As per the post on X (Twitter), my job contract will be up at the end of June. It was a bit of a shock because I've been working for the same company for 12 years, but unfortunately the costs of keeping me on remote is too risky with Colorado’s new tax codes. Moving back to Florida is out of the question, so I'm going to be setting new goals.
Writing has always been part-time to software development, but I want to change this. My readership has been growing at a faster pace these last couple months, and the feedback I'm getting is very encouraging. I've never felt more like I can actually make it as a full-time writer until now.
That's not saying this is going to happen tomorrow. I'm still far below being able to survive off of royalties alone if I want writing to be a full-time career, so I will need to find another job in Tech, at least until I have a stable income from my books and my writing.
Which brings me to how I want to handle writing going forward...
One-time donations combined with Patreon subscriptions will help me become more independent with enough support, and if I become more independent, that means I can focus less on other sources of income and more on creating the content you all enjoy reading. This includes eventual collabs with Forge on webnovels and visual novels (gotta put that programming experience to use).
I have launched a Patreon, and I plan on posting future short stories and full-length webnovels, as well as allowing access the private areas of my Discord channel, and early access to possible youtube videos in the future (I’m still trying to figure out how to go about that). Patrons will also be able to download the EPUB versions of my published books without having to go through Amazon. This circumvents Amazon’s rules of exclusivity since I’m not technically ‘selling’ the books, and hopefully I can keep Varcross up.
Keep in mind, you are in no way obligated to donate or subscribe. In fact, if you are in tight places financially, there are other ways you can help. Spread the word and links to my writing around to platforms like YouTube or TikTok, chats like Discord or Telegram, or even book forums, book review comments, the list goes on.
If you bought one or both of my books, leave a review in a few places like Amazon and Goodreads. There are so many ways to help rather than giving money, because at the end of the day, exposure helps make me become a legitimate author and builds my readership.
Either way you go about it, your support means the world to me!