Happy Almost New Year!
I decided to sit down and write some fun recaps and future plans for the upcoming year.
Just wanted to take some time to thank everyone for another fantastic year. I’ve been writing TBATE for a bit over 6 years and it’s crazy to think that the novel has over 1 million words and the comic is going to soon hit 200 episodes! Through the years, I’ve expressed repeatedly that this couldn’t have happened without you all and I still stand by that. Lurking through the discord and seeing discussions in the different chats and reading comments in the subreddit is something I do a bit more than I wish to admit, especially when I have work to do, haha! I know that we’ve had some minor drama in the community and issues with pirating and the like, but overall, I’m grateful for the community that has gathered around TBATE. The community is the spokesperson that represents TBATE and myself so seeing the positive and respectful vibe that has been spreading throughout the various facets of social media, I can’t help but feel proud.
With it nearing the end of the year 2022, I wanted to give a recap as well as share with you some plans (that I’m able to share) for the upcoming year.
RECAP FOR 2022
Book 9 of The Beginning After the End, Reckoning was published as an e-book along with the audiobook narrated by the terrific, Travis Baldree.
Book 8.5 of The Beginning After the End, Amongst the Fallen which had come out exclusively to Tapas in 2021 released in audio format as well.
It was the first time that I tried writing a completely separate side-story and I took a bigger gamble by making it exclusive to Tapas but I’d say it was a successful venture, and more importantly, I learned that there are quite a bit of you that are interested in more of the world of TBATE outside of the main cast. Whether I decide to write more side-stories or not is still up in the air, but for the time being, I think I will be focusing on the main story. Who knows, though. Maybe after the series is over, I might want to do more side stories! I’ll keep everyone updated :)
THE NOVEL ON PATREON/TAPAS
As some of you have noticed and pointed out, numbers-wise, Patreon subscription is on a slight downhill trend. I know I put milestones to get to 4000 subscribers and that probably bolstered the numbers for a time being, along with the fact that more people subscribed during the peak of COVID in the beginning of the year. Through this experience, I realized that I was stressing myself out, trying to forcibly grow my Patreon like so many other authors by adding milestone goals and more perks when that was never the goal of my Patreon to begin with.
Readers using Tapas to keep up with TBATE have grown in numbers, both the novel and the comic, along with people reading the ebooks on Kindle, Google Playbooks, etc. I mention this because at the end of the day, that’s what I’ve been working toward. I want to create as many options as possible for fans to read TBATE that work with their lifestyle. Publishing the ebook is the cheapest way to read the story and great for binge-readers who just want to down the whole book in one go. Tapas, I still see as a great place to publish because it’s an accessible place to stay current on the novel even past the latest book release on Kindle and for the comic. With sales and “fortune cookies” along with other ways to get ink, it’s quite easy to stay up to date with chapters without even paying. For Patreon, I do make it a point to express that in the end, it is for my more devoted fans who want to support me for what I do, but I also never take that for granted. Throughout the 52 weeks in a year, I think I’ve taken 3 or 4 weeks off of writing and I’m thankful for even that. Aside from the allotted chapters you’re reading ahead, I tried to do more fun things as thanks for this support by doing more illustrations, perks on discord, QnA’s, etc but at the core of Patreon, I know that it’s for my readers who want to support me and I’ll always be grateful for that.
Also, Patreon and Tapas are places where TBATE can stay true to its origin in being a web serial (webnovel/lightnovel to some). They are published in chapters so that readers can get together and discuss and I plan on continuing this model in some form or another until we finish TBATE!
DISCORD
At the heart of the TBATE community is our Official TBATE Server on Discord! We’ve seen quite a big jump in numbers throughout the year, with our server increasing by almost 10k members (we’re almost at 30k members… wtf?!). In a way, our server stands apart from many out there because the creator is actually the server owner, but because of that, I feel I can’t always live up to the expectations that some may hold of me being present for discussions. While I do my best to pop in where I can, I also try to be mindful that this server isn’t about me. It’s about you all. I wanted to create a space where people can talk respectfully with others who enjoy the world of TBATE; me popping in every now and then to answer a question or just chat is just an extra bonus (because you get some canon answers and I get to troll you all in return).
Regardless of expectations and individual levels of satisfaction, I’m grateful to see how big our family has grown and how far we’ve come. I don’t say this enough, but I really am grateful for the moderators in our server. Some of you, depending on your interactions with them, may disagree, but it’s always hard being the good guy to everyone while wearing the police badge. The decisions that many of them have had to make weren’t easy and looking through the logs, I can see how much discussion takes place many times for certain cases before an action is taken. Our moderators, like in most other servers, are volunteers that are in it for the sake of the community that they’ve grown so fond of so… again, I hope everyone can make the time to thank Ryu, Clovelyn, Monne, Kas, Tom, Daniel, Kat, Shawn, Zeph, Nez, Steam, and Dragon for how much effort and dedication they’ve poured for both the Discord and Reddit community!
REDDIT r/tbatenovel
Honestly, it still baffles me how much the official subreddit has grown. In January of 2022, we had 21.5k members. Now? We’re at 38k members. Uh… woah?!
Much of my thanks to the Discord moderators applies to the Reddit moderators as well because some of them are doing both! However, I know how much craziness can get in through reddit and it takes a special kind of patience to moderate any sort of subreddit. Part of my downtime is me mindlessly scrolling through r/tbatenovel and while we definitely do have different trends overtaking most of the subreddit, I still love going through the posts… whether it’s the memes, discussion, or fanart, it’s awesome seeing so many people post quality content. Keep it up… and know that I may be lurking ;)
The post is getting long so…
Happy (almost) New Year! Thank you for your work and rest well! ✧◝(^• ▿ •^)◜✧
Happy almost new year and thanks for the update!