Sorry About Last Week

 Originally posted on July 31, 2020 at https://ailovestogrow.wixsite.com/mysite/post/sorry-about-last-week

So, last week...

I don't know what happened, and I probably jumped the gun, but I flipped out because in every way I could determine through my limited viewport, I was finished. I believe sometime in the distant future, someone is going to dig up the digital remains of my blog posts and they are going to say:

This girl needs to chillax. One second she's jumping up and down like a tween over her first crush inviting her to prom, the next she's playing the Smiths and eating Mint Chocolate Ice Cream naked in the shower while crying.

Whatever happened, it seems to be back to normal now and I even received a new review! Arigatou Kage no Neko! I got all kinds of happiness from hearing you say my book had hope and heroism. It's a book about me working through my own sexual acceptance, and you think that is heroic: in a roundabout way, I just got called a hero. Thanks thanks!! Also happy to see some stars from John M Smith at Goodreads! Thanks!

Thanks to Vanima as well on Amazon, happy to see BM has a little bit of something for everyone. Most reviewers have come around for the futa, expansion or monster girls, but it looks like people can come around for the lesbian as well. Sooo happy to bring the girl power! On a side note, I call a lesbian harem a Reverse Reverse Harem, or an R2 Harem in my head. I want there to be enough R2 Harems that they'll have to coin a term and give me internet props for being the first to use it. Also thanks to Random for the CENSORED review! Happy to see you back and driving traffic to BM while helping the visibility of CENSORED for those who are new.

Next on the docket is International Reviews! First, let me say that these reviews don't show up on my Amazon Author feed and as far as Amazon is concerned, I should have no feedback to them at all. I didn't even know they existed until yesterday. Probably a good thing for my mental health, the only two new reviews I've found come from Germany and they are both rather critical. MY FIRST 1 OF 5 STAR REVIEWS!! I am sorry ReadingGrump and Tristram Bear that you did not enjoy my story, I hope you can find some enjoyable stories elsewhere.

This did lead to me perusing the international options in my KDP menus and I discovered some interesting factoids. US sales are far and away my number one slot. I get it, my books are English and use Imperial measuring units. I work around a lot of European equipment so that's the only reason I'm not thrown off by metric, but others might not care to have to math just to enjoy a story. 11% of my sales come from International English (Australia, UK and Canada). 5% comes from everywhere else, what I'm calling International Foreign Languages. Of that, less than 1% comes from Germany. I'm very happy with all my German friends and hope you don't feel intimidated by the reviews currently live on your Amazon page.

This does pose a question for all you Internationals: would you like to see a Metric Version of the books? I might do it in the future after I get Book 2 pushed out the door just to see what response I'll get, but if I get some major fan feedback I'll crunch those numbers sooner.

On another note, I don't use Google. I don't like how they track me and I have personal reasons not to use the search engine ("then why is your email gmail?" because other reasons). This means I've never tracked my book on anything other than DuckDuckGo until yesterday. I found out that I have hit the big time because Becoming Monsters is currently being pirated as we speak. I'll be the first to say I'm not thrilled, but I'm resigned to understand. I hope that any one of the 4400+ who has "accessed" the book, if they enjoyed it, consider my desire to continue writing is directly linked to sales and fan responses. At the very least, help a girl out and post a review. I think we all want to see me finish this series sometime this decade.

Got some tasty comments on the blog this week as well. Thank you again, Kyle, you are actually the one that pointed me in the direction that all was not lost! There I was in my shower with my ice cream when I got the notice you didn't see any problems. I have no idea who flipped what switch in the Amazon server, but it changed everything. I'm still a delicate bundle of nerves and I spent most of this week puttering while reading blog things. I promise more chapters next week. Also thanks to Darnell Davis for your comment. I'll be blunt, I don't know what "painful pass elements" means, but I am super happy! In fact, I got a fun little graphic that I think sums up what I think about any and all reviews/comments/theories/fanfiction:

Do you read that?! I LOVE YOU!!

RL job is ramping up some productions, probably going to be super busy BUT I still want to get back to writing chapters and I will make it happen. My emotional state is settling back into a normal and I am ready to saddle up and flip this Sybian into high gear! Ch24 is going to see how far Honoka will go to keep her family safe. Wish me luck and don't be afraid to review/comment/email/post fanfics (with proper attribution) on Literotica or RoyalRoad, I love it and love you forever!

In an effort to keep you all entertained, Editor-kun pointed me towards a new YouTube channel that is keeping me riveted: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sideways440 . I'm actually a bit of a music nerd on top of all my other geekdoms and have been known to dabble in obscure musical realms. I also used to think I was pretty diverse in my musical listenings, but this guy has proven me wrong. I'm not a slouch, I listen to opera, but apparently Puccini isn't as hardcore as Wagner. Now my playlist has some of the highlights of Der Ring des Nibelungen and while I'm digging these tunes, it is heavy stuff. However, Sideways is so avidly into all the nuance of whatever he's talking about it is hard not to want to geek right along with him. Then I interspace his videos with the amaze-balls hilarity of ImKibitz building Satisfactory factories and - if I feel I have the stomach for it - some of the rants from my other, more colorfully languaged channels (GameGrumps, Critical Drinker, etc). I usually hit all these during lunch breaks if I'm not busy rewatching Spirited Away or Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Keep harmonizing!

#ailovestogrow #mistakesweremade #iloveactivefandom #killdawabbit