August Patreon Update

This is coming out a little later in the month, because I've been doing some deep thinking about where to go with the Patreon. Messengers have seen some of this in the recent posts, and everyone else may have seen those locked off posts and wondered what's going on.

There is an important announcement at the bottom, so scroll down if you don't care about my other blathering.

Before I jump into that, let's go over the news.

• Heretic Spellblade 3 has been out for a few weeks. It's done fairly well, and beat my fairly moderate expectations. I'm still far from a huge author in the genre, but the book seems to have brought me to the attention of newer readers. Ultimately, I'm comfortable writing stuff I enjoy, rather than chasing trends, lowering the quality of my writing, or trying to attract an audience I'm fundamentally uninterested in. So life's good.
• Despite the slow release of Demon's Throne 2 chapters, I am aiming to release it in early-mid September (which means you can expect more chapters soon). This is a very, very tentative release date, and given some other stuff that I'm working on behind-the-scenes, will require me to work pretty damn hard.
• I am cover/artist hunting for a variety of reasons and series. I have decided to recover Empire Reforged Book 3, although I'll use the old cover for the paperbacks so people can have a matching set. A more attractive cover for the final book might attract interest, despite some of the flaws in the series (I've seen the sales rank of many new entrants into the genre - nobody can tell me that tits don't sell).

Now let's talk about the bigger stuff.

I've always written on the side for fun, and that's never stopped. I recently stopped writing under an online penname that you may or may not be aware of. The exclusive stories at the Messenger level were intended to replace some of that, but as I explained to them, things didn't quite work out.

The replacement is going to be a new long-form serial written on Patreon. It's mostly for fun, and a way for me to burn off creative energy whenever I don't want to work on a mainline novel. Eventually, it might make its way onto Amazon, but I don't know when - maybe not for many, many months. That's what the teasers were about - I trialed a couple of stories, and picked the one that worked the best for what I wanted (and I still want to work on the other one, but it needs a lot of planning/plotting work).

The new story is different to my published titles. It will be a smutty, slow-paced, dark fantasy, slice-of-life story with strong inspiration from Monster Girl Encyclopedia, Hollow Knight, and Darkest Dungeon.

Who gets to read it? The first chapter will be public, and the rest will be for all Bastion-level and above Patrons (so, the US $5 tier and above).

However, there will be some Messenger-only content. Namely deleted scenes or alternate versions that aren't canon. Anything that I expect to remain a Patreon-exclusive stays at the Messenger level. Hopefully, this keeps the extra level of content for Messengers relatively constant to expectations.

Patreon Tier Updates

There will be a few minor adjustments to the Patreon tiers.

Bastions: You now get the extra chapters for my side-projects, so long as they're not Patreon-exclusive. Nothing is removed.

Messengers: Technically, nothing is removed. But I'll be mostly posting mini-serials at a monthly rate now, with short stories on a "when I feel like it" basis. You will get the deleted scenes and extras from my side-projects as exclusive content. Also, I'll clarify that you get high-resolution covers, plus any NSFW versions I might commission in the future.

I still don't have any plans to commission extra character art or anything.

Anyway, that's this month's update. The first chapters of the MG story will be up shortly for everyone.

Comments and feedback is welcome, especially as there's a fair bit to chew on and announce in this update.