TLDR: DWBS book available for purchase here! All proceeds go to me writing more books. Please go there, review, and read!
Hi everyone!
I haven't told many people that Demon World Boba Shop was my favorite writing experience. I started the series at a time when I very, very badly needed the world to feel like a nicer place. The actual world was pretty uncooperative with that, so I made up a new one, expecting that it would help me feel better if I spent all my work hours every day making up stories about a calm, beautiful world.
It did help, but not always for the reasons you’d expect. Spending imaginary hours in the Demon World was nice. Even nicer was the fact that everyone who read the stories who wasn’t philosophically opposed to low-stakes-cozy at a concept level seemed to get different valuable things out of it. The number of times I’ve read someone saying that it got them through a hard time or provided a mental hug when they needed it is frankly just staggering to me.
And then, one day, I had told all the story there was to tell about Arthur, Mizu, Lily, and Milo. I could have stretched it out longer. I honestly thought about it. Eventually, I decided that it was probably okay for it to come to an end, and that any more stories I’d write in the cozy, feel-good spectrum of things would be about someone else, and maybe in an entirely different setting.
Now for the hard bit: I write for money. It’s the only work I do these days. If I write a story that doesn’t do well, I end up in a tough spot where I have a full-time job but one that maybe doesn’t pay enough to actually cover all the bills. It’s part of why I write so fast - I need to insulate myself from a series failing, dragging down half a year with it, and leaving me without the resources to write the next thing.
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Demon World Boba Shop has always performed okay by a lot of standards, but never as well as I thought it could have given how many of you really loved it. How to Survive and Deadworld Isekai both did better from a money perspective, believe it or not. Infinite Farmer gets much more mixed reviews than DWBS did, but even it has done better from a financial perspective at every milestone so far.
As much as I’d like to say that doesn’t affect my decisions about what I write, it really does. I wanted to bring that up because in a couple of months at the longest, I’m going to finish the planned length of Infinite Farmer and will be figuring out what to write next. Don’t get me wrong: I’ll write cozy again, at some point. Sooner or later, there will be some DWBS-like words flowing out of my fingers.
But does how well the series does on Amazon/Audible affect how quickly that happens? Absolutely. It’s not the only factor, but it matters.
Regardless of how it does financially, though, I want you to know that this series is/was/will always be incredibly worth the time I put into it. That’s because of all of you - reading, commenting, sharing it with other people, and making sure I knew it was appreciated every time I put up a new chapter.
So please do read, review, and share the Book 5 release, but in any case know that you are incredibly appreciated.
Thank you again,
RC
Links to DWBS on Amazon:
Book 1
Book 2
Book 3
Book 4
Book 5
PS: We commissioned a special cover art for DWBS B5
image [https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81XFVuqJW7L._SL1500_.jpg]