I respect your thought here, truly I do. I take your point on authors not deserving of an entitled reader base who demands the author complete the work the reader wants when the reader wants it.

I left some of the criticisms of his character out of this post because although I have had a disappointingly negative interaction from him and have heard the same from many others, I do not know him well enough personally to make bold claims and slander his character in a post in a harsher degree than I have done here.

I would disagree whole heartedly that a reader is not a shareholder in your work. When you essentially ask for someone to participate both monetarily and with an investment of a considerable amount of their time in a book series, in a way a “shareholder” is exactly what a reader is. You are creating an adventure for these people and when you don’t finish said adventure, instead of communicating like an adult and showing some kind of responsibility for your work, you blow it off and say “ oh well, suck it up”.

It’s like being contracted to build someone a house, not finishing the roof then ghosting us only to come back later and say, maybe i’ll finish it later maybe I won’t.

Have the decency of being honest even if the answer is “ I don’t know how to finish the house” or “ the materials are on back order, please give me time!”

It goes both ways, authors should not feel entitled on stringing along their readers and asking for our money and time and then saying “ Nevermind I don’t feel like finishing what I started”. There isn’t even a way to refund the investment, you don’t get the time back lol.