Thank you (and a small apology)

I stopped doing post-release posts a while ago, because they tended to be downer posts or not really reflective of the long-term prospects of the book. This happened after 2023, which was the year I almost left harem and I committed to stopping that.

Fortunately, today is a positive post, although I don't intend to continue the trend regardless.

Mob Sorcery 4 (and 3) are my most successful releases by far. I'm not going to go so far as to say Mob 4 will be my most successful release, as Mob 3 is a hard mountain to climb, but it's clearly doing very well. They've clearly struck a chord with readers, including my long-term fans and new ones who finally decided to give me a shot, and the series is drastically more successful than any other, including Heretic Spellblade at its best. It's also better received by far with no real controversies.

This is deeply ironic given Mob Sorcery 1's launch was initially bad enough I thought it was the nail in the coffin of a bad year.

Mob Sorcery 4 is also the first time I've ever had a book enter the Top 100 of the US Amazon Kindle Store. This isn't that important of a metric - I'm pretty sure almost every harem author you'd compare me to has already beaten that milestone (which is why I've never considered myself a "big" harem author). But it was the last of my personal milestones of success as an author - or at least the ones I consider achievable (getting a TV series or movie isn't) - and when Mob Sorcery 3 fell just short, I honestly never thought I'd reach it. Again, this is more of a personal thing.

But I do want to thank everyone who is or has supported me, reads my books, and especially those who review them and share them with others. I've always hated the idea of going out and shilling my books, and this has made me incredibly reliant on traditional word of mouth. This is considered dumb in self-publishing, but I'm stubborn, and I would never have succeeded if I didn't have a bunch of people who enjoyed my work enough to go out and tell others to read it, too.

So, again, thank you. There will hopefully be plenty more to come.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of mistakes while releasing Mob Sorcery 4 due to my carelessness. I've been doing this long enough that I'm getting complacent and a lot of my processes are very hand-to-mouth given I release a book every 3-4 months. One of these was very minor (the link was wrong in my release posts/emails).

The other was, imo, the worst mistake I've made in a launch. The launch version of Mob Sorcery 4 didn't include a bunch of corrections that I'd already received from beta readers and patrons. I'm still not entirely sure what happened. Some or most of these are almost certainly due to my own carelessness. Others I'm certain I implemented and I'm scratching my head as to what happened.

Ultimately, the solution is to just implement a final edit check and compare the final manuscript against my proofreading corrections before it's uploaded. I'll need to find a way to automate this, but this was a catastrophic error. I provided a corrected version with 24 hours, but Amazon takes their time supplying updated versions of ebooks to readers unless it's deemed a major change (and this isn't that, even if I dislike the number of typos). So anyone who downloaded the book in the first 24 hours of release got a scuffed version.

That aside, this is a release I'm reasonably proud of. I'll need to give it some time before I look back on it with fresh eyes and determine its quality. My personal criticisms often aren't reflective of what readers think. Mob 3 ended up extremely well received despite its pacing issues (the Christmas party slows things down a lot, but likely worked due to being released during the holiday period). By contrast, I've heard a lot of good things about Mob 4's pacing.

There's always room to improve. I've started a beta reader trial that, if it goes well, will help me with my books going forward. But I'm also well past the point of 2-3 years ago where I worried a lot more about the reactions of a small part of the community that doesn't reflect my fans. I've done better than ever since I started paying less attention to them and that isn't going to change anytime soon.

Mob 5 chapters will resume later this week. I've been spinning my wheels on planning stuff and a release always tends to distract me. I worry about rushing out early chapters I'll completely rewrite.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed Mob Sorcery 4, and my books going forward. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on either the book or just in general below.