How to get more views on your book, game or world!

Whether you’ve published a novel or a game, or you’re just worldbuilding for fun, we all like to get more readers on our work! Seeing those numbers go up —whether they’re views, likes, or comments— can be incredibly motivating. And it’s a great way to feel less alone as a creator, something that many of us struggle with! In this post, we’ll explore ways to share your work with others and get more readers on your worldbuilding, and more views on your games and books!

Get more views by sharing on Social Media

A good way to get more views on your content is to be active on social media! But be careful: if you only post your own content, people will probably think you’re just there to spam. And you don’t want that! So make sure to post other stuff that’s relevant, share content from fellow creators, and be active in your community. A good way to do that is by following hashtags. Each platform has its own hashtags, so you’ll have to look for the ones that best fit your content. For example, #WritingCommunity is a big hashtag on Twitter, but #WritersOfInstagram is the bigger one on Instagram. In general, it’s a good idea to keep self-promotion to about 20 % of your posts (that’s 2 in every 10 posts). People are more likely to follow you with non-promotional posts, so when you post something promoting your project, more people will see it!

Want more tips? Check out this post about getting more readers!

Driving community in your world – discussion boards

We’re social animals, so make sure to interact with your readers —they’re likely to stick around longer if you talk with them! A great way to do this is by using discussion boards, the integrated forum system on World Anvil. How you use them will depend on what kind of project you’re working on, but the most important part is that your readers feel included. If you have an RPG world, you could have play-by-post game or a downtime roleplay section so that your players can keep roleplaying between sessions. If you’re a writer, you could have a section to write live collaborative fiction with your readers.

For more ideas, check out our 5 ideas to create communities using discussion boards!

Comment on other people’s work, and ask them questions in the author’s notes

Speaking of communication, discussion boards are not the only place where you can talk to your readers! Every article has a comments section, so use it to your advantage. To encourage people to leave a comment, make sure to add a question or two in the author’s notes section! These are some questions you can use:

Is there an area you’d like to see expanded?
I’m not certain I’ve explained this concept well enough. Was it clear to you?
Was the article layout or structure clear?

You can also ask in-world questions, like “what do you think about the actions of this character?”. And just like how we discussed in the social media section, make sure to interact with the community too! That means replying to the comments you get but also reading and leaving comments in other people’s work. This will not only inspire you, but people will see your name more often and will probably check your world —you can use your user signature to promote your world too!

Join the Discord server and use the showcase channels

You might have noticed a trend in this post: it’s all about community! If you’re looking for a friendly and supportive community about worldbuilding, check out our Discord server. There are many channels that you can use to discuss your ideas and get inspiration from other people. And you can also share your own content! If you’re a Guild member, there’s a specific #guild-showcase channel at your disposal. Otherwise, asking for feedback and critique in the relevant channel for the article’s topic is always a good idea and you will get more views out of it too.

Don’t know how to use Discord? Check out our Beginner’s Guide to the World Anvil server!

User stream announcements and Global Announcements

World Anvil also has built-in announcement systems you can use! First, there’s a user stream where you can write posts for your followers and the wider World Anvil community to see. To do so, go to your World Anvil profile and use the “Post message” panel. When you post it, everyone who follows your profile will get a notification. Additionally, you can spend 500 World Anvil coins to push the post to the global user stream, which is visible in the community dashboard for everyone to see! Make sure to alternate your promotional posts with other content, such as prompts and worldbuilding tips, to make sure people don’t see you as a spammer.

If you’re a Guild member, you also have global content blocks are your disposal. With global content blocks, you can have a piece of content (like a news board) appear on every single page of your world. This can be on top of every article, on the sidebar, the footer, and more —use them to announce your new content to your readers! Check out this blog post for more tips on how to use them!

Prepare your WorldEmber sharing strategy to get more views!

WorldEmber is starting very soon, so if you want to make sure people notice your work, take some time to decide how you’ll share your stuff! Your task this week is to add your sharing strategy tp your Pledge Document. Here’s an example of a release plan you could use for an article:

Make sure that the article is published in public.
Post it on social media, using relevant hashtags (such as #WorldEmber, #WorldEmber2021, #worldbuilding…). You can also mention us (@worldanvil)!
Choose an appropriate Reddit community or Facebook group. These are good places to ask for feedback on your work!
If you have a personal Discord server, post it there. You can also post it on #guild-showcase on the World Anvil server or in other appropriate channels.

Of course, you don’t have to follow all these steps —you don’t have to follow any! But having a strategy before WorldEmber starts will let you focus on your worldbuilding more.

Make sure to share your updated Pledge Document as a comment to this post! We’ll be sharing our favorite on the community live stream!

Oh, and if you have questions about the challenge, check out the WorldEmber 2021 official page here. If you STILL have questions, you can throw those in the comments too!