Blog Summary
- Discord isn’t the place for you to spam your fiction in hopes of getting readers. Discord is for communities; you will be more successful by genuinely participating.
- There are thousands of servers. Find the ones with the people you want to reach out to before wasting time on a community you don’t fit.
- Talk with other authors. We are social creatures, and, for the most part, humans enjoy helping other humans they know. But don’t be selfish and always recirocate.
Discord is often thought of as an app used only by gamers, but it has expanded considerably since its inception, and numerous communities have found a home of their own. Among those countless servers, are ones for writers and readers—presumably—like yourself.
What is Discord?
You can think of Discord as a collection of chat rooms, called servers, where users can congregate digitally to discuss various topics, share memes, and more. A user can join multiple servers and each server has its own rules and purpose.
There’s more to it of course, for example, each server can have multiple channels where its members can communicate via text, voice, or video. You can also stream to others.
For now, all you need to know, if you don’t already, is that Discord servers can be a phenominal way for you to meet with other writers and connect with your readers.
Discord Ettiquet: The Dos and Don’ts of Discord
Just like any group of people, there are unspoken rules that people are expected to follow. For newcomers, not knowing the social norms can, at best, lead to some light teasing, and at worst, you being kicked off the server. Here are some things to avoid:
DO NOT
- @everyone or @here in text chat. This will send a notification to everyone on the server, and may result in 100s of people being unreasonably angry.
- Direct Message (DM) someone without permission. For many servers this is against the rules, but most people don’t mind if you ask in the Discord first.
- Metion someone @username who isn’t relevant to the current conversation. They get notified and it can be annoying.
- Spam chat in any way, but most importantly, with self-promotional content. Keep self-promotion to channels where it is allowed.
Pretty self-explanitory and most servers disable the ability for people to DM, @everyone, and @here. Otherwise just read the server’s rules, and join in on the conversation.
Communities: Targeting the right writing groups
Finding the right community can be difficult. There are thousands of servers to join as a writer, but most have too few members to be worth joining or are too niche to fit what you need.
Luckily, searching for servers is as simple as searching Google, using Discord’s own server finder, or asking other authors for their recommendations. But simple doesn’t mean quick, and so, I’ve created a blog dedicated to linking to the best writing servers on Discord. Hopefully it saves you some time.
Ok, now you have a list of servers to join, but which ones should you focus on?
It costs time to chat with people, and you may not want to spend it on a server with authors that aren’t like you. If you’re a LitRPG author, your time will be better spent socializing on servers dedicated to LitRPG authors, rather than on servers for literary fiction or romance.
That’s not to say, don’t join those servers, but perhaps don’t focus your efforts there.
Networking: Connecting with other authors
This is the most important benefit of using Discord as an author. Having author friends will be invaluable as it can lead to shoutouts, review swaps, or being introduced to a publisher or agent.
It’s also just nice to have someone who understands what it’s like to be a new or veteran writer, who you can trust to provide unbiased feedback for your specific circumstances. Oh ya, and having friends is a good thing.
I will go more in depth on networking benefits like shoutouts and review swaps in another blog.
Shoutouts
What is a shoutout?
To put it simply, it’s when another author posts a link to your fiction or your social media to their audience. For RoyalRoad specifically, they are often sections in the author’s notes that link to another story with a short blurb.
These are vital to growing from 0 readers. How do you get that first reader? Well… you can toss your story into the wind and get lucky if someone comes across it, or another author, with an existing audience, can give you a boost.
Shoutouts can be one-way or two-ways. Some bigger authors may be willing to give a shoutout and not worry about you reciprocating.
Marketing: How to get readers from Discord
As for marketing, this is a tricky one. Most of your marketing using Discord is going to be indirect (networking with authors and getting shoutouts), but many servers do allow self-promotional content in dedicated channels. Just be sure to follow the server’s rules.