u/MarkArrows

The real issue was the payment and tax handling for a few hundred countries - all sporting their own conflicting tax codes. Every country has it's own specific rules and regulations and required forums to sign and dot. Many might take months to get back to you if they required a clerk or government official to sign off and send it back. And for all you know that answer back might be just a flat automated 'No' and require you to find out why and fix it. Plus how to handle returns, refunds, different payment processors and their own dramatics, ect.

A lot of work hours went to the lawyers and accountants, not just the software.

<3

Oh, heads up, book 4 I hit a patch of trouble, I ended up writing too much fighting on the second half of it. Just typical issue of 'the outline looked fine but when I spent time writing it, it got bigger than expected.'

Rest of the series after goes back to normal amounts of fighting and cool down!

Thanks for reading! \o/

I lurk quite often on this sub hahah!

I can put some of your fears to rest on this, if there's one thing I'm certain of, is that the ending for 12MB as a series landed exactly how readers and I were hoping it would :]

The series is complete as of last month, the last three books are on RR right now, but they're making their way to Kindle once editing and everything's all done!

Not every book is a hit of course, but it all builds up to what I originally outlined the ending to be ^^

I'm glad book 1 landed right for you :]
Book 2 and 3 are unfortunatly the definition of 'trust the process'

It's an all-in or all-out approach I took.

It's not a guaranteed payoff either. It didn't land for some readers out there, and if it doesn't land it really doesn't land. Usually PoV changes are playing with fire for authors,

But that's a double edged sword too. If it does land, it usually lands really well.

Legend of William Oh, this is basically the very center premise, at least for the first two books.
I'm waiting on Soundbooth's audiobook before I go to the third hahah

Grats!!

Right now, check for audiobook releases paired with the stories. Might change in the future, but it's a good filter in this time period.

Otherwise, you gotta do the homework: Check if the author has a bio at all, any prior presence on the internet, and if they appeared out of nowhere with 5 books released in two months.

Oh absolutely mine bahaha, it's also a completed series right down to epilogues.
That said, it's not for everyone and has a slower ramp up than most get-strong-quick fics out there.

On recommendations, I've recently been reading Legend of William Oh, and Death after Death.
I don't quite know if they line up with your tastes, but I just haven't had much time to read that much in the sphere right now so I'm not up to date with the latest trends!

Looks great! \o/

I can chat from the other side of this one: Just moved into a new apartment starting from basically zero again. It's surprising how much tiny basics I needed to get.

None of it is luxury either, (It's all stuff like paper towels, shower liners, shampoo, soap, cleaning supplies, vacuum, pots, forks, glasses, bedframe, water pitcher for the fridge, ect.) Surprising how much cheaper some of it was on Amazon compared to the retail stores here.

I don't think I'll ever have an amazon dragon's hoard mount again in my life, but it did feel like a mini christmas getting that many boxes. Wallet's still not as happy >.>

There was a wave of rougelites that all came out around the same time by veteran authors. Except I know the kind of work goes into a launch, they've all been writing for months in prep in the darkness. Zero chance this is a copy-cat issue, we all just had the same 'Huh, rougelites are fun, why are there so few?'

The reaction we had to each other were mostly memes and roasts as we continued to write. There's always some overlap, or repeated tropes, but I'm more curious how other authors handled their variation of it.

"Bounced off list: Former members of this tier include The Wandering Inn, 12 Miles Below, and Kitty Cat Kill Sat."

Oh man the roller coaster of emotions
Thanks for powering through the part that got you stuck, glad you found it better 😆

It will become one of the number one critiques if you get everything else right since it'll be the loose nail that sticks out, but pacing means different things to different readers so it's not as easy to fix once you're already going.

Main point is that your story follows through on the promise of the blurb. A day can go by but if that day is well spent and it feels like readers are getting the story they came to read, they'll be happy.

So better solution isn't to radically alter your pacing into that isn't natural to your default writing cadance, but rather change your blurb to be more accurate instead, so that readers come into the story with the right expectations.

Good luck!

haha, sorry for the trouble! I tried to keep most of the chapters in the right order >.<

Die Trying is not a timeloop, it is a roguelite. Time never goes backwards, the world continues forward including all the lasting consequences of the last round, which is what OP asked for imo

I think you might have a different story in mind for that comment?

(b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b

"This To Kill a Mockingbird book I picked up, Scout is the whiniest MC I've ever read, couldn't even make it to chapter three. 1/5, I'd rate lower if I could. Author should never write another book."

Books all have different goals and audiences, and they often get cross contaminated. So the first rule is to cross out the extremes out of there.
After that you're looking for patterns. Repeated critique that's the same from review to review. That will be more accurate. You'll find those in the 3-4 star categories. And from that, you decide if it's worth reading.

I'm definitely pro-book recap though I don't read them myself. I like having them as an option 'You can read this if you want, otherwise skip ahead to chapter 1.'

I feel it's the best of all worlds. For the readers jumping back on board after a while, it's great. And for readers with better memory for details, it's optional and they can ignore it completely.

I'm waiting for the edits to come back on book 8 from Aethon, their editors are currently doing a lot atm, so I'm waiting in line till they got staff ready to tackle the book!

I'd guess in about a month?

No news yet, Recorded Books is in charge of it, and Aethon needs to make a deal with them first or hire Scott directly. Real problem is that the series is a niche, so the cost value for audiobooks further down the line goes down and down. I'm not certain yet if there will be funding for the final three books :[

If you can, please recommend the book to others and talk about it online, word of mouth is the only thing we got going for us! If we reach the right numbers, the audiobook will get funded!

I haven't seen that cover art for 12MB in a long time, you went looking for the deeep lore bahah

I got a ping on reddit watcher 12 Miles Below was mentioned, but can't see the original comment here. Got no idea if it was discussions about my series or not, but might as well take the time to make sure there isn't any misunderstandings >.>

I don't have a youtube channel and the audiobooks are done by Scott. Generally pirates keep grabbing his stuff and putting it on youtube for a quick buck. Recorded Books Media is the ones in charge of takedown requests.

Aethon also has a strict no-AI policy. They won't touch a single thing that has any AI in it whatsoever.

I say it's progression-lite. But the discussion on this sub isn't about magic or sci-fi but the fundementals.

The MC always ends the book stronger than he started it, but his driving motivation isn't progression.

For some progression fantasy readers, the entire point of progression is that the MC gets better at fighting compared to everyone else through hard work. This fic has the character making other people better while he actively avoids hard work himself. (Although his brand of tinkering does lead him into discovering what he's actually uniquely good at and specializing down that path.)

It sits in an odd point between Brandon Sanderson's writing and the progression fantasy sphere in general, a good entry point to recommend or pallet cleanser for something similar enough to progression fantasy without the hardcore aspects of it, or it being the center focus at all times.

12 Miles Below is more adventure fantasy nobledark. The world environment is harsh, but the characters are heroic/good/honorable and rise to meet the challenge the world throws at them. Even the antagonists have a sense of respect to them, though in different directions.

Book 1 is the most gritty of them all, but the MC starts ramping up quickly.
I've never heard of it mentioned anywhere near torture-porn though. It's got some heavy scenes, but there's victory and wins racked up at the same time.

One of my favorite things to write are side characters readers absolutely hate from the very first appearance, and then finding different ways to change their minds.

But by default, that kind of thing comes with a ton of character arcs, redemptions, and moments that make readers feel things