Well, I’ve made a mistake. I’m going to be upfront about this one: the Incentives page was a bad idea. I thought it was a good one, but it’s not working out and I’m going to get rid of it. But you still get this bonus chapter and one more.
Here are my reasons. A while back I got a good comment from someone when I suggested building a subreddit for this story. The user pointed out that I shouldn’t involve myself so heavily in things that fans and readers get to decide to do.
I as an author don’t have time or the right to create fan works for my blog, and honestly, it’s not my place to bug people to make stuff for me either. Incentivizing that kind of thing is also a bad idea, because it can lead to a mess.
Example: the TV Tropes page. I thought it would be a great idea to have one, as it can lead to a lot of traffic to the blog. But as it is right now, it’s problematic for me and anyone who wants to edit the page.
Although there are now 50+ tropes on the page, I notice they’ve been cross-wicked wrong in places. The Wandering Inn is a Web Serial, which should be under ‘Literature’ when cross-wicked, rather than ‘Web Original’. Plus, some of the information on the page is wrong, only partly accurate, or just grammatically incorrect, which isn’t anyone’s fault, but it’s not good either.
If someone wants to make tropes and work on the page, it should be their choice, and not because they want the next chapter out sooner.
I know it’s a bit of a blow to take away something I’ve offered, but honestly, giving away that many bonus chapters is also a problem for me in terms of cost-efficiency. I realized pretty quickly that more reviews on any of the sites I offered isn’t really going to help the blog that much, getting to the #1 spot on Royalroad and TopWebFiction isn’t so important as lasting popularity, and most crucially, it is promoting a ‘I help you now you owe me words’ mentality, which isn’t how the relationship works.
I appreciate donations and I offer a chapter early on Patreon, but this is still my story and I like to write it at my pace and my way, which is also why I’ll never offer a reward like ‘$20 gets your character or a magical object you created in the story’.
I’m sorry to people who were psyched up about the bonus chapters, but you’ll still get two and this way maybe you’ll get a surprise week sooner, rather than me constantly playing catch up writing bonus chapters. If/when I get to a full time job, I’ll probably release bonus chapters and write fanfiction and other stories for fun, but it does have to be me doing it because I want to rather than constantly writing to meet goals that I shouldn’t have offered in the first place.
We live and learn, and this one’s a mistake I hope I won’t repeat. Slap me if I do. And thanks for reading this second-to-last bonus chapter!