Hey there RoyalRoad and Fellow Readers.

I'd like to talk about the current status of this series and where it's going, and what that means for you fine folks here on RR.

It's been a bit of a busy week for me. "Homicidal Aliens," launched, and its success on Amazon has been pretty far beyond my expectations. I figured I'd be extremely lucky to get ranked in the top 10,000 on Amazon, so I was pretty shocked when I got to rank 3,450-ish on my first day. I realize that seems like small potatoes, but I'm very happy with it. No advertising budget, no publishing house behind me, just me, the RR crew, and a couple FB groups and subreddits.

This is good news for me (and you if you're a fan) because it means I can afford to continue writing the story past the first couple of books. Even if I make exactly $0 after today, the book cover expenses are covered for the next book. The plan was that if this series was doing poorly, it'd get a somewhat truncated but still mostly conclusive trilogy wrap-up. Three books.

Currently it's looking like I'll be able to go to at least 5, and hopefully the ideal length of 6.

Also, despite only being live for less than a week, a reputable and big-name audiobook production studio has reached out to me and made an offer. I'm currently in the process of getting a lawyer to look over the terms. Regardless of the outcome, a producer of this size making an offer this soon is extremely encouraging.

So, what's all this mean for RR?

Well, due to Amazon's Terms of Service, I can't have my book up there on KU and here. If that changes, it'll come back here. Currently the plan is as follows:

1) Finish the second book.

2) Post a summary of the first book along with a list of characters to RR. The summary will not contain all of the detail of book 1, but it will give the basics so brand new readers who can't get the book aren't totally lost.

3) Begin uploading book 2 to here and Patreon (depending on release schedule windows I may wait and do this with book 3, since book 2 (01.04-01.06) is currently still up here in beta form, and will remain so until version 2.0 of book 2 is ready)

4) Leave the next book up a while and then take it down when it's ready to go live on Amazon, but still give people some time to read it.

5) Repeat process for subsequent books

I'd still like to let the RR community and patrons have first crack at the story because

1) Both have been very supportive and friendly

2) Both give (usually) valuable feedback and help with typos and such.

3) I started here. I want to continue here. It's a nice community.

I've also got other books that I'd like to share with the RR crowd, and likely go through a similar process with them.

Also, I've learned something very valuable from my time here on RR (well, a lot of things, but this in particular):

I'm not a good webserial writer. I don't like the pacing of webserials (as in, the demands made on author time and release schedule as well as the bit-by-bit nature of releases). I think I'm a much better novel writer. Please note: I'm not knocking webserials or those who read them. I read them. I like some of them. I just don't like writing them. The first draft of "Homicidal Aliens," was my attempt at a combination of lightnovel/webserial, and the results were mixed, but with some obvious promise (I think so, though I know I'm biased). I know "Homicidal Aliens" works a LOT better as a novel than it did as a webserial.

When I resume posting to Patreon and RR regularly, it will probably be closer to something like a season of a TV show: A burst of steady activity over the course of a couple months or so, that ends with a solid wrap-up, then nothing for a while. I don't know if I'll ever have the raw output of Shirtaloon or pirateaba or similar authors. TBF, I don't think anybody could keep up with pirateaba, though. I know my writing suffered trying to keep up the schedule I had back in 2019/2020.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I just didn't want people thinking I was turning my back on RR or abandoning this story on here in favor of Amazon forever. I'm not.

In the meantime, if you want to stay abreast of what's happening these are the best places to find me (as I'm unlikely to make a ton of little update posts here):

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjackerknecht

Website: https://www.jjackerknecht.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/MTpz38EZTc

Patreon (no benefits for right now, but will get first access to new chapters when available, and this is the first place I make new announcements regarding work): https://www.patreon.com/jayack

Thanks for the support and help, RR. See you again soon.