Chương 188: [Announcement] New Web Novel Series & Semi-Hiatus
Hey everyone, this is Shiro.
Before getting into any long-winded details that most of you won't be interested in hearing, let me officially update you about the current state of WFS, where it will be going from here on out, what else you can be looking forward to and what you can already read RIGHT NOW, if you'd like.
• First things first: Although it hurts my heart way too much, I have to officially put WFS on a Semi-Hiatus. What do I mean by this? It means that I cannot guarantee regular chapter updates (as should be plainly obvious from my almost non-existent chapter upload schedule), but will try to post one whenever life allows me the time and mental capacity to do so. Rest assured, the quality of my writing will not suffer in the least - considering that I'm still writing stories other than WFS, it'll only improve instead!
• Secondly: I've started posting an entirely new web novel series approximately two days ago. It's name is 'The Heavenly Empress' Assassin'/THEA and I'm certain that if you enjoy my writing or have made it this far into WFS despite disliking it, you'll absolutely love THEA! I'm posting 5 chapters/week at the minimum (although they are only half of the length of a regular WFS chapter), so you'll have plenty to read :)
--> https://www.webnovel.com/book/31568113908015005
(Just search for 'The Heavenly Empress' Assassin'.)
• Thirdly: Early last year, I published the first book of my novel series 'Reincarnation Cycle's Unfortunate Bug'/RCUB. Once again - if you've come this far, then I'm convinced you will NOT regret reading/purchasing it.
--> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYHGRR8M/
(In your country's Amazon store, search for 'Reincarnation Cycle's Unfortunate Bug' or the ID 'B0CYHGRR8M'.)
That's all the important information out of the way. If you're not interested in the reasons for all of this (which admittedly are profoundly boring), then you don't need to force yourself to continue reading. I hope you have a wonderful day, and I'll see you when- and wherever you'll run across my writing again! Whether that be here on WFS, on THEA, or even in the reviews of my novel series on Amazon :)
Stay safe out there! o/
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Now that everyone who doesn't enjoy a good rambling session has left, the rest of us can sit back and have a casual, lengthy chat, right?
So, how've you all been? I hope it's been going great, or at least not too horribly.
I'd say that for me myself, I'd fall into that 'not too horribly'-category. But maybe I'm being too optimistic about it all ^^'
Shortly after my last WFS chapter was posted, I was confronted with the reality of my current monetary situation, which I had tried my best to ignore before that point. To sum it up: It's looking very bad. To the point where I cannot even afford to commission my novel series' 2nd volume's cover...
I did switch into trying to be a full-time author at the beginning of 2024, focusing my full effort and energy on it. Upon the release of the first volume of my novel series in March, I was initially hopeful that I would be able to survive off of writing. But that didn't happen. Not because my novel was ill-received, or because it was bad. No, instead it was because almost nobody ever saw it or got to know that it exists in the first place.
Where I had failed utterly and devastatingly was in the way of advertisement and promotion. I was too naïve, expecting that I could just share news about having released the novel, alongside a synopsis, on forums and communities where the people would definitely be very interested in it. Yet, all of them explicitly forbid every single type of self-promotion or advertisement. So... what I had banked on kick-starting it all was a dead end. I posted about it everywhere else that I could, but as those places barely even had any people (and in the case of Twitter/X had 90+% bots), I only got a few handful of sales out of it - which I am very grateful for, don't misunderstand!
With no other avenue left, I chose to use Amazon to advertise, intent on enduring the pain of paying quite hefty amounts of money to let my novel be seen by others. I followed every guideline, used all of their recommended settings that would cast the widest possible net, and set the daily budget to 12 bucks. It should have started to show my novel to potential buyers (even those who simply searched for the term 'book'), yet I only ever got a few handfuls of impression per day. As you have to pay Amazon for every time a user clicks on your ad, not how often it is displayed, I rarely ever had to pay money. To spend the 12 bucks per day, around 20-25 thousand impressions should usually happen, if not far more. But I only got dozens. So upon contacting customer service, all I got back was that it 'should work' and that they don't know why it doesn't either. Wow, thanks. Very helpful.
That part of my rambling aside, needless to say, even paid ads weren't working, because practically nobody ever had my novel shown to them. It was extremely frustrating to see, as I could easily accept it if people simply didn't like it, or thought it was bad. But to never have any statistically relevant number of people see it? That truly annoyed me. I spent months on trying to make it all work out somehow, only to realize that there was absolutely nothing that I could do - so I had to change my approach.
Like every one of us, I also need to earn money to survive, plain and simple. I hate it, you hate it, we all hate it - yet we cannot escape this reality. My monetary situation has always been horrendous (I mean, my PC is now 12 years old. I use it for work, and cannot afford a new one...), and my ignorant hope of being able to earn at least enough to pay for my monthly minimum-standard insurance payments (that everyone living here has to make, we cannot NOT be insured) via that first properly published novel tanked it even further.
It was at that time that I posted the last two chapters here on WFS. Shortly after doing so, as stated above, my monetary situation was beginning to weigh on me too heavily, to the point that I couldn't escape it any longer. So I chose my current course of action.
I would pour all of my energy and passion into a new web novel series which I could properly monetize. WFS was a passion project - always has been, always will be - which is why I had it start out as somewhat of a fanfic. Which also meant that I absolutely could not sell it at all, or I'd be toast. Meanwhile, my new web novel series, The Heavenly Empress' Assassin, is entirely original. I can do anything I want with it, with no legal hurdles in the way of earning my right to barely survive in this bleak reality alongside you all.
To be honest, the underlying premise of THEA has been at the back of my mind for quite some time. There are always plenty of stories swimming around in there, hoping to either partially surface in my current writing projects, or to become their own ones in the future. THEA was - other than RCUB - the greatest amongst them. I have since further refined it and am very confident in its quality and the delight it will bring to the vast majority of its readers.
Like I said before, if you do enjoy my writing (I don't mean my rambling here, that's different xD), then please do check it out! I just know you'll love it!
It's a bit shameless, but I could really use your support over there. Even if you do not intend to read it, if you could share it with others nonetheless, that would MASSIVELY help me out! If you'd like to check it out yourself, please interact with it! Leave comments, reviews and ratings, as well as your power stones.
Why power stones, you ask? Well, that's because depending on the week's ranking, if we make it high enough, there could be up to an additional 5 chapters to read the week after! You heard that right. It's 5 - 10 chapters per week. They may 'only' be ~2,000 words long each, but that's still between 1/6 to 1/3 of an entire book that you'll get to enjoy every single week!
If you do have some income to spare and want to support me monetarily, then please do check out my Patreon! There's nothing special there, other than the fact that you'll get advance chapters for THEA (although the highest tiers there do not have all of their advance chapters yet - give me some time. I'm already pumping them out like mad! xD), but every single cent does meaningfully help me out and reduce the burden on my shoulders.
--> https://www.patreon.com/sh1ro
Thank you, truly. I hope to see you all - or at least some of you - soon! Sorry for having been silent for so long. I've yet again been overwhelmed by reality, and I do not handle that well at all (as you all undoubtedly know by now). I'm glad that I didn't return to a witch hunt, you're all awesome~
Once again, please stay safe out there - and have a beautiful, wonderful, absolutely fantastic rest of your day! o/
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