Alrighty, I have very little to say about the plot this ti around but so about the business side of things, so you might want to stick around for that.
The goal of this arc was to have Apexus and group integrate with general adventurer society and in that, I believe I have succeeded. First arc had plenty of that and then the arcs after were all about how adventurers regularly operate on a long Quest. We also had the friendly rivalry with the Atlas Party, which I also utilized to show what makes the party of Apexus different from most adventurers – and why most adventurers get to a certain level of comfort and then stop.
I think all of this was done about as competently as it could have for what kind of story I am aiming to tell with Drip-Fed, being of a higher pace than my usual works. In this, the advice of my primary feedbacker, Lim, has been indispensable and I would be amiss not to honour him for that here.
Now, onto the bad news.
Drip-Fed is a bad business venture. This story gets pretty decent views, all things considered, but its actual following is very small. To put it bluntly: Drip-Fed doesn’t put food on my table.
I polled people on it last year and of the 44 Patrons that responded, only 15 active read Drip-Fed and of those 15 only 2 considered Drip-Fed their favourite. 123 free readers responded, of which 26 said they read Drip-Fed actively.
Importantly, that number was tied with Welldark for the Patreon and Welldark was 15 higher (41 vs 26) for Drip-Fed on the active reading front. The numbers look even worse when it cos to favourite.
Just about nobody pays because of Drip-Fed, it is my least popular work judged by people that actually read it (putting aside the Live Stories, which I do not do for the money), and yet it has my second priority in works, getting 1-2 workdays every week.
To put it in other words, I am treading water 2/7ths of the week and that’s just not worthwhile. Gar is my obvious main project and Welldark has enough broad appeal that more regular releases are so much more likely to get an increase in my earnings. I am simply not financially stable enough to spend this much ti each week on a project that does not pay out.
Honestly, between the commissions I have made for this work (Characters and cover), Drip-Fed has lost money, not even considering ti investnt.
I have held out hope for a while that Drip-Fed might get a resurgence of interest through the steadiness of the releases, but that’s been obvious wishful thinking. I also do not think that putting more work into this will change anything, as the story has been running for too long that it will suddenly get discovered.
Simultaneously to all of this, I do not want to be the kind of person that leaves works unfinished. I am quite invested into this journey, but I am more invested in the overall sustainability of writing at all. There are therefore 3 viable paths that I will poll everyone on.
I will continue to 1000 word chapters. This was the way the first season of this story was structured, so you will know this already. This will drastically lower the amount of ti I need to keep the 1 chapter a week up and it will also greatly accelerate the pacing. I will move towards the planned ending at this rate. The story will probably continue for a few more years, but I can do 1000 words a weekend pretty easy. The story is discontinued after I throw you a plot summary of everything that I have planned for It. I’ll be in the comnts to answer anything that remains uncertain after. The story is discontinued imdiately, for to either continue it or reboot it if I ever have the wiggle room. I will flat out tell you that this is highly unlikely.
As for what would benefit from the discontinuing from Drip-Fed, it would be Welldark, primarily, and my Live story, secondarily. I am sure that will influence at least so people on this.
This story will be on hiatus until the poll concludes (A week after this Author’s Note hits the public).
I’ll drop another Author’s Note at that ti with the decision reached.
Have a nice day,
Funatic
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