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KTS* postmortem
Followers who've been here for a while will remember that one of my projects in 2021-2022 was working with T to write a series of romance novels. T was the main writer, I was a mish-mosh of an editor/formatter/co-ideator/etc. It was a cool book idea, with some characters we're very mutually fond of (some were hers, some were mine), especially with putting them in a AU together. No regrets with the fun had, and we agree it was a good experience.
I say "was", as ... we learned a lot! Not enough to ultimately prevent this pen name/series from being put on ice as some of you probably have guessed from the crickets, but enough wisdom to spin up a new, air-gapped pen name elsewhere.
Ultimately it came down to bad product-marketing fit which is a really scuzzy way of saying "why does making money off of a passion project feel so at odds to actually having fun/honoring the characters?"
Something interesting we didn't realize about "kindle romance" books is that there are very, VERY specific genre conventions, if you want to have any kind of traction as a rule. We're talking, beefcake has to be a specific body type and pose on the cover as a photograph (forget illustrations), fonts have to be specific, you have to sign up to certian facebook/mailing list groups, your pen name itself has to "feel" right, you gotta have inside knowlage like a certian amount of ARC reviews and pre-orders before launch, yadda yadda.
Basically stuff you only learn by diving headfirst into the experience, which is a reason why we both have no regrets. I know a fuck of a lot more about the anatomy of self pub, in a cynical but necessary sense of what it takes to actually rake in the monies.
There's also some more nebulous lessons in that - these days, imo, if you have a side hustle, the very first thing you have to decide beyond a shadow of a doubt is:
a) is this making-money-first
or
b) is this passion-first
You cannot, and I repeat, cannot try to do both in a single project as it restructures your entire list of priorities. They're incompatible. I know it's not what anyone likes hearing but it's the truth: muddying the waters neuters both.
I learned this lesson partially with Iron Crown, an old webcomic that used to be with a publisher. That one went on hiatus for a great many reasons like mostly burnout (40/hr weeks doing comics on top of a 40/hr week dayjob is unsustainable). But a lot of the subtleties there was I "started" it thinking I could do both (money+passion). Had to learn the lesson again, I guess.
There's a reason why all of my kradeelav handle projects since then are all much smaller "passion only" zines doable within 3-6 months, almost entirely divorced from money with extreme flexibiltiy built in.
(FALKE's proceedes went to the printer, mailing materials fund, taxes, and being the seed fund for a similar uniform fetish anthology JD's doing. KILLING EDGE, the zihark doujin, is most likely going to be a sub-20 copies pre-order run that i'll loose money on but will very happily print regardless.)
My lesson here is that kradeelav's audience is passion-first. I draw horny gun blowjobs of the hellsing variety and zihark lol, as well as having the space to be brutally honest within the anonymous freedom of web 1.0 integrity - this is what I "am" in your eyes in terms of precious life-hours devoted to.
This isn't to say that KTS was "all" money-first. There's a certian sort of blind optimisim that is quite heady, when there's a cool idea or concept like a flag in your face - and it's kind of necessary sometimes, as the fuel for indie creators. But it can also be deadly by masking certian potholes.
Select people here may also enjoy reading romance novels, but the venn diagram of folks is almost two complete separate circles. In a sense, I don't regret making the project, but I do want to apologize for the sense of ... trying to cash in on your trust, briefly, if that makes sense?
Older I get, the more that I realize integrity of trust, of creators who've been around the block, actually means a great deal. Especially in this day and age where everyone's hoping their side hustle will take off and they're willing to take compromises.
Having separate handles/pen names is not a sin, nor is having separate hustles to hedge your bets or try something new. But if you nurture integrity as a baseline within a specific handle, it's the right thing to respect that, and you as the audience.
Otherwise we're all shills.
Anyway, wanted to write this up to (a) organize my own thoughts in a concrete way to learn from, and (b) share here for any curiosity of "so what happened to that pen name/handle?"
(*I'm being vague with the handle/title to avoid SEO linking this to the actual pen name, which I want to keep firmly separate.)
I say "was", as ... we learned a lot! Not enough to ultimately prevent this pen name/series from being put on ice as some of you probably have guessed from the crickets, but enough wisdom to spin up a new, air-gapped pen name elsewhere.
Ultimately it came down to bad product-marketing fit which is a really scuzzy way of saying "why does making money off of a passion project feel so at odds to actually having fun/honoring the characters?"
Something interesting we didn't realize about "kindle romance" books is that there are very, VERY specific genre conventions, if you want to have any kind of traction as a rule. We're talking, beefcake has to be a specific body type and pose on the cover as a photograph (forget illustrations), fonts have to be specific, you have to sign up to certian facebook/mailing list groups, your pen name itself has to "feel" right, you gotta have inside knowlage like a certian amount of ARC reviews and pre-orders before launch, yadda yadda.
Basically stuff you only learn by diving headfirst into the experience, which is a reason why we both have no regrets. I know a fuck of a lot more about the anatomy of self pub, in a cynical but necessary sense of what it takes to actually rake in the monies.
There's also some more nebulous lessons in that - these days, imo, if you have a side hustle, the very first thing you have to decide beyond a shadow of a doubt is:
a) is this making-money-first
or
b) is this passion-first
You cannot, and I repeat, cannot try to do both in a single project as it restructures your entire list of priorities. They're incompatible. I know it's not what anyone likes hearing but it's the truth: muddying the waters neuters both.
I learned this lesson partially with Iron Crown, an old webcomic that used to be with a publisher. That one went on hiatus for a great many reasons like mostly burnout (40/hr weeks doing comics on top of a 40/hr week dayjob is unsustainable). But a lot of the subtleties there was I "started" it thinking I could do both (money+passion). Had to learn the lesson again, I guess.
There's a reason why all of my kradeelav handle projects since then are all much smaller "passion only" zines doable within 3-6 months, almost entirely divorced from money with extreme flexibiltiy built in.
(FALKE's proceedes went to the printer, mailing materials fund, taxes, and being the seed fund for a similar uniform fetish anthology JD's doing. KILLING EDGE, the zihark doujin, is most likely going to be a sub-20 copies pre-order run that i'll loose money on but will very happily print regardless.)
My lesson here is that kradeelav's audience is passion-first. I draw horny gun blowjobs of the hellsing variety and zihark lol, as well as having the space to be brutally honest within the anonymous freedom of web 1.0 integrity - this is what I "am" in your eyes in terms of precious life-hours devoted to.
This isn't to say that KTS was "all" money-first. There's a certian sort of blind optimisim that is quite heady, when there's a cool idea or concept like a flag in your face - and it's kind of necessary sometimes, as the fuel for indie creators. But it can also be deadly by masking certian potholes.
Select people here may also enjoy reading romance novels, but the venn diagram of folks is almost two complete separate circles. In a sense, I don't regret making the project, but I do want to apologize for the sense of ... trying to cash in on your trust, briefly, if that makes sense?
Older I get, the more that I realize integrity of trust, of creators who've been around the block, actually means a great deal. Especially in this day and age where everyone's hoping their side hustle will take off and they're willing to take compromises.
Having separate handles/pen names is not a sin, nor is having separate hustles to hedge your bets or try something new. But if you nurture integrity as a baseline within a specific handle, it's the right thing to respect that, and you as the audience.
Otherwise we're all shills.
Anyway, wanted to write this up to (a) organize my own thoughts in a concrete way to learn from, and (b) share here for any curiosity of "so what happened to that pen name/handle?"
(*I'm being vague with the handle/title to avoid SEO linking this to the actual pen name, which I want to keep firmly separate.)
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Plus not having a huge online presence doesn't exactly help.
ITE, I could probably take the money I would have spent self-publishing one novel and go to Vegas, gamble, and probably make more profit than I would have selling anything. lol
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i'm glad that you have found a better balance with your current projects and i'm excited to see what you do next! :D
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