Fair warning: This blog gets very self-indulgent.

I was surprised to see the premature results of this month’s Patreon poll. Already there are more votes for Consequences and a way bigger lead than most months. I hope this is out of eagerness for the story to continue and not just distress for Nicole’s character, though if it is the latter, I feel for you.

It’s common practice for writers to, conscious of it or not, nick little wordings and phrasings from stories they’ve enjoyed and repurpose them. Some words sound better to us than others in a given situation, and we all like to use what we know. If you’re not having conversations or even reading or watching shows for the first time, you’re not getting any new words in your head, and that’s not fantastic for a writer. It’s a steady part of the writer’s diet. Very clever readers might be able to sniff out a few favorites of mine that I’ve used more than once. (I’ll give you a freebie: a desperate character saying “Kiss me… please?” It’s based on a mushy romantic story from that blue website. The story appears to have sadly been taken down.)

One line that I’ve had knocking around in my head was the line Nicole used on the bus. “I used to be the pharaoh. You know? I used to be the fucking Pharaoh.” It’s taken from an amazingly well-written show from the UK called The Thick of It. The context isn’t dissimilar to Nicole’s – a character is lamenting how they used to have power and respect, and through what they perceive as no fault of their own, they have ended up with the same responsibilities but none of the same power or respect anymore. It’s a very well-understood feeling, working hard and not only feeling unrewarded, but actively punished at a certain point for your work. You’ve probably felt that way once or twice. Arguably it’s a key theme of King Lear, among other works.

I find myself feeling troubled lately, remembering my own past and seeing my own stagnation. I’ve felt a particular bitterness lately at my place in the online erotica world. I was never ever an important figure even in the free online erotica world, but in my own little community, I certainly had my day, and my day feels… over. I’ll never stop writing, of course, but some days it does feel like I have already lived through my most popular days, and I don’t know how to feel about it.

The blue website (sexstories) perfectly showcases this. I started on that website, before it was even known as sexstories, and in the longform-story-loving days of 2014, my first few chapters rocketed to instant popularity. Being More Social was a hit nearly overnight. I went from being a nobody to having tens of thousands of views over the course of 48 hours. My young adult self felt like a God. I had my own struggles, a lot of them self-imposed, and my younger quick-to-start-a-fight personality garnered me a few enemies, but on a whole, I felt great. I was getting messages from people who never met me saying they had to reach out to me and that they loved my work. People asked me when my next chapter was out. People asked me if I had a Patreon.

So, in 2016, I made one, along with a little website. The Patreon was originally a joint venture with a friend, though we realized how different our creations were and parted ways in that way. We’re still close friends – he even makes the graphics for this website. If I recall correctly, I also got a Twitter account around then, and those three outer sources of me made me realize that the stories I had written weren’t confined to the one website – people on the internet really liked reading my work. It was very kind, and it needed to be a two-way street where I appreciated people’s input and time. Again, there were a few bumps in the road but I got a good groove going. Naturally, the Patreon never really took off that much and I figured I would remain a hobbyist for the rest of my days.

But then, in 2018, sexstories purged my first story, and people emailed me to make me aware. So, I brushed up on the site’s new rules, reworked the story, and rereleased it. The result? It exploded. The first five chapters are still among sexstories’ most read stories of all time. Alongside this, my Patreon exploded, with, at its highest, nearly four figures of income a month. If I focused, I could have made this my full-time work. All I had to do was have a consistent output from now on.

Sadly, in late 2018 and early 2019, my IRL life exploded too, with deaths and breakups and broken hearts and… well, to put it bluntly, a lot of events that inspired the story Breathe. One of the results was that I couldn’t bring myself to write. My Patreon dwindled rapidly over time and I became something of a relic. I needed to focus on myself and I should not have focused on writing erotica consistently in this time, but, it is a fact that this dwindling was my own doing. So why do I feel like I’ve lost a lot of respect and “power” compared to what I used to?

Simple: I’m going by mid-2019 as a starting point. After I recovered from my bad period, I finished a project that was a real pimple on my back (Only If You Want) and then worked to create consistent stories. With Mutual Benefits, I resolved to put out a story consistently every month, and I haven’t stopped since. The interest in my work, both in terms of view counts and Patreon supporters, went back up. It looked like I was doing okay again.

But a few things were different now. For one, there’s a lot more competition, and I can’t help but compare myself unfavorably to some. I am no longer one of the only people openly advertising my Patreon on sexstories, but whenever I see the Patreon of another writer that gets similar viewer numbers to mine, they’re pulling in four figures a month, or damn near. At time of writing, I’m pulling in 161 dollars a month. That simply can’t pay my rent. While quality of stories is definitely a factor, I can’t help but feel it’s because they promise patrons get to read stories before the non-paying viewers, but on principle, I just can’t do that. It feels too mean. You all give me your time, you sometimes will donate to me, why would I punish the least able to give by locking my writing behind a paywall? It doesn’t seem just. In one way, my principles are holding me back from getting more money through my writing which would, ironically, make my writing output go up.

Another thing that’s different is a much more cutthroat attitude on public sites. It’s odd; we think of the internet of the 2000s as this anarchic Wild West, when in reality, it was actually reasonably calm in the online erotica space. Nowadays, whenever I post a story onto sexstories, within hours of its uploading it has a disproportionately high number of downvotes, which kills its public visibility. The guy that does my graphics is convinced it’s some troll with a VPN, while I think some of the people I was rude to still remember me and give me a little “Nice to see you, fuck you” whenever I post there now. Both possibilities are valid. But it used to be a phenomenon where when I posted a new story to sexstories, I’d get a few new patrons along with ~100k views on the upload with a comfy mid-90s rating. Now, I’m lucky if I break 20k views before the story plummets to around 80% rating, which kills the story’s discoverability on sexstories. I’ll try to be modest in some ways, but if you’ve seen the stuff on sexstories that makes it to the top rated section, you’ll know that you’re rolling the dice on if they use actual punctuation or well-written sex or even any semblance of readability. My stories do belong in their top rated, and it’s unquestionably personal that I get so downrated there.

What can I do? Sigh and move on, mostly. It used to be a big part of my strategy for getting new viewers and potential revenue to be able to keep doing this. Now it’s… just another place I post my stories if I remember to. As I said, I used to be the Pharaoh. Not of online erotica, just of my own little space. The place where I got started, the place that gifted me with immediate success, has been so poisoned against me that posting there doesn’t feel worth it anymore. What a sucker punch.

This blog post is not intended to guilt trip anyone, and I hope it doesn’t come across that way. It’s just that I not only remember a time of more success, but it was also clear what I had to do if that success was fading. Yeah, I lost a lot of support in 2019, but I knew that posting would get that back. Now, when I post a new chapter of Consequences, not much changes. My monetary support is dwindling, forcing me to focus more on either other real-life work (which isn’t going great either) or commissions.

That said, I’m glad I’m catching up on commissions. They have been able to support me well financially, and I’ve almost worked my way through my backlog of promised commissions entirely. (Once I run out of those, that’s when playing the game on hard mode begins.) I have been trying to do not only a full chapter every month, but a full commission piece with it too. If I manage to consistently put out two pieces a month, especially considering they’re usually longer pieces, I might consider changing my monetization strategy, but nothing in a way that punishes you, the reader. you’re always priority number one, I would just also like to have some kind of financial stability in exchange for how much I try every month.

I do get discouraged a lot these days. I started a Discord server a bit ago, and reworked it recently, but I’m garbage at knowing how to keep up a good Discord community (click the button below to join, if you want). I’m writing more than ever, and not only is it not resulting in more success, but I’m actively worsening my situation by the day, and I’m not sure entirely how to change my strategy to fix that, for now at least. Hence, I used to be the Pharaoh. But! One thing I can do to garner more interest and community is resume these weekly blogs. I used to do it more, and who knows, maybe falling behind has been the missing piece of the puzzle. I guess I’ll find out. Thanks for making it all the way through this ramble; it’s something I’ve wanted to get off my chest for a while. I’ll talk to you all next week.

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