Mob Sorcery Aftermath

I said I'd do a results post, so here we are. While this isn't an uplifting post, I'm not going to commit to much.

If you don't like reading negative stuff about book sales etc, I recommend skipping the post. The short version is that I'm not changing anything immediately, in large part because of Patreon. If that satisfies you, then feel free to skip this post.

I originally planned to leave this a few days in case there's some miraculous change in Amazon sales, but I'm pretty sure I'm too established for that to happen anymore. This has been chewing on my mind and taking up thought cycles, so let's just get it out there.

In short, Mob has bombed hard. Yes, it's early days, but the pre-orders were horrendous and sales have tanked even faster than NW3 in just a few days. Spellblade 6 pre-orders are also a fair bit weaker than NW3's. At the same time, a ton of people just signed up to Patreon, so I'm getting some mixed signals.

We're pretty firmly in "fool me twice" territory, as I saw the aftermath of Spellblade 5 and Neural Wraith 3 and still didn't act. I feel as though I should have started diversifying into non-harem stuff a year ago, when I saw the huge decline in readership for Spellblade 5 and the sharp increase in publishing speed by a bunch of authors. I won't revisit that stuff or my opinions. My sales speak for themselves.

Reception to Mob is varied, and I'll only briefly touch on this. While it's largely positive (the series was well received here, after all), there's some strong negative pushback. Some of this is genuine, including from folks who would prefer I had worked on an existing series or who dislike the lighter fare. I'm more worried about the rhetoric in some Goodreads reviews that matches that of the push against Neural Wraith at the start of the year (albeit, with implied accusations of ghostwriting now), and NW has been a punching bag for those types lately.

To be blunt, I feel I've developed a hatedom and they'd prefer I stopped writing in the genre. Part of me wants to ignore this completely, but the genre has a history of these exact same people basically harassing authors out of the genre. Ignoring it won't make it go away, as they'll just lie and attack my books in the community. They're not seeking attention, they just want me gone.

As I said earlier, there won't be an immediate change to my output. Spellblade 6 chapters slowed down a bit as I saw this coming, including the high likelihood of people taking swings at the series/me, and I've been distracting myself for much of the week.

I haven't really decided what I'll do long-term. I said last time that I needed to diversify out of harem, and I genuinely feel quite stupid for not doing that. As such, I'd be an idiot to start a new harem series before I do something non-harem under a new name - hell, I don't know if I'll start another new harem series at all, given I feel more adrift in the genre than ever and romance is becoming more accepted in progfantasy and litrpg (even if sex still brings out the prudes). At the same time that I feel harem is becoming narrower in terms of what it accepts as a genre, other genres are broadening.

Mob Sorcery was always a Patreon-first serial, and the Amazon reception simply means I'm more likely to hold onto chapters here for longer and put the books off. There's a good chance I finish off Book 2 once Spellblade 6 is done, with another 15 chapters or so. The series might not be the longest, however.

The big question remains how Spellblade plays out. I've never done the whole "I need X pre-orders or the series gets it" thing that is popular among some authors, as I feel it's extremely scummy. So I'm not going to do that. But I will be writing a (soft-ish) ending into Spellblade 7 when it comes out in October/November, in case it does poorly enough that I'm not sure I'll be able to revisit it. The story is structured in such a way that it can pick up again for the final book if that ending isn't needed.

It's difficult to judge financial stability/longevity. This is because there's a big difference between the questions "Am I making enough money now?" and "Will I make enough money if I suffer another drop the size of this one?" Right now, I'm just writing.

Finally, a huge thanks to everyone who's just signed up, even if it's just to read the Mob chapters, as well as long-term supporters (including those who just wrangled with Patreon's payment scuff again). I do appreciate the support and it is the reason this post isn't more reactionary, even if it's grim. In this case, I think a number of you know things haven't worked out as well, so I don't want to be as alarmist as I have in the past (while also being clear about what may happen).