Ideas

The top ideas submitted by the users for the website
Anonyndeed Anonyndeed ago

A "Default" Author's Note

Alright, hear me out—what if we had a "default author’s note" feature? Basically, you set up a note once, tweak it whenever you feel like it, and it’ll automatically be the default pre- or post-chapter author note (there should be an option to choose). It should also "update" on every chapter it is in if the "default AN" draft is ever edited or tweaked. But if you want to write a fresh note for a specific chapter, you can do it like normal, and it’ll override the default one for that post single post. Why? Because manually typing (or copy-pasting) the same thing every time is a crime against laziness. This way, we can maximize laziness—er, I mean, efficiency—by not having to copy-paste the same thing every time. Set it and forget it kinda thing.
Open Fictions
watlix watlix ago

Add a dropped and finished reading list

I sometimes drop stories that i don’t find interesting compared to the rest of my reading list. But I want to be able to find the books I dropped when there’s stories pops back into my head. For the finished list it less needed but it Would free up my favourite list as an actual favourite instead of a pseudo fav/finished list.
Open General
Zek Zek ago

Introduce a way for authors to give announcements too their readers without them making a chapter that could mess up bookmark progress if you just want to read the announcement without being up to date with the book.

Basically introduce a type of chapter (or a separate place) where authors can make announcements about their book, many authors do this currently by making a chapter called announcement/important and generally it pertains to the future of the book (something like “don’t worry if I don’t post I’m not dropping but I’ll be out of state for a few days” etc.)  currently unless the placeholder is made to also detect jumps of more than one chapter forward this can screw up where you are in a book if you just want to find out what’s up on a book that you haven’t been keeping up to date on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve clicked on a announcement chapter from the bookmarks tab on a book I’m not caught up on only to never go back because I can’t find my place.

Open General
Eleeyah Eleeyah ago

Ban False Advertising

Do not allow misleading fiction advertisements. If an ad is designed to display a character like they're the main character, but they aren't, that's misleading advertisement. Something is being promised that isn't true. Ban that bullshit, please.
Open Other
spirittq spirittq ago

Add buymeacoffee as a donation option

Currently, only patreon and paypal links are available. https://buymeacoffee.com/ would be good to.
Open Other
ArcanePigeon ArcanePigeon ago

Shadow ban a user from rating if more than a certain percent of their ratings are 0.5 stars

prevent trolls who rate things 0.5 stars without reading a fiction at all by hiding their ratings and reviews from everyone but them. they get to think they are causing harm without actually doing it. Easy to detect as I have seen several of these trolls never have more than 1 or 2 reviews in their profiles above 0.5 stars. Edit: This should also include protections for low ratings on the first few chapters as some are likely to see this and skip to chapter 2 or 3 and rate it 1.5 stars instead (which has already happened to me since I posted this)
Open General
Emberkite Emberkite ago

Get rid of Disgusting Ads

All I'm seeing are these ads with disgusting and vile pictures. Why am I seeing, pics of people with extremely pronounced veins and slices of fruit lemon and oranges either growing out of their legs or maybe stuck into their skin. I cannot tell if these images are of people being tortured or perhaps this is just body horror. I do not come to this site to become sick to my stomach. Lately, I've been leaving this site feeling nauseous and sick. I come to be entertained by great authors and expand my literary preferences. These ads do NOT make me want to spend money, they make me want to vomit! I'm getting to the point that I'm about just leave this site for a couple of months and not come back until these nauseating ads are gone and the previously interesting ads come back.
Open Other
Nobunaga Odin Nobunaga Odin ago

Make STUBS more noticable

I often encounter the issue where a story I’ve marked as 'Read Later' gets stubbed before I have a chance to read it. It would be helpful to receive a notification if an author plans to stub a story. Additionally, having a category for 'soon-to-be-stubbed' books would be great, so I can at least have a chance to read them before they’re no longer available.
Open Fictions
Scarlust Scarlust ago

The ability to arrange Read Later

I think it could be useful to have an ordering feature on Read Later so that it is easier to find novels in it months after having added them to the list. These lists can be large and so I think an system which can order the read later section similar to the Advanced Search criteria would be useful. In particular:

  • The Status of Complete, Ongoing or Hiatus.
  • The Order By Functions; Last Update, Release Date, No. Pages and Popularity
  • Genre Selection - Although this might be a bit clunky in the form it is

These would enable people to use Read Later as more than just a jumbled pile of books which you thought the covers looked interesting and would allow users to use Read Later as a way to keep track of Fictions they weren't ready to read/bookmark straight away, giving the option to wait until a books completion before reading it or alternatively not putting the time into books which have been on hiatus for the last 4 years.

(Downside is that it could potentially promote a culture of waiting to see if a novel flourishes before interacting with it which may reduce the views new fictions get. I might be overthinking though)

UnderReview General
Bluefire524 Bluefire524 ago

Add a Read option for when you finish books

It’d basically function similarly to the not interested option but as as a way to acknowledge that you liked the book but not enough to favorite it so that when you’re searching for new books to read they won’t show up.
Open Fictions
Pandaviking Pandaviking ago

splittind the "dungeon" tag into "dungeon crawler" and "dungeon core".

currently the "dungeon" tag lumps both stories where the protgonist/s are adventurers diving into one or several dungeons, and dungeon core / dungeon master novels where the protagonist is responsible for creating and/or improving/managing the dungeon. both genres are good, but when you are looking for one type of story and the list is filled with the combined mass of both genres it gets a bit frustrating.
Open General
U N i C o r N U N i C o r N ago

Stop recommending things I put as not interested

I keep getting recommended books that I put as not interested. I keep getting the same genre of books- Pokemon fan-fiction- and I have nothing wrong with them, I don't want to read them and keep getting recommended. Could there be a way to fix this?
Open Other
PrimalShadow PrimalShadow ago

Don't serve ads for "Not interested" fiction

If I've already marked down that I don't want to read a story, why show me ads for it? That just makes the ads less useful, for both the reader and whoever is paying for the ad.
Completed General
KingMaster80 KingMaster80 ago

LGBT+ Tag

An LGBT+ tag to allow readers to know if a fiction has or not LGBT+ content.

Open General
Ar548 Ar548 ago

Ability to filter read later section

I have 15-20 books on my read later and i want to be able to filter by the one that habe been completed, or by a genre that I am in the mood for
Open General
Coffee Focus Coffee Focus ago

Ability to Create Private Reviews

Public reviews are for other readers, while comments can be for either other readers or the author. But there is nothing just for myself. I would love the ability to rate and review fiction... just for myself. I just dropped a story, and I have a lot of thoughts about it. But I don't want to get into the habit of writing a lot of negative reviews. There is no point in this case. The author has a pretty big skill gap, and little awareness of it. A harsh review isn't going to help them (the gap is too large), and from the stats, a lot of readers have already abandoned the story. But I want to vent and express my frustration, without hurting anyone's feelings...
Open Fictions
Eternal Reader Eternal Reader ago

Adding a "Finished Novels" List for Novels Like in the "Follow List"

Right now, we only have "Follow", "Favorite", and "Read Later", lists but no "Finished" lists for novels. Currently, all the novels that I've finished reading are simply sitting at the bottom of my "Follow" list and are just adding to the time it takes to scroll all the way to the bottom of the list.

I don't want to place every single novel I've finished into the "Favorite" list because that should be reserved for only novels that I consider my favorite novels.

So, my suggestion is to add a list where you can move novels to after you're done reading the entire novel. To make sure a reader doesn't miss any updates from a novel in that list, any novels within that "Finished" list will be moved back to the "Follow List" where they can read the update and move it back to the "Finished" list in case it's not an announcement for future chapters. 

This new List can be added to the Statistics if people think it's a good idea to do so.

Open General
Lord Rune Lord Rune ago

Sort comments by popular, oldest, newest

Make it so that the comment section of each chapter has the option to be sorted by popular, oldest and newest Sorting by popular (most repped comments) will make finding funny comments or discussions a lot easier something that right now requires someone to highjack first to start a discussion or to hope that the person that got first started one themselves I think this is the most important change as right now (except for first page) you need to go through 10 "thanks for the chapter" comments to find a single person who wants to discuss The race for first will still be relevant as you can sort by oldest and see who got it (and maybe add a small badge or something on their avatar so the people who go for first will be recognizable in the popular comment section without having to go to oldest. Thought this one isn't that important and its just so there will still be some prestige from being top 3) And finally people will still be able to show their appreciation with a "tftc" comment showing that they appreciate the authors work
Open Fictions

Author's be able to answer on review

It's self explanatory. author can answer on their fiction reviews like in comments. And only Author's can do so, or it'll be a bit chaotic if anyone had such privilege.
Open General
Vegetables Vegetables ago

Do not remove deleted fictions from follow / favorites / read later

I was reading a story just recently that's been deleted - I was starting to question whether I'd read it on Royal Road or some other site somewhere. The annoying thing about it was I couldnt remember the title/authors name. I eventually found a reference to it in detailed history (I'm pretty sure non premium members do not have access to this, so it's even worse for them). I'd like to ask that deleted fictions stay in follow/read later lists even if deleted, maybe with a red title or something, even if they cant be accessed. That way at least I can maybe find the story/author again somewhere else if I couldnt remember the exact title. Some kind of notification would be nice too instead of it just disappearing into the ether (I know that has been requested elsewhere). It'd also be nice to know (if possible) _why_ a fiction was removed such as it breaking the rules, because I have _no_ idea why this has gone bye bye.
Open General
CKMo CKMo ago

Collaboration features

Currently, the collaboration feature only adds other accounts to give them permissions. However, it doesn't do well with attribution. If Author A wants to collab with B and do joint short story anthologies, even clicking "Display name" only lists Author B on the main page as a co-author. There's no way to specifically attribute to author B for author notes and even their profile under the short story. As a result, Author B is rarely correctly credited (without extensive extra motions like specifically noting it), and Author A's writing profile appears under a short story that Author B published. This has ramifications for brand, attribution, reputation, and more. Please extend the collaboration features to make for correct attribution between who wrote/did what.
Open General
PrimalShadow PrimalShadow ago

Add filtering for "not interested" to Advanced Search

If someone decided they don't want to read a story by clicking "not interested", they almost certainly don't want to see that story show up in a search. Or at the very least they should be able to specify whether to ignore such stories in any given advanced search.

Completed General
Yorth Yorth ago

Glossary/Fandom

The idea is simple. Add a glossary next to the table of content where readers can check the names of major organizations, how certain characters look, what is their personality. Basically, stuff that would help both new and old readers keep up with the story, especially when the latter becomes bigger and bigger.

Planned General
kanadaj kanadaj Official response ago
This is actually on my list to do. I very much understand the demand for it, and the upcoming mobile app could integrate this particularly nicely.
Raladur Raladur ago

way to access "not interested" list

pretty sure i accidentally clicked not interested on mobile layout more than once and now i do not remember what story i cant see anymore...

way to access not interested list with chance to remove the tag would be awesome.

Open General
Ultrabenosaurus Ultrabenosaurus ago

Show the STUB, HIATUS, etc. Status Tags in Search Results

While there is an option to filter Advanced Search to specifically include or exclude the different statuses, like STUB and HIATUS, regardless of whether you use this (or want to use it) the tags themselves are missing in the search results list - even after clicking the symbol to expand the tags list and show the synopsis or the arrow to open part of the first chapter in the right-hand sidebar. Unless you use the Advanced Search status filter option, it is impossible to know if any given story in your search results is stubbed, on hiatus, completed, active, or whatever until you click through to the fiction page. Please stop hiding these from the search results.
Completed General
Erdos Erdos ago

comment sorting

I believe it'd enhance the general experience on the website to have comments be sortable in different ways. I suggest:

  • Chronological (current)
  • Reputation (all time)
  • Reputation (weighted)
  • Responses (general)
  • Responses (author)

This would promote reader discussion and would drive engagement on the site.

The default setting should be controllable by the author and (maybe) overridable by the reader.

Projected issues and possible solutions:

  • Sorted by reputation would have successful comments gain more and more (and more still) points. -- Solution: Introduce a hard cap on the amount of reputation a single comment can earn. (Or a hidden hard cap on how much a single comment can contribute to levels.)
  • It might improve the system to a degree large enough to change the experience overall. 
Open General
Duckwrites Duckwrites ago

I would love it if readers had a way to quickly rate individual chapters without having to rate the whole story.

I posted this on the forum yesterday and was given advice to post it here.

Maybe it's something that a thumbs-up or thumbs-down system, it would be extremely helpful as both a reader and a writer on the site.
As a writer, it would help me know when a chapter isn't well-liked even without readers having to put in the effort to write comments, all they would have to do is simply click the button it also would help me know when I'm improving. As not all readers will comment, but many would press a like or dislike button if they saw it.
As a reader it would be nice to express that I really like or dislike a chapter without having to review the whole fiction or write a comment, I may just dislike a chapter but not enough to leave a comment about it.
It gives authors even more information about what their doing wrong or right with something to watch other than views and follows, something specific to the new chapter.
(and also a feeling of validation)
A like could also replace the normal thanks for the chapter comment. I don't know it's just an idea

They definitely shouldn't affect ratings or visibility at all and just be a tool for feedback, so people like honestly and not just to support new writers and authors don't end up begging for likes

Open General
RhetoriKILL RhetoriKILL ago

Let me see suggested edits while I'm in edit mode.

Let me see them while I'm editing, and it would be extra fancy if the text the edit was pointing towards was highlighted when I scrolled over the suggested edit. If you wanted to go all the way you could let me accept suggested edits automatically, but I understand that might be to difficult to implement. So, at the very least, let me scroll through and dismiss suggested edits while I am editing the text.
Open General
Identity Identity ago

Be able to delete history

I use the history page to continue what I read but there are some fictions which i don't want to see after reading the first couple of chapters if possible I would like to have an delete option because the Not interested button doesn't help me with that

Open General
MidoriMasamune MidoriMasamune ago

A Filtering mechanic for stubs

I often search by both page count, or character count (as a fast reader, it helps to have a decent number built up), and a book being a stub (whether tagged or not) often is basically removed or pushed so far down the results I never see them. It would be great if there was some sort of search filter option (perhaps a checkbox) that would cause page counts to be ignored when filtered by page counts, or, to perhaps have them sorted by their peak page counts before becoming a stub, or even by page counts of the published works).. I worked in backend for several years, and I can think of several ways one or a combo of the above could be implemented fairly easily with a checkbox. A search filter mechanic for it would save me hours of scrolling for a book I happened to see in the past but didnt add to list, that has since become a stub
Open Fictions
Bladesunder Bladesunder ago

Allow us to make custom lists similar to "read later" or "favorites"

We would be able to make lists just like read later or favorites, but with our own titles like: Read later 2, Sci-fi books, Books I dropped due to Grammar, Books to read on Hiatus, Books I probably won't like but need to have listed in case there's absolutely nothing else to read, etc.
Open General
RhetoriKILL RhetoriKILL ago

Give the option to follow author, not just book.

Why not let readers choose to follow an author when they choose to follow a story? "Would you like to receive updates for all this authors stories?"
Open General
Toilet_Face Toilet_Face ago

Be able to exclude hiatus as a tag

I feel as though it would be nice to not read a book and only then find out it’s on hiatus
Open General
TigerCannon TigerCannon ago

Add "Go to bookmark" button

Add a second button to the "You've backtracked"/"You've skipped some chapters" box that takes you to the chapter your reading progress is at.
Open Fictions

The ability to see the numbers of like and dislikes on fiction reviews

Now, when you press the like or dislike botton on a fiction review from, you only see it yourself. it would be cool if anyone can see how many like and dislikes any review had. though i understand that reviews are meant to express opinion freely. some reviews can be targeting and harmful. My suggestion shouldn't apply on all reviews, just the basic one. the extended review are in most cases genuine and reflect the reader honest thoughts.
Open General
AsmoGhost AsmoGhost ago

Royalroad and Amazon

With the current political atmosphere RoyalRoad's partnership with Amazon makes me question paying for this app. It's ironic that a website that hosts a majority of stories about dystopian futures, evil oligarchs, and the collapse of societies still conducts business with oligarch. I understand that in the beginning Amazon was helping amateur authors meet a broader audience. And there may be other issues like RoyalRoad being hosted on Amazon servers but at which point do we stop capitulating to unregulated capitalism and move to something more sustainable. Is there something we can do to help RoyalRoad leave its partnership with Amazon? And if so what can we do? Thank you
Rejected General
kanadaj kanadaj Official response ago
Royal Road is not an Amazon partner; they do not host our servers and they do not have the ability to make us do anything whatsoever. What we do have is affiliate links. These are the same kind of links youtuber content creators have in their video descriptions - Amazon pays us a tiny, tiny amount of money for each sale made through a link someone posted on Royal Road. You can find the details of this program at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/operating/agreement. That's it.
Athena Starr Athena Starr ago

Don't allow copy pasting

I feel like readers shouldn't be able to copy and paste content that authors post. This should be a default restriction for readers.
Open Fictions
kanadaj kanadaj ago

MIGRATED: "Read to x chapters" option for reviewers

Allows the reviewer to indicate how many chapters he/she has read, similar to what novelupdates has.

Note: This idea has been migrated from an older 3rd party system; the original poster's name got lost in the migration process

Completed General
madness613 madness613 ago

Add a "personal Dictionary"

Basically allow readers or authors to make a dictionary for a fiction that can be show via highlighting a word(like how the Wikipedia works now)
Open General
Silas Kriegsende Silas Kriegsende ago

Quick Play Button for TTS on a chapter in the App

This would be a quality of life improvement that I think benefits both free and premium users. I have recently discovered the TTS, and it works great (especially because it easily ties into device defaults for TTS, which allows me to use my favorite TTS voice). It would be nice if there was a quicker 'play chapter' button, rather than having to go into the separate "audio" menu, and then tap the 'play chapter' button. I have my settings set in the menu, so I'd like to go to the next chapter and then click 'play chapter' right away, rather than having to open the menu each time. This would benefit free users, since they have to start each chapter, as well as premium users who are moving to a different story and want to dive right into the reading.
Open General
mikelcoll mikelcoll ago

Reader language selection - App

n RoyalRoad app in iOS (I have premium but this issue is both for premium and free users) - The audio of the reader cannot be set. Even though the book is in english I believe the reader is using the language from my system to interpret and read the chapter which in my case is Spanish and the result is complete gibberish because the spanish reader is trying to read english but with the spanish rules of reading... which is just impossible to understand. I imagine that if I change my whole phone language to english this would be solved but I don't want nor I should need to change my whole system language just for the reader... Can I suggest a new feature, if possible, to allow the reader to read the chapter ALWAYS in english or somehow allow the user to select the language? Thank you.
Open General
Nacra Nacra ago

Library folders

Hello team, I'm reading quite a few stories simultaneously, and sometimes I would like to put a story aside for a while, so that I can go back to it a few months later. There are 4 folders in the library: follow, download, favourite and read later. Let's ignore downloads, which is for offline reading. All the stories I currently read are in follow. The precious few I really consider gems are in favourite. And read later has tons in it, everything that piques my interest. And I'm kinda stuck for stories I want to put on hold, because if I put them back in read later they get drowned in tons of stories, and I also don't necessarily want to favourite them. So my improvement suggestion would be to have additional folders in the library. Of course I know this would mess up your statistics, because follow and favourite are very important to track popularity. But if you create a pause/on hold folder, everything in that folder could still be considered as something that is being followed. Thanks for reading me and have a nice day. Nacra
Open General
kanadaj kanadaj ago

MIGRATED: Suggest similar fictions

have a fiction page show a list of similar ones

Note: This idea has been migrated from an older 3rd party system; the original poster's name got lost in the migration process

Completed General
Stonesoul Stonesoul ago

Personal (default) read settings

Would it be possible to add a save for your own reading preferences (theme, width, text size, font, dim bg) to your own profile so it was automatic?

Open General
Eternal Reader Eternal Reader ago

Alert a Reader to Stubbed Stories in Read Later List

As the title states, add a way for readers to know when a story has been stubbed. If a person has over 20 stories in their read later list, it is likely that one of them will have their first book or all of it removed. Personally, if there were a novel in my read later list that got stubbed, I would remove that novel because I have no interest in reading a story where part of it is missing.
Open Fictions
Deleted Deleted ago

Let authors add background music

It'd really help set the scene for each chapter. Add a popup at the start to let the reader confirm whether they want to listen to the BGM or not
Open Fictions
snapshot112 snapshot112 ago

option to hide the author notes

The author notes are always on top of the page and you start reading them automatically as you scroll trough a chapter. The notes are usually about the novel you're reading and therefore tend to contain at the very least slight spoilers about the novel. I would argue that there is a strong reason why published books (usually) don't have an authors note at the top of every chapter. I just want to immerse myself in the story and I feel like the notes are hindering that immersion a lot. I would like for there to be a setting to collapse the author note by default so that you can choose to see them. The alternative would be using an extension like an adblocker to just never render those notes at all, and I think both readers and authors would prefer if they didn't have to go that far
Open Fictions
Gazme Gazme ago

Library in app

A more compact list mode for the library. Would like to see each title take half or even lesser space. If there are new chapters, just a little flag or bold text would be enough. Or just split the library into updated and read/All lists
Open General
kanadaj kanadaj ago

MIGRATED: Story Completion Options

Just a dropdown box that allows you to change manually whether or not you are on Hiatus, Completed, Cancelled, or Ongoing.

Note: This idea has been migrated from an older 3rd party system; the original poster's name got lost in the migration process

Completed General
kanadaj kanadaj ago

MIGRATED: Half Star Ratings Suggest Reviews

I understand why it can't be required that people write reviews if they do half star ratings, but can it be made so that it suggests that you leave a review, possibly redirecting to another page like if you do an advanced review with too few words, but you can deny it. It would potentially be able to either guilt them into explaining it or removing their review if they don't really know what the book is like or if they are just being haters

Note: This idea has been migrated from an older 3rd party system; the original poster's name got lost in the migration process

Completed General