June Patreon Update

Quick update here, before the public update (hopefully) next week.

I've been on break for the past two weeks. It was an impromptu break intended to last a week, but I got in a sour mood and extended it. Most of my writing troubles tend to be personal, and I'm writing stuff in Mob 5 I haven't previously attempted (and therefore spend a lot of time worrying about responses to - particularly as some people really dislike any changes to the formula). I definitely should have taken a break after Mob 4, as I've been writing nothing but Mob Sorcery since September or so and it's burning me out a little.

On that note, Mob Sorcery 5 will be the next book and finish off Mei and the Yakuza. It will then get put on hold for a while because I need a break from it, probably until 2026 (even though I expect this to be a financially bad decision lmao) and I'll finally focus on my older series.

I should also have a link to the Audible pre-order to Mob Sorcery 3 soon(TM). This one has been annoying, as it's held up in Audible approvals and I want to avoid making multiple public posts (as the audiobook posts do poorly on FB). The release date should be July 15.

That Audible Thing

There's apparently some drama over Audible (again, lmao). This is a mixture of the expansion of their subscription listening program (Audible Plus) and their head-first dive into AI narration. Also, I think a bunch of progfantasy/litrpg authors tried to launch a private audiobook website, so there's some behind-the-scenes author drama going on there (you can usually guess that's happening when you see authors saying weird infomercial-like stuff about how great Audible is). Oh, and I think they're being sued.

The enshittification of basically every online platform is just a constant thing these days, to be honest, so while it sucks, it goes in the sink along with all the other crap. Authors and publishers who are more reliant on audio will make a huge fuss over it. I make the vast majority of my income from ebooks/KU (which has remained stable after a scare in 2023 thanks to AI spam), and Patreon now outperforms audio by a great deal.

It is very on-brand for Audible to package an increase to royalty rates for authors with making their platform shitty for everyone, though.

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Anyway, chapters should resume some time next week. See you then. Sorry if this update is a bit... odd-sounding, but I did say earlier that I'm feeling a bit off.