Ebook plans for 2019

After all the recent negativity over Patreon being a bunch of Orwellian cunts, here's me trying to be positive with plans for 2019.

2018 (and 2017) were a little weird.  In terms of word count I'm still producing a decent amount of content.  In total word count, "Escape Volumpula, the Pink Jelly" was about the same size as a large novella and "Escape the Arachne" wasn't much shorter.  The main problem with them is they're not something I can easily monetise on Amazon.  Patreon was a good fit... until they decided to shit the bed.  "Night of the Nude Succubus Orgy" was also very lengthy.  That I think could be expanded into a full novel.

The instability at Patreon has forced me to reassess priorities. Ebook royalties are a reliable portion of my income. It's been a while (2 years) since I've put any out and I want to rectify that in 2019.  This doesn't mean I'll be abandoning the CYOAs.  Given how chaotic my writing process is, there will no doubt be times when I want to tinker with game mechanics and programming rather than working on whatever ebook I'm supposed to be working on!

Here are some candidates to get done in 2019.  I'll probably expand them out into full posts later to discuss in more detail.

A new A Succubus for collection
While I haven't been as active on Literotica as I would like, I do now seem to have accumulated close to enough material for a new collection.  I don't have my stockpile of stories to use as collection (or even Patreon) exclusives.  About 4 or 5 brand new ones should be enough to finish a collection.

Succubus Summoning 301
This is probably the thing I need most to stabilise my royalty income.  While I am terrified of fucking it up, I think I might just sit down and let the story go where it wants to go rather than obsessing about not wanting to let people down.  (Please don't kill him, Rosa and co.  I have bills to pay!)

These two are my highest priority.  The collection because it's easy.  Succubus Summoning 301 because it's long overdue.

Tales from H-space
I've been trying to figure out what to do with the bestiary shorts for a while.  I think they could make a nice themed short story collection, possibly a regular ongoing series.  It would require rewriting and expanding the better ones into "proper" short stories as I don't think they are high enough quality in their current state (and I never really felt I got the accompanying "monster manual" file entries right).

This could be an easy win.  Or the rewrite process could be nightmarish.  The concept as a slightly more grimdark version of the Monster Girl Encyclopaedia was always a good one.

Sandwiched by
I've given up trying to chase my tail on hitting a regular monthly schedule with these novellas.  I want to relaunch them with new covers.  I think the best way to do that is to stealthily write them all in advance, then release them on a monthly basis over a year.  Another stealth project I'll keep quiet on until the whole thing is done and ready to release.

Okasare Kenny
Similar to Sandwiched by.  This is perfect as a novella serial released monthly over a year.  I already know I can't chase my tail in terms of deadlines, so the best thing would be to write it all out in advance.

Both have been screwed up by me in the past through a twitchy desire to rush something—anything—out.  I want to get away from that mentality and just focus on getting the proper groundwork done to be able to release them as I originally intended.

Then some speculative projects.  I'm not going to force myself to work on set things given that it made a mess of my productivity last year.  These will jump up and down my priority queue depending on how burning hot the desire to work on them is.

Night of the Nude Succubus Orgy
I think the short story could be expanded into a full novel.  It would likely be a strange mix of nasty period horror (the initial sacrifices and rituals) mixed with modern-day pornfest.  Could work.  Maybe…?

The Succubus Trap
The Nicole novel.  The first couple of chapters are really hot (Nicole and Madam Voluptula tag-teaming to fuck someone's brains out) and I think it would do really well as a novel, which makes my inability to get beyond chapter 3 incredibly frustrating.  Maybe I'll finally figure out how to bust through that block.

The Succubus Invasion
Another one I've already written multiple chapters for, but haven't quite got it to click.  It's also a strange mix of nasty sexual horror and goofy pornfest moments.

Jackson in HRPG-World
Less a novel than 8 short stories set in game-parody worlds.  I wrote the first four, hit a wall on the fifth and it's been stuck in development hell ever since.  Given I have nearly half the material written already, I should really focus on getting this done and published.

Then the really speculative stuff.  I don't think I'll get to these, but I might suddenly get a burning desire to work on them and I want to try and raise my productivity by letting enthusiasm dictate what projects to work on rather than trying to brute force specific ones.

Bubblelicious
Themed collection set around a soapland-style massage parlour.  Stemmed from a single short story idea.  This one is probably super-speculative,

Invading the Hive
A H-space novel, themed collection?  The bee girl entry for the H-space monster girl bestiary ended up getting a little long and complex.  I think it will likely be seven or so elaborate sex scenes featuring bee/wasp monster girls stitched together with some kind of underlying plot.  I've had a similar idea for a slime girl cave kicking around for years.  Maybe another series prospect?

There are others, but they're either far from ready or been left on hiatus long enough to require a degree of archaeology to dig up.  I might post them as glimpses into my ideas file for patrons.

My plan is to try and be more flexible in 2019.  Trying to force things out backfired far too often in 2018.  I'd rather have a 10-hour day working on some of the speculative stuff, than limping to a 2-hour day trying to brute force a more "important" project.

Anyway, that's a glimpse of my current ebook project plans.  Let's hope 2019 will be a lovely year filled with sexy succubus smut!

-manyeyedhydra

The Patreon Problem

Another xpost from my Patreon.  I'm trying to get all of this out of the way so I can hit the ground running with my regular writing as soon as 2019 hits.

Thank you to the people sending me comments over the past couple of days.

In case you were unaware, Patreon have been de-platforming creators on what appear to be ideological or political grounds.  I object strongly to this for both ethical and practical reasons.

Ethically, I believe it wrong for a company to discriminate on political or ideological affiliation and hide this behind a gauze of vague "hate speech" rules.  This has been happening far too regularly and companies that play these games deserve to go out of business.

Practically, it is hard for me, as a creator, to justify spending lots of time and energy building up a following on Patreon when my account can be yanked at any time on a whim by their Trust and Safety team.  Patreon have as much as admitted they're making up the rules as they go along with respect to their ToS.  This makes them a very unsafe and untrustworthy platform for creators, as we can be terminated at any moment for not adhering to rules that are subjectively enforced and can change at any time.

At this point I'm not sure what to do.  The ethical thing would be to close everything down and refuse to countenance Patreon's BS.  But this would also hurt me and the people who wish to support my writing (I've heard you, thanks for your comments and support).

I don't like Patreon and would like to move everything over to a more political neutral platform (ideally one that sees a "Trust and Safety Team" for the Orwellian nonsense it is) as soon as a reliable competitor emerges.  Any suggestions here will be gratefully received.

I also need to work something out for the patrons who no longer feel they can keep an account up on Patreon in the light of Patreon's Orwellian nonsense.  If you supported me during November and December I still owe you a boob monster girl short story and the next CYOA.  I'll need some way of getting those to you when they're done.  Suggestions again gratefully received.

And once again, I'm really sorry for wasting good writing time on this political shite.  I know you're here for sexy succubus smut, not to hear me sperg out about free speech.  Unfortunately, this is something I've always held a fairly absolutist position on, largely out of self-interest.  I write horror.  I write erotica.  While we might not always be first in line, we're usually somewhere in the queue when it comes to banning people and stripping their income.  That's why it's important to always take a stand against censorshit whenever it rears its ugly head.

Blegh.  I just wanted to write sexy succubus smut.

Anyway, have a lovely New Year's Eve out there, ya filthy animals!  Let's all hope for a better 2019. 

-manyeyedhydra