Decisions Have Been Made!

(For those uninterested, chapters are coming shortly.)

1. Maybe the most important of the 4 decisions, in regards to the major poll from a few days ago, I have thoroughly read all of your lovely comments and taken note of the votes. As it currently stands, the general opinion is that it would be good to increase the SIS chapter count at the cost of LTW chapters, however, there are a few powerful voices (long-time patrons who regularly like and/or comment) that have stated their love for LTW and that should I lower the chapters they may understandably unpledge, which is not what I want. I hardly want to betray such dedicated fans over some of my worries.

What has to be understood here is that while, yes, my total pledged amount keeps on decreasing and will probably soon dip below $1,000, that's still an amount that I can live off of. Even in a worst-case scenario where all interest in my books is lost, I can go back onto benefits and look for a normal day-job, so I'm not in danger or anything.

Still, something has to be done. I can't just lie down and let my success slowly creep away. We've gone from a peak of over $1,300 pledged per month to slightly under $1,100, and I don't want this downward spiral to become a trend. The more money I earn, the more I can do. I can commission more art, make my life more comfortable allowing a healthier mindset and hopefully better writing/motivation to write, I can donate to charity, I can fund/host fanart contests, that kind of stuff.

So, in light of all of this, I have simply decided that I need to work harder. I'm going to keep LTW at 2 chapters per week, but to respond to the heavy interest in SIS, I simply cannot keep it at 2 chapters per week. Starting next week (the week of Sep 30th - Oct 6th), SIS will be getting 3 chapters per week.

It may take me a few weeks for me to get into the groove of it, so it may be on and off for a wee while, but yeah. I'm going to try and do that.

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2. Due to no.1, I will have less time per week to try to do the bonus chapters for hitting pledge goals, so I've decided to instead simply not release on Royal Road for a specific week to just hammer them all out.

This means that you won't get additional chapters occasionally as you have been thus far, but you will be ahead by those extra chapters once that week is done and dusted.

I know, this isn't ideal, but it is very difficult writing beyond my set guaranteed chapters as time has proven. You won't really lose anything from this, but you also won't gain anything from this really, is what it chalks down to.

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3. A big reason why so many people are unpledging or having their pledges declined I think is simply because I am condensing my chapter posts to the end of the week fairly often.

It feels like you get less if you get it all at once instead of once a day, right? In light of that, I'm going to try to, from next week, post a SIS chapter every Monday, Wednesday, and every Friday. LTW will get a chapter every Tuesday and every Thursday. Saturday/Sunday will be for LTW's rewrite which is being posted on Royal Road.

This one is going to fucking kill me to get used to, but I really need to start taking this all more seriously if I want to keep on succeeding. I really don't want right now to be my peak. I have so many story ideas drafted up for the future for when LTW and SIS eventually come to their conclusions, and I'd love it if being a professional author could remain my job for many years to come.

Of course, I could just flee to Kindle Unlimited, that's where all of the money is at, after all, but that's a different business model and would require removing my novels from the internet as a free form of entertainment on Royal Road, which I really don't want to do.

This is my job, yes, but it is also my passion and my hobby. Feedback of any kind fuels me and motivates me more than you could ever know, and Royal Road is incredible for that. You guys. on the other hand, keep a roof over my head, food in my belly, and conventional stresses at bay, which cannot be appreciated with mere mortal words.

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4. Smallest decision, I think. In regards to the SIS poll, I will be changing the frequency of the bank interest to only apply at the end of a cycle now after seeing the one-sided results of the poll.

In regards to plot inconsistencies made by this, any new chapters will act like there was never any interest after the 3rd cycle began, and since it has yet to actually happen in the free releases, I'll simply write it out as I post the chapters set after the 3rd cycle started.

As a small reminder, this change will allow the plot to pick up in speed by a lot to actually make the story interesting and engaging again.

I really do wish this was pointed out/found earlier, but I've discovered it now, and hopefully, this pumps some life back into the story.

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Thank you.

I love you all,

Lone,

<3