State of the Realms: September 2025

Holy shit, September was absolutely insane. Buckle in, this is going to be a bit of a longer update.

Not only did we hit the main page for Rising Stars, but we peaked at 29th before the Girl Evolution meta started dominating everything. Twenty-ninth! Factoring in the 13 books that shoved everyone down, reaching the top 10 might have actually been possible! I'm still processing that. For context, a year ago I was celebrating my first follower and now here we are rubbing shoulders with authors that have been around since the site launched.

To make things even more chaotic, if you've noticed my engagement on both Patreon and Royal Road has been a bit lacking lately, there's actually a good reason for that. I moved to a new house in early September, right when we were absolutely crushing it on the main list. The timing was... let's call it suboptimal. Picture this: I'm refreshing Rising Stars every ten minutes watching our ranking climb on my phone while simultaneously hooking my modem into a dozen different coaxial cables trying to find the one with signal to get the internet online.

But somehow—and I'm still not sure how this worked—we managed to hit all our goals and swap to daily chapters right in the middle of the moving chaos! You all are amazing.

Book 1 and the Great Scheduling Puzzle

Here's where things get interesting from a logistics standpoint. Book 1 wraps for Paid Patrons on October 10th, which means Beta Reading for Book 2 will start shortly after. Then Book 2 posting should begin a few weeks after that.

Now, I say "should" because I'm honestly not sure about the exact timing yet. There needs to be a six-week gap between paid and free chapters—which is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because it gives me breathing room to stay ahead; curse because it means I'm constantly doing math to make sure I don't accidentally mess up the schedule and leave people hanging.

I'll set up proper timelines when we're closer to the date and I have a better handle on how long beta reading actually takes. Turns out when you write daily chapters, you also need to edit daily chapters, and that's... a lot.

The Aethon Factor

Adding another layer of complexity to this whole operation: Aethon Books just let me know I should have Book 1 back from their editors right around the time Beta Reading wraps up. Which means I'll be simultaneously:

• Tweaking Book 1 based on professional editor feedback

• Finalizing Book 2 based on beta reader feedback and adjusting based on editing notes.

• Trying not to lose my mind

This is either going to be the most productive month of my writing career or the month I finally understand why authors drink so much coffee it's basically a medical condition. Probably both.

Book 2 Polls and Democracy in Action

Speaking of Book 2, polls will be going up soon for Paid members first, then shared on Royal Road afterward. If you're a Paid member, I strongly encourage you to vote on both platforms since your votes will count twice. Yes, this is basically gerrymandering, but it's my gerrymandering, so I'm calling it a feature rather than a bug.

The polls will cover some pretty fun story direction choices, so if you have opinions about where Ben's story should go next (and let's be honest, you probably do), this is your chance to make those opinions count.

Audiobook News!

This might be the part I'm most excited about: Ben's story is getting audiobooks!

I'm curious if any of you have favorite narrators you think would be a good fit for the story. I'm open to suggestions—with the obvious caveat that this doesn't include Travis Baldree, Nick Podehl, or Jeff Hayes, since they're either not taking new work or are priced somewhere in the "selling a kidney" range of the budget.

But seriously, if you have someone in mind who you think would capture Ben's particular brand of self-deprecating humor and general confusion about his life choices, drop their name in the comments. The worst that happens is I get to discover a new narrator, and the best case scenario is we find the perfect voice for the story.

The Over-the-top Gratitude Part

Finally—and this is the part where I always get a little sappy, so bear with me—thanks so much for reading and commenting. I know that sounds like standard author boilerplate, but I genuinely mean it. The comments section has become this weird little community where people theorize about magic systems and argue about character traits. It's honestly the best part of my day.

Your feedback has shaped this story in ways I didn't expect when I started posting. When someone points out a plot hole, I actually fix it. When someone gets excited about a particular character interaction, I make note of what worked. When someone asks a question about the magic system, it usually means I need to explain something better.

I say it a lot. Writing can be a pretty solitary thing most of the time, but this whole serial fiction thing has turned it into this collaborative experience that I wasn't prepared for. So yeah, thanks for being part of it.

Can't wait to share Book 2 with all of you this fall.

Cheers,

M.S. Davidson