Hey, everyone!
I would like to clear the air on why I slowed down to one release a week. I know there was a time when I was releasing a devil’s pact chapter every 3 days. And they were not well edited. Thanks to Master Ken, I learned a lot of about grammar and I improved my self-editing. Adding Master Ken added more days to the editing process. Then in March I decided it was time to publish my first smut on Amazon: Roleplay Gone Wrong.
It did not sell well. My expectations were unrealistic.
Then I released The Girl at the Bar and Naughty Wife’s Surprise.
The response was not great. I ran a contest to give away two free copies of Naughty Wife’s Surprise on this blog. Five people entered. Of the two winners, one never even claimed his free copy. I really got depressed. That was May 18. I wrote this poem on May 25.
driving my bus
head full of darkness
i cannot escape the Plague
of words Afflicting my mind
all I can do is drive
while my soul is Needled
by acrimonious doubt
and crushed
by bitter self-recrimination
would the world even miss me
if i was gone
or would it turn on
uncaring, unremembering
unfeeling
I share this poem not to try and make anyone feel guilty for not buying my works. What I was selling wasn’t worth it to you guys. That’s how publishing goes. If people don’t think my product is worth buying, it’s all on me. I just want to share what I was going through because it’s therapeutic. A few weeks ago, I finally told someone how depressed I was and I really felt a lot better afterward.
If you noticed, I was promoting my new releases on this site up until that Naughty Wife’s contest, but not after that. It became obvious to me that my fans of my Devil’s Pact were not fans of what I was publishing. And that’s okay. I was publishing far more vanilla material than the Devil’s Pact.
All I had was the Devil’s Pact keeping my spirits up and I worked hard to get it all released to you guys. Here, at least, I had fans that appreciated my writing. I had just decided to say fuck it with my published works and write something more like the Devil’s Pact. If my work wasn’t going to sell, at least I would write what I liked instead of trying to be more mainstream. That’s how My Fallen Angel, a supernatural erotica thriller, was born. Sex, demons, angels, and fast-paced action.
While the last few chapters of the Devil’s Pact were being published in late June, things began to change. I had released more published works, and some of them starting to sell. I went from having one sale a week to one sale a day. So more of my effort went into my published works. I decided I would continue to release the Devil’s Pact as fast as I could, but after that I would need to slow down to keep building the momentum of my published works. During July, after the Devil’s Pact was completed, I went from a publishing once a month, to a once a week, and now I published every two days. That’s 15k words I’m writing, editing, and publishing every work. On top of that I spent September rewriting and editing the first novella of My Fallen Angel. And on top of that, I’m writing a non-erotic Fantasy novel.
I’m exhausted. I have been cutting back my sleep to have more time to write thanks to my day job. And it’s really hitting me. I’m committed to releasing one free story a week. A Battered Lamp chapter is 9 to 11k words that I have to write and edit on top of all my other work. Devil Pact Side-Stories range from 3 to 6k words. I also have to make covers for my published works. I have to promote them on social media, put together the ebooks, build my brand.
But the light is at the end of the tunnel. This month I have made 3/4 of my day job’s pay. I’ve turned in my notice. Due to royalties from Amazon being paid two months after the end of the month, my last day is October 31st. This will let me sleep. More importantly, I hope to release more free material because I really enjoy sharing the Devil’s Pact Universe and the Battered Lamp with you guys. Thank you for the support you given me for these works. 🙂
My Fallen Angel will be released next week at $2.99. That’s 42k words, or a Harry Potter novel (one of the early ones). It will be the only published work I’ll promote on this site. It is right in line with the Devil’s Pact and the Battered Lamp with a mix of sex and story. I hope you would support me, but don’t feel obligated to.
Take care,
J.
