There is now a schedule set for the audio books for all three books of The World. Jason Hill will be the voice. I’m adding the audio sample that he did for production. It’s a random spot inside book one that has the main character’s monologue and several NPC voices. He did an Irish-like voice for the Half-elf NPCs which surprisingly works well with the story. Listen through the sample and let me know what you think.
 
The date for First Login to be completed is no later than December 14th 2018. Jason Hill was just finishing up another project and there’s the whole Halloween and Thanksgiving holidays within the publishing time period so I gave two weeks over the suggest two months for completion. Hopefully he’ll finish the books sooner, but it depends on his schedule. Mixing It Up date for completion is February 14th 2019.  Again, I added on another two weeks to the production. I figured it was the least I could do with Christmas and the New Year being right in the middle of the production schedule. You’re Going Down’s schedule was a straight two months. Final completion date is April 18th 2019.
 
Yeah, I know I could have gotten all three audio books out if I used different voice actors, but Jason Hill’s voice is so good. I figured it was worth the wait and, to be honest, I’d like a consistent voice between all the books. My wife Anja immediately said choose him when she heard the sample. Yea … yea, I know she doesn’t speak English so well but she does have a good ear and I agreed with her so Jason Hill it was. Here is the link https://youtu.be/RARKVR2Tc6Y Please don’t laugh at my poor video editing skills, heh.
 
The next portion of this post is in regard to the scathing nasty reviews many writers leave their competition. The better your book does in the ratings the nastier and the more frequent the badgering you’ll get from other writers. You can usually tell which posts these are just by looking for any ‘book report’ sized review many these types of writers leave. Usually they’re a studied critique of everything that’s wrong with the story. That, or they’re just straight up attacks. I have plenty of both on my new series, The World. I had this happen on Flight the first week the book hit the top 20 in sales for my subcategory. Immediately, I had four book report sized reviews left criticizing my work.
 
At the time, I was very sensitive to the bashing. I remember trying to understand wtf was up. I searched the reviewers’ names on Amazon and sure enough they were authors whose books weren’t doing well. I don’t know if that was a frustrated FU because they felt like my book was somehow doing better than theirs and shouldn’t be because my grammar or storyline. Instead of writing better or more, they decided to search through the list of authors above them and leave nasty reviews to make themselves feel better while trying to hurt their ratings. Honestly, I just don’t get it.
 
Even more frustrating are the Indy Writers that become scathingly violent to any new writers coming into their genre. If you’re not one of their friends, were there before them or Brian Sanderson, then they jump all over your books leaving terrible reviews or directly attack you by saying you’re a plagiarist or unoriginal. I had this happen to First Login. Fifteen minutes after posting, I had an author and four of his buddies immediately slam my book on release. You’d think that Amazon would have done something about the libel, especially when we were in the same LitRPG group. Unfortunately, while Amazon is rabid about pulling positive reviews on Indy Writers, the negative ones they have no problem ignoring. Falsely accused or not, most people just didn’t want to get involved in the issue once you’ve been labeled as something bad regardless if the accusation is justified or not.
 
Maybe I’m the odd ball of the group. I truly love to see the writers I like to read doing well. I give them good reviews and sometimes even send them emails saying how much I enjoyed their work. It’s just so annoying having to wait for them to release their next books. Not that it’s their fault. I read a book in a day, so what writer could keep to that schedule. Seriously though, even if I’m a writer, why wouldn’t I support the authors I enjoy?
 
I had been hoping that the LitRPG group would be that community I was seeking and having such a hard time finding. I probably need to send an email to Aleron Kong about what happened and see his response, since we’ve talked before about the LitRPG community and uploading my books to his LitRPG website list while my wife was in the hospital. I’d sent him a thank you for being a distraction during that difficult time in my life. After being burned from some of the other writers in the group, it just makes me somewhat hesitant to approach anyone. Once I get some time I’ll have to send him an email.
 
Ultimately, the worst part of drama in the end is how it takes away from writing my next book. I do my best to not spend too much time going back and doing corrections or asking reviews on goodread to make sure they do a matching review on Amazon. It’s a difficult balance at times.
 
Although, on another level, it’s nothing new in my life. I’ve had to fight my way out of poverty. I struggled for everything I’ve accomplished. Many times there were groups of people who dismissed me because I was poor, wasn’t part of their group, a nerd or wasn’t cool. I never let them keep me down. The World’s main character’s challenges reflect many of the in real life challenges I faced as a guild leader. Groups of players staking out an area and bullying anyone who dares to attack their monsters? Yeah, I’ve been there and fought those asshats whenever they showed up to grief people. Spawn camping PVPers who gank you again and again for hours straight because they’re a 100 levels higher than you? Yeah, I’ve fought those bastards too. Sometimes the game world reflects real life a little too much.
 
In the end, I’ve always made it through those difficult times in my life. Usually with a mixture of one or two good friends or strangers that stood out from the crowd and were just decent human beings. Yeah, I have a huge issue with bullies. Especially those bullies who hide behind their popularity of sports or top level rankings in game to be cruel just because they can. It motivates my main character as much as it has motivated me throughout my entire life. So far it has made for an awesome story. Hopefully, everyone will like where I take it in the future books.
 
Lastly, for all the fans that have been supporting me and have raised the rating for First Login from 1.5 stars to 4, I want to thank you. If not for your support, I wouldn’t still be writing LitRPG. I can’t thank those of you enough for all the grammar corrections, good ratings and supportive reviews. You have made The World possible. 

​This is a publishing concept I’ve discussed in previous blog posts. I only had Flight and Destiny published at the time but the concept came to me upon seeing the lukewarm respawns upon the books release. The problem, I determined or hoped at the time, was that it was more of an issue with getting people back interested in the series after a year and a half time period in-between the first and second novel of the same series. It just could have meant the book sucked but honestly I didn’t think that was the case. I believed the response to my books would have been much different if I could have published them at or near the same time.
 
Now this isn’t something a new Indie Writer wants to hear. I know for me, getting my first book written and published was a huge undertaking. It wasn’t just the whole producing a book and getting it published, it was knowing whether or not I sucked as a writer. People love to tell new writers to use Writer Groups as a means to get feedback and get access to Beta readers, and while this sounds like a great idea, in practice the experience is another story. Unfortunately, the writing groups I found when I was a new author always had a main bully and a group of his cronies that pounced on anyone new to the group. They enjoy beating ‘fresh meat’ down and ridiculing their ideas and have no problems telling you how much you suck.
 
Those are the direct assholes. The indirect ones use kinder words but are just as destructive. Usually these bullies fall into the category that if you haven’t completed a PhD in Literature and did your time in a paper or publishing house, then you shouldn’t be allowed to even publish an Indie Book on your own. Their complaint is that you’re just filling up the market with your crap worthless crap and stopping readers from finding hidden gems like their own novels. Usually the dribble starts out with saying if you don’t have perfect grammar or spelling then no matter how good you write, your book is crap. The funny part is that good grammar or perfect spelling does not sell a book nor is it required to make huge sells. Just ask J. K. Rowling if you don’t believe me. She’s making millions by being able to tell a wickedly-good story.
 
Anyway, back on track to the subject of post. My idea after seeing the difficulty I was having getting people interested in book two was to release my next series altogether with three books at once. While this was a great idea, in practice it is quite difficult. The difficulty comes from life throwing wrenches in your way and the fact that most of us do not have a pool of Beta writers that we can trust to give us good feedback. That combination makes it tough to produce three novels in one go.
 
By the third novel you’re questioning if all this work is really worth it or if anyone is going to bother reading your books. Even worse, you go back to your very first novel and see all of your previous mistakes because you’ve gotten so much better as a writer. Instead of having that encourage you, it makes question yourself that much more. You go through your current set of three novels that you’re writing, but it all looks good to your eyes. Still, even with all of these doubts, you complete the three books in your new series and are ready to go.
 
I would think most new writers would have this fear. If not, your either very ignorant to the whole writing process or you’re just that good. If you’re just that good, then my hat is off to you, Sir or Madam. For the rest of us humans, I’d wager to bet that my tribulations was nearer to the general mean.
 
When I released the three books to my series, I have to say that the response from fans were better than I’d hoped. Even readers who only rated my work as average, for whatever reason … for me probably spelling and grammar, read through the complete series. People even picked up my old series to read it through because they liked my writing style so much. It was a great response and proof of concept.
 
The only caveat is that you have to have a good story. Otherwise you will have partially wasted your time writing out so many books all at once. Trust me, that is a hard caveat to accept. Most writers have a problem hearing any negative comments about their works. I try to be humble and open to criticism. My first try at writing a story was a disaster and a colleague of mine, Shannon R. gave me the greatest gift he could ever give me. He told me the truth of where and how my story sucked. My second try is what produced Flight.
 
Anyway, my recommendation to you is write three or four books of your series out before releasing them. The reader will appreciate having more material to read and you as a writer will appreciate the sales. It makes everyone happy.
 
The final warning I will give if you’re waiting to release your books altogether in one go is to document the timeline of your stories. Run a blog were you talk about your up and coming book, documents the backups in email, do whatever you can in case some jealous author or one of their angry fans decides to come after you for producing a story that is generally similar to another writer’s work. Thankfully I had a little bit of that for the issue I ran into, but no matter how right you are, you’ll be fighting from behind the eight ball if someone attacks you online.