A Post About Problems

I had some long, depressing post about the downtrend I've been facing, but figure it can be summarized without so much detail.

The simple version is that I made a Patreon post after Spellblade 5 about my worries that the fundamental shift in the harem genre would result in an algorithmic shift that would cause my books to sell much worse. That's eventuated, despite the tantrum a bunch of people and authors threw after that post got leaked.

In short, I have a few choices.

I can keep doing what I want, in a genre that is increasingly becoming swarmed with book spam by more ghostwriters than ever (and, imo, a deluge of AI written garbage within a year). It's possible the fall in sales might stop at some point, but it's also possible Amazon will just stop recommending the books entirely at a certain point. Right now, individual sequels do well but Amazon won't recommend any of my other books. The risk here is that the drops keep worsening. I'm not as big in the genre as some think, despite being recommended a lot by people (a fact that often annoys certain authors who outsell me). I don't think this is viable, simply because of how hostile the genre is toward quality.

Another alternative would be to shorten my books and release more often. My past strategy relied heavily on Amazon recommending my past books with new releases. If that's not happening, I can't really afford long gaps between releases. Neural Wraith 2 fell off hard after less than 2 months, and Neural Wraith 3 is fading even faster. I'm back at pre-Demon's Throne 2 levels, to be clear. This would mean reducing the length of Spellblade and Demon's Throne books to be around Neural Wraith and just releasing more of them.

Writing outside harem is, I think, non-negotiable at this point. It's pretty clear that I've peaked in the genre. I get recommended a lot by people, but most of the Amazon audience won't read my books. That's not even getting into my general frustration with the genre as a whole and the fact I think it's really unhealthy due to being so overly commercial. So I'll work on a non-harem series over the next few months. Dunno if it'll be attached to this pen name, given the issues with either approach (existing pen name might poison the well in some genres and cross-pollinate too much with harem; new pen name might struggle or be sabotaged while fresh). This probably wouldn't launch until 2024 even if I start it now.

I could also try writing a new harem series that has more overlap with my existing series to kickstart the algo. I don't really want to launch a fourth series when I can't keep up with my existing three and may ditch Emperor. Launching something new in the genre does feel like the definition of insanity, too, as Neural Wraith started surprisingly well and has fallen off super hard. The people who read it, love it, but Amazon won't recommend it because the genre is nothing but slice of life fantasy. There's no audience, just as I feared would happened months ago.

Whatever the case, I'll need to do something. If I don't plan even after seeing the iceberg coming, I'd be an idiot. Especially in a genre that's only going to get worse, given how accepted the excuse of "it makes more money" has become. There are a lot of things I care about when writing, and if I have to choose between including a good story and the harem elements, I'd prefer to keep writing good stories. Litrpg and progfantasy are significantly healthier than harem at the moment, and I'd say there's an obvious reason for that.

I'll still finish my existing series and work on Spellblade over the next few months. I'm just wrapping up the post-release commentary and some of the cryptic comments I've made earlier this year. This also isn't a call to action. The Amazon algorithm is reacting to fundamental shifts in the genre and audience. Hence why I need to either alter my approach or leave the genre if I want to keep writing the sort of stuff I like. Something like Neural Wraith might only succeed in harem, but it's also really clear that it still doesn't belong if Amazon won't recommend the rest of the series when a new release comes out.

The only other post I expect to make about this might be regarding Emperor. At this point, I think it's unlikely I'll resume it. If I start on a new series (despite being on break) I might post about it.

Otherwise, I think I need to vanish for a while. I'm frustrated. In large part because I probably should have immediately acted on this after Spellblade 5.