🧙‍♂️Succeeding on Royal Road without Stats with PolinkaP from Into the Deep Wood | Mid September Recs | How to Calculate Book Sales

This week we’ve interviewed PolinkaP from Into the Deep Wood, who’s succeeding on Royal Road without stats and standard progression, give you recommendations for middle of September, look at what’s releasing, and learn to calculate how many books Author’s are selling on Amazon!

WEEKLY RECS | WHAT’S OUT THIS WEEK | INTO THE DEEP WOOD INTERVIEW | HOW MANY BOOKS ARE THEY SELLING? |

Weekly Recommendations - Top Notch Recs

What’s Releasing this Week on Amazon

Interview with PolinkaP from Into the Deep Wood

PolinkaP’s Into the Deep Wood is not your traditional fae grimdark fantasy with just Lords, Ladies, and swords. It’s much, much more, and I’ve found a new personal favorite of the year. It follows Valeria, a lovable, well-intentioned girl as the unique monsters of the world constantly follow and even trap her. It’s very rare that fantasy horror gets me, but this one had me squinting analytically at the woods and any old people that I crossed. It’s even more rare that I become enraptured by the mythos of the world, wanting to know more. Here’s a link! PolinkaP slowly reveals the dark, menacing, yet still beautiful world where love is possible, even in the darkest trenches of despair. I’d highly recommend Into the Deep Wood if you want to be spooked in a fantastical way, follow a believable and developing female MC who could change the landscape, and have any sort of love for seriously solid prose. Here’s a friendly smile with a link. Click it, it’s warm and inviting inside and nothing will hurt you. I promise.

Hello Polinka! Hope you’re doing well. I’m really enjoying Into the Deep Wood. It’s spooky, it’s dark, it’s amazingly well written. It just keeps me reading more and more. I’d love to ask about what inspired you to write this story. How did the story come to be, and what did the development process look like? It’s such a fresh take on a Fae Horror Fantasy, and I’d love to know what went into this story. Clearly, you’ve done your research and pushed the genre into an awesome new direction.

Thank so much for having me! I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk about my work, and I am so glad to hear that you are enjoying it -the only thing an author could ask for, really. 

The inspiration for this story was honestly just my love for fairytales and folktales. I grew up between city and rural Russia, and my childhood was absolutely full of the Slavic fairytale creatures. They felt very real there because the setting for these folktales was exactly the same as my life - we had the wooden houses with painted doors and windows, the dark woods with oaks and birches directly beyond the front yard, and nothing truly modern to break the immersion. Ever since then, I have been incredibly drawn to fairytales of all sorts, although ones that favored creatures over princesses, if I am going to be entirely honest. 

I might scare some people away from this story with this, but there was not any planning at all. I just got tired of reading the same plot over and over in the romantisy genre so I decided to write my own, one that had a ton of reverse tropes and focused on the things that I wanted to read. I wanted it to have classic elements without being predictable. The horror was just my likes and personality that ended up overtaking the whole thing as it happens. The true planning came when I ran out of monsters to include and had to feverishly google ones from cultures I knew nothing about. It was a lot of fun because there are some seriously spooky things out there.

Let’s talk about worldbuilding and magic. While this story isn’t Progression Fantasy or LitRPG, it is Fantasy Horror, and the fantastical elements are, well, fantastic. What went into your worldbuilding for Into the Deep Wood? I’d imagine a lot of work went into the history and mythos of the world, from the All-Father to the monsters from Nothing. Can you tell me a bit about what went into the magic of the world, as well as about the monster inspirations? They’re familiar, but so different at the same time, and I’d love to know how you crafted such scary monsters. Where did you draw your inspiration, and what kind of struggles did you have when crafting the evil, and magical bits of your world?

It's funny you say that, because, technically speaking it does qualify as progression, but not in Royal Road terms. There is significant power development as we go along, but it comes later in the story because I wanted the stakes as high as possible. The "need this or the world will burn" sort of deal.

The magic system was a decision I made as I went along, I wanted the people of the world to be blocked from access to it just like most of the fairytales I read as a kid. They were at the mercy of magical things and items, and that created more of a struggle and the need to persevere because a spell could not be cast to get out of a bad situation. There was an opportunity to create creatures that the people of the world saw as regular installments of their lives, and ones that were so deeply hidden that there was still that element of "we don't know what we don't know." 

My interpretations of the classic and familiar ones came from my love of dark and villainous things. I grew up loving horror and often cheering for the villains in stories, even if temporarily. I wanted to make them darker and irredeemable because I often thought that the heroes in stories had it a bit too easy. Sometimes we don't win our battles, and the creatures became a good representation of that. It was very early on that I ended up adapting the idea of human struggles into the monsters we can and can't defeat. A lot of them are a representation of things that people struggle with everyday (childhood trauma, addiction, anxiety, anger, codependence) and the main characters defeating them or distancing themselves began to feel like growth and hope.

I’m going to ask this sooner rather than later. I had an Eastern European grandmother, and some of the snippets of the story remind me of her so much. Salo! I haven’t eaten salo (salt-cured pork fat, delicious) in years, and it prompted me to go out and buy liverwurst and a slab for myself. Do you have recommendations of books, or stories that focus on Fae and traditional stories that you would like to share? What about some media recommendations for people to watch, read or listen to? I’d love to know about traditional fae more, but would still love for some recommendations in your personal interests as well. Can you please provide me, and the readers of this interview some?

I am glad to hear that the writing was vivid enough to make you hungry! 

That question is a bit harder for me, I would say if you want traditional, it will be a lot of Grimm's Fairy Tales. The German versions of them specifically get pretty dark. As far as other media, I think the very best recommendation I can give is the Witcher. Specifically the video games. It also interprets the creatures in different and darker ways which I absolutely loved. It is heavily Slavic based as well, and I have dedicated an embarrassing number of hours to it through 4 playthroughs. The scenery is very true to where I grew up, and I spent a lot of time just ridin' around (and a little faster when something saw me that was wayyyyy too high of a level to tackle.) 

I also really loved the early seasons of Supernatural and Grimm. They did a great job taking similar concepts and making them their own. Especially supernatural, I loved the amount of failure that was involved in the battles. Sometimes not every monster is a level you can tackle, and sometimes you don't have the chance to level up before you face them.

Characters are at the forefront of your story. Valeria, Marat, Amir, and many of the others. How do you approach character crafting? I’d especially love to know what went into building and workshopping Valeria’s character. It feels like I know her so well and am still constantly watching her grow. What about the other characters? Marat is a grumpy grouch, but still so lovable in his own way. What character did you find especially difficult to write, or maybe what is a character that you found surprisingly easy to write? Do you have any thoughts on what you think makes an excellent character?

I'm a bit afraid to say this because a lot of readers find her a bit dumb and impulsive, but Val is a lot of me. I am just an anxious person who makes bad decisions sometimes and can be very naive in the world which causes issues for me and often the people around me. Trust too fast, get burned, and then rinse and repeat. She is naive about the world, and sometimes through no fault of her own. But she became more than that. I wanted her to go through trauma and come out the other side, retaining her kindness. I've met a lot of people who went through very difficult times and they came out as these incredible, kind, intelligent, and empathetic survivors. I wanted her to be that, but also show that it doesn't happen overnight and it's okay that it doesn't. 

Oddly enough, I found Marat easiest to write. I didn't think I could write a male POV that well, but I am proud of what I have done there. I wanted him to be incredibly flawed based on his own difficult life. To have instincts based on protecting himself and make it difficult for him to trust without ever saying it. Admitting it's hard for you to trust isn't always possible. I wanted him to handle difficulties in a way that I see a lot of people handle them - poorly. And force him into a position of asking for help, because, despite being the strongest character in the book, no one is strong enough to overcome everything. I think that is what makes a great character - believable flaws, struggles, and a personality that can be difficult to get along with sometimes. He also never stops being grouchy because some flaws just do not go away because you have grown as a person and that's okay, too.

The most difficult one to write was probably his brother. Without spoiling anything, he makes some rash and terrible decisions. I couldn't empathize with that sort of person so I had to do my best to try and use other's descriptions to craft it. But even he was an example of someone with an irredeemable flaw that was still loved by someone because a person is not entirely their flaw, ever.

Let’s talk about writing, Royal Road, and marketing yourself as an Author. You’ve done an excellent job of growing a non-traditional story on Royal Road. Congratulations on that. What is your writing process? Do you get some tea and sit outside, or stay up until 4 AM to get the vibes going? As for Royal Road, how do you feel your Story’s growth was different as opposed to LitRPG/ Progression Fantasy? Do you have any advice for marketing yourself for Authors? Did you find any resources helpful?

I appreciate your kind words! It has been a journey for sure. I had no idea what Royal Road was when my books were finished. I had no idea what it was after I published a chunk of the first. A lot of it was last minute scrambling to figure it out. I also had no idea that my story was not traditional for the Royal Road audience. I just wanted an audience that loved fantasy and figured it was the right space. I got lucky that people gave me a chance, and I got lucky that my style is apparently horror (it was news to me and made me question what goes on in my head a little.) 

My writing process was... probably unhealthy. I used every moment I was not sleeping or working to write. I think it was a way for me to cope with a lot of change and stress in my life. When I started, I moved away from everyone I knew to a brand new city and we bought a house that needed a lot of renovations. So I started staying up late, carrying my laptop room to room, and eventually started waking up at 4am because I liked the quiet and being able to concentrate. I was obsessed, call it a personality flaw I guess. I also listened to absolutely no other music other than instrumental and battle-instrumental for a solid 5 months. I kind of still am to keep the vibes going as I do some rewrites toward the end. .Goetia. by Peter Gundry on repeat for 6 hours a day wrote half the books for me, the other half was Adagio in G (Battlefield Version.)  

As far as resources and marketing yourself, I will 100% say find your people. I was lucky enough that I was invited to an incredible Discord server, Immersive Ink, when I did not even really know what Discord was. The amount of kindness and support I received there was a true game changer. Those guys helped me figure out how to navigate Royal Road, how to succeed, and what sorts of people were behind the usernames. This allowed me to figure out how to help others with shout-out swaps, chatting on forums, Reddit, and a ton of other things. 

And, this might be a controversial thing to say, but review swaps were a very positive experience for me. I know there are very mixed opinions on these but I will say - it was not the ratings that mattered. It was the people who I got to know through those interactions and through reading their work. I made such a close knit group of friends through it that have supported me through the entirety of this whole process. You don't necessarily have to do swaps to find that, it is just how I found them and will forever be grateful for that.

Thank you PolinkaP for the interview. I’ve really enjoyed your story and will continue to recommend it to everyone. Check out Into the Deep Wood here!

Just How Many Books are Author’s Selling?

Money. 💰Delicious, scented money. It’s a taboo topic, especially in today’s day in age. But, in my humble opinion, Author’s deserve the big bucks. The seriously big bucks. They provide us with hours of entertainment, open our minds, make us think in new ways, and pour their souls into their work. Let’s look at how we can calculate how many books Author’s are selling on Amazon, the main marketplace for Royal Road Authors after Patreon.

The easiest way to get a rough number of how many Author’s are selling is to take a look at their reviews. Say a book on Amazon has 300 reviews ⭐. Ok, good book then, pretty good audience, good work. According to 4 Author’s I’ve asked and who will remain unnamed (all sell well on Amazon), each review equates about 15-40 sales. That’s a pretty wide margin, and without just literally asking them how much they made (which I did) and blasting it off to all of you, let’s say the median number is 25 sales per review.

On the low end, a book with 300 reviews on Amazon has made (300 × 15) 4,500 sales. On the high end, they’ve sold about 12,000 sales.

If the average price of a book is $8? They’re making about $144,000.00 with a pretty sucessful work. Yum. That’s per book mind you. The numbers get pretty amazing when you get into the realm of most people knowing who you are in the genre. Just look up “LitRPG” on amazon and do some napkin math on anything you see there. Someone with 5K+ reviews could potentially be making 7 figures plus.

Now mind you, this doesn’t account for outliers, and is likely off. It also doesn’t account for ad spend, publishing house cuts, Amazon cuts, and everyone’s favorite, taxes. I can only assume and hope something like Primal Hunter or HWFWM or DCC reaches astronomical numbers. I sincerly hope Shirtaloon has a modded Jimny, by the way.

All of this is complete conjecture from asking 4 Authors and this is not financial advice in any sense of the word (I’m looking at you Finance YouTubers, no stocks here). There’s still patreon money, KU, Audio Books, and most people’s numbers are likely way off this. Audio books are a whole different ball game, from what I understand. There’s a reason Amazon pushes those credits onto you.

All you money hungry Authors (and you should be money hungry, I just spent $4 on a can of tuna. Tuna!), keep going. I hope you are all in lamborghini’s and have villas in the Alps one day.

Hope you all have enjoyed this edition!

🧙‍♂️Saga Scribe