🧙‍♂️Interview with N.T. Lazer of The Homeseeker, Weekly Recs, and that's a lot of Cheddar

Hello everyone! Hope you’re all having a fantastic summer. This week, we interview the talented N.T. Lazer of The Homeseeker: Elemental Adventurer LitRPG [Isekai], give only the best recommendations of the week, and snoop on an Author and their wallet 👀💸. Also, I figured out a way that you can get free Patreon Chapters. Bit of a hack. Someone should definitely look into this.

I’d also highly recommend Authors and Readers to check out Pickwick! It’s the Goodreads/Novel Updates for all things Progression Fantasy and LitRPG. Up and coming great new platform. There’s a custom tier list tool coming!

WEEKLY RECS | WHAT’S OUT THIS WEEK ON KINDLE | INTERVIEW WITH N.T. LAZER | SNOOPINGS | LINKS

Weekly Recommendations - Yeah, these are all awesome.

What’s Releasing this Week on Amazon

Interview with N.T. Lazer from The Homeseeker

The Homeseeker: Elemental Adventurer LitRPG [Isekai] is a highly engaging, witty, and authentic story that will just keep you reading one more chapter. The style, humor, and pacing are fantastic and seriously set it apart. I think all readers of the genre would love the Elemental style magic and characters in this one. Authors can definitely take notes on the unique magic system and characterizations as well! Seriously fun read. Here’s another beautiful link.

Hello N.T. Lazer! Thank you for hitting me up for an interview. Reading your story has been refreshing for me. I’m really enjoying Zalan’s interactions with Rep (obviously), and the way Zalan interacts with the world. The Elementals system is super unique, and I think it’s a very cool way to blend growth and adventure.

Before I get ahead of myself, I want to ask about the different path you’ve taken to writing on Royal Road. I always find it interesting when authors use different avenues to grow their audiences. I understand you started posting on Instagram, grew a following there, and then brought them over to Royal Road, at least partly. Can you tell me a bit about your writing background? How did you find the growth on Instagram? Did you find it difficult to grow on Instagram? How do you find the audiences different between Instagram and Royal Road? I think you can provide some valuable insight on audiences in general and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Hey there, thanks for having me! Really excited to be able to go over all these points. I especially appreciate the research that went into this, this is clearly not a set of surface-level questions.

I want to be thorough, but also not waste anyone’s time. This whole section is a deep-dive on my process to an audience on a lot of platforms, not just Royal Road. If you’re more interested in story-writing or The Homeseeker, that’s further below. There’s also gonna be a lot of links here for context, I don’t want it to come off as self-promo, just trying to be extra thorough. Except for The Homeseeker. That’s self-promo, go check that one out.

I started off on Reddit, specifically on r/WritingPrompts. I spent a couple years responding to prompts and garnering a small audience by directing them to my personal subreddit r/Nazer_The_Lazer. For years, my sub was nothing more than an archive of all the prompts I’d ever written to. For those of you unaware, r/WritingPrompts had a heyday prior to… I wanna say 2022? Posts there used to get ~5-10k upvotes regularly and responses could get you tens of thousands of eyes, so it was a great way to start from scratch. Not a true meritocracy since the “famous” writers would get upvoted fast, but if you were writing decent responses, you would get some excellent feedback.

Short stories were super valuable to me. It really taught me how to structure a story, a scene, dialogue, and a twist ending. Honestly, if you’ve never written before and want to get “out there,” post short stories online. You don’t have to post hundreds like me, just get a feel for your voice and where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

Then, one day, an Instagram account posted one of my short stories on Instagram, and it went pretty big, especially for it being a series of text images on Instagram, about 60K+ likes. That account said that my stories would probably do well on Instagram, so I wanted to give it a shot. I built myself https://texttopic.com to translate Reddit posts directly to be able to Instagram. (btw if you check out the site, please don’t pay for anything, I’ll give you access to premium for free. just reach out).

That went great for a time. In 2020, Instagram was serving up short stories to everyone in its algorithm and I was seeing some great interactions. Not just me, but other Reddit to IG writers like u/resonatingfury -> @r.e.fury_author and u/TheFirstMillionWords -> @thefirstmillionwords. Then, in 2021, the Instagram algorithm changed, and it no longer became an upward trend of followers and views. Content was no longer king, reels were king. This is just to say that just because it worked for me doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. But it’s not completely dead! Just not rapid growth anymore. For context, I used to have 25k followers and have slowly been hemorrhaging to 20.9k followers. So to answer a little more directly, it used to be easy to grow on Instagram, but I don’t know if that’s the case anymore. If you’re thinking to yourself, “but what EXACTLY did you do to gain the followers?” I have an article for that here.

In terms of Instagram followers vs Royal Road followers, that is an interesting question. They’re both supportive, and I’m grateful for them both. But while some RR followers were willing to do something like pay for a book or advance chapters, a much smaller number of IG followers are willing to pay for things. Important to know the nature of your followers, especially if you’re trying to monetize or even make a living on your writing. That being said, I did run some successful Kickstarters (article on how I did that, but it’s outdated on prices), and I know for a fact I would have had a much harder time crowdfunding if it wasn’t for the small number of followers willing to support me from Instagram.

Homeseeker is a very fun and adventure filled series! I’m really loving the System and the way people find growth. Can you give me some background on how Homeseeker came to be? I know you started with short stories. Did you always have the idea for the story in the back of your head? Or did you develop it specifically for Royal Road? Do you think writing short stories helped in creating your story or made it more difficult?

I hope this doesn’t come off as petty as it seems. I was inspired to write The Homeseeker because I read one too many isekai where the MC couldn’t care less about their home. Like in The Completionist Chronicles or The First Law of Cultivation, they almost don’t have a past. And I totally get it. This is escapist fantasy, why would you want to dwell on your old life, especially in CC’s case where he was miserable in the real world, but I felt like there was something that wasn’t being scratched for me in terms of such a clear motivation for an isekai MC. So, I wrote it myself.

I always intended to release it for Royal Road, but I structured it like a 5-book series of novels from the beginning. Some people have made comments about the character not changing much in the first few chapters, but I don’t really mind. This is a book series first, and a serialization second. In other words, there’s a healthy backlog and planned ending. I guarantee no hiatuses, unless I die or something. And even then, it might be scheduled to go out posthumously.

The system was inspired by a r/WritingPrompts post, which I responded to here. (Fun aside, this short and a lot of my others are taken and made into TikTok Minecraft Text-To-Speech posts). I was very inspired by the idea of every power being taken from a challenge. Everyone with a power has a story to tell.

So, I guess you could say writing short stories is the reason why this story exists at all. But also, yes, short stories in general were a huge help. The best way to learn to write is to write. And unfortunately, most of us don’t write very well on our first try. But on my hundredth try? I mean… I’m not gonna say it’s great but I know it’s a lot better than where I started.

I think you really excel in dialogue. Your conversations between characters flow excellently. Zalan is a great main character in that he doesn’t immediately fit snuggly into the world you’ve built, and my personal favorite is Gorb. When you’re creating characters, what’s your process? Did you plan Zalan’s emotional development from the start or did that come with pantsing? Who is your favorite character to write, and why? Who is a character you find difficult to write?

Very kind of you to say, thank you.

I know every step of Zalan’s emotional development from page one. This progression fantasy is as much about his emotional growth as his physical. I know his changes seem gradual in the first chapters, but I think it’s very cathartic when it all comes together. And I think it’s well telegraphed in the elements I foreshadow, but to say more than that would be in spoiler territory.

My other main characters are all given a very barebones outline. Like name, power, and what are they like at the end of the book, mood and power wise. Based on those aspects I can fill in the gaps with all the events that I have plotted out. Like, I know what kind of monster they’ll face and how they defeat it. But I don’t need to map out how characters will react. Gorb’s confident, strong, and will take on any challenge. Zalan will be a fish out of water. Fran will be so excited she’s manic. I just play the scene by how I know they are and where they’ll end up.

Man, my favorite character changes book to book. First book’s favorite is Fran, then second book is Nold, and the third book releasing now is Captain Buttonwillow McKittrick. Fran because she loves every fight so much, but she gradually changes in how she reacts to fights, understanding her limits while still enjoying the adventure. Nold because he’s such a curmudgeonly guy, but he gets results. And Captain Buttonwillow McKittrick because his name is as highfalutin as his bravado. Every one of his lines is a joy to write.

I’m really enjoying the magic system in Homeseeker. I don’t want to give too much away as I believe it’s one of the main hooks when reading, but you’ve blended growth, action, and character development very well. How did the development of your System come to be? What went into that planning? It’s very imaginative and covers a lot of ground in succinct descriptions. Did you have brain dumps of the way your System could work? Did they develop with your characters? How do you approach magic systems?

The System was a lot of ideas put together to form something consistent. I wanted there to be thresholds to expanding one’s power, like “you can’t redirect lightning before you reach X Wisdom.” But the other pieces of it are left up in the air intentionally. Is someone Level 4 more powerful than someone Level 3? In raw strength, yes, but the fight could go either way. I like having some variability like that.

I didn’t want to get too deep in keeping track of every monster and their potential Experience, so I went with the Experience system from Paper Mario. If you kill the same monster at a higher Level, it means you gain less Experience. Answers the questions “why don’t people just farm the little monsters all day?”

I wanted to have the name The Homeseeker be a parallel. It describes the artifact they’re after “the Homeseeker” and Zalan, who seeks his home. But in order to have an Artifact called a Homeseeker, I needed to fit in a lot of other Artifacts to fill the world, and they add a lot of fun variability to the world, but they degrade fast enough that they can’t break the world.

I didn’t want there to be any healing in the middle of a battle. So every encounter could have serious consequences, but I also didn’t want to take any time to rest and heal, so I created a Healing Rest to restore oneself in a safe hub almost instantly.

The Artifact system was kinda pantsed, but the rest of this was planned in advance to make sure the world fits together without holes like “why doesn’t everyone have an elemental power” or “why doesn’t everyone just use X Artifact all the time?”

Unfortunately, in retrospect, I may have dumped a lot of this in the beginning. The adventure doesn’t hit the ground running since I take some time to define these rules before they really get going.

Magic systems in general are really taken by what I think would be cool at the time. “A world where this is the norm sounds cool right now.” I wanted a bunch of Elemental Abilities to be front and center in fights, and I wanted them to ramp up over the course of the series. All this other stuff supplies for intense scenes and shorter downtime. If I work on another magic system in the future, it’ll probably be based on whatever I find cool at the time. Probably supers in its very early stages, just when powers have been introduced into a society.

Do you have any advice for writers or creators in this space on growth? I think you’ve got some chops on the marketing and growth side and would love to hear your advice on that. What are some of the main things that you think have worked in your audience growth? Some things that you think don’t matter? Should authors focus on other platforms or go all in on Royal Road?

This is a very time-intensive suggestion, but I took the shotgun approach and hit as many avenues as I could. No one is going to advocate for you as much as yourself, especially when you’re still on the smaller side of followers. Anyone that allows you to self-promote get in there! Stay within the rules, don’t spam, be respectful, and promote your work! We are small authors, we’re not going to be found organically. No matter what site you go to, it’s always going to be “the more popular accounts get the organic views,” you must claw your way up. And I’m not looking at it from a negative perspective, this is a good thing! We can actually climb up out of obscurity, so long as you keep putting in the work. It’s way better than submitting to a dozen agents and hearing “no”, preventing your work from ever being seen.

I posted to Reddit, Tumblr, Instagram, Medium, Substack, Twitter, Kickstarter, TikTok, Royal Road, Scribblehub, Wattpad, Neovel, Facebook, and Patreon. Of those, I found results I consider to be worth it in Reddit, Instagram, Substack, Kickstarter, TikTok, Royal Road, and Patreon. 7/14. On the other sites, engagement was abysmal, but that’s fine! I never would have the modest following I have today if I stayed in one lane. Even reaching out to Saga Scribe is worth your time, it’s more surface area. And it’s well-researched questions!

I fully respect those that say that “I want to focus on one social site and do it well.” But if it’s not going well, then find everywhere you can and get your name out! It’s really what I think worked for me. I know I’m not the best out there, I’m certainly not quitting my day job anytime soon, but it’s been a lot of fun to see very gradual gains.

As for things that don’t matter, I think everyone should set a goal and whatever falls outside of that goal doesn’t matter. So, if someone wants a 4.5* story, then reader count doesn’t really matter. If you want to make money, Instagram followers are the last place you should start caring about. And if you want a consistent audience, finish your stories!

I couldn’t tell you all the places out there to give a fair shake, but whether you want to focus on Royal Road exclusively should at least partly be based on the amount of time you have available. It’s expensive (timewise) to post to several places at one time. But if you think you can reach your goals, I definitely say go for it. If you don’t have a lot of time, it doesn’t hurt to stay solely focused on Royal Road.

If you could be iseaki’d into any book, what would it be and why?

If we’re talking about one of the most fun books I’ve read, probably All You Need is Kill. This time loop is so fast, I love the progression in it. The idea that a single person could turn the tide of war is fantastic, and I think the Manga is even more fun.

But if we’re talking about a story in which I could actually survive more than two chapters, probably Differently Morphous. I love the magic being injected into the world and everyone reacting as expected, annoyed at the systems in place and two sides arguing past one another on the subject.

Do you have any questions for me? Anything that you wished I asked?

Everyone always asks me “what processes did you go through in becoming an author, N.T. Lazer?” but never “how is N.T. Lazer?”

Jk, I had a great time answering these, thanks for taking the time.

Thank you so much to N.T. Lazer. There’s tons of good information in there. Seriously, go check out The Homeseeker: Elemental Adventurer LitRPG [Isekai].

Look at all this Cheddar.

Look, I know we’re a Royal Road group. There’s an author named RinoZ who posts on both Webnovel and Royal Road. Look at this cheddar.🧀. Kudos to you, RinoZ! I’m pretty sure that’s an option that many authors aren’t exploring. Web novel, not making $15K USD a month.

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Hope you enjoyed this issue,
Saga Scribe

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