New Year Wishes and plans for 2024 (Patreon)

Happy New Year, my dear patrons!

As I write these lines, 2023 is coming to an end and we're now moving into a brand new year. I hope all of you will get to enjoy a happy moment with your friends and families. Though we might move out around a lot in the current era, it's good to gather with our loved ones once in a while. Cliché as it sounds, there's no place like home.

And well, you're part of my home too. I once again want to thank you all for supporting me in 2023, whether as long-time supporters or newcomers brought there by Blood & Fur and Commerce Emperor. Thank you for supporting my works through their highs and lows.

As usual, I believe the year's end should be a time to reflect on it and make resolutions for the next. I would like to want to share my observations with you and my plans for the future. I really want to step things up over the next year. 

- Retrospective for 2023

Whereas 2022 was a rather mixed year for me, with successes in my professional life overshadowed with personal issues, 2023 has mostly been an improvement in most aspects. I feel much more at peace in my private life, with issues from the last year being sorted out at last; my back problems are mostly gone; the new update schedule let me improve my word productivity and quality (strange as it sounds, I actually wrote more words in 2023 than 2022 while producing fewer chapters) while freeing some time to develop a life outside of, well, my work; and I've signed deals to adapt my works in Webtoon (Apocalypse Tamer) and video games (The Perfect Run) formats. Financially wise, 2023 was also more successful than 2022, which was already my best year yet then.

I actually feel happy enough to go back to writing lighter stuff and comedy. Something difficult for me to imagine a year ago.

Not everything is perfect however. Some background projects like the Djinn Webtoon have faced unforeseen issues (production is ongoing, but heavily delayed); the Patreon is still struggling (it received an upswing when the new stories hit RR and then shrank back) compared to earlier golden years; and while I have a blast writing Blood & Fur so far, I've repeated some of my mistakes with Commerce Emperor: publishing chapters before I could polish them enough, straying a bit too far from the core premise (merchant adventures), a slight burnout on the current arc etc... I have the intuition that I need to redirect that story back to its roots if it is to come out good.

All in all... I feel I've improved, but I'm still not yet doing everything I could. Part of it is lack of time (I promised to find some to write Stars of Sirius, but couldn't), other comes from a lack of foresight.

Another issue I'm encountering is the advent of AI. While at this point AI-written novels are rather... subpar... I am not naïve enough to think this will last forever; things like ChatGPT are already excellent proofreaders or assistants for would-be writers, and I suspect they will lower barriers of entry further. It's only a matter of time before a great number of either AI-boosted or AI-written novels massively compete with those of old school web writers, which will further make it difficult for us to stand out unless we also jump on the AI train. It's partly why I'm trying to diversify and limit risks with side-projects.

All in all, while the year was good and I feel I'm improving again, I believe I can still do more and should anticipate some issues going forward.

- Plans for the year 2024

First of all, I intend to finish what I promised I would do last year but didn't have the time to: put Vainqueur the Dragon on Kindle Unlimited. I am happy to announce that the final Audiobook is finally close to completion and should hit the shelves early next year, so I'll put the whole series on KU around the same time.

The sales numbers for Never Die Twice after being moved to KU solidified my decision to put Vainqueur there. With my unstable Patreon, KU and Audible are steadily becoming my main method to support myself, and sad as it sounds, the timing to stay visible in the LitRPG world is shrinking. I fear that if I don't put the series on KU soon, it'll simply fail to stand out from the crowd of them oversaturating the market. Blood & Fur and Commerce Emperor will also both make their way to KU sometimes in 2024, though it won't be for a few months and I have no definitive date yet.

Otherwise, while updates will continue for Blood & Fur as normal, I am steadily considering taking a short pause from Commerce Emperor after finishing the Archfrost volume in a few months, mostly to stave off burn-out. I feel the story is losing its direction with the Walbourg arc and needs to refocus on its core premise, namely, merching all over the place; or maybe make it more of an anthology series with other entries focusing on different heroes. Nothing definitive yet, but I'll take the decision around the conclusion of the Archfrost arc around February/March.

I might consider using this time to either advance further on Blood & Fur, or write a shorter book; I'm leaning towards either finally writing an entry of Stars of Sirius or a comedy work. Writing humor is like an itch that keeps coming back and grows stronger the more I ignore it.

Otherwise, I intend to use some time this year to continue supervising The Perfect Run video game project; I'll keep you updated on this, but it should change a lot of things going forward.

In any case, I hope you've enjoyed 2023 as much as I did. This year was quite experimental for me, and while not everything unfolded as I thought it would, what matters is learning from everything and to keep moving forward.

In any case, I wish you all a Happy New Year, and I hope that 2024 will bring you great joy.

My warmest regards,

Voidy.