I don't know how it happened, but El Sexorcisto! blew it out of the water. It peaked at a rank of #4,131 yesterday and is still in the #5,000s, holding rock steady. Funnily enough, it was holding steady in the ranks in the #10,000s— usually between #12,000 and #16,000— for the first two weeks right up until I got the second review, which is when the jump in ranks happened. I don't know if that's because I got two reviews or if I was promoted by someone, but I am thankful. As expected, Ghosts of Smoke crashed and burned and didn't even make back the money I spent on the cover (whereas ES! has not only earned its cover back but also Ghosts', two times over). Perhaps it was the cover's fault, but I was always upfront about the fact it's always been a bit heady and not very commercial. That's why I liked writing it, for one. As such, El Sexorcisto! is definitely getting a follow-up. That was always the plan, to be honest, but thanks to ES!'s unexpected success Expect the sequel to be out in early November, perhaps as early as November 1st. Let me tell you something right now: it gets weird.
Now that I'm finished with El Sexorcisto Z!, I can move onto World of Catgirls, which will be a much more typical harem story than the parodic lunacy of the former. Despite the names, World of Catgirls is the one that's more inspired by Dragon Ball Z. El Sexorcisto Z!'s theme song is: World of Catgirls right now is gonna be a superhero harem story, though it's actually going to be supervillain themed. Also: goths. So goffik! The plan for November right now is to release those two as well as start releasing Vulgar Display of Power on RoyalRoad.com. I'll also publish the first three days of Astral Falls on Amazon, probably for 99 cents or free. It'll be edited some more. Probably rewritten entirely.
(in the Cyberpunk category) Let this be a lesson to any newcomers: If I can do this, so can you! Craziest thing to me is more that I only have two reviews and I'm still ranking here after almost a month. But then again, that makes sense: I did no preparation for this. I asked for no advanced review copies, had no mailing list, did no promos— I tried to with El Sexorcisto! actually, but you can't create an AMS ad for any story that has certain keywords or content, apparently (it's a big deal in gay romance right now, look it up). So no promo budget, just a few promo posts on Facebook, that's it. I've just let this thing flounder in the wind. And truth be told, it only started really earning around the 10th or so. Before that, it was performing about as well as Ghosts of Smoke. But then the two diverged around the 10th-14th and while Ghosts has been haunting the 6-digit ranks (no pun intended), ES! has stayed between #3,952 (which I hit today) and the #7,000s, spending almost all that time in the #4,000s. I have no idea what caused it to jump in ranks, but I'm not complaining! As for my whole wave of stories, that's still coming. Though I've been told to slow it down a bit, hence why I'm pushing Vulgar Display of Power through RoyalRoad rather than trying to get three entire novels finished in one month. It'll be better all around if I actually focus on quality over quantity! World of Catgirls also won't be a litRPG; just haremlit. I originally thought about combining Nightmare Online with the story, but I finally figured out what was wrong with that story— turns out there wasn't much in the way of stakes or character development. It was just actions happening so I could show off my shiny little "e-currency in a litRPG" theme. So I'm retracting that one right now to retool it, and it'll be a stronger story because of it. So yes, goth Greek goddesses in an edgelord game-ified Hellenistic fantasy world. No, probably not any harems to go along with it all. If there is one, know that it developed more as an accident. World of Catgirls will probably get a name change as a result. There's also some life happening for 58th State. Yeah, remember that one? But for the most part, I'm narrowing the number of stories I'm focusing on down to the immediate two ahead and one on the backburner.
I've been told that publishing multiple books in one day would actually make readers too suspicious, as based on what others have done in other genres. If there's sufficient time between releases, then multiple-books-a-day publishing can work and even get a lot of hype. But for a noob like me, one month isn't enough time and it's too soon. So I'll be pushing back the other story a couple weeks and releasing El Sexorcisto Z! on Thursday/Friday or so. Also, I'm changing the name from World of Catgirls to something a bit less kitsch: And then there's something about "A Supervillain Harem" and whatnot as a subtitle. I'm 38,000 words into it. I decided to drop the pure catgirl angle because I wanted to include a monkeygirl into it all.
So I published a revamped version of El Sexorcisto! at long last. It's 100,000 words long and has some extensive rewrites done so it doesn't feel so cheap and slapped together. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YNNY8V7 Fun fact: when I added both stories together and then added the extra 20,000 words on top, it fit into the seven-act structure surprisingly well. Not perfectly— the inciting event is off a bit, and both pinch points are ahead and behind by a bunch of pages respectively, but it fits generally. You can see how things build into each other this time around, whereas last time, the stories just ended abruptly.
