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2025 Anniversary Update
🕑 Added 2025-11-01 23:00:06 +0000 UTCIt’s November again, which is my anniversary as an author and time for my annual ramblings about the state of things. I’ll also answer all the questions people asked in the earlier post where I asked for them.
If you do have any additional questions you want answered, pop them in a comment.
A Slow and Stressful Year
2025 ended up being oddly stressful, but also the least words I’ve published since 2020. Mob Sorcery ended up on a roll, but I kept pushing on to the next book in an attempt to wrap up and arc that grew and grew. The rapidly expanding scope of the series, plus the feeling of pressure as it blew up to be way, way bigger than anything else I’ve published, and the fact I wasn’t writing anything else led to a lot of stress.
I also didn’t take proper breaks. Sometimes, I took unscheduled breaks, but the books hung over my head and they weren’t the same as a proper vacation with no deadlines. Kind of like taking a holiday knowing you’re coming back to a huge mess that you merely put off, and may have gotten worse while you were ignoring it. Especially because I was at home during that time, and the pressure to keep working remained (the dangers of working from home).
Also, yeah, that annoying shit around Demon’s Throne. Less said about that, the better.
Mob Sorcery 4 and 5 are quite long, however. But with another book unlikely before the end of the year, this is my lowest word count since I went full-time.
Fortunately, I haven’t had to worry about the financial side at all this year. Patreon is very healthy, and the support from everyone here means I can ignore the ebbs and flow of Amazon income. On top of that, Mob Sorcery has been absurdly successful by my standards, and because I don’t have crazy plans like creating a publishing company or buying a mansion, I’m very satisfied with life.
My Patreon posts got a significant upswing of people telling me to take care of myself etc, which is a warning that I need to focus on myself more (although sometimes I wonder if I just talk about stuff nobody wants to engage with otherwise). Somehow, I need to find a way to keep writing at a good pace while not completely burning out and still enjoying what I do.
Because I still do enjoy writing. I don’t particularly enjoy most aspects around publishing, like marketing or any of the social stuff (talking to people about my books/characters etc is different to engaging “properly” on social media, like responding to comments on Facebook etc). Coming up with the cool stories and characters in Mob, seeing how people react to it all playing out, planning out how I’ll return to Neural Wraith and wrap up the many plot points and characters (even if it’ll end up being really topical due to IRL catching up to NW lmao) – I love this stuff. But like all work, it can be tiring.
With any luck, things will go at a more normal pace next year and have less weird and annoying shit happening.
Mob Blows Up (In a Good Way)
The good news is that Mob Sorcery has gone absolutely gangbusters since my last anniversary post. If you’ve paid any attention to the series or how I’ve talked about it, this should be obvious.
Mob Sorcery 3, 4, and 5 have been my best launches ever, one after the other. Mob 5 had that incredibly rocky start thanks to the preorder shenanigans with the Amazon outage, but after Amazon unfucked them a few days after launch, everything slowly bounced back. A month after launch, the numbers looked as I expected based on the pre-order figures (extremely good), which is an amazing result given the horrific first few days.
I’ve always existed in an odd state in harem. Spellblade was highly recommended, but never exactly sold massive amounts. If anything, the gap between its sales and recommendations earned me some enmity from folks I never interact with. It became my bread and butter, and remains a solid earner over a year since it finished (around half my lifetime earnings come from Spellblade alone). But the series never really broke out. It started rough, transitioned in style and almost genre around Book 3/4, and lots of people really disliked the heavy focus on politics. It was also written at a time when many people in haremlit argued much, much more strongly in favor of increasingly generic stories and I basically stood against that. Not that Spellblade is perfect, particularly in retrospect – I particularly dislike the battles now I’m writing Mob.
But Mob Sorcery blows anything else I’ve published out of the water. I’m unwilling to say it’s “big,” because it still sells far less than anything Bruce puts out or big new series like Warlock or Monster Girls in Space, and there are slop authors pumping out stuff across multiple pennames that sell very well. They’re not my business, however, and the fact Mob Sorcery is doing exceptionally well by my standards makes me very happy, particularly as I achieved my last (realistically) achievable milestone as a self-published author back when Mob 4 came out.
This is why, despite 2025 being a slow and stressful year (and some other nonsense), it’s also my most successful year ever. I released a total of 2 books, and made more money than ever. It’s wild to even think about.
To be honest, I don’t really know why Mob is so successful. Maybe it’s on trend. I don’t really follow the fads and trends of harem, and figured shifters and urban fantasy was old news when Mob came out (right now, I’m noticing lots of sci-fi, previously described as a genre that could never succeed, although it’s mostly science fantasy). Maybe I just hit the right mood. Maybe the genre is being pushed by the algo (potentially the case, as I’ve noticed huge review number bloat over the past 18 months).
Mostly, I enjoy being able to write a series that feels like a guilty pleasure to me and others enjoy. There’s still a lot of stuff that is very “me.” Lots of politics, very slow burn relationships that take multiple books, heavy worldbuilding, and plenty of cultural references (I spend a lot of time doing research, particularly with all the mythological and Japanese stuff in Mob). The success also does make life much easier.
Hopefully that continues, but I feel very lucky that the series continued to grow from the heights of Mob 3 as it is. It’s especially funny as I look back at my 2024 anniversary post where I say my peak as an author was behind me, then Mob 3 came out weeks later and nuked my pessimism from orbit. A reminder to take life as it comes, particularly when I don’t have any driving need to rush things or do greedy shit.
Remember, Patreon is Optional
Continuing from the Mob 5 post, it’s time for a small reminder.
In short, you should never feel bad about ending Patreon support here. This is optional and a bonus. Reading my books on KU, or buying them, or even grabbing audiobooks are all plenty. Yes, you get early access to the chapters when I eventually post them, but you’ll get the whole book on Kindle at some point. Despite how much I love the sound of my own voice, I doubt my ramblings are worth the monthly fee.
I’m saying this because, between some of the messages I’ve received over the past few months and the generally rough news about jobs and a worldwide economy that may or may not be going backwards, I don’t want people giving me cash that they need more than me.
Maybe nothing will happen, and everything will be smooth. Maybe the much-vaunted AI crash will happen (or some other recession cause). Maybe it’s something personal that affects only you.
Whatever the case, take care of yourself first. People say that to me here all the time, so I’ll say that to everyone here in return.
Random Bitching About Writing Tics and Complaints
That subheading probably makes no sense, but I've had numerous attempted rant posts about writing topics I've nixed. These usually have to do with stuff like "show, don't tell", or the use of emotional shorthand and why characters will always smirk no matter how smarmily you whine online, or just in general why taking writing advice from online complaints is a terrible, terrible fucking idea.
I'd even go so far as to say taking advice on writing craft online, period, is a bad idea. Writing is like cooking and sex, where everyone is convinced they know exactly how it should be done, and everyone who disagrees with them is a moron. The best craft advice tends to be more like guidance, usually nudging you to read your genre and develop a style, and understand that there are no rules as much as very strong guidelines that exist because you aren't Cormac McCarthy and if you write a book without commas or quotation marks, readers are going to fucking hate you instead of calling you a literary god.
So, anyway, here's a random collection of shit and opinions, where I'll also demonstrate that I'm convinced I know everything about writing and everyone who disagrees with me is wrong.
One of the big ones is "show, don't tell." This advice is amazing, extremely important, horrendously misunderstood, and used like a trump card by random readers to call writers incompetent to such an extent it's basically a version of Godwin's Law.
This is because the rule has two functions. First is for very amateur writers who need to tighten up their prose and stop using passive language. If punches are thrown, make it clear who is throwing it and get the reader in as if he's standing right there, watching the punches being thrown, not having it described in a news report about a bar fight hours later. Passive voice has its place, but most sentences can be reworded to be punchier and show the action better - this is good prose at its most basic, and a basic function of "show, don't tell." I'd argue this happens a lot in even some very popular litrpgs, where action scenes tell you what's happening instead of actually showing you.
The second function is the more complicated, and the fact a story is more interesting if the reader sees things happening instead of simply being told. Again, if a fight breaks out, show the fight. Don't have the MC tell a character they got in a fight and won, but took a few punches.
Why is it complicated? Because showing stuff is slower, and not everything is of equal importance. Sometimes a long fight against mooks is boring. And you don't want to use flashbacks to show character's pasts, or PoV scenes to show what's happened when the MC isn't there. A lot of good traditionally published authors do plenty of telling, often for brevity. Where it tends to matter is when you're not shown important things - if you're only told a villain is bad, but never shown it, that's bad. The evil empire needs to be seen actually doing evil things etcetera.
This rule of brevity also applies to the first function, and relates to my next topic: emotional shorthand.
I don't know what the official name of this actually is, to be honest. I've always called it this because it represents how I use it: characters need to express emotions and nuance in a way easily understood by readers, but without using up a billion words or just straight up telling the reader.
This is why characters smirk, raise eyebrows, grin, smile in various ways, shrug, stare at people long enough that if it happened in real life you'd think they had a stroke, roll their eyes, tap their fingers, bit their lips, and so on and so forth. All of these actions express emotions that readers already understand, or quickly grow to understand. The alternative is for an author to either tell you their emotions ("Nathan was shocked", which breaks "show, don't tell," by the way) or to attempt to have longer, more word intensive ways of showing the same.
Those longer methods can be great. When a character is angry and/or anxious, they can pace and throw their arms around. Maybe hit something. But if they do that a lot, they can also seem crazy. It also adds lots of narration to dialogue, becoming tiresome and breaking up flow. Finally, it's very easy for this stuff to be misconstrued by readers. Describing body language and actions without using simple words like smirk or smile can be confusing - if somebody's eyes tighten, what do you think that means?
It's important to remember that in real life, there's a huge range of subtle body language we can't see in a book and is tiresome and difficult to describe. IRL, you can usually tell if somebody is having a bad day just from how they're talking or their look. You know that somebody is a bit arrogant, or if they're acting like they've won the lottery.
If you read traditionally published genre fiction, I guarantee you'll find characters doing this fairly often, or that the author might have their preferred trick to get around it (e.g. the characters have magical familiars that respond to their emotions). Books with less dialogue are less susceptible, and the same goes for shorter books. And, yes, the general lack of editing in progfantasy, litrpg, and harem does make it a bit worse (and some authors do overuse some words) but this is one of those cases where most of the alternatives tend to be worse (god forbid smirk gets replaced by "smiled arrogantly" and we go back to overused bad adverb land).
In a similar vein, I'll quickly mention the weird aversion some folks have to authors using unusual words. This often feels like subtle (or unsubtle) anti-intellectualism, as if somebody is angry they've been forced to learn a new word. Most tradpub authors have writing tics, which includes words they tend to overuse or that they almost exclusively use. I have an author on my bookshelf whose characters smile or speak "sardonically" a lot, instead of sarcastically. This sometimes happens because an author has a particular tone and there aren't many words that fit it - I have this issue with my characters frequently using dry wit. They're not being sarcastic, and saying "said drily" is the same issue as I literally said above, so I tend to use drawl, as it's the best verb I've found (most other verbs tend to be much meaner, like scoffed).
I dunno. Sometimes someone points out a writing tic I didn't know I had, it's a fair point and I start correcting it (like my overuse of "after all"). Other times, it's a word that gets used a few times per book and they appear personally offended I've used something not in their personal lexicon (like my use of "cotton on" or "cottoned on"), and this is often how it appears when I see it toward other authors in the wild. It's difficult not to feel like these people want generic books written like AI slop, with no distinguishing features between them.
The final thing is going to be a general comment on why I'm distrustful of online complaints, while using action scenes as a good example.
You will find so many complaints about how action scenes should or shouldn't be written, often contradictory. Action scenes should always be plot important and move the character forward, except almost every popular and important Royal Road story is full of filler fights. Authors shouldn't focus on anything except the MC beating up his direct opponents, with no thoughts or even a glance at other characters. Except, where are explanations of attacks and strategies supposed to fit in? And if another character is doing cool stuff, when does that fit in? Never? Does every fight need as many PoV chapters as there are party members? Do the other characters just tell the reader "oh, yeah, I had this super cool fight against the big bad's 2IC and he tried to drop the moon on me and--" and then you're a terrible author for real, instead of just in whiny internet complaints.
I struggle a lot with trying to constantly improve my writing, whether it be at the prose level, broader structural concerns, or just finding what annoys people and is rightly a problem (instead of a deliberate choice by me). As I don't think I'm a super special snowflake whose problems are unique as an author, I suspect many other authors have similar issues - at least those who still care to improve. So they look at online communities to find criticism and general feedback about the genre, and a lot of what is seen is complaining about stuff that is actually fairly popular.
When I receive consistent feedback about something, I try to pay attention. For instance, Nina was flagged as being a bit too bitchy toward Vince in Book 3, and I took that on the chin and tried to make her more supportive, while keeping up her general aggressiveness and need to be the queen bee of the pride. But more general stuff needs to be grounded. My usual method is to look at other popular works or even actual novels. Somebody tells me I have too much dialogue? Guess what, I can check that - turns out it's on par with other books. Somebody says actual books don't do X? I open up Dresden Files or another tradpub book and it's often there.
A real danger of paying too much attention to the vocal minority is that the changes you make can frustrate and annoy the happy, but silent, majority. At the same time, I have no clue what those people think, whereas I do have at least some idea what people here think, so I don't want to completely paralyze myself into doing nothing. Hence my issues I've had where I worry I'm too reactive to what people think lately.
2025, a Year of Amazon Instability
I got lucky this year. The pre-order debacle that affected Mob Sorcery 5 felt like a disaster as it happened, and I fully expected to lose a massive amount of money and readership due to Amazon imploding. Fortunately, somebody at Amazon came in after the weekend and unfucked it, and everything was hunky dory.
This is not what has happened for many others lately as Amazon has been affected by the same mysterious curse that has afflicted tech companies in 2025. It’s almost as if combining layoffs with pushing AI has caused quality to drop, and these companies are doing everything possible to pretend that’s not happening (and largely succeeding, given nVidia’s driver issues still get blamed on the developers – no, that game’s performance didn’t get worse over 2025, your drivers did).
I stay relatively distant from author groups, except when I think something big is brewing or I’m about to release a book. When I’ve peeked into them lately, there’s a lot of worries and panic in general, with a few exceptions (and some of those are people I’ve known to fan the flames in the past to their benefit, so I feel they’re feigning calm for the same reason). It’s not at the levels of “everything is exploding” levels, but I’d say it reflects the state of the world in general, which stuff going wrong, some people saying everything is perfectly normal despite physical proof otherwise, and generally elevated tensions.
Anyway, here’s a brief list of shit going wrong over the year:
Amazon pre-orders are imploding. This is two issues, I think. In September, there appears to have been multiple times when Amazon didn’t send out pre-orders, effectively killing the launch of a book. More recently, since the start of October, pre-orders have been completely fucked for many authors, leaving them in limbo with books not being approved or being posted to Amazon for pre-order for days or weeks. There’s no official notice of the issue, but if you contact Amazon they’ll tell it’s a known issue, but only after you’ve been swallowed by quicksand and can’t get out of it. I’ve heard it can take days or weeks of pestering Amazon support for a fix, as there are so many bots that have no clue how to help you.
Audible in general. Their new royalty model means they’ll pay authors less to supplement the Plus catalog (which is 85% AI narrated books). This is a complicated issue, there’s behind-the-scenes shenanigans, and it feels intractable, so I won’t go into details. Especially because I don’t rely on Audible for much of my income. I feel like 2025 is a time where you need to ration the fucks you give, and it’s down to authors with more skin in the game to handle this one, or continue not saying or doing anything.
The renewed puritan push against adult content in everything. I never made a post or discussed this here, as everything in my life was on fire at the time and I got pushback on Discord over it, but the shit with sex in games went down and there was a push in harem communities over it. This extended more broadly, as the crackdown on adult content tends to come in waves and has been hitting random platforms. I keep my stuff fairly low on the smut side, but you never know when pressure will be applied to Patreon or Amazon to make it worse or change the rules without notice.
Repeated Amazon server outages. So, Amazon (or at least their publishing arm, KDP) has been affected by 3-4 outages (they called one maintenance lmao) in the past 2 months alone, two of which affected midnight releases/pre-orders to my knowledge. They had another earlier in the year, I believe. While cloud services are far less stable than they’d like you to believe, this is far worse than usual. Especially as they usually recover quickly.
Lots of general Amazon instability and slowness with reviews, sales rank not updating, etc. There are also fears about the algorithm changing (it’s always changing), specifically to favor big publishers. Pre-orders seem to be more important than ever to sales rank (they’ve gone back and forth over the years about how pre-orders should affect release day rank, and appear to be making it more important agai), which makes Amazon fucking up pre-orders even worse.
General concerns about the economy, politics, instability etc. There are a lot of recession fears, it’s more likely than for awhile that an author has either lost their job or their partner has lost their job. Not to mention many might be receiving messages from fans and readers in similar situations. It’s a generally depressing time all around.
One thing I’ve definitely noticed is how these issues are bleeding a lot less into reader spheres lately. It’s hard to nail down the reason, although I suspect it’s mostly a symptom of harem and litrpg maturing. Romance is a massive selfpub genre and author issues are usually kept separate from the readers (although the size of that genre, and the fact selfpub is a small slice of it, means authors are less integrated into communities) – at most, an author might mention when something goes wrong for themselves or if they’re making changes as a result (like taking books out of Kindle Unlimited).
I could theorize until the cows come home. Maybe authors have stepped back because they think it makes them seem professional. Maybe they care a lot less. Maybe readers care a lot less, and authors are responding to that. Maybe some authors think talking about their issues is insincerely baiting support. Maybe they think it’ll all blow over. Maybe other reasons entirely.
While I do the occasional update that mentions publishing stuff like this, I’ve definitely noticed a much lower level of caring from readers and fans in general. The supportive comments are nice, but sometimes I’m not trying to elicit them. I’ve been largely unaffected by most of this stuff this year, although I pay attention because it can help with forward planning to know if Amazon is shitting the bed.
When I started the Patreon, I did envisage trying to make the behind-the-scenes content, particularly at the Messenger level, much closer to the actual writing itself, including the publishing side. This reflects a lot of what I’ve seen on Youtube – but at the same time, I’ve also heard Youtubers mention they get increasing levels of hate for talking about Youtube, and the Youtube algorithm now actively downranks videos about itself for the first time basically ever. It feels like a shift, with folks deciding they don’t care how the sausage is made and just want sausage – namely, books and stories.
Increasingly, it feels pointless to talk about the writing and publishing side, because nobody is listening. The main place I actually post about it is on Discord, and I’ve reminded myself lately that I probably shouldn’t even do it there, given it feels like talking to the void when I bring it up. Much like with my decreased commentary, I do wonder if I’ll nix all discussion of the writing and publishing side unless shit goes wrong like the pre-order imploding like with Mob 5.
And for the record, I think a lot of the recent woes on Amazon aren’t a conspiracy to promote major publishing houses or push AI spam. They’re just a side-effect of Amazon firing important staff because they think AI can do everything, and then stuff breaks and the people who can fix it are long gone (and replaced by vibe coders). It’s why trying to use support on basically any website now is useless, because it’s just layers of bots that can’t do anything but regurgitate heavily curated AI-generated results (and they’re curated to avoid the bot doing anything that might cost them money, which prevents the bot from actually helping you when something goes wrong, and they definitely can’t escalate your issue to a human because money).
In short, capitalism is capitalizing, and not very well. Go buy some nVidia shares and pray that market crashes have been permanently erased by AI, too.
Looking Backward, and New Goals
When I went full-time as an author, I had very modest goals. So modest that I don’t even remember many of them. They were simple stuff like “finish a series”, or “write a big fantasy epic that covers an entire world.” Stuff like writing my own cyberpunk novel was more like dream than goal, particularly as I got to do more than just regurgitate old tropes and a vision of the future from the 1980s.
I never planned to become super big (and still haven’t), and spent the first few years worrying something would go wrong and I’d have to abruptly change genres. It meant I tended not to make good plans for my series and was very reactive to launches and other issues, because I was worried about where I might be in 12 months (and the fact that might be much worse than where I was at the time).
One of the biggest things I always wanted to stick with from the beginning is to spend my time writing, not playing businessman, social media manager, or publisher. This is a very controversial take in the self publishing side of being an author, because many seem to prefer the opposite and the vast majority of author groups are (in my experience) entirely focused on the business side of being an author.
You’re often told how evil the algorithm is, and I’ve expressed my own frustrations about its whimsy sometimes. But it does enable selfpublishing (and individual content creation like Youtube) in a way that was impossible before it, as gatekeepers tried to determine what could be successful in advance. While the tech companies put their thumbs on the scale, the algo means I can beaver away at being an author while ignoring all the marketing nonsense and make a very healthy living. Amazon does the heavy lifting so long as I release reasonably often.
Before I was an author, I worked in a few fields. It’s been long enough that I feel I can actually talk about them directly. In short, I worked in the Australian Public Service for a number of years before shifting to private sector management consulting (i.e. the same thing, but I got paid more and people think it’s more respectable because it’s done by companies instead of the government). I worked as a programmer, an economic analyst on major publications, a business analyst, and an IT project lead inside a massive failed government project, before becoming a private business analyst in consulting. If you’ve ever wondered why Neural Wraith depicts the police bureaucracy the way it does, it’s because even though I’ve never been a cop, I know how government works and the people inside it at all levels.
Throughout all of that, I learned what I liked and disliked. I also met a variety of characters, and many of them have inspired characters in my books. Lieu from Neural Wraith is partly inspired from the many charlatans who continuously wheedle their way upward in large organizations. The surprising competency of some powerful figures at the top comes from dealing with (some) top execs and the partners of my consultancy firm, many of whom were brilliant, but often appeared worse due to the nature of their positions.
What I mostly ended up disliking was dealing with the endless BS office work created. Lots of tedium and nonsense. The sort of stuff that makes office jobs appear like bullshit jobs, and often gives the appearance that all the real work is done by a handful of people and the rest of the office sometimes exists to just pad the numbers. There were many times I keenly felt the Pareto principle: 80% of work was done by 20% of people, particularly when the chips were down and shit needed to get done right then. The filler work often got in the way of that.
The other thing I didn’t mind at first, but really grow to dislike was “networking.” I’m a fairly friendly and social guy, particularly at work, and enjoy actually talking with people, particularly over drinks. But so often it feels like a performance where nobody likes each other and is entirely transactional. I still have mates I catch up with and play games with from my days in the public service. I don’t keep up with anyone from my management or consulting days, as the relationships were so transactional. This feeling is why I avoided author groups like the plague and kept to myself, because what was the point of quitting my job only to keep one of the most obnoxious elements of it?
These passive goals haven’t really changed. I do things my way, because I feel that’s the entire point of being self-employed. If I’m taking on the risk of having uncertain income, but not enjoying the perks, then what’s the point?
Over the years, I’ve found my feet as an author and grown satisfied with how things are. Mob blowing up is a surprise, but a welcome one. It also meant I accomplished what I consider my final real goal.
That goal was to finally get a book in the Kindle Top 100. To many, that’s not a huge goal. Tons of harem authors have done it, and repeatedly. But with Mob Sorcery 4, it finally happened. Mob 5 also did it, briefly, after the pre-order issue got unfucked. That’s a big sales goal, the books did amazingly well, and, as far as I’m concerned, I’m extremely successful beyond what I imagined I’d be when I published Heretic Spellblade in 2020 (y’know, outside dumbass dreams).
I could make up new goals, most of which are unlikely to be achieved unless I massively reorient. Some authors are aiming for comic adaptations, or bookstore hardback releases. I’m nowhere near successful enough to deal with those, and have other things to spend my money on than vanity projects like an expensive comic. It’s particularly difficult with harem being harem and not super acceptable.
But in reality, I’m happy with what I have. Mob Sorcery in particular is fun to write, and successful enough that I can write it for a long while, and I have other series I want to finish off and start. Maybe something will give me the nudge to go in a new direction or try something new, but not at the moment, particularly as I think I do enough new and exciting to keep myself satisfied. I’m already writing stuff I thought would be basically impossible when I published Spellblade 1.
With that said, I probably should eventually think up some long-term goals to keep myself motivated and to avoid feeling aimless. It helps to have stars to reach for, even if I believe they should be graspable.
Q&A Time
I’ll answer the questions asked in the earlier Patreon post below. This is positive time, for the most part.
If I read something through Kindle Unlimited, then buy it, how does that help you?
I’ll be honest, I don’t think anyone knows the true answer to this question.
There’s a persistent rumor/voodoo spread by authors that if somebody reads something through KU and buys it, then Amazon will delete the KU reads unless they buy it a month later. I’ve yet to ever see any proof of this from a reliable source. It’s spread a lot less by authors these days.
The author agreements with Amazon require them to pay us for all ebook purchases (actual purchases) except those associated with fraud. So if you buy the book on Amazon, we get paid 70% of the price you bought it at (usually – royalty rates can be funky), and even get a spreadsheet that breaks down all purchases, their prices, and royalty rates).
Kindle Unlimited is purely at Amazon’s discretion, and they constantly remove page reads from bot accounts, and possibly for other reasons. When I was a smaller author, I could predict when KU reads would fall because I saw an uptick in purchases (which I associated with people finishing the book on KU and then buying it). This is why I’ve always been skeptical of the rumor of Amazon removing KU reads. On the other hand, it’s also something I can see Amazon doing to reduce KU payouts.
In short, feel free to read the book through Kindle Unlimited and then buy it. If you really, really want to play it safe, wait a month. Either way, I’ll receive money.
What floofers are your favorite across your series?
This feels like heresy to answer. It’s also difficult to answer, either due to recency bias or the opposite, where I hold up some of the OG floofers.
Like, Mina is still one of my favorite foxes ever, but I don’t even think she’s very popular among Demon’s Throne fans, with Fara being the real winner due to her romance (especially at a time when slow burn meant the MC didn’t instantly fuck the LI when they met, but waited a chapter or two – like, authors would seriously call a series slow burn when they banged three girls in book 1).
I’ve also been writing a lot of Daji, and she’s so much fun to write that it would be super easy to just name her.
It’s easier per series, at least:
Spellblade: Fei barely edges out Ciana here. I suspect I would have said Artemis or Tarako if this was asked closer to Book 8’s release, but I definitely have stronger memories of Fei and Ciana as the recency bias fades.
Demon’s Throne: Mina, because she’s Mina. Adorable, loyal, corrupted, bouncy, earnest, eager.
Neural Wraith: They’re all the same floofer in the Altnet.
Mob Sorcery: This is basically picking a favorite character, as almost everyone is a floofer. So I’ll abstain.
Have you considered writing a series based on the sci-fi TTRPG Fia mentioned in Mob Sorcery 2? Also, is this related to Stellarforged?
No. This was a throwaway line intended to imply scifi TTRPGs were more popular than D&D, partly because magic is real. I have a few of these types of things in relation to popular media. Like when Nina and Vince are discussing popular movies in Mob Sorcery 3 or 4.
It is funny that quite a few people have latched onto this, however.
Would you ever revisit the series “Billions” you released a few test chapters of at some point?
Unlikely. Quite a few aspects of Billions got absorbed into Neural Wraith, and I prefer the way I handled cyberpunk better in NW than where I was going with Billions. This isn’t helped by the fact Billions was less cynical than NW, and I’ve gotten significantly more negative on the behavior of corporations etc.
There are some elements of Billions in Stellarforged, though. Particularly the lottery winner aspect where Ethan needs to take over a big company and has a hot fox manipulating him.
Do you have a favorite main character?
Easily Nick from Neural Wraith. While I get some shit about my MCs being too similar, Nick is the only one that’s close to a self-insert. He’s an office worker, does software stuff, likes fluffy tails (I mean, all my MCs do, but still), is cynical as hell, and does software related stuff.
He’s also interesting to write in a more cerebral way, rather than the classical “I have to get stronger” way that characterizes MCs of more action-packed works. Nick’s mostly challenged by the ethics, morals, and changing landscape of Neo Babylon, particularly as he realizes he can actually accomplish things in his job and make important decisions.
Vince has some interesting elements, particularly as I fleshed him out more in Book 5, but he’s younger and more hot-headed. Nathan’s zealous as hell, but he’s very much a soldier and has the usual problems I have with soldier MCs (namely the glorification of warfare, even if I do try to pick at the costs in Spellblade). Rys is Rys, and interesting, but I had to sand off his rougher and more amoral edges for Amazon which leaves him feeling almost non-villainous compared to a modern CEO.
You’ve said before you wouldn’t write a similar dynamic to Alessia and Vince, where the female LI is combative toward him (particularly over money), due to backlash. Have you changed your mind due to the success of Mob Sorcery?
Honestly, yes. But not just due to Mob Sorcery.
I’ve noticed over the past 2 years, an increasing number of popular harem works are including controversial LIs and themes. While they sometimes get incessantly bitched about, they sell damn well, even if the generic slop certainly does well, too. While boring alphachad MCs still feel par for the course (and a lot of harem MCs tire me still), this is a big shift even from when I published Mob 1 and 2 in late 2023, which is when Alessia got a ton of flak.
In short, I think harem has developed an audience willing to accept more flawed characters and romances.
Mob is full of characters with friction, either with Vince or each other. Sometimes I get complaints that Nina is too combative, but it’s a major part of her persona to assert dominance over the other girls, even if she’s supportive of expanding the pride and likes the other girls. Alessia had a very long burn, and there’s still friction to be sorted out between her and the others.
One of the best parts of the complicated character relationships is that it gives me a lot to work with, particularly as the series gets longer, beyond just adding new girls. In Spellblade, many of the girls finished their character arcs relatively early, and I had to start new ones or find ways to reboot them. With Mob, there’s still plenty to explore with the characters that will allow me to keep the entire pride involved, even as I add new girls like Daji, Salome, Gaby etc.
Also, I enjoy writing combative characters. There’s a reason the starting female cast of Stellarforged is full of women who don’t truly get along with each other. Some people will always dislike my slow pacing, but that’s just how I write.
What keeps you wanting to write? What do you still enjoy about it?
I hinted at this above, but my greatest enjoyment from writing comes from creating these big plots and ideas, then finally bringing them to a conclusion. The delayed gratification from finally reaching a massive scene I envisioned years prior drove me through some of the hardest moments of Spellblade, and it felt amazing to finally put Spellblade 7 out there with its ending (even if it was a little dispiriting when nobody seemed to care lmao).
Ironically, this is like the opposite advice Brandon Sanderson gives, where he says to put all your best stuff in Book 1. But as somebody who had already written a few million words of serial-ish fiction, I’d learned that having at least a vague long-term plan was key to avoid everything going to shit after the first arc (although in Spellblade I came up with a lot of it while writing the 2nd book).
I still love doing this, even if I sometimes have to kill my darling scenes I was pushing toward. The heist in Mob 4 was a huge driving scene for a while. Beyond that, I had a scene post-Mei that got cut, and will need to be reimagined, because it would have made the book another 200 pages and had some rough pacing. Neural Wraith 4 and 5 will contain ideas I’ve had in mind since I wrote the first book. And, eventually, the Demon’s Throne finale will contain reveals I’ve kept to myself since 2017, when I wrote the original version.
As for what I enjoy… To be honest, while there are stressful and rough parts, I enjoy most of the writing process. Maybe I don’t really enjoy writing sex scenes anymore? They’re just not fun to write. Action scenes require a monumental effort, but I’d say they’re kind of like defeating a Soulslike boss – I feel satisfied afterward.
Probably the most frustrating part is everything around writing. The publishing and marketing side is annoying as hell, and as I spend more time getting in-depth with longer series, it only chafes more.
What’s been your favorite series to create?
This is probably a tie between Neural Wraith and Mob Sorcery.
Both series have their stressful elements, but also lots of fun and cool stuff I really enjoy. Excluding any of the publishing elements and release nonsense, the writing experience is great for both.
Neural Wraith allowed me to include lots of tech, geeky shit, and paint my own picture of a dystopian cyberpunk future that wasn’t just a palette-swapped version of someone else’s. It’s a very personal series, particularly Book 1. I also learned a lot about writing mystery (even if I don’t think I was super great at that part) and improved every element of my writing, but especially my structural side. Writing largely self-contained books is satisfying.
Whereas Mob is just fun, even if I did let it grow and become more complicated as I tried to make it more than just a simple “blow stuff up” urban fantasy series. There’s lots of real-world elements included that are fun to research. The characters are some of my favorites, and the action scenes are definitely my best.
Pancakes or waffles?
I’m a pancake man.
Would you consider writing polyamory or mono-romance?
Not now or in the near future. I’ve got plenty on my plate and no particular interest.
Is the portrait of Inari in Mob 5 related to Inari in Spellblade?
No.
Spoilers for mystic fox lore in Spellblade below. Skip to the next question if you haven’t read Spellblade, and have only read Mob Sorcery.
SPOILERS
The mystic foxes in Mob Sorcery are related to the mystic foxes in my other series, and are operating under a similar system. Just without Omria’s intervention or the gems.
However, Inari does play a vaguely similar role to Tarako from Spellblade and Taira from Demon’s Throne (although you’ll only understand Taira if you’re familiar with the deep lore from my pre-novel works, and it will be properly explained eventually).
I forget if it’s mentioned in Mob 5 or if I only said it on Discord, but Inari’s blood is in every fox capable of purification magic (i.e. soulfire). Ally is distantly related to Inari, as while Kiho isn’t a purifier, her mother was. And yes, this means Inari played a similar role to foxes as La Lupa did with wolves, although it’s mentioned at one point she stopped breeding a few centuries ago.
END SPOILERS
What’s your favorite cover, overall and for each series?
This is very hard to pick, in part because my feelings about covers do get caught up in their releases. This is kind of impossible to not happen, given the covers represent the books.
Spellblade: Alice’s Book 4 cover just edges out Tarako’s Book 8 cover. Alice is just gorgeous on the cover, and this is very much a case where it’s hard to disentangle my feelings about the book and the cover.
Demon’s Throne: Definitely the unpublished Morai cover. She’s hot and awesome.
Neural Wraith: While my emotions about the release of NW1 make me really love Uriel’s cover, there are elements of it I don’t like (it was a very involved cover – probably the one I went back and forth with my artist the most, ever, even if it turned out fantastic). Kushiel’s cover is just amazing and captures her perfectly, so I’ll pick her.
Mob Sorcery: Alessia is the clear winner here. Absolutely gorgeous cover. She looks beautiful, hot, elegant, and it captures her character all at the same time. Daji is second, as her cover is just amazing and she looks stunning on it.
Overall: I can’t choose between Alice and Alessia. If I really had to… Probably Alessia, but that’s definitely recency bias (both were my phone background for a while, but Alessia more recently).
What are you doing to grow as an author?
Honestly, I try to challenge myself by writing and including new things. New plot ideas, executing stuff in different ways, different types of villains and their motivations etc.
Mob has a lot of this. The basic idea is very simple, so I add in extra stuff to keep it interesting as a writer. The inclusion of foreign cultural elements and myth spices stuff up, like the mafia and Japanese stuff. The start of Mob 5, where Vince is internally challenge about his place in the world, was something new for me to write. The same goes for big action scenes, like the heist and both of Mob 5’s set piece action scenes.
Returning to Neural Wraith will challenge me a lot as well. I have a lot I want to do, but while it is building up to a finale, I need to contain lots of stuff in a single book and end the mystery properly (while properly building up to a big bang in the final book). I’ll also be tackling more topical stuff as the world has shifted and it’s basically impossible to avoid some of this stuff without gutting the series and being a coward.
In short, I think it requires me to just keep doing new things and never being satisfied merely with writing a new book that merely hits a word count and is therefore done.
What do you read for fun?
My own books. What else would I read?
But honestly, not harem stuff. It’s difficult to read harem without it feeling like market research, and that feels like work. I keep up with Marvin Knight’s sporadic releases, but that’s about it (Bruce releases too fast for me these days).
I (very slowly) read some litrpg and progfantasy stuff. Like, I want to eventually read Book 2 and catch up on Godclads, as I loved Book 1.
But I also read normal books. I do random rereads of my favorite Terry Pratchett books (particularly the ones focused on the City Watch and Ankh-Morpork in general – I’m starting The Truth again, which might be my favorite of his books, with Nightwatch a close second). I really want to try a full read of Malazan, but it’s a lot of effort and difficult to read it and do any writing at the same time my past attempts have failed. I also need to brush up on the Dresden Files again before the next book comes out, although I admittedly don’t enjoy the series as much post Changes and Butcher’s big break.
There appears to be a trend that reviews go up with each new series any given author releases. Do you think it’s more fiscally responsible to write trilogies instead of serials?
The review question is a very complicated one. Especially as the debate about new series vs continuing an established one has been going on for years, and has changed depending on the state of Amazon’s algorithm.
There has been significant “review inflation” that isn’t entirely related to increased readership. I don’t know the precise cause, but author get more reviews for a given number of sales. I remember first seeing the inflation in mid-2021, but I bet it was happening earlier than that.
Also, I’ve noticed that even authors I’d characterize as book farms get high review numbers, when they used to stand out for their very good sales rank but oddly low reviews.
I suspect the shift to making ratings, rather than reviews, easier to give when you finish a book has played a strong role. Although it is always funny to check out a book and see 500 ratings and like 10 reviews.
However, I think the idea of spamming out lots of shorter series vs maintaining a single longer one has more to do with haremlit economics than actual book performance. This is pretty apparent given basically all litrpg and progfantasy series run for ages, and there are lots of haremlit authors who write extremely long series that are still really successful.
For a normal author, starting a new series is like rolling the dice and hoping this one is a hit. A good author will have a fanbase they’ll (probably) carry over no matter what, but many readers might only be interested in a single series. Spamming out trilogies like this is kind of like a slot machine, and is an actual corporate strategy used in areas like gaming (and heavily criticized). Mobile gaming in particular is arguably built on the slot machine strategy. There’s also the whole omnibus thing that Royal Guard does, but that’s a strategy almost as old as Kindle Unlimited (I think I watched a Chris Fox video on it in like 2017).
However, the algo is fickle. There have been times when Amazon really fucks with long-running series, particularly with Amazon’s shifting sands approach to harem. 2020/2021 was really big on new series, but then Amazon changed the algo mid-year, and everything went fucky for a bit.
The other aspect is that it’s a generally good idea for an author to have multiple irons in the fire, and to juggle them. The longer a series gets, and the more frequently it releases back-to-back, the fewer people Amazon has to recommend it. For example, Amazon has fewer new readers to recommend Mob to with the Book 5 release, because it’s recommended the series a ton with the Book 3 and 4 releases. My experience is that having other series between them helps, as Amazon recommends those series more, and sort of keeps everything fresh.
Oh, and from a haremlit perspective, it’s a lot easier to juggle and handle a small harem with just three books. Same with the plot. The growth in harem trilogies took place around the same time as the endless bitching in the community about harems being too big, although I don’t think that’s really connected to financial success.
With that said, I’m far from the most experienced in this, given I release sparingly. The farms and authors who pump out a billion books with co-writers or whatever do what they do, because they know their own sales numbers. At the same time, authors who make insane bank writing a single series forever certainly aren’t doing anything wrong. I could probably just write Mob endlessly and do very well for long enough.
Would you consider doing a fox or dragon MC?
Ehhhh, probably not. Dragons are very overdone, to the point of cliché. With foxes, I think a lot of people don’t like the idea of being the fluffy guy or having the tails. There’s also a relatability aspect, which the human MC helps with. Usually even a dragon MC is basically a human who turns into a dragon for badass moments, and is closer to shifter than a genuine dragon.
Would you do another series in the Spellblade multiverse?
Not for a while. Writing Epic Fantasy was hard, and exhausting in a way that neither Mob Sorcery or Neural Wraith ever were. It’s also hard to plan out stuff that far in advance, as I don’t know what my interests will be, let alone my audience.
One of the big problems with working further in Spellblade is that I kind of tapped it out for the ideas I wanted to do. I’d need to have something specific I wanted to accomplish if I revisited it.
What motivated you to become a writer?
Honestly, no clue. I enjoyed writing even when I was small, although I sucked at it. Becoming an author was one of those “I wish” things. I did always enjoy creating my own worlds and stories, and they became more complicated over time. Ironically, now that I write books professionally, I create far fewer random worlds and stories in my day dreams than I used to. When I sometimes say “this character is very old” it often means I dreamed up the character ages ago and they slowly evolved, before I adapted them into something useful for the novel.
So you could say I made a job out of turning my daydreams into money. I sometimes remind myself of how fortunate this is, when I’m grumpy and stressed.
Are there any specific authors, books, or other works you take inspiration from?
Lots.
TYPE/MOON, who created Tsukihime, the Fate series, Kara no Kyoukai, and the rather atrocious Fate/Grand Order gacha game, are a massive inspiration for my magic systems. They’re a major reason my magic is so sciencey and mages always live in towers. Although I’m a fan of their pre-gacha stuff, specifically (which has become much more accessible due to Steam releases).
Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, which has an influence both of my narrative voice and a couple of my series (Neural Wraith and Mob Sorcery). While I write in third-person limited, the dry commentary that slips in and the fact I try to inject personality into the narration is because I find Dresden to be a great example of how to narrate without being boring. It’s a reminder of how you can break the “show, don’t tell” rule and it’s fine, because it’s interesting.
I’m not sure I can say anything I write has direct inspiration from Terry Pratchett, but he certainly motivated me to write simply because his stuff is amazing and he breaks so many damn rules. If someone ever says you’re a bad author if you do “X”, there are many cases where Sir Pterry has done it (and many cases where he hasn’t). Like, he wrote in third-person omniscient (while often keeping plot events restricted to something similar to third-person limited). Good writing is good writing, and it doesn’t come down to following arbitrary rules people make up, especially if they don’t understand them.
There are lots of other smaller inspirations, too, and many have been forgotten to time (and many are anime related). Arknights has an influence on aspects of Mob Sorcery, but I also like the general matching of cultures in its world to IRL ones (which I used in Spellblade). Girls Frontline inspired the dolls of Neural Wraith, although I made ARMDs their own thing.
Do you have any series ideas other than Stellarforged?
While I often come up with story ideas, Stellarforged is the first one that has really stuck with me and made me interested in writing it. A big part of this is personal, but also because I feel that many stories I’d like to write wouldn’t get traction.
Like, none of the story ideas I included in last year’s Messenger Anniversary update have stuck with me.
I suspect part of this is because I’ve been so heavily focused on Mob Sorcery for the past year, and it’s been like wearing blinders. It doesn’t help that I feel restricted in what ideas I can explore while I have multiple outstanding series.
One idea that did occur to me earlier in the year, and that came back to me while I was writing the big battles in Mob 5, was the idea of a (short) series following an overpowered sorcerer MC. The sorcerer MC would be a pure mage type who uses items, artifacts, fancy spells, fast spellcasting, counters etc to battle armies and multiple opponents, instead of just using a couple of spells, skill spam, or hitting them with a big sword.
Essentially, what if the MC was Elminster. I think I got told writing this was impossible when I brought it up, which sounds silly. Like, I’ve read Forgotten Realms books with powerful mage characters (The Last Mythal series is one). But I have no concept for the series other than that.
Will Nick bed Helena and Hel in Neural Wraith next?
I mean, Hel does a have a cover…
Helena and Kushiel are due. I’ll have to break the one girl per book rule, as Helena, Kushiel, and Ezekiel are on the list of harem Lis, and Hel also has a cover and will play into the finale plot. You’ll have to see how.
Why don’t the Archangels in Neural Wraith have tails in reality? They could be holographic.
That would definitely be going too far, even with the in-world justification for why all dolls are women. They’d form a structural weakness, drain battery, be distracting, and almost certainly only be viewable in augmented reality making them pointless in the story for Nick.
Also, I only thought up the floofer idea during Book 2, I think. The base Archangels are vaguely inspired by UMP9 and UMP45 from Girls Frontline, so animal girl features weren’t included. I can also only imagine how much bitching there would be, given people sometimes whine about the fact I put foxgirls in all my series as is.
- - - - - -
Again, if you have any questions you want to ask me, pop them in a comment. I’m not doing a separate Messenger anniversary post this year, as I didn’t have anything of interest to say that felt worthy of one.
Otherwise, look forward to more books and me finally putting out the Spellblade epilogue and 2nd omnibus shortly. Also, the German-translated edition of Mob Sorcery should come out soon-ish, assuming the translation gets the thumbs up from people who actually read German. Thanks for all your support, particularly through a year with lots of ups and downs (mostly ups for me).
Comments
Runeeternal
I guess I’m joining the conversation a bit late. I’ve burned through all of Mob Sorcery and Neural Wraith plus just now starting Heretic Spellblade and I only found this Genre back in July. I just joined the Patreon honestly to read your anniversary update. It is kinda poetic that one of my absolute favorite authors in this genre if not this medium is also one of the quietest 😅. I say that with respect. Just so used to authors like Virgil or Danny or many others that are everywhere. Discord and Reddit and well everywhere. But just as with Daniel and Warlock or to a lesser extent Bruce, three of the defining authors of the year are some of the most reclusive on social media. But hey, if it works it works. Anyway, thank you for happiness and joy and love you bring to your books and characters. I knocked out all of MS5 in two and half days. I hope we get to see the next step if not the conclusion to Neural Wraith next year. I know you’re not posting any schedules, but I love that series. Chloe is so awesome. Well back the HS. Again, thank you for why you do, I know sales help sell the image, but some time just being told why you do has made a difference helps too. 👍🏻 Keep up the good work and know that you are respected in the community.
Josh Jones
If you liked Godclads, I'd love to recommend Ostensiblemammal's "Path of the Deathless". Title doesn't do the work justice.
