Techinicalities and Q/A
First of all, hello everyone, Slothy here.
I'm writing this aux chapter like in any other novel of mine in order to clarify the technical side of this piece along with answering some of the more or less pressing questions.
So, without further ado, let's drop right into it.
1. What's the basic update rate:
- I will update at the very least, 1 chapter 1k words+ a day. That's the rate I will do my absolute best to never cross.
2. What's the intended update rate:
- Now that the novel is premium, I will aim to update at least 2 chapters a day (that is, once I'm done with moving and all, shouldn't take more than a few days up to a week)
3. What's the bonus update rate:
- In case of some events, huge gifts, or this novel just being profitable enough on its own, I will aim to publish 3 chapters a day. This is the upper limit of what I want to release regularly.
4. What are bonus chapters?
- In case of my self-organized events (like, for a certain amount of votes/golden tickets I will add bonus chapters) I can create a bonus count. This count will work on a weekly basis, with the gathered bonus chapters all being released on the week's change. The caveat here is, writing this novel is pretty exhausting as I'm doing my absolute best with it (and that means a lot for someone used to just speed-write stuff) those events will be pretty rare (unless I somehow regain the motivation I had as a newbie author)
5. What are premium chapters?
Basically, every novel starts as a free novel but turns into a premium (Payable, paylocked) stuff once it reaches a certain threshold. While there surely are other ways of monetizing my work, I find webnovel to be the easiest and one I'm most comfortable with. And for that reason, once you guys reach chapter 50, for every following chapter you will have to pay. But how?
6. How do I buy premium chapters?
- The first option is the free one. Every day, you receive a certain amount of fast passes. Those can be used to unlock any premium chapter for free. Keep in mind, that means it won't bring me any income either. (something that's easy to overlook in the short term, but if the novel doesn't perform well enough, I won't be able to continue it for as long as I have plans to do)
- The other option is to use coins. The rule of thumb is, you can use your coins (those actually makes me eat and pay my electricity bills) to unlock every premium chapter. It's that simple, but coins generally need to be bought with real cash (you can get some by purchasing the membership, but be sure to check yourself whether it's worth it for you)
7. Why are the chapters priced so low/high/weirdly?
- The cost of each chapter is derived from a single thing. It's length. Basically, for every 200 words in a chapter, its cost increases by 1 coin. That means a chapter 1500 words long would cost 8 coins, while a chapter 3000 words long would cost 16.
8. There are privileged chapters that I cannot just unlock. What's going on?
- Privilege is a bonus feature for those readers that don't mind splurging a bit. Basically, you can pay an additional fee to read ahead of the ongoing daily releases. Purchasing any given tier of privilege gives you access to the respective number of privileged chapters.
To put it into an example, if the story has 50 free chapters, 30 premium chapters, and 10 priv chapters, the situation will look like that:
- Everyone can read up to chapter 50 for free
- To read chapters 51-80 you need to either use your fast passes or coins
- To reach chapters 81-90, you need to first pay a fee related to the tier of priv (here, 10 chapters tier), then you need to use your coins to buy the chapters.
KEEP IN MIND THAT THE PRIVILEGE EXPIRES AT THE END OF THE MONTH!!!
9. How do we help? What can a perfect, dreamed-off reader do?
- This is a complicated question. First off, I'm already happy being able to write something that others will enjoy. But obviously, I'm not a hippie and I cannot live off my own imagination alone. That's why:
- Comments and reviews make me acknowledge that people actually do read the story. This is the most tangible proof that it's interesting and worth continuing. What's more, I do my best to respond to every interesting comment (I read them all).
- Votes (power stones and golden tickets) - those make the novel go up in the rankings. This is also a great way to motivate me, and the main way to get more chapters during the events I will organize. While I know it's stupid, being able to compare my novel in rankings with other novels is a great source for bragging material, something that Authors live for and die for.
- Obviously, coins. As money-grabbing as it might sound, spending coins on this novel is the only way for you, a reader, to truly help me out in the most basic stuff. As many comments and votes as this novel can potentially get, if it won't earn, I will have no other choice but to ax it and try something else. Ultimately, I cannot work if I cannot provide electricity for my writing equipment. I cannot write if I have food to keep my fingers going. I cannot think about writing and future events if the only thing I can think about is food. By using your coins, you are propelling my dream of being an author, something I spent the last two years learning and mastering so that with every novel I publish, its quality will only continue to go up.
Q/A
1. Is this story a harem?
- HECK NO. But it's not a single female in the entire story either. I like to keep the character's relationship realistic, so the fact that I spent two paragraphs writing about a female character doesn't mean MC will sleep with her in the next five chapters or so. While I can't promise a linear romance (something I hate to the bone) it won't turn into a mindless harem and smutfest either.
2. Does this story have smut?
- Not as of the moment I'm writing it. Just like I said above, I hate putting romance just to dangle the smut scenes in the reader's eyes, enticing them to read by making them horny. I believe smut in the novels can allow one to connect way better than porn or asmr not because it's easier to digest, but because it allows the readers to connect to the characters, come to love and understand them, and only then reach the pinnacle WITH them. This isn't a story for me to project my sexual fantasies on nor a story you will project your horniness on either. This is a story where smut will be an outcome of a situation leading to it, not something I will do to make you read and for that sake alone. If that's what you are here for, just go and jerk yourself off on Phub or something.
3. How long do you intend this story to be?
- Just like with all my novels, I have great plans. If everything will work out, I have enough material to go for roughly 1k chapters without doing the rinse and repeat of "got to another level, now I'm trash once again so let's start everything from the scratch." The power limit of the world of this story is defined within the first chapter of it (something you won't notice no matter how much you search for, sorry for that) and I will stick to it. That's why, no continent will come crushing from the sky, no heavenly realm does exist for MC to conveniently ascend there and be at the bottom once again.
With what I already plotted, I can easily go for 1k chapters. But how long the story will end up being all depends on whether or not I will be able to afford writing it.
4. What kind of story is it?
- Its a mix of fantasy, VR, gentle sci-fi (because the action takes place in the near future and in a world only SIMILIAR to earth, not earth itself), romance (because it's my novel, I can be reasonable with smut but you won't take away my right to create love :3), action, strategy... While it might sound packed and convoluted, I will be taking my time to explore each of those themes to give you the time and space to adjust to each of them. It's pretty hard to pick a single genre for it because of how deep the story is once it unravels some of its secrets.
5. Does your fridge run?
- Then make sure it won't escape!
6. Who is the best girl?
- Nanashi Mumei from Hololive EN 2gen cuz she forgor :3
7. Why there is no "XXXXXXX" question here?
- because I wrote everything above from the top of my head. If you want some questions to be answered here, feel free to comment on them.
PS: I just realized this AUX chapter is as long as the longer chapters I write... To think I could have another chapter out by now if I wrote it instead of this technical rambling...