April/May Update
It’s been a slow month, but I have a bit of news on the writing front. There’s also some fairly serious news in this update.
First, my next release(s) will be Heretic Spellblade 6 and 7. I’ll be writing this as a single large book and splitting it into two books, each roughly the size of the first books in the series, rather than the massive tomes from later in the series. This is due to reasons I’ll elaborate on later in this update, but the short version is that times are rough in the genre and I’m not sure I can afford to spend several months between massive books. The alternative is to just stop, so I’m trying this instead.
Demon’s Throne will come afterward, and potentially get the same treatment.
No solid audio news for now. I believe Neural Wraith 3 will be in the second half of the year and will update you once I have more news.
If you’ve somehow missed them, I released Neural Wraith 3 in ebook at the end of March and Heretic Spellblade 5 on audio in the middle of April. Check them out. I promise they’re great.
Now for the unplanned segment. I talked about this on Patreon, but noticed that it spread more widely and figure to give a more official statement in case people get confused.
There have been a few big authors recently talking about how awful their sales in harem have been, and some are even partially pulling out of Kindle Unlimited as a result. My own sales have been falling over the last year, but both Neural Wraith 2 and 3 have been pretty disastrous releases compared to what I expect. Sales dropped off hard after a couple of weeks and Amazon is barely recommending any of my books, which usually doesn’t happen until 2-3 months after a new book release. Amazon’s algorithm is basically telling me to release faster (as in, every 2 weeks) or to fuck off and write something entirely different. I won’t speculate in this post about why I think this is happening.
The end result is that I’m expecting a drop in my income of about 30%-40% this year, even after things worsened toward the end of 2022. So, yeah, it kind of sucks. Being a self-employed author is inherently insecure so I do keep a financial buffer and I’m not facing problems right now. But I also need to be realistic and accept this may actually get worse. If I wait until the waves are lapping at my chin, it’s already too late.
With all that said, I want to make it clear that I’m not leaving harem. My immediate plans are still to keep writing Spellblade, Demon’s Throne, and Neural Wraith. So long as the bottom doesn’t completely fall out of the genre, I hope to write new series eventually despite my frustrations. However, there’s a saying about not keeping all your eggs in one basket, and I will begin work on a non-harem series soon-ish as a result. It’ll be a fun challenge even if it falls flat on its face, and I love trying new things and testing my abilities.
I also don’t expect to leave Kindle Unlimited unless Amazon makes it far worse, so I have no current plans to start my own store. My problem is that Amazon is crippling my ability to reach readers, but I don’t think I can do a better job myself as I hate marketing. If you want to support me, the best ways are to recommend my stuff to people, leave reviews, and (only if you really want to and can afford to) support me on Patreon.
I really want to thank my patrons. To be very blunt, if I didn’t have an established Patreon and a bunch of very supportive folks there, I’d be much more worried and probably take rash action. They give me much more breathing room to just keep writing good books. I’m not saying this to guilt you into signing up, but to make it clear that this is an uncertain job and quality only happens if people and the community support it.
Anyway, sorry if that was a somewhat depressing update. Just wanted to clear the air before anything gets muddied. I probably won’t update again until the start of June.
