Announcements (public post)
Added 2024-11-19 16:00:24 +0000 UTCHey! So...
The number of people here has been steadily dropping for a while, and I'd be lying if I said it isn't a bit worrying.
I don't think there's any big issue with the story at this time though, so my best guess is just that that price/content offer is not that good anymore, it's been like that ever since I stopped posting on the weekends...
I'm tired of the constant uphill battle so I'm going to start working weekends again. Probably only one chapter on Saturdays for now, see if that helps at all, and if my sanity holds up. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep that up, but we'll see. Worst case, it'll help beef up the number of advanced chapters a little bit.
I'm also considering finally creating cheaper tiers, even though I still dislike the idea.
Anyway, that's it for the main announcement.
TLDR: Will now post 6 chapters a week.
Also, the French translation of Book 1 is now up for preorder on amazon.
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0DNCVBT2Y
I don't know who here would be interested by that considering you can all read the English version already, but it's there I guess ¯(ツ)/¯
That's it, today's chapter will release as usual in an hour, have a nice day everyone (｀• ω •´)b
Comments
I would argue that 5 chapters/week are already plenty so I'd advise against potentially overwhelming yourself. For me at least this is by far not the only story I read so I don't particularly read as soon as the chapters are released. If I had to settle on a reason people are losing interest is maybe the pacing. Detail and all is good but for example in this arc the trials are kinda dragging on which reduces the "hype" for the upcoming loot. Especially since this whole arc is basically "only a dungeon" it feels rather insignificant in the grand scheme. Hope you are doing well and don't stress yourself too much!
L
2024-11-23 12:00:43 +0000 UTCDon't burn yourself out! Hope things get better, soonish, I recently unsubscribed from just about everything due to monetary reasons so it wasn't really the stories fault :D Though I'll admit I haven't really read since the last trial, since I was mostly in it for the leveling and the LitRPG stuff, which hasn't really been a thing since
SDCard
2024-11-20 18:56:10 +0000 UTCI am loving the story. Only critique I have is that some arcs can become a little slow but overall I believe the quality remains excellent. I am hoping for some major level ups and new skills in the near future.
Silver Dawn
2024-11-20 17:23:15 +0000 UTCI resubscribed at the lowest just to post this to, author. I stopped patreon because I had almost 200€ of patreon and the recent purchase of a house forced me to divide this amount by 4. Another slightly related reason, I work a lot more to pay off the credit and I have much less free time to read (I was more than a month behind in reading so when RR caught up where I had stopped...) The story is always very interesting and is one of those that I follow the most and being French I can only appreciate a release translated into French, I am not really an "English" reader but rather a Google translate reader, with all the errors that implies. I will buy a copy just for that, I have already had to abandon enough reading because they are released on amazon and there is no auto-translation on e-reader like chrome does. It's rare so all the more appreciable, continue as you are, author, it's a good story that you are writing.
RosaC
2024-11-20 12:40:08 +0000 UTCsorry to put it so blatantly but the 10€ of the patreon support is starting to grate on me. In the beginning it was easy to forget and easy to stay hooked by the story where it was, went and by your format of small ish every day uploads. I was looking forward to each and every one. You had a ritual going there. And then i forgot to read a chapter. And a while later i caught up, and forgot about it again. and again. From looking forward to every evening, it became an occasional catch up, more out of nostalgia then immersion. I am still intrigued about the deep and the world you are building. But this is not what it once was and for me that makes the price harder to forget, especially with the trying times we are in. I also don't go into stubbed stories on RR and if i then were to see a single tier of 10€, i'd pass on that nowadays. I am not sure what i will do come next month or next year. I wish i could tell you a solution, but i can't
RageBone
2024-11-20 10:13:48 +0000 UTCAs someone who recently unsubbed due to major irl purchases, pricing is a major sticking point when it essentially costs 2 to 3 average story prices a month. Additionally, the lower tiers do not really appeal to me because you are stuck in a limbo where you are ahead of the RR community and very behind the Patreon community. It should also be mentioned that while it seems the longterm RR readers are still around, the RR stubs really hurts attracting new readers. I do not think four chapters are enough to get a lot people invested into purchasing off Amazon or even subbing to Patreon.
Atlas Dwarf
2024-11-20 02:15:44 +0000 UTCYou are one of my fav author, 1 in 2 I am still subbing, although I do feel less motivated to read recent chapters (1-2 months). So I will try to list all my thoughts and hopefully you can make something out of them. Otherwise, cheers. Also, spoiler alert for all non-sub, please skip to the next comment, please. 1. Sofia skills/items/traits/... is getting out of control. Half of the time, i cannot remember what a skill does, what is it drawback, especially after something as small as a 1 week break. Before, it was an absolute joy to see Sofia outsmart old monster and impossible situations alike with something as simple as Summon blood. Nowsaday, her skills are so complex, i can neither follow nor evaluate her actions anymore. 2. Her unlife runes are breaking the game/tensions. I really hate situations where she does dumb things because she can. Like !SPOILER ALERT!, she cut a physical piece of the mana leyline just for fun, then die, get a souvenir, then move on like nothing happens. Uhm, what happened it that poisons her surrounding for 10 mins and burn through all her unlife runes then kill her. My point is her unlife runes make her less of an interesting char and more like a generic end-game/fully decked game avatar that do everything without a care, super stupid reasons and very marginal gains. Cleaning out the bad guy's lair is very satisfying, hoarding absolutely everything you see is exhausting. 3. She has a goal and please stick with it. Can we stop with the side quests already? I want constant clash between her and enemies. We have to see her vulnerable, beaten down by enemies to understand why she needs to power up and collect op stuffs. 4. The Deep questline/content is hand down much more interesting than Sorrow stuff. The story is much more intriguing with the unknown than the constant emotional stuffs. I mean Sorrow is sad (okay, captain Obvious). So please more Deep and way way less Sorrow please.
Chien Do
2024-11-20 01:38:15 +0000 UTCSorry :( I think the story is in a good state and I'm still excited to read it. Do you think this is a consequence of having a long running story or a consequence of stubbing on RR for Amazon book release? From my own perspective I can say RR is how I find new stuff and I always avoid anything stubbed. I would've never "found" this story nor subscribed to your patreon if I had come across it after you released book 1.
E
2024-11-20 00:59:54 +0000 UTCThe trick is deleting any SSS chapter notifications and then pretending they don’t exist. 😅 … it also helps that I have three other series that release after SSS and before I wake up so it gets pushed out of the recent posts view…
CringeWorthyStudios
2024-11-20 00:42:11 +0000 UTCYou have far more self control than I do... I gotta get my SSS fix! 😆
Clinton Walsh
2024-11-20 00:40:19 +0000 UTCAfter mulling over the topic for a while (and realizing that you've posted some charts in the discord that would've answered my first question if I had thought about checking there first ^^') I unfortunately have to throw in the towel and say: try more tiers or a 'huge' chapter advantage. My reasoning: Everybody that got to the state of the current public chapter knows that they either need to be in for the long haul or will only subscribe for a certain amount of time, at which point they might as well just stay on the public tier and buy the books for example. The option to chose a lower tier might incentivize potential supporters to think about HOW MUCH money they want to spend instead of DO I WANT TO spend 10€ now or not.
Songy
2024-11-19 20:41:04 +0000 UTCMany such cases, times are hard, courage and good luck!!!
Mornn
2024-11-19 20:14:41 +0000 UTCUnfortunately I have had to tighten my belt for a bit and have basically unsubed from everything. I will return omce life is stable again
Omen
2024-11-19 20:13:02 +0000 UTCGlad to have you back :D
Mornn
2024-11-19 20:05:04 +0000 UTCI can confidently say a lot of people are like this yeah, and financial troubles is 1000% the most common answer on the exit surveys I get.
Mornn
2024-11-19 20:04:45 +0000 UTCI have a very single-track mind, writing another story seriously before finishing this one is really not something I'm able to do, so... I'll make this work, somehow.
Mornn
2024-11-19 19:59:21 +0000 UTCI didn't have any reason for unsubscribing other than falling very far behind while distracted reading other things. I also can't remember what chapter I was on lmao. Might go read the published books instead. I'll probably remain no matter what. I'm gonna try and catch up again.
Dancingdoorknobs
2024-11-19 19:26:00 +0000 UTCI have been on and off cause of spending issues on my part. The book of fantastic but I sometimes cancel my subscription since I need a break after reading for a while and let it build up before resubing as a member. I know it may be different for people, but for me this works since I’m reading a lot of different books and I’m jumping between Patreon subscriptions. they’re also times where I prefer not to have a Patreon subscription and just stay up-to-date. It’s only moments in the story happens that I usually reapply so I can get up-to-date with what happened.
Moon Winchester
2024-11-19 19:20:11 +0000 UTCEh, not really Mornn, their earnings also go down, it just that they have a bigger start, plus huge success in amazon, but every person that sells products will see earnings slowly decrease over time unless you offer something new for other audiences. These authors you point out likely write other novels too. Only a few very big successful authors can go on with a single novel, and you can count them with your fingers. You're not the only one that is going through this problem. Aside from the lucky few, only relying on a single story as a full time author is not recommended. I would say your success still surpasses the majority of web novel authors out there. I honestly wouldn't recommend you write more chapters right now, as you'll probably won't see any change at all at this point. Perhaps use your free time to invest on other things, or write something else to clear your mind.
Pancakes Witch
2024-11-19 19:17:47 +0000 UTCif only that was it...
Mornn
2024-11-19 17:48:32 +0000 UTCIt might be a time of year type thing with people wanting to save money for the holidays?
Phsteven
2024-11-19 17:44:14 +0000 UTCIs what I thought too, but then you go to any other stubbed author's patreon and you see it keep going up forever...
Mornn
2024-11-19 17:35:07 +0000 UTCGet bunch of free readers from RR, some percentage of which want to get ahead or support on Patreon. Visibility eventually goes down, and the influx slows/stops. you pull a book and put it on Amazon, so you get new readers from there that prefer finished books, but pretty much kill new readers from RR due to old chapters being taken down. So Patreon just gets caught in the middle and dwindles.
InfernalDrake
2024-11-19 17:33:24 +0000 UTCI think that’s just the way it goes with longer form series, especially once books are removed for Amazon.
InfernalDrake
2024-11-19 17:28:30 +0000 UTCI'd love to be able to do that if only I was able to write faster :')
Mornn
2024-11-19 17:28:26 +0000 UTCI hope things work out! I consider SSS one of my forever novels and could probably be convinced to jump to a higher tier if one comes out with more chapters.
Wensber
2024-11-19 17:27:18 +0000 UTCI love this book so much! I cant stop reading it even if i tried lol. I just hope you take care of your self first and for-most.
Leve
2024-11-19 17:20:27 +0000 UTCSo i've previously sponsored you but then waited for rr to catch up because i am a student with little money and I limit myself to which authors i can subscribe to to read ahead permanently. I really love your work but it is quite casual for me to read so it doesn't feel like i can afford the high price to continuously read ahead. Doesn't help that you don't have a cheap tier for me when i would like to support ya but can't quite afford it
Aloysius
2024-11-19 17:11:51 +0000 UTCConsidering how things went the last time I slowed down the release pace, I'm more than a bit iffy about trying that. I'll 100% manage things differently with my next series though... Just gotta finish SSS before that.
Mornn
2024-11-19 17:10:58 +0000 UTCWhat everyone else is saying, if you need more time to plan and plot things out then a slower pace doesnt have to be a bad thing.
Aclys
2024-11-19 17:07:41 +0000 UTCYeah, I was thinking about adding a phrase like 'you don't need to reply to this' but felt it was self-explanatory... The reason I was asking about RR is if the reader count didn't change, then I don't know if increasing the pace and essentially adding 20% more chapters per week is the way to go if it risks your health/well-being in the long run.
Songy
2024-11-19 17:07:29 +0000 UTCDon't burn out, please! I'm amazed that you can write so much each day. Do you think more chapters will help? I'll risk an opinion - please forgive my presumption! It's harder to identify with Sofia after her race evolution and subsequent Sorrow Temple arc. Who/what is she now? How have her friends changed? Seeing them help her in fights is always enjoyable, but I REALLY want to see how their relationships have evolved after the last trial. What are their goals - not in terms of quests, but lives going forwards? The promise of more deep background in the past few chapters is really alluring and I'm delighted to see it. You clearly have several volumes of ideas still to come, and I greatly look forward to them. And I was just chuckling again yesterday over the "absolutely the admin's shoes" line. Given what you deliver each week compared to other Patreon artists, ... well, I'd pay more.
Matt Grayson
2024-11-19 17:06:07 +0000 UTCHonestly I would have advised the opposite. Less chapter but give you more time to plan things out.
Arkeus
2024-11-19 17:03:42 +0000 UTCI am well informed yes, all you really need to know though is that most other authors' patreon goes like this ↗ while mine goes like this ↘. RR hasn't really moved, but it's free readers so you can hardly compare the two.
Mornn
2024-11-19 16:56:34 +0000 UTCHmm. Two questions. A) Do you have contact to other authors within the genre and, for sake of a better term, business model, you can ask how their patreons are faring so you have somewhat of a comparision? And B), did you also see a drop in RR/alternative readers over that span of time, especially since the last time you made a post like this and subsequently ramped up the pace of the last arc?
Songy
2024-11-19 16:51:51 +0000 UTCYeah, Patreon's systems are a serious pain the ass to deal with sometimes. I used to post on here myself for some stuff. I really wish that they would do some actual quality of life updates for this site, specifically ones aimed at making things easier for authors. The only problem is that usually when they push an update they end up breaking more than they fix. x_X
Kennyevilmonkey
2024-11-19 16:28:24 +0000 UTCI am not strictly against more chapters, but I do hope you don't force yourself too much, burnout is not good for you AND the story
Shukketsu
2024-11-19 16:27:23 +0000 UTCTwo suggestions that you can take with a grain of salt 1. Create a higher tier to be a beta reader, it is often easier to get more spend from your most enthusiastic readers then trying to keep people who are churning. 2. Think about the user experience of someone reading your story. What is the joy or excitement they get from each chapter, why are they excited to read the next one? If there are bigger drips at the end of arcs, What do you expect people to feel at the end of each arc and why would someone who feels that way read the next arc? That might be more interesting and fun and less burnouty then trying to churn through chapters, idk. I enjoy your story and want to continue reading it. I have no specific criticisms but that is how I would go about trying to reduce churn.
Ike5421
2024-11-19 16:21:55 +0000 UTCI wish but no, it's been a constant downfall for a year and a half, only ever going up for the most cliff-heavy moments (a.k.a the second half of trial arcs)
Mornn
2024-11-19 16:13:48 +0000 UTCThe main issue with lower tiers is just that patreon's implementation of it is horrendous (and that I'm lazy with anything that isn't writing x_x)
Mornn
2024-11-19 16:11:14 +0000 UTCFor me, I'm already too invested in this story now to even consider dropping my subscription.
Kennyevilmonkey
2024-11-19 16:07:25 +0000 UTCYou're doing a great job and 5 updates a week is a lot already. I wouldn't worry too much about fluctuating numbers, perhaps people don't have enough spare money towards the end of the year? Seasonal jobs and all that?
Daemion
2024-11-19 16:07:18 +0000 UTCMaking some cheaper teirs that have access to less content might be a good idea for getting more people in/to stay. Just please don't overwork yourself. Burnout sucks...
Kennyevilmonkey
2024-11-19 16:06:28 +0000 UTCI’ll continue to read this story no matter what
Joshua Nutter
2024-11-19 16:03:13 +0000 UTCHuh, that’s unfortunate. Honestly, I’ve just been lurking rather than actually reading for a while since I’m waiting to binge but I’m still subscribed. Your story is good, even if I prefer to read multiple chapters at a time rather than day by day.
CringeWorthyStudios
2024-11-19 16:03:05 +0000 UTCI think you’re doing an amazing job with what you are doing now. I will continue to support no matter what!💪🏻
Quentin Cozzi
2024-11-19 16:02:41 +0000 UTCI'm still standing!
CaptainRex
2024-11-19 16:01:59 +0000 UTC
