Announcements: Patreon Future, Spotlight Hiatus, New Story

The full post is a bit wordy, so there’s a tl;dr at the end.

Spotlight

Unfortunately, as of 2.02, I’m placing Spotlight on hiatus. I won’t call the story dead, because I may return to it, though not in the short term.

I realize this is (obviously) an announcement some people won’t be happy with. I can present my reasoning, though it might not be satisfying.

1: Lack of interest. I wouldn’t call the story dead in the water, but it hasn’t grown remotely at the speed of Ascent, even accounting for the 1x vs 3x weekly posting schedule. Now, this normally wouldn’t bother me (as writing stories I want to write comes with an intrinsic enjoyment), but I need to keep in mind:

2: Finances. My mid- to long-term plans are, ultimately, to make a living with my writing. This is far from saying I’m motivated by money—I would hardly be trying to make it as a writer if so—but I would rather scrape by with minimum wage in a creative pursuit than another job, if possible. Seeing how ‘minimum wage’ is a while away … and something few writers manage … I need to focus, and not to a small degree, on how to monetize my work. Which leads to point 2a.)

2a: Inappropriate for Amazon. I chose some long term plans for Spotlight that simply don’t fit with Amazon content guidelines. This is a rather minor thing, but once a story is complete and no longer gathering readers/interest, being able to drop it onto Amazon and make occasional sales/page reads through KU feels like the smart long-term financial decision. Spotlight, as planned, wouldn’t have this option, and that does nag at me.

3: Time. Considering the above points, 2-3k words of effort, weekly, could go to better pursuits.

Point 3 leads to the following news …

Patreon Future

With Spotlight being put on hiatus, I don’t plan on banking the ‘freed up hours’. I intend to start a new story, though I haven’t decided (entirely) what.

When that happens, I’ll be implementing some changes on how I structure my tiers. Essentially, there will be two 5$ tiers, one for each fiction I’m releasing. Additionally, there will be an 9$ tier to subscribe to both.

That announced,

The New Story

The intent is to burrow into a niche, which seems to be universally sound advice for growing an audience. The new story will feature, as Ascent does:

1. Just-Endowed Futa MC

2. LitRPG setting

3. A lewd class, and frequent explicit scenes

However, where this new project will distinguish itself from Ascent, since a more-or-less duplicate story is, presumably, not what people want:

1. More traditional LitRPG, with standard levels, classes, and skill systems (with, of course, my specific take on things, so we’re not drowning in genericism)

2. A ‘Delving Academy’ setting

3. MC is native to the LitRPG world, rather than an isekai

4. More focus on power growth / progression / combat / other LitRPG staples

That’s the tentative plan, at least.

Once I have the first batch of chapters written, I’ll post them for patrons to read and comment on before they go live to SH and other sites.

Thanks for reading! And, sorry again for freezing Spotlight releases. I realize that’s not a fun announcement to get.

tl;dr: Spotlight on hiatus, new LitRPG story planned, and once released, Patreon tiers will be restructured.