I have always had a passion for the written word
I’ve loved books for as long as I can recall. My mother used to read to me when I was young, that small spark turned into a lifelong passion. In elementary school I was the kid who got into trouble for reading too much in class.
Writing professionally was something I always wanted to do, but never made the leap or put in the effort. Instead I followed my other passion, that for computers and became a Software Engineer.
I have never been the type to share my words very publicly, I much prefer to stay private and when I do put things out there to do so under a pen name. Despite all of this the act of writing is something I have always returned to. I love to create and destroy worlds.
The Writing World as I see it in 2025
Keep in mind this is my own experience and my own thoughts and opinions, mileage may vary.
- NaNoWriMo Shutting Down: I never did much with NaNoWriMo. I tried to start a writing group which fell apart because everyone got to busy after that November. However, I know how important communities are and I have always dreamed of turning WritersGrove.net a domain I have owned on and off for years into a writing community.
- Kindle Vella Shutdown: I believe that Kindle Vella showed there is a real interest for authors to get paid for their words… just not one big enough for Amazon to care about. When companies like Amazon can view billion dollar ideas as very small experiments, what do they care about a small niche market?
- Royal Road and others: Royal Road and other writing hubs have long offered a place to showcase works but with no good paths to monetization.
- Patreon and Ko-fi: These powerful platforms have allowed independent Authors to thrive but do not truly meet the needs of most authors and are poor at showcasing serialized novels.
The end result feels like Authors are forced to juggle multiple platforms just be to discovered by readers and get paid.
Even if these platforms fixed their issues tomorrow, could we trust them to keep innovating after years of settling for the status quo?
Where WritersGrove.Net fits into all of this
- A Community First: First and foremost I want this to be a community focused on Authors and Readers.
- Free Forever: I plan to offer the service for free to authors and readers supported with Ads like Royal Road.
- Premium Features: A flat $14.95/month subscription with no revenue share. Bring your own payment provided (Stripe initially) and/or your own Adsense account.
- Smooth reading experience: A focus on making it easy for Authors to be discovered and read.
- Support all genres. Including communities often sidelined elsewhere, such as romance, niche subgenres, and adult fiction (with authors bringing their own payment/ad networks if needed).
- Transparent Rules: Check out our rules over on Github
Why Now?
I’ve reached a stable place in life (fingers crossed), and now feels like the right time to commit.
I am really looking to build something that can support a community I love. I also want to build a sustainable business. Something I can work on, grow, and proudly show off for decades to come.
The Road Ahead
- Phase 1 – MVP: Core publishing tools (World → Series → Book → Chapter), clean reader view, follow/favorite.
- Phase 2 – Validation: Analytics and author dashboards.
- Phase 3 – Monetization: Ads.txt, Stripe, PayPal, tips/donations.
- Phase 4 – Growth: Discovery feeds and search.
- Phase 5 – Community Feedback: Once the core features are in I will launch an area for direct community feedback to let the community vote on new features
How you can help
Please head over to WritersGrove.net and sign up for our mailing list and join our Discord Server.
You can reach out to me directly if you have any comments, questions, or concerns at steven@writersgrove.net
Start the conversation