February Messenger Update

Time for one of these rare updates. I used to communicate a lot more here, but that's slipped a lot since I created the Discord, and I'll talk a bit about that later in this post.

But first the bit of the update I suspect most people actually care about.

Mob Sorcery

This book has been far too slow and difficult to write for what it is. This is largely a personal thing, but I can talk about some of the issues. It's felt like whenever I get momentum, I let it get away.

I had a nice plan with Mob 4. Write it relatively quickly, post chapters over several months, and work on DT4 in the background. That's failed miserably. The same goes for my Spellblade extras plans, as being so behind on Mob 4 meant I didn't quite finish those and need to find the time to come back to them.

The new plan I'll be posting publicly is

• Mob 4 will be finished this month

• Chapters every 2 days until it's published in mid-March (at some point, this will shift to daily chapters)

• Mob Sorcery goes on break for a few months

• Finally finish the Spellblade commentary and epilogue and post those in March

I expect the break to cause a large-ish exodus from the Patreon. I estimate over half the patrons and around half my Patreon income to be related purely to Mob Sorcery now, as I saw a serious decline while working on the end to Spellblade that bounced back extremely hard the moment I started working on Mob Sorcery 3.

That hasn't necessarily helped. Mob has attracted a new audience, with different expectations (even though the books are what they are), and I've found myself overly sensitive to their perceived reactions. Interest in Mob 4 chapters fell off extremely swiftly, and that made it easy for me to constantly tinker with them and worry about where they were going. Honestly, Patreon has felt more harmful than helpful here. Ultimately, I just need to write as if Patreon isn't here, and it might even be ideal if I write books before they even come to Patreon.

Not that it's been the entire cause, it just enabled my perfectionism. Mob 3 blowing up made me worry too much about Mob 4 and that probably harmed me more than anything. There are some very real issues in the way I poorly planned out the Yakuza arc, that I need to address before I continue the series. I also don't want to keep holding off series I want to finish, like I have been so far.

There's a good chance I put the entire Patreon on pause after Mob 4 comes out while I work on DT4. Still thinking about that. The downside is that stuff will break because Patreon doesn't really like me pausing (hell, their help pages lie outright about how pausing works for annual memberships, as I found out last time), so I might just tell people I won't be posting while I write the book. Time will tell.

Discord and Communication

This one has been bubbling below the surface and I've noticed it more and more since my big Spellblade break.

Because I'm taking longer between releases, and that time is mostly spent just writing with no real news, I'm posting fewer general news updates. Especially as what I used to post were schedule updates that would constantly be outdated. You've probably noticed I still don't have a 2025 schedule, and I'm not sure I'll create one.

However, I am still providing updates in one place: Discord. The downside is that basically nobody reads them, and sometimes they're more rants than updates as I filter them less. Because they're posted in a more conversational channel, I also suspect they're viewed more as an impediment to normal conversation and have been counterproductive.

Since I started the Discord, I posted updates, cover previews, sketches etc early there to incentive being there. That hasn't really amounted to much, and while I ping people for major art posts, if I'm going to that degree, I may as well just post it here. Especially as I feel posting stuff to Discord has been subconsciously reducing the amount of communication I do here by making me feel as if I've already told people things (a good example of this was the Mob 3 audiobook situation - I posted about it on Discord a couple of times, but that evidently wasn't getting out more generally).

I'll be resuming my monthly public and patreon updates, as well as posting all art here first. This will mean a reduction in WIP/sketch posts, but I often only got feedback from one or two people on Discord if I posted those (or basically none in the case of the recent NSFW stuff) and those posts often cannibalize responses to the final piece too. As always, if I'm uncertain about an art piece, I'll post a preview here for dedicated feedback for a short period.

Basically, I'm going to try to return to my pre Spellblade 7/8 posting habits. I guess this will also have a run-on effect on FB where I barely post and have zero traction, but, like, who cares about that boomer platform lmao.