Unit Tri3Ax's Blog, page 2

Fingers Crossed

Ok, I’ve submitted my catalog once again, with some revised/cleaned up descriptions that hopefully should help prevent any problems.  I guess we’ll know in a few hours if I’m back with Amazon (at least for now) or if I’ll be moving elsewhere.

Thanks again for bearing with me.

Status in Flux

I’m currently trying to work through issues with Amazon presently by reaching out to their title submission department and attempting to get any information they’re willing to share.  My catolog is currently pulled in order to make sure nothing unexpected happens while I review.

I’m hoping that a reasonable and respectful request to work together will end up with the KDP staff letting me know more details around the problems they’re having with certain titles. If I CAN get that resolved, I very much want to put my titles back up on Amazon, as it’s the best outlet for getting my work out to readers like you.  I will, however, consider the title in question to be dead as far as Amazon is concerned, just to be safe.

Please stay tuned for more information.  If you like my work, please sign up to get email notifications from the blog (you don’t need to register or anything, and only I see your email).  That way, if anything should happen, you’ll still be able to find out where to find my work.  If you were mid-story on Amazon (through Kindle Unlimited) when the stories were pulled, please be patient.  I’m hoping I can have have them available in the near future.

New Plan

My apologies for the daily updates of late.  As you can imagine, things are a little chaotic on my side right now.  This whole ordeal has been more stress than I really want in my life.

After some discussion and reflection, I’ve decided that I do need to be able to get income from my work.  I’d like for Patreon to be enough, but at least in the short term, it isn’t.  So what I’m going to do is I’m going to be moving my catalog over to Smashwords.  I used to publish there, and I did ok, although of course it was nothing compared to Amazon, but who knows, as more erotica gets banned at Amazon, perhaps the other retailers will gain popularity and customers.

The idea of just giving it away for free and living on generosity is a nice one, but it’s not honestly all that practical.  It was a decision made in the heat of the moment.  For now, I’m going to instead move to a more traditional model of selling for a profit etc.  I think that having income to show for the work will also allow me to continue with quality releases.

I’m still going to be leaving the Patreon up, and it will still be a source of early access items and special rewards and input.  Additionally, I may still put up bonus material and other 3D art and possible comics, which would be free, as Smashwords doesn’t allow internal images of a suggestive nature.  Also, Patreon will just allow people who appreciate my work to show extra support.

Over time, I’ll see where things settle.  I hope I can end up with a nice income on Smashwords.  Before they gave me the final boot, my Amazon sales were up to almost $100 a day, between traditional and Kindle Unlimited.  I doubt I’ll be able to come close to that on Smashwords for a long time, but it wouldn’t be the first time in my life I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

Final Shutdown

So Amazon went ahead and issued the final notice that they’re shutting my account down (not surprising).  Still no additional information as to WHY they find Hypnotic Condition so offensive.  They didn’t provide any details, and so the only possible conclusion is that they don’t want any hypnosis themed work, even if the sex within in consensual.  Either that, or it really is just a random game of whack-a-mole where they’ll just eventually ban any erotica if you go on long enough.

Anyway, stuff will start appearing here.  Since they terminated the agreement (effective immediately, so they’re serious) that also means that the KDP Select agreement is also terminated, so hey, I’ll be putting that stuff up here.

Once again, I’d like to remind people that if you do like my work, PLEASE head on over to Patreon and pledge, even at a lower level.  It’s a way to know that I’ll still be able to reach my audience, and that they feel that my work is of a quality that they feel is worth paying for.  Rather than giving it to Amazon like in the past, give it to me.

Also, the first Patron only reward is up.  It’s a sneek peak at the first chapter of Hypnotic Relation, sequel to Hypnotic Condition.  Story must be good if Amazon doesn’t want it, no?

Madness Continues – And Stuff Posted

So after 24 hours of allowing “Hypnotic Condition” to be on sale, Amazon has now decided to block it.  So it’s pretty clear that pulling out all references to family wasn’t what they needed (or maybe it’s the fact that the character has parents?  He does refer to his mother I think 5 times, and does describe his father).  Odds are very good that they’ll suspend the account soon, we shall see.

Either way, they’re making it quite clear that they don’t want erotica.  The logical next thing to think they’re objecting to is dubcon, but I’m beginning to think even that isn’t the case, mostly because the piece they keep objecting to isn’t dubcon… he straight up asks her if she is willing to have sex with him.  Some of my other stuff IS a little more on the fence, although I tend to steer clear of anything outright blatant in my work (the control tends to be more indirect).

In one month, I managed to reach #50 on the Erotica charts, with only 7 published pieces.  I know there are longer, more established authors with bigger libraries out there… or at least there should be.  I’m beginning to think that part of why I was able to get so high on the rankings in such a short time is that nobody lasts long in Erotica, and specifically what you write isn’t really relevant.

At any rate, not worth looking into.  Amazon doesn’t want my stuff, so what.  If you haven’t already, please head on over to my Patreon page, any support is always appreciated.  I’m planning to start releasing some Patron only items over the weekend.  First up will be a Sneak Peek at the first chapter of Hypnotic Relation, the sequel to Hypnotic Condition (ironic that THAT is the story that started it all… Hypnotic Relation also contains no dubcon…).

Additionally, you should notice a new link at the top for “Stories.”  I’ve posted Hypno Hospitality, Squeaky Clean, and Deepening Desires.  These three are from the Archives, and didn’t make it up on Amazon during this latest round.  Deepening Desires was one of my first pieces, and was extremely popular during its run.

Thanks as always for listening, and for your support.

The Plan

So at this point, it’s pretty obvious that Amazon is either staffed by one Schizophrenic who really needs to take his meds, or an insane 80′s AI that’s just trying to do it’s best despite being originally intended to determine the most popular flavor of ice cream.

The story that they objected to (that resulted in account suspension) made it through the review process when I resubmitted it (before the account suspension…) despite the only change being reducing the number of times the word sister appeared in the text (there was no Incest or even Pseudo-Incest (there was only one sex scene….)).  It’s important to note that the same text had passed review 3 times before without objection.

All this makes me think that all it takes is a reviewer to be having a bad day, be a little strict, or just not feel like actually reviewing and just clicking “deny” (heck, I’d even believe it being the result of the mouse slipping) for a story to be turned down, and given that I’m on my “last warning” that’s it.

So here’s what I’m going to do.  I’m going to leave up the half-dozen things currently on Amazon (in part because they’re in Select so I can’t publish them elsewhere without more pain from Amazon) but I’m not going to be releasing anything new there.  That should leave the opportunity for people who like my stuff to see the link to my blog, and maybe come looking if they want to get their hands on MORE of my stuff…

To support myself, I’ve set up a Patreon Page. Patreon is a method for people to show support for content creators by offering a monthly pledge to encourage their work.  I’ll also give access to a few extras, but for the most part, my stuff will be freely available.  I like to think that people will understand just how much effort goes into my releases that they’ll think little of providing an amount that is less than the cost of some drinks these days.

How long until Amazon decides they don’t want the rest of my stuff?  Who knows.  I could try and release more stuff there, and see if it works, but it’s probably not worth the risk, and definitely not worth the stress.

I had already planned to take a week or two off for XCOM2′s release, but after that I’m planning to get back to writing, and hopefully you guys will enjoy what I have to offer.  Please, if you like my work, head on over to Patreon and sign up.  It only takes a moment, and it’s a great way to show your support.

Thank you all for your support.

And That’s All

So after only a month, Amazon has pretty much decided to shut me down.  I’m surprised, given just what I can see up there from other authors, but it is what it is and there’s really no use fighting it.  The internet is rife with people who’ve gotten hit by their rather capricious content restrictions, and the sad thing is that the piece that they decided to target actually wasn’t dub-con in the slightest.

Right now, I’m feeling pretty conflicted about everything.  Some part of me thinks I’m “supposed” to say that I wasn’t in it for the money, and that I’ll keep writing anyway, because I really did enjoy it.  However, to be perfectly honest, knowing that I was getting a little something on the side was a big part of it.  I wasn’t making full time job money, but It was enough to probably be able to take an extra vacation etc.

Also, with Kindle Unlimited, it was extremely encouraging to know just how many people were reading my material.  In just one month, with stories that were only about 220 “Pages” Long (KU uses a weird formula for pages) I was up to getting almost 9,000 pages read a day over the last three days.  Given that that’s Almost 40 “full” reads (and that isn’t counting people who purchased normally, which was a respectable amount as well) it’s pretty clear that my writing is popular enough that there’s some interest.

The problem, however, is reaching those readers.  I have no real way to even let them know where they can find later published material, or even how to provide support or encouragement.  Feeling pretty devastated right now, in all honesty.

No matter what, I’m extremely likely to put my old stuff up here now.  The only reason I didn’t before was out of a desire to maybe be able to start publishing it again, but now that that’s gone, there isn’t much reason to hold back.  I’m just not so sure about new content.  Putting out even a 40,000 word novel takes more than a little time, and is a significant investment of time and energy.

I’m debating putting together a Patreon page, to see if people will be willing to support out of sheer generosity.  I could set up a few reward tiers, including commissions and custom art, if people are interested.  If you are, please drop me a line at Tri3Ax@gmail.com and I’d like to chat with you.

I’ll probably throw out a poll or something in a few days, once the dust settles, but it really sucks to no longer be welcome in a market that clearly wants what I’m offering.

Progress Continues – New Bonus Section

A good week so far.  I’ve re-published two older titles, Remote Control, the sequel to on call, and Room Mates.  They’re both live on Amazon, and if you haven’t checked them out, I highly encourage you to do so.

Also, I put up the first piece of Bonus Material, which is a desktop wallpaper sized version of the Remote Control cover.  Claire and Alice just looked so cute in that picture, I wanted something more than just a scaled down book cover for them.  Right now it’s only available in 1920×1080, but I’ll release other resolutions over time, and probably also turn other book covers into wallpapers (such as Hypnotic Condition, and a couple others.  Some of them wouldn’t look as good).

Work on new material also continues well.  I just passed the 30,000 word mark on the sequel to Hypnotic Condition, which is most likely going to be titled Hypnotic Summer, and serves as a slice-of-life continuation to Hypnotic Condition.  I still have 2-3 scenes to put in, and the editing process as well, which should hopefully balloon it up to around 40K words, although exact word count isn’t important.  I think I’ll use 30K as my minimum cutoff, since that’s about how long a 5-part omnibus was in the old style, and is enough to convey meat without it feeling too short

My hope is to get Hypnotic Summer published by the 5th of February, but I might be a little after that.  I’ll be taking a short break after that (maybe a week or two) because XCOM2 comes out, and I totally want to play that (if you’ve been following for a while, you’ll know I’m an avid gamer, in addition to a smut writer).  I think a short break will actually be good, but after that I’m fully planning on getting right back on track with something new, as well as getting a couple more older titles online as well.

That’s all, I just wanted to give a quick update, back to work.

On Scale

So, those of you who’ve been coming here for a while know that sometimes I like to reflect on my work and just generally air my thoughts and the like.  Usually, nobody responds to these posts, but that’s ok, just knowing that there’s a few people out there who understand is all I need.

As I hinted in my last post, I really really want to write a sequel to Proteus.  Proteus was the first thing I ever wrote, and it left a few things unresolved.  I could easily explore more of the shadowy villains, as well as some of the shadowy history of a few of the protagonists.  There’s world, and details, and the like, behind all of that.

The problem is that I can’t figure out a good way to make all of that into a story that works.  Proteus had a great story, and with the way it was structured, any sequel would need to build on that.  But every time I build on it, the story ends up being too large to pace properly with erotic bits and the like.

In short, Proteus is about as big a plot as can be fit into an erotic story, and any bigger and it wouldn’t work.  I can’t, however, just turn the sequel into a normal story that isn’t erotica, because then it would actually be lacking, and the plot would just be weird.  So that’s sort of the conundrum I run into.

Other stories where I’m thinking of making a sequel, it comes easy.  If the first story is about getting a girl, the second story can be about getting another, or having more fun with the first, or something like that.  The vast majority of my stories don’t even really have villains or opponents, and are more just about getting the girl.  There’s no need for them to grow in scope, and when they do, they grow into something that is still very manageable.

So after a lot of reflection, I’ve decided that I’m not going to focus on a sequel to Proteus, at least not now.  I may write another story that has a similar plot complexity, but It will probably also be self-contained.  I need to remind myself that not every book needs a sequel, and not every plot thread will ever be resolved.  As I look through the first part of my original sequel, I find elements that just do not work, at all.  It was a terrible third of a book.

My final concern is one of pragmatics.  I want to try and some day, maybe in a year or two, support myself through writing.  Writing has a very strong publish-or-die atmosphere, and I can’t spend days, or weeks, struggling with something that just isn’t happening.  While trying to make a sequel to Proteus, I had at least three of my other stories jump into my mind as being great and easy to continue, as well as two or three new ideas.

Maybe someday, but not today.

In order to not create disappointment, I think I’ll refrain from saying what I’m releasing next until it’s a bit more firmed up.  I didn’t really announce Uniform Daze until it was about 50% drafted, so I might use that as a metric.  Regardless, the story I’m writing now is coming easily, and ideas are flowing.

Uniform Daze Submitted

Just pressed the button to submit my new story, Uniform Daze, for sale on Amazon.  The story clocks in at about 56,000 words, which means it counts as novel length (although yes, it’s a short one).

Once I have a link on Amazon, I’ll make a new post that contains it.  Otherwise, Keep an eye out.

I think it turned out really well, and I’m hoping that people will enjoy.  I’m probably going to take a day or two off of writing before I start work on my next project, which is Editing Proteus (and re-releasing it, the cover right now is ok but the new render engine will let me make it so much better) before starting work on the next arc, which will be a Revised version of Linder Academy (the previously released portion will be rebuilt into a new, more coherent, plot).

While that’s happening, I’ll continue to edit and re-release some of the older stuff.  As far as what’s in the pipe after Linder Academy, I’m not really sure.  The top candidates are a Sequel to Uniform Daze, Hypnotic Condition, or something else in Doctor Goodman’s world.  If you have an opinion, please feel free to shoot a comment or an email.

Thanks as always for your support!