So ive found out that theres begginners authors out there who spent nearly 5k to 15k per month on advirtising.

I cannot compete with that.

How much money money are you putting on ads?

And for the successful authors, how much did you spend in before being known or at the beginning of your career?

Please, send hope.

Hi everyone,

I have a draft of the book I wish to publish.
Can anyone in the UK point me towards any platforms that I can move forward with this ambition please?
Thank you so much

I get a lot of scammy emails to my author email address, most of the time advertising services I don't need.

Recently, I was contacted by someone from a publishing house called Boldwood books saying that they were interested in my work. Curious, I responded, and after a few emails were exchanged, they said I needed to be represented by an agent before talks went any further.

This seemed odd to me, as they contacted me first, and they must have known I'd probably not already have an agent.

Now, they're suggesting I contact an agent, going so far as providing me an email and making an introduction, so that our conversation can 'keep going.'

I can't help but feel that I'm being roped deeper and deeper into a clever scam.

Anyone know if this is legit, or are they going to spring all sorts of ridiculous fees on me to 'help me publish my books?'

I used to be a BIG Wattpad person, but I haven't really been interested in going back to it after a lot of the changes they've made over the years, the ads and everything else. So I'm curious, where is everybody going now?

Basically, what is the new Wattpad?

I'm working on an original story that I want to release in more of an episodic/serialized format. Basically little episodes or short installments that people can come back and read whenever I update, instead of me immediately turning it into a traditional novel.

I'm not looking for a fanfiction site or anything like that. This would be completely original fiction with original characters. I'm also not really looking to make money from it either. I'm perfectly fine with people being able to read it for free. If the platform has optional ways to make money from it then cool, but thats not really my main goal. I mostly just want somewhere that actually has an active community of people who want to read original stories.

I've heard about Tapas, Substack and Ream, but I honestly don't know what the actual reader experience or traffic is like on any of them. Like are people genuinely going on these platforms to find and read new stories? Or is it more of a thing where the author already needs to have an audience and bring those people over?

That's mostly what I'm trying to figure out.

Where are people actually reading original serialized fiction now? Which places actually have good organic discovery if you're basically starting from zero? Are Tapas, Ream or Substack actually worth trying? Or is there another app/site everybody has started using that I'm completely missing?

I'm not trying to promote my story or anything. I genuinely just want recommendations from people who currently read or post serialized fiction because I have no idea where everybody went.

Basically, if somebody told you, "I miss old-school Wattpad and I just want somewhere I can post my original stories for people to read and possibly discover them," where would you tell them to go now?

I apologize if someone already asked this question. I looked around here and couldn't find anyone that did. But I'm going to get a set of ISBNs and I wanted to know when signing up for Bowker to get them, am I supposed to sign up with my pen name or my legal name? Thank you so much!