October Patreon Update

I'm not dead. Been a little distracted this past two weeks, and a little slower to get back into the swing of things, so have an update.

Patreon has changed. More than I'd like, and less than it needs to in the ways that matter. You can now follow people on Patreon for free (they call it "free memberships"), and be notified of their public posts, so I might engage with that more given how iffy Facebook often is about showing my posts anywhere.

Commentary is also taking a bit, as I'm constantly writing and deleting stuff that I think isn't too useful to talk about. It's a bit of a process.

News!

I expect to post a couple weeks worth of Mob Sorcery 2 chapters before returning to Heretic Spellblade. These will go through an alpha reader before getting posted here at a rate of a few chapters a week.

Heretic Spellblade 7 is my next book. I've been chewing on ideas for how to handle the overall series, including potential shifting of the overall plot for Books 7 & 8. Unfortunately, I can't see how I can make it work without cutting serious corners or causing an unsatisfying ending in Book 7. I know there are a bunch of people who want to see the series end with Book 7, but it needs one more book. Probably a chunky one later next year.

I'm hoping that I can knock Spellblade 7 out relatively quickly, given I don't need to bring myself back up to speed on the series. There are still some plot modifications I need to do. The flipside is that I only have so much book to work with, as the entire last third is effectively locked down. The ending of the book is set in stone due to how Book 8 needs to play out, and certain things need to happen beforehand. So expect Book 7 to be a ride.

No audiobook updates. I'm pretty sure Spellblade 6 is being recorded this month and Mob next month.

Sales-wise, Spellblade 6 has done fine. It's a mixed bag. The story is largely the same as with Neural Wraith 3 - it's a very spiky release, and means that almost all of my sales occur within the first couple of weeks and a big falloff in all of my books afterward. The better point is that the overall sales figures haven't seen as huge a falloff as my previous releases (around 5%, instead of a 20% drop), but this is probably buoyed by Mob releasing a month prior as Amazon likes rapid releases. It's a weaker release than anything in 2022, but my best in 2023.

However, I'm focusing less on that. I've been thinking about this for much of the year as I've ummed and uhhed about how/if to approach harem. I've received a huge amount of support here on Patreon since talking about the problems I've faced. So I'll clear things up.

Right now, Patreon represents a much more stable income source than Amazon. It's smaller, but it doesn't swing around like a seismograph. I've seen some rumbling from some authors about similar thoughts (and others that dislike relying on Patreon, admittedly), but if I want to continue writing fun harem stories (and despite my concerns about the genre's health, I do enjoy including sex and harems in bigger stories) then I'm much more reliant on Patreon. So your support here is enormously important and helps me write what I love, and (I assume) for you to read what you love.

So I have no intentions of dropping any series or rushing any to a conclusion. I do expect to work on a new pen name over 2024 and launch something non-harem related, but I don't know what that will be.

And because people keep asking, yes, I am returning to Demon's Throne early next year.