As someone who was mentioned by
@SailusGebel and woke up to find his name on the
wanted list I mean, the thread, here are my observations on the sites:
1) First, almost everyone will direct you to RoyalRoad. Yep, it's the first site recommended for beginner authors, mainly because you'll get the biggest slap to wake you up whether or not you want a career in writing.
Yep, commenters are harsh, but you'll learn from them, as long as you know how to separate their preferences from what you need, and you know that your family--and the whole world--loves you. Otherwise, just think they do after receiving a review from Royal Road connoisseurs.
Oh yes, audiences there generally lean on the LitRPG side of things, so better take that in mind.
2) After you got slapped in RR, you find yourself as a refugee in a site called ScribbleHub. Also known by its other name, 'SmutHub', this is where the usual smut authors from Royal Road go after ToCs from that site forbade them to upload their works.
Pretty much more 'chill' and 'welcoming' than the 'literature elite' of Royal Road, SH has diverse genres to choose from. However (and I don't care if they debate me on this; there's even an argument yesterday in one of the threads), a lot of readers lean on the side of smut, genderbender and GL. Some connoisseurs from Royal Road drop by to shit on someone's work, but readers here are more forgiving (or their mental fortitude is tougher on tolerating works that don't go the way they want).
Basically, SH is the kinder version of RR.
3) HoneyFeed is a site meant for anime enthusiasts and JPN LN-inspired stories. It's where you can read stuff where the MC is Japanese (or his name is Japanese sounding, like mine) written by a non-Japanese person and put up in an entirely Japanese setting. Whether or not the depiction of culture is accurate depends on the knowledge source of the author.
HF audience is chill and lovely. If there's a glaring mistake in your work, they'd give a more gentle review focused on the error itself, and not on how much your mother hated you and the world wishes you're dead due to writing a 'bad' novel.
Downside is, if your novel has illustrations (like I do), you can't upload it in the chapters nor you can upload more than four (three in the Gallery, one as the Cover).
4) Did someone say Syosetu? Yeah, I think OP said someone's claiming to be uploading in Syosetu.
I think that'd be me.
Syosetu (or as my colleagues in writing call it 'Japanese Wattpad') is catered for Japanese audience and authors. However, that didn't stop me--and a brave few--to upload English works in the site.
How's the reception? Well, I think it's okay. My novel there got 309 chapters with 4.3* rating based on 11 scores, 63 bookmarks and 4 comments. However, I could see that people are checking my work in the 'access analysis' page.
Oh right. Someone told me before that JP people are not receptive of English works? Not true. One of the four comments in my story expressed his concern that most of them can't read English, but he still supported my story. Another reader messaged me last time correcting one of my chapters for a missing word (V14 Chapter 7). He's that deep into my novel.
Oh and while you can upload illustrations, Syosetu's UI doesn't allow you to format texts. So it can be confusing to some readers used to English online format with Italics and Underlined words.
5) Pixiv is pretty much the brother of Syosetu, with similar UI. Many of us knew that it is a site for illustrations, but yes, I found reader traffic there (and they are supportive too!).
However, I suggest being consistent with your updates since no one loves a good yet unfinished story (or stories that might end up in limbo due to low reader traffic).
6) WebNovel is one of the writing platform sites I'm currently using, though I guess, with the new ToCs, the site just went dead for non-Chinese readers. (Who wants to be milked dry of their money anyway?)
There are ocassional nit-pickers, and you can embarass them by answering their stupid questions (Yes, comments and reviews can be answered).
My only general issue with WN is that...are those number of views in my story settings true? Or just jacked up numbers to encourage the author to sign up their contracts? Any case, even if free, you can still find a supportive reader base there.
(Though I suggest not now, since there's a problem with their ToC, and readers are complaining about it.)
7) Wattpad is kinda dead...though in my case, my works there got some quiet readers. I can tell because my views are going up, likes accumulating and there are a few comments on the chapters (mostly the readers trying to clear some concepts).
UI is simple, very similar to HoneyFeed. You can format your texts as well as upload illustrations anywhere on the chapter.
8) WebkomPH is a site made for Filipino creators. While they do have a 'novels' section, a lot of people you'd interact with are a hybrid of writer/illustrator whose focus is in their comics, rather than novels.
Site is pretty much new, with UI similar to ScribbleHub and RoyalRoad. However, there are a lot of restrictions, just like an exact size for chapter thumbnails (or else your chapter won't upload), a 50 character limit on the chapter and series titles, and a 500 character limit on the 'Author's notes' section. All of that for a pretty low audience turnout.
Well, I'm posting there because I want to support such initiatives from my countrymen.
9) Penana is one of the memorable sites to me. A lot of stories there are fanfics, mostly about BTS (when I was still there).
It's also where I got accused of stealing my own drawing because he saw it in a dream.
Well, those are the sites where I uploaded my works before. Some are still up, others are deleted. By the way, maintaining several story pages in multiple sites can get confusing and exhausting (especially once you do rewrites), so I recommend you keep it in manageable numbers. I know you want to have your work seen by the entire world, but don't end up aiming for multiple birds and shooting yourself in the process.
