Happy Holidays! (Patreon)

My fellow author, FiniteVoid, was courteous enough to make me this very cursed Christmas version of the cover for Isekai Exorcist and you can download it below, if you for some reason feel like it, lol.

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Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and year's end. In Denmark, and especially in my family, we always make a big deal of Christmas. On the eve of the 24th we sing as we dance around the tree decorated with cakes and baubles, and afterwards, while opening presents, we'll eat cakes and confectionery that we made on the 23rd. I'd love to hear how you all celebrate the holidays.

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Chapters of my stories will continue to go up as always, but I may be a bit slower in responding to messages on here for the next week or so.

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This year has been quite incredible for me and I have all of you to thank for that. I honestly never thought that there would be people interested enough in my writing to support me in the way that you have all done.

I've been writing since I was 17 years old and I'm 29 now. I did have one book published back in 2016 through a small publisher in the UK, but it didn't lead to any big break. But I'll be honest, I was okay with that. I always just wrote because I wanted to tell my stories, and I was okay with the possibility that hardly anyone would read them.

Despite being an avid reader, I'd never really been into reading on websites and didn't even know what RoyalRoad was until August of last year, when a friend, Ole, from uni told me about it. I thought long and hard about whether I wanted to publicly release my stories on this platform, but it was my girlfriend at the time, Alexis, who gave me the push I needed.

In January of this year, I then started putting out Father of Monstrosity, which was honestly just a half-formed idea I had come up with at the time, while my story Exiled Realm was where all my efforts had been invested.

As most of you probably know, Exiled Realm was not the book that took off for me, rather it was Father of Monstrosity that got me noticed on the site. Thanks to building a following slowly, I got into contact with people like M.G. Driver, who invited me into a discord group of other RR authors, which really helped me grow on the site and is one of the reasons why Father of Monstrosity got as big as it did, due to shout-outs and learning how to grow on the site.

As my confidence grew, I tried out the April Writathon with my Dark Comedy Dungeon Core story, Toad Town, which was a harebrained concept I'd come up with during a period of half-delirious insomnia. It was honestly a lot of fun to write, but, as you may know, it is now on a Hiatus. This is because, I think, writing on it every day for the Writathon really exhausted all the ideas I had and made the last 10 chapters excruciatingly-difficult to write. I am slightly embarrassed to leave the story unfinished, but I will find a way to wrap it up hopefully during my long break from school over the New Year.

Exiled Realm is another story that I've left on Hiatus, but this is less due to a lack of story to tell and more because it requires extensive rewriting on arcs 3, 4, and 5, which are already done. This story started out as a VRPGMMO story, but after I'd written out the first 'book' (arc 1-2), I shopped it around to various publishers and got mostly no response. I eventually hit up Portal Books and though they ended up declining the story (due to it being a bit too dark), they gave me such amazing feedback and lead me to turn the story into an Isekai. It is also thanks to their feedback that I created my unholy pantheon of 'Great Ones', as Exiled Realm is the first place beings like The Watcher of Worlds appear.

In June, when I finished writing Father of Monstrosity, I knew I wanted to try my hand with another in-depth Isekai fantasy like Exiled Realm. I had this old idea about some naive kid becoming an exorcist and I'd been a fan of games like Phasmophobia for years, so I tried to marry these two concepts together and ended up with Isekai Exorcist. This book immediately took off for me, which was incredible to experience. And even though it didn't hit all the mainstream buttons of what RR readers usually like, it did manage to reach #4 on the Rising Stars list.

For me, a story like Isekai Exorcist is amazing to write, because I feel like I have endless possibilities and stories to explore. I'm generally not a fast writer, so the fact that I've been able to churn out over 200k words in half a year is pretty mindblowing to me, and I think it speaks volumes to how much I like to tell this story.

Given how well Father of Monstrosity did post-completion (it still has a spot on the top 10 Best Completed, even after 5 months!), I wanted to try my hand at self-publishing. I genuinely found a new dislike for formatting and have decided that I will henceforth rely on publishers or other third-parties to deal with this mess XD! The amount of stress I experienced in November to get the book ready to publish, was enough to shave several years off my life I believe. Nevertheless, I am glad to have achieved something like this and it has given me an appreciation for those who do it with ease.

As of writing, the story has made about $150 in Royalties, which, given that it cost me nothing to make, isn't too shabby. I haven't spent anything on marketing, since that's another can of worms that I am not sure I want to sink into. Editing and formatting only cost me my own time, and the ISBN which is normally a pricey part of self-pub was also free, because in Denmark you get your first 10 ISBNs for free as an independent publisher, while in the US and UK you have to fork out $300 or more.

To everyone who bought the book, and those who sent me pictures of their copy, I really appreciate it. You didn't have to, but you did, and it means so much to me. The thought that someone on the other side of the world has a physical copy of something I wrote is really awesome. That's the kind of thing that keeps my spirits up, even when life throws a sucker-punch.

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Going forward, I plan to wrap up 'book 1' of Isekai Exorcist before year's end. This means that the entire Helmstatter arc will be wrapped up. Hopefully ^-^'

I am also going to reveal that I am pursuing some manner of publishing deal for the book, though nothing is yet set in stone, but, once a deal is made, I will make sure to inform you all. There is a saying in Danish, which is roughly translated into "Work the iron while it is hot." I'm a firm believer in this, so that's why I'd rather seek out a deal while my story is still ongoing, rather than wait for it to end completely before trying to find takers.

Since I'm not amazing at legalese and staring at contracts for hours does my head in, I've contracted with the agency Fictopia. Many of my author friends in the LitRPG space have told me that getting an agent is a bad investment, since publishers don't require you to get one in this niche, but I've always wanted one. An agent works off commission, so it's in their best interest to get the best possible deal. And I'll be honest, there are a ton of great authors in our space and beyond who get shafted by predatory deals that take too many rights for too little compensation in return. I've almost fallen into such a trap a couple times, so good legal counsel is very important to have.

You may wonder, "Will this agent change anything about your stories?" and the answer is no. But it will hopefully lead to some publishing deals that'll enable me to write full-time. I am studying to become a programmer at the moment, but writing is what I love, so I am working diligently towards that future outcome, even if it may take years to pull off.

For 2024, the plan is to begin releasing Sovereign Monstrosity on RoyalRoad in February, with 2 chapters per week. I am also planning to release Madman Apocalypse later during Q1 or potentially Q2. The latter is a System Apocalypse LitRPG that I've already gotten good feedback on from the opening I've made, however, it still needs some work before I can release more of it, but keep your eyes open.

I will keep this post up-to-date with upcoming stuff and what I'm working on.

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Lastly, I would like to just express my gratitude again.

One thing I often do is look at the threads of fate that have brought me to where I am. I've named a few people in this post who have steered me in this direction, but I could honestly keep going back in time and find more people who have impacted my life and led me here. If I go all the way back, I think I'd have to thank my mom for fostering the joy of reading in me and helping grow my imagination by reading out loud to me when I was very little. I didn't have a great childhood, but I hold these memories so dear.

I've dealt with depression my entire life and almost been swallowed by my own dark thoughts on several occasions, but I've learnt to focus on the positives in my life, and recognising and thanking the people who have helped me is a great step in that direction. Every year's end, I do become very introspective and look back. This year in particular has been full of ups and downs. There have been great losses in my family and my personal life, but also great gains, and rather than focusing on the losses, I choose to focus on the gains.

It may sound overly preachy, but I think that your own perspective is what shapes your reality. I'm sure we all know people who wallow in their sadness and despair, and I've certainly been that person too, but at some point I just realised that it wasn't changing anything. If I'd given up, I wouldn't be here writing this and thanking all of you.

I don't really know how to end this, so I'll just say thank you again.

- Dosei (土星)