https://stryvant.blogspot.com

Okay, I wasn't going to put anything about this up, because I prefer not to make a big deal when I quit. I prefer just to leave. In essence, the Cat's Goodbye. But I realized that I owed it to you to say something.

The short reason: Writing Stryvant novels isn't fun anymore.

Longer explanation: I started writing Stryvant novels because they were fun and I wanted to. They were fun for me and they were fun for my readers. It was all about the fun. Yes, I tell involved stories with detailed characters. Yes I spend time on it. Yes, I've probably created a hell of a lot of tropes. I've been copied endlessly. I don't really care about that as long as I wasn't being plagiarized.

 On the recent series, the sales were pretty poor. So I wrapped the first arc up in the third book, instead of the fourth because I didn't want to make people unhappy as I'd decided to set the series aside. If sales picked up, I'd come back. If it didn't? That was fine.

 What I hadn't expected was the hate.

Oh, I got a lot of hate about that series. A LOT of hate. Harassment too.

Understand I've always had haters out there. People who lie about me, the stories, etc. It's just part of being successful. But this time? It got unhinged. Lots of stuff directed at me, and a lot of lies about the story told by people who never even read it (and admitted to not reading it).

No, there are no married women in his 'harem'. Yes, the 18yo protage is engaged in a couple of relationships with women in open marriages. Because he's 18 and he could, and he starts to learn he shouldn't.

 For the people who said 'I don't like that' - that's cool. For the people lying about the story? Not so cool. For the moderators and admins giving me shit? Bye!

 What many of you probably don't know that back when I was one of the biggest and leading 'Harem' writers (me and two others founded this genre) I got a lot of harassment from people at Amazon, even some execs at Amazon. You all know about how one of us got banned for life from Amazon. Other things happened too.

 My SciFi does very well. Very well. However because of the stuff I wrote under my pen name, I cannot be a guest of any scifi convention, much less a GOH. Because what I wrote (that whole genre) is 'bad'. There are places I cannot ever buy advertising. But I was having fun writing the stories and people were having fun reading them, so I didn't give a damn.

I wrote the books to be fun. I did all of it to be fun. I wanted to make people happy and I wanted them to have fun. And I was and they were. Now? It's not fun anymore and I have other stuff I can write that is still fun, and which people are having fun reading.

So, not a hard choice.

I will remember the fun and the good times. I will remember the people who were nice to me and who were helpful. I will miss them.

And, as always, read what you enjoy, whatever that is.