Info post on publishing / Amazon (Patreon)

Hello everyone

Sorry, not another chapter :P.

Announcement in regards to the publishing of Azarinth Healer on Amazon.

Most of you who read this won't be affected by this at all or won't care but it was an important topic to myself and I do want to keep you in the loop as always.

I was initially very resistant to consider a publisher for Azarinth Healer. Both due to the business communication and additional work on my side, but more so due to the start of the story.

As many of you know, I didn't have a lot of writing experience prior to Azarinth. The beginning of the story is incredibly weak in a lot of aspects, mostly on a technical level. I understand a lot of that now but always considered the amount of effort required to go back and fix things up, as not worth it. A damn near rewrite would be necessary and I wanted to focus on new content or new stories instead.

Most publishers would likely look at the numbers and popularity of the story, without really understanding any of that. So when I finally considered my options again, I wanted to make sure that my publisher and editor understood what the hell they would be working with.

In the end I chose Portal Books based on my now editor and friend Brook, who has put in an absolutely insane amount of work to fix up the first chunk of Azarinth Healer.

When I first read through some of the edits (pages covered in red) and suggestions, I quickly started to realize that not just the technical aspects could be fixed, but that the writing itself could be massively improved with our collaboration.

I've gone back and changed up a lot of the plot and character issues I thought were glaring and the more we're working on book one (chapters 1-74), the more I just realize how fucking ridiculously cringe many of the scenes really were. Often somewhat small tweaks could fix things but with other parts we had to essentially rewrite entire characters.

Now to the actual point of this announcement. The story will be put on Amazon and will be enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program. Many of you will not give a shit or will not know what that means. So I'll summarize - KU means a significant chunk more money for nearly everyone that is involved in the project.

What it also means is exclusivity. While a book is enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program, it cannot be available anywhere else. Which means the original chapters which made up book 1 (and subsequently later books) will have to be taken down from Royalraod (and patreon/scribblehub) while the books are enrolled in KU.

It's a lucrative model for Amazon as they have a library of books that others don't have. That's not the point though. Any author can put their things onto KU, I don't care. I even encourage it if the author wants to turn writing into a career. That is how the market works at the moment, and where people have the highest chance of financial success.

But my situation is a little different. At the moment I already make more than enough to live off of my writing. A fact that puts me in a position of privilege. A position where I can choose not to take the money option in favor of other things.

The main consideration here is Royalroad. The website where I assume most of you have found Azarinth Healer. For me it's the website that not only had me read through entire nights of dope ass stories, but the site that allowed me to become a full time writer. Well, the site, my writing, the readers, and patreon as well of course, and mainly those who support me on there. But the fact remains that without Royalroad, I wouldn't have been able to do this. Writing would've stayed a hobby, or maybe I'd have made a website at some point or I would've posted on some other site.

But as it is, Royalroad played a massive part in why I can write as a full time job. And that should make it clear why ripping the story away from the site, chunk by chunk as books get released, in favor of essentially more reach and money feels wrong to me.

I talked to various people, mostly other writers, about their experiences and options with publishing, Amazon, and KU. And I was torn on what to do. As Azarinth grew larger, I was pretty sure I wouldn't go the KU route. There are other options. Non exclusive ones, like the one Nobody123 (Mother of Learning) or Mecanimus (Journey of Black and Red) chose.

I spent a long period of time considering all of this and talking to other writers. KU still made sense on a lot of fronts based on the editing process I've gone through and the potentially higher passive income with future books, but there were problems with it that I felt I had to address.

- Royalroad, which was previously not part of the contract at all will be added as a royalty benefactor of Azarinth Healer's Amazon release. This means that for every bit of money this project makes, in KU, Kindle, Audio, Royalroad will receive a cut. This is NOT a statement, it's not an expectation of other authors, nor a dig at the business decisions of anyone. I just personally feel that for myself, this is required to justify a launch on KU.

The portions of the story that will be removed from Royalroad as books come out, will continue to benefit the site passively. All current Royalroad readers will continue to receive new chapters until the story ends.

- Editing through book one... there were many sections that are just straight up crap. From a technical perspective, or just because of plot, references, and other issues. Worst I feel are a few scenes and characters with topics related to sexual violence and sexism. All of that stuff can go and I don't want to subject any possible new readers to the original version if a better one is out. I think it would be for the best to have one published definitive edition of the story, hopefully without any of those issues remaining.

- The last issue with going KU is that free readers on Royalroad will lose access to more and more of the story, starting at chapters 1-74 (excluding a bit at the start that I can leave up I believe), similar to what you've seen many other stories go through in the past year or so.

However if you're reading this right when I post it, and you've read past chapter 74, nothing really changes for you. Except possibly the availability of a heavily edited and partially rewritten version of book 1 on Amazon and an Audiobook soon(tm).

I'd imagine most of the people who've been using Royalroad for a while, have checked out Azarinth by now. And new ones would likely come from Amazon, having already read the first book.

- Additionally, I felt less conflicted with the KU decision because of the announced ending to the story. Of course I still don't know how long it will take to finish it, but we'll get there :).

All of that left me with little reason not to go with KU.

I know that I have told some of you that I will not be going exclusive with Azarinth Healer. I hope that the explanations and solutions I've detailed here sufficiently clarify my decision, but do feel free to dm me for a chat.

Cheers,

Another one of those word suppliers

(I'll cross post this to RR with a chapter release this week)