How far to push a story, and when to pivot to a new one?

[avaseofpeonies]

What if your finished work is an ecchi harem smut but your new work is a clean, wholesome work? Don't you rather write the new one as a new author?

You do make a good point there, although I don't think it's what OP was asking. As an adult writer myself, if I ever do anything for more general audiences, I intend to do so under a different pen name.

 

[TimBaril]

I'm going to be extremely rough with you, because I don't think anyone else will be. If you want the kind words, you can look at everyone else. If you don't want "rough" you can skip me.

There's a ton of great feedback from lots of people here, but this post especially has lots of really useful stuff. Thanks so much to Sebastian Guzman, Shirtaloon, and everyone for taking the time to write.

I'm struggling to write for mainstream audiences. I may have more of a trad pub style or write in a way that was more popular decades ago. I need to do more research into other popular stories and practice writing in a more popular style.

I think give my current books an edit, see if they can be made more commercial, maybe put them on KU or something to try to reach a different audience. But slow the release of new material there and try to come up with something for a wider audience that might appeal to Patrons.

Again, thanks, guys. Much appreciated. :)

 

[Sebas_Guzman]

There's a ton of great feedback from lots of people here, but this post especially has lots of really useful stuff. Thanks so much to Sebastian Guzman, Shirtaloon, and everyone for taking the time to write.

I'm struggling to write for mainstream audiences. I may have more of a trad pub style or write in a way that was more popular decades ago. I need to do more research into other popular stories and practice writing in a more popular style.

I think give my current books an edit, see if they can be made more commercial, maybe put them on KU or something to try to reach a different audience. But slow the release of new material there and try to come up with something for a wider audience that might appeal to Patrons.

Again, thanks, guys. Much appreciated. :)

Hey, rooting for you man. I'm happy you found something of value here. I started on KU with a non-existent base and was able to get something, which I think you can too if you find the right audience.
Do you have facebook? There's an author group 20booksto5000 which is just authors trying to optimize themselves. You won't find super specific info for your challenges, but peeking in every now and again can give ideas. Also, your covers are safe enough that you can advertise on Amazon.
If you have money to advertise, consider learning how advertising on amazon works for books and throw 100.00 at it, with a focus on World of Fantasy. If you go the ads route, you want to spend $5.00 a day or so. The author group always recommends a particular course on amazon ads, but there's some good articles one google search away that can give you the basic understanding if you need it.
Anyway, rooting for you man. You've got baseline quality, you just got to find the audience and ideal profit model

 

[Neosquall20022000]

But I'd also like to try making a career of this. I'm trying to figure out if it's possible with my current work or if it makes more sense to start another book instead.

The issue is that there's no guarantee that a new story would perform better than what you're currently working on. Sometimes whether a book performs well is just a matter of timing, not necessarily the quality of the work.

The 1st Edition of my story performed exceptionally well, even doing well on Patreon. But the performance wasn't even close when I updated it to the latest Edition. In the past, when I posted a chapter, I'd generate thousands of views within an hour. But this hasn't been the case for the 2nd Edition. With my improvement and experience as a writer, it wasn't an issue of the story quality being less than the original Edition -- this means that current trends are different from when I first started. Knowing this, I plan on continuing with my story since it'll be more content for when the market changes return to what it was like before.

It's good not to be impatient with your artwork and have confidence in your writing. If you enjoy your story, people will feel the same about it.

 

[Kuropon]

Probably depends on how much money you need to make from Patreon for it to be valid. Took around a year for me to start earning good money with it, it could have been faster if I managed it well but I could see the follower counts increasing with each passing month which indicated that it would do good to keep me going.

Patreon is nice but it's not always the best option. I know people that don't do great on Patreon but they sell well on Amazon instead and have low follower counts on RR and SH. And people that buy on amazon can also be recruited over to Patreon. It's easier to get going on Amazon if you have some type of following on SH or RR though, it's free advertisement and those initial good reviews do count.