Book 13 online chapters & plushie release (Patreon)

TL;DR:

Stash and Colin plushies available August 25th.

Remaining book 13 chapters going online ahead of schedule.

Patrons (who don't already have them) will gain access to all book 13 chapters today.

Royal Road will get access to all chapters next week.

Releases will be delayed for RR/appropriate tiers until they catch up to the regular schedule.

New chapters will resume releasing next week as scheduled.

Patreon will not be charged for September.

Stash plush: https://youtooz.com/products/stash-plush-9-inch

Colin plush: https://youtooz.com/products/hwfwm-colin-plush-9-inch

G'day all,

I've had an exciting 18 months. I went on holiday last March, got sick and it knocked me out until December. I was ready to get back to work and the lurgy came back, landing me in hospital again. I recovered, managed to finally finish the initial draft of book 13 and get it to the publisher, literally the day before a family vacation I'd been planning for a couple of years, long before I got sick in the first place.

I came home to a bunch of work that isn't writing. Some I couldn't even talk about yet, like the plushies and the tabletop RPG that was announced at Gen Con. There's even stuff I still have to keep under my hat, at least for a few more weeks, although I will say I love the art for the Gary body pillow.

I was still in the midst of that when it was time to fly across the planet for a book tour. It was a really great time, but it was also a long time, hitting 11 cities in 33 days. It was an amazing opportunity to finally attend LitRPG Con (strongly recommend) and meet so many of my readers, including many of my amazing patrons. By the time I got home, I was in dire need of rest and to not be in an airport every third day. I won't be in an airport again until Tuesday, when I go visit my mum.

All that is to say that I haven't been able to sit down and just write for a long time time, and that has one major side effect. I've always said that that I would make sure the chapters all go out for free before they get taken down for publishing. With things like editing and recording time, that has never been an issue, as I'm always plugging long through that period. This time I haven't been, and we're bumping into a problem: The chapter releases, as scheduled, will not get book 13 out before it contractually has to come down for publication.

This sucks, and I've come up with the best solution I could figure out. It's not ideal, but it's the best I could manage. Firstly, the remaining book 13 chapters will be released early. That means shortly after this post goes live for all patrons of all tiers. For Royal Road readers, this will be next week at the same time chapters resume on Patreon. The impacted tiers will then NOT get new chapters until they've caught up to when they would have gotten those chapters on the normal release schedule.

I'm aware that my patrons are kind enough to give me their hard-earned money in support of my work, and get access to chapters early for their generosity. I'm also sensitive to the fact that giving chapters out early could be seen as a violation of that. Because of all this, I've decided to keep Patreon billing paused through September. The chapter releases will resume as previously announced, but payment for them will not.

Since I'm doing this, and I have seen some confusion about how pausing the billing works, I'll give a quick explanation:

When Patreon billing is paused, any remaining time you have paid for carries over to after the pause. If you had 16 days left prior to the pause, you will still have 16 days left when it resumes. Because billing can only be paused while it is already active, when I pause for two months, there is a brief period where the billing resumes in the middle and I need to manually pause it again for the second month. If you get charged in this period, it does not mean you have been charged for the month where nothing gets released. Your payment cycle just happened to fall in the brief window and the month you were charged for will resume after the pause period.

I hope that helps clear up some misunderstandings.

One last thing: when new chapters resume next week will be the 7th anniversary of this Patreon going live. It doesn't really affect anything, but I'm astonished at how time seems to have flown by, yet my life has completely transformed in that time. I've gone from unemployed to flying across the world to do a book tour. From my crappy apartment with a stick holding my bedroom window shut to owning my own home. From a solitary life to making new friends, all around the world. All of that started right here, on Patreon, with you, my amazing readers. I write words for a living, yet I'll never be able to capture the depth of gratitude I have for all of you. Thank you.

-Shirt