Is This Goodbye?

So, is this goodbye?

Short answer . . . no. “Damn you clickbait!”

But in a way . . . yes. “Damn you confusing author!”

Fly away, little birdie. Fly, fly away.

A Long & Exhausting History

I have three CliftonStrengths that have put me into a burnout spiral: Responsibility, Restorative, and Strategic. For the last three years, I’ve been in “fix-it” mode. And everything I’ve done to fix it has, more or less, failed.

What am I talking about?

When I published the first Arachnomancer (Wrong Divinity), it did surprisingly well. To live up to the praise, I invested twice as much time to write a better and longer book. Arachnomancer 2 (Stray Shadow) launched 9/16/2021.

I expected the launch to go—more or less—the same as the first book but better. I mean, I have two books now, so an overly simplistic estimation would suggest twice the book sales.

This didn’t happen.

In fact, the two books together did worse than the original launch.

We are told that bad books don’t sell and a bad read-through rate means you have a bad book. The read-through rate for Arachnomancer was around 50%. 70% is ideal for Kindle Unlimited.

As someone with a strong sense of responsibility and a deep desire to fix things, I immediately returned to the first book and fixed all the things I deemed as problems. And so, Arachnomancer 2.0 was born, and with it, an in-depth article about the changes.

Unfortunately, by this time, the books were old.

Amazon doesn’t like old.

My strategic (CliftonStrengths) brain decided to write a new book in the Arachnomancer world. Many emails had professed a love for Sarah, our vampire in heaven. It was perfect. I wrote I’m a Fudging Vampire! Does That Mean I Sparkle? (cover art article).

The goal was to attract new readers to the Arachnomancer series, but when the book launched, it did far worse than Arachnomancer 2. It did so bad, in fact, I unpublished it. Many authors came to my aid, offering suggestions. After a month fixing the title, blurb, and cover, I published the book as Bookworm to Badass (cover art article), a phrase taken from the original blurb.

The relaunch did much better but worse than Arachnomancer 2. Still, it did what I wanted, more or less. Arachnomancer saw a spike in new sales.

During all of this, my strategic brain convinced itself that a free novella would entice Arachnomancer readers to sign up to my newsletter. Of course, and as always, I needed to go the extra mile. The novella wasn’t just a novella, it was the start of a monthly novella series.

Let me introduce Dungeon Runner.

This story originated as a newsletter magnet to the unreleased series Eternal Fantasy Online. It seemed perfect for the job, a GameLit story that would introduce readers to my other world.

A win-win!

Or it would have been if it worked. It turns out that upselling a completely different story is a hard sell, even if it’s free. If it was related to Arachnomancer, it’d probably help. I realized this, and (donning my Restorative strength), fixed it by publishing the story to Royal Road, then releasing it to all stores for free.

I gave away about 10k copies.

Pause.

Why does all of this matter?

I’m trying to illustrate a pattern, a spiral if you will. You can see me identifying problems and trying to solve them, which introduces new problems to solve. Round and round I go.

Unpause.

When I finished Bookworm to Badass, I had two obligations: Arachnomancer and, now, Dungeon Runner. I decided to complete the easier project first, which was Dungeon Runner. In my mind, all I needed to do was release two more novellas and call it done.

However—there’s always a however; we’re in the spiral!—the last novella I gave away didn’t get any traction. This was a problem in need of solving. Everyone had told me that novellas didn’t do well. They don’t have as large of a readership as novels do.

As such, I combined all six novellas into a novel. Having just released a standalone that didn’t do very well, and knowing that the GameLit/LitRPG audience prefers series, I decided to release two more books instead of two more novellas. 300k words (1,200 pages) later, I was done.

One of my biggest problems has been a slow release cycle. With Dungeon Runner, I completed all three novels before publishing the first. I remember being quite excited, feeling like I was doing everything correct. I was about to release the first in a series and rapid release them (once per month) with audiobooks already done. Check checkity check! This would, no doubt, be my best launch ever, having learned from countless mistakes.

Utter failure.

This one hurt. This one made me question whether I should be writing at all. I love this story. Every time I read a random page, I love it. So what the hell was the problem? Are my tastes in fiction that bad?

I was convinced the reason it didn’t do well was because of external factors outside of my control. Glitches. It took a year before I decided to “fix” it. You can read my announcement back in August, which details the problems I believe prevented the series’ success.

Switchy!

Let’s go back to Arachnomancer.

While Dungeon Runner was being published, I worked on Arachnomancer 3. Except, by this time, it had been something like 2.5 years since the last release.

Let me tell you something, when people are waiting on you, you feel it. Have you had that nightmare where you need to do something but you keep getting delayed by the stupidest things, like tying your shoes? I need to save someone! But first, I need to figure out how to tie my shoes . . .

Why can’t I remember how to tie my shoes!

That became my life.

In a moment of peace, a jolt of awareness would remind me of how long it had been since I last published an Arachnomancer book. I felt guilty and lazy, even if I was working most hours of the day.

When I finally finished the book, I had to wait for the audiobook to be done. And since it had been so long, I decided to build my most ambitious website. My strategic brain said, “If you wow them, they’ll tell others.” I went to work.

This site has character profiles, art, music, nearly 600 skills, recaps (because . . . 2.5 years), and bonus stories, all in a pretty package. I agonized over every pixel, every animation, every color. The site was built to do so much more, but I ran out of time. I’m always running out of time. . . .

I wanted to make Arachnomancer a big brand. You look at these other brands that have stayed alive for decades, and that was what I wanted. The website was but a glimpse into the future of my plans.

There’s even a music video for the adorable Evelyn.

Arachnomancer launched. The first five months of sales are about 13% of what Arachnomancer 1 did during the same period of time. But the third book is longer, so it makes more money per read. Further, I’ve paid over a thousand in ads compared to no ad spend for the first book.

As of this writing, Arachnomancer 3 has 56 ratings. They are good ratings. Readers like the book, and that’s great. But compared to over a thousand ratings for the first book, it’s clear that things aren’t going well.

Switchy!

After Arachnomancer, I randomly discovered that my audiobook publisher was going to publish a box set of the Dungeon Runner books. I found this upsetting because they didn’t tell me, and I didn’t want to be a “box-set” author.

Wow, such snob. I’ve always respected Nintendo for how they maintain their prices and value. That is what I want for my brand. But simply saying you want it isn’t enough. You’ve got to earn it, so I decided to face my demons and “fix” Dungeon Runner.

The fix was a complete relaunch, which would require new titles, new covers, and updates to the content.

Introducing Dungeon Exploiters.

By this point, I’ve taken all the wrong paths. But I’ve had victories, too. I started advertising, for instance, which multiplied my profit by 3x and my revenue by 7x. I was beyond confident that I could save this series.

I built a website for it, created a soundtrack, beguiled 400 ARC readers, and recruited 28 authors for shoutouts. The goal was to hit 100 ratings as fast as possible, which would give the book social proof and help my ads.

As of this writing—the fourth day of launch—Dungeon Exploiters has 7 ratings and has made $45 in revenue (-$25 in profit, due to ad spend).

. . . .

Other than writing the above book of a blog post, I don’t know how to convey just how utterly burned out I am. Fix-it mode is exhausting.

Worse is the obligation to continue. That’s where my Responsibility strength rears its ugly head. It demands that I keep working, keep fixing problems, keep appeasing the invisible crowd.

But enough is enough.

I quit.

What Am I Doing

Okay, I’m not quitting. “Damn you clickbait!” Well, not entirely. “Damn you confusing author!” I’m quitting the unhealthy spiral of doom and demoting myself to a hobbyist writer.

What does that actually mean?

It means no more obligations and no more fixing. It means writing for the joy of it. And—this truly tears me up—it means not finishing Arachnomancer.

As much as I would love to see the series continue, the sales do not support the time investment. That, and it’s beyond demotivating to work so hard at something you know will only reach a fraction of your readers.

In other news, Dungeon Exploiters has been upgraded to a box set. I guess I am a box-set author, after all. The decision to do this largely came down to having absolutely no more energy to design the covers and typography and push something that’s just not going to interest readers.

Wow, what a sales pitch! If you’re now interested, click here.

What’s Next?

This is the happy part!

When I decided to have my mid-life crisis, I started throwing away lots of my index cards full of random notes. On one of these cards was a quote I don’t remember writing.

Truth. I still get pangs of sadness for Arachnomancer. It’s my baby. I hope that, one day, I’ll return to it, reinvigorated with the desire to see it completed, even if only a few people will read it.

But I find myself at the start of something exciting. First, I’ll be writing for two hours every morning on some hilarious stories. They will be published when they are done. No obligations. No deadlines. Second, and what I’m most excited about, I’m returning to game development.

Becca Syme—someone who helps authors use their CliftonStrengths to achieve their publishing goals—made a post the other day about alignment. We’re all different with different needs. It’s important to understand yourself so you work in ways best suited for you.

My number one strength is Learner. I love learning new things, especially new skills. As a writer, I often feel limited because I want to do all the cool things, not just write. And guess what requires a lot of unique skills. Game development.

I originally stopped developing games because I ran out of money after college. I also felt like games were temporary creations, things we work hard at and are only enjoyed for a few years before bit rot claims them.

But books, they last forever! You write a book, and people will read it, century after century. Uh, right. I highly doubt most of the 2-4 million books published every year will even have a reader next year, let alone in the next century.

Over the last four years of writing, I’ve realized that what we create is far more for people living in the present than it is for people in the future. We don’t know what the future holds. We can only excitedly pursue the now.

And that’s what I want to do. I’ve had a crazy cool tower defense game in mind for over a decade. I’m going to make it¹! Woot!

¹Maybe. I’m going to dive in, have a lot of fun, and see where it takes me. :)

Ending Thoughts

Life is not without pain. In a perfect world, Arachnomancer would have lots of excited readers, which would energize me to continue. But even unfinished, I know it has made thousands of people laugh, brightening their days.

I’m not ending my pursuit to spread humor. We all deserve to laugh, no matter how hard life gets. I hope you stick around to see the stories and games I create.

As always, thanks for reading. :)