaluation stands. English on RR is substandard. English on Webnovel is an insult to readers. There's a difference.

                                  I've written 18 reviews for RR and in the order of 30+ for Webnovel. I always read the story to its current end before writing a review. I'd say that gives me a relatively solid platform for evaluating the proficiency level of the language used on both platforms.

                                  Once again, I never claimed that the stories are better told on either platform. Since you're active on both platforms, we're talking a comparison of 'grammar' versus 'writing' given what the star is labelled on each site. Since the other stars are very similarily labelled (updates being the glaring exception) I've interpreted 'writing' here as the mastery of the English languauge.

                                  Removal of ratings (not reviews) is my personal experience. I got pissed off, filed a ticket and received the help I asked for.

                                  I'd agree with you about starting out on Webnovel being easier. I believe I made it clear one main problem with RR is that you need to build a name first. I'll even agree that this is a huge problem for RR.

                                  I'll disagree with you about writing on Webnovel being easier even as you start up. The lacking features basically tie your hands behind your back as soon as you try to implement anything new introduced to the creation of novels the last 100 years. Or in other words, "bold, italic and shit like that".

                                  Inkstone is a piece of shit implemented by people raised on phonograms rather than an alphabet. They lack basic understanding of how the western world enhances the graphical experience of text since an alphabet based written language lacks the built in graphical elements available to for example Chinese and Japanese.

                                  Hence writing on Inkstone ties you to horrible writing practices. This last gripe is both my personal opinion as well as my masters degree in comparative literature speaking.

                                      StenDuring I've written 18 reviews for RR and in the order of 30+ for Webnovel. I always read the story to its current end before writing a review. I'd say that gives me a relatively solid platform for evaluating the proficiency level of the language used on both platforms.

                                      Mhhhh.... Mhhhh. I just can't give you that. Webnovel has over 15k novels available. I don't know the exact number at royal road either, but I know it's more than 11k. Saying you have a solid understanding of a platform, after that amount of reviews... is not valid. One human alone, can't really test that (you need study for such number and a large pool of people or computers? To carry out the tests). That would be accurate data. You read what interested you as well, not something that you didn't look for (At least I assumed you look for novels you wanted to read. Not just random finger pointing and reading). That is why I'm saying it's not valid.

                                      But let's leave the language alone. I have no way of acquiring such accurate data, and probably so are you. As for the story quality, I never mentioned that at all. I'm not sure why you refer to that. If you mean the quote I replied with, then of course I referred to language (not quality)

                                      DarkRay Nope, show me numbers supporting your claim. What I wrote, is that expectations of the userbase is higher, not that the novels are better on average.

                                      You mean this right? I just replied to the language. Has nothing to do with quality, so let me clear that up. As for the rest, I mean I say a lot of shit about webnovel. So I'm not even bothered about it. Webnovel is not perfect in any sense. That is why I have overview in my 1st post? You can have PhD in astrophysics, doesn't change what I saw and experienced. That is my recommendation to start at webnovel. But I also wrote that people can start elsewhere. Like, it's right there at the top in the first post. Nothing was edited.

                                      DarkRay I recommend Webnovel to new writers, and staying on Webnovel for a while first. If you think your skills are up to par, or your story is doing well, by all means try publishing on both platforms. (Maybe even other platforms if you wish. Stuff like Wattpad and so on).

                                      If you want to start at Royal Road, bare in mind the quality, and the ratings you might get. You can surely make it there, I just think it's harder for new writers to do so. Going on both platforms at the same time is viable...

                                      There you go. Black on blue? I guess. I've been rather neutral in my approach. So again, are we in the clear now?

                                              DarkRay

                                              I believe we know where we stand.

                                              As for recommendations, purely from an ease of use point of view, I'd recommend a newbie to start at Wattpad.

                                              For most anyone, in terms of being together with a decent community of helpful writers, I'd say stay the hell away from Wattpad.

                                              The two recommendations above are not contrary at all. The first is a technical ease of use recommendation, and the second for writing -- two totally different things.

                                                  I will say this. There are a lot of great people on Royal Road, and I have a lot of friends there. I like them a lot.

                                                  However, most of the harassment I receive are from Royal Road readers who basically spam my Discord account with hate messages, telling me to leave the site, flaming me, leaving me 0.5 ratings daily on my story, ordering me to delete my story, and doing all sorts of stupid things that I reached the point where I had enough and decided to delete my account on Royal Road for good.

                                                  Sometimes I return there because I have friends there, and I want to check them out. But once again, when I offer advice on the forum, I get attacked by some other guy every single time, who seems to insinuate that I'm giving horrible advice, and talks to me in a condescending manner. Fortunately, I managed to contact my friend and talk to him, so I was more than happy to delete my account again and leave the site. If so many people hate me and don't welcome me, then fine, I'll just leave there.

                                                  I haven't had much experience regarding the community here, but there are some readers who behave similarly to those on Royal Road, but because I deleted my Discord account I can't say I've received as much hate messages and spam from the readers on here. I have met a lot of good and friendly people, however, I have also run into several people who I feel uncomfortable talking to, notably successful writers who label me a failure because I disagree with them on what writing should be about (rankings and such). Then again, on Royal Road I actually have people take my story (because it happened to be on Trending), rip it apart on the main Discord server to publicly humiliate me in front of everybody...and the best thing was that, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the way I wrote. He couldn't find any grammatical or spelling error with my sentences, so he made up stupid stuff like I was using...I don't know, purple prose, claimed "who writes like that?" and proceeded to humiliate me in front of everyone. That was also one of the factors that led to me eventually leaving and deleting my account there.

                                                  There will be good and bad experiences no matter which platform you are in. I doubt anyone will experience the same kind of abuse, harassment or treatment I get, though, so don't worry about it. Have fun at Royal Road or Webnovel or wherever you choose to publish - even though my experiences have not been pleasant, I can say for certain that there are good and friendly people there as well. I hope you meet them and befriend them, while avoiding the...less savory characters on either site.

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