ItsDirector's Roadmap: November 13, 2024

Hi everyone! I think it's time for another roadmap. This isn't something I'm going to be doing on certain dates, just whenever enough things happen for things to change.

Videos/Livestreams:

I have, unfortunately, had to put plans for livestreams on the back burner. It's definitely something I still want to do, but it's been impossible to find the time for it. That being said, I've had an idea for a series of videos that will be a behind the scenes look at The New Universe. Maybe The Human From a Dungeon as well.

The format will be pretty simple. I'll read a chapter, then talk about my writing process and thoughts about the chapter. When? Definitely some time after I publish The New Era. These will be a lot easier to accomplish than livestreams, but recording and editing are still time consuming.

Art:

Nothing has really changed in this regard, so here's a copy-paste of last time's Roadmap:

I've had some people show an interest in making fan-art, but I don't really have a place for you to post it yet. I've looked into creating a sub, but finding good moderators seems to be the biggest hurdle in that regard. The only places to post fan-art thus far are my discord and my refrigerator (but only if you do a good job lol).

I intend to hire an artist to help bring my vision of the characters in my stories to life, and create a sort of picture-book detailing each character. As I will have to pay the artist for the ownership of their copyright for their work, this will take some time due to my current financial obligations. In an ideal world, I'll be ready to start interviewing artists in early 2025. In a more realistic world, mid-2026. Worst-case scenario, early 2027.

If you want to throw money at me to speed things up, you can do so using Ko-Fi's donation feature, but I definitely don't mind working for my bread. Both Patreon and Ko-Fi have subscription features that actually give you benefits and will ensure steady progress to my end-goal. I also don't have the means to accurately predict how much donations will speed things up.

tl;dr Donations are appreciated, but not strictly necessary :)

Merch:

Decided against merchandise for now. The only thing I could think of besides The Directorate symbology was shirts and such with my name on them, and that's a little cringe tbh. Might do commemorative bookmarks or something, but I'll probably have to sell those in person at book signings or something. We're still a ways away from that, though (see Live Appearances section).

Future Work:

I've got the barebones of a storyboard done for a series of Fantasy novels. The Human From a Dungeon has taught me a lot about the genre (I've mostly written sci-fi, contemporary fiction, and non-fiction in case you couldn't tell) and I want to put this learning to use.

So far I have 3 books firmly planned, with another 2 theorized. This 5 book series then feeds into another series, but I don't have a firm concept for that yet. Haven't really had the time to cement everything.

These novels will be more "publisher-friendly" than The New Universe, so I might try publishing them in a more traditional manner. However, since I rely on Patreon and Ko-Fi for my income, I'll have to write these novels in what little spare time I have. If push comes to shove, I'll do a GoFundMe or something. Hoping to avoid it, though.

Finally, the next novel in The New Universe has the working title of "Alpha". It will be a prequel of sorts, and that should be enough information to give you an idea of what it's about lol. That's subject to change, but I plan to start the storyboard once The New Era is published and available for purchase.

Live Appearances:

Hosting a book signing and meeting you would be great, but I don't even know where to start, to be honest. I've kept a pin in it for a while now, but I'll do a bit more research on the subject once The New Era is done.

Progress and Goals:

According to the  W4ffle bot, it has been 2 years and 10 days since I posted the first chapter of The New Species. I have posted 408,276 words since then, with an average of 2,359.98 words per chapter.

On Reddit, each chapter receives an average of 50.34 comments, my reddit profile has 2,960 followers, and I've got 47k karma according to my profile snippet. It shows differently on different parts of the site, though, so I'm confused :)

On Royal Road, I have 1,193 unique followers and my highest ranking so far is #661 (I don't know if that's good or not lol). Average rating is 4.71.

On Patreon I have 366 followers, 166 of which are paid.

On Ko-Fi I have 42 followers, 41 of which are supporters.

I've already accomplished my 2024 goals, thanks to you. Beat my wordcount by 100k, even. :) I don't know what to set for my next goal, so I'll come back to it later.

Thank you all for your support. I still can't believe how much success I've seen so far.