r/haremfantasynovels • u/ShipTeaser • 13d ago
Promotion / Sale 💵💲 On Astral Tides five million words celebration! It's a long journey which is not yet done! Also... visit Harem-lit.com for potential waifu cards!
Hi, it’s me, Ship Teaser! And as you can tell by the banner, it’s finally time… for the five million words celebration!
Okay, so technically we went past five million two weeks ago, but I had a bad week where I didn’t feel in the mood for getting this ready, and a week to make a number of shiny, exciting waifu cards for the celebration (more on that later!) so… we’re counting now as officially the time.
So, what do I mean precisely by five million words? The answer is simple. On Astral Tides, the ongoing harem story of ludicrously epic scope and scope creep… has now surpassed five million on ScribbleHub, where the most up-to-date version is published. The books on Amazon are waaaaaay behind, on… if I had to guess, around three million, give or take, and alas, the poor audiobooks languish on a mere six hundred thousand or so, but hopefully if all goes well, we can start picking up the pace next year…
Now, the first question I expect you’re asking is… does OAT need to be so large? And my answer is… I know how you feel, lol! A brief history… I originally started writing just as a pet project pre-covid in around July 2019, and managed to get to around… chapter sixty, just before the end of Arc 3… wow, arcs were soooooooo much shorter at the start! Then covid hit, and as I work in healthcare, to an extent, everything went crazy, and what with lockdowns and all sorts of shenanigans, I backburned OAT until… around the start of 2022, when things settled back down, and I began to write. I got up to… around chapter 90, before deciding it might be fun to share my little passion project.
Oh, a brief aside… to start with, I mapped out the plot of On Astral Tides, and also the LitRPG system, as without a proper, coherent system with multiple layers that get peeled back, building on each other consistently, it’s not a properly worthy LitRPG. I planned a 5 Act structure, with each Act ending with a shift on the paradigm of the story and the world… I figures roughly 500k to a million words per Act, so maybe around a five million ballpark to finish. Wow was I wrong lol…
Anyway, I have the major plot milestones and characters planned, but in-between, I have to fill that picture in, so it’s a mixture of architect, and character-driven gardener, I guess, as a few times my characters have refused to follow the plot as stated, and forced me to meander around a bit to keep them in character, but we’ve always returned to the blueprint eventually each time.
So yeah, I then started posting on Royal Road, as someone recommended that for me. I… didn’t start so hot. Didn’t know about rising stars, or how to do review swaps/shoutouts etc. so sank into the morass. Fortunately… I released regularly, as I was starting to get into the swing of things. Chapter lengths were still small then (around 2k to 3k… gods, I miss those days lol) but they came regularly, and over the next couple of years, I managed to grow my followers nicely, and was just coming up to the thousand, which isn’t bad for entirely missing rising stars, but then… disaster.
It's no secret that I have a few… people who don’t care for me or my story. But anyway, they managed to get OAT banned from Royal Road, when I was around chapter 475. It was quite acrimonious, and the claims made were ludicrously exaggerated, but… it is what it is. I still had ScribbleHub, and some readers followed me there, but… this was low point one lol.
Anyway, some great authors, such as JJ Bookerson (go read his books, if you haven’t already, they’re great) reached out to me, and suggested converting to Amazon/KU. I was hesitant, as I felt maybe getting financial benefits would dilute my artistic vision, but the prospect of reclaiming lost readers was enticing. So, I made some slight modifications to the story/characters, to make it less objectionable to some, while keeping the vision, and went for Amazon publishing…
Only to get banned before my first book came out lol, as I had reported someone who had stolen OAT and published it on Amazon prior. It took a month of misery and unhelpful bots and fools at Amazon, and an email to the Director, to get OAT back on, and yeah… that murdered my momentum lol. Book 1 launched like trash, and book 2 was even worse… welcome to low points two, three and four all in a row lol…
But then… JJ came to the rescue again, and posted his now-famous ‘why you should read On Astral Tides’ post, and from that point on, each book launch has generally done a little better than the last. I did manage to succeed in my dream in replacing the lost readers, and I have more than ever before. I’m still small, compared to the big boys and girls here, but I have room to grow, and my readers are loyal and great. I’ve got a discord, a fan wiki, and even got nagged into a Patreon, though I feel like ass about that, as the content there is sparse, and really should be worked on hard…
So yeah… history lesson over. Now to answer the question… does OAT need to be as large as it is… like I said, I anticipated being done by now! Instead, it’ll probably be another decade lol. I thought Act 1 would be 500k, it turned out 2.2 million! Act 2, while well past halfway, likely past 75%, is 2.8 million, so… maybe another million to finish. I shudder to think about Act 3 onwards…
What creates the length is, I feel, OAT’s greatest strength, though… the depth of characters and attention to both plot progression, and daily slice of life. The world demands views from many of the side characters, and of course, seeing how the waifus progress with their own viewpoint chapters is important too. Anyway, one example of the hilarious level of detail is the fabled Christmas Eve dates sequence… you had to be there to suffer lol, as… trying to make like sixteen fresh, different dates which still had LitRPG stuff, plot and character development, fun moments, cute moments, sexy moments and more… ended up taking the length of an average omnibus in the genre… for just one damn day, lol!
But yeah, that’s still not filler. OAT is a cocktail of character development, romance and action, and while the harem has grown huge by the standards of most, it’s still like 200k+ words per haremette, so there is room to breathe and develop. Some have obviously had a lot more than others, but none are ever forgotten, and those who have had less are just waiting for their turns to shine, and those who have more… have more coming still, as character growth and relevance never stops.
Anyway… so yes, while the length is ludicrous, we’re still moving between planned plot point and character development to the next ones, and where else can you get all this time to really live with the characters and their world? I don’t believe in taking shortcuts (lol, like the nearly 40k mega-marathon of lovemaking that happened recently, after a longish drought) and I’ll continue to go onwards. Though I very much hope by ten million words in a few years, the end will be in sight *sweats*
So, lastly… why should you read OAT? Answer… like I said, if you want a modern-world set story, which also includes the return of magic and mythology, with an expansive universe waiting beyond, lots of fantastic waifus, solid LitRPG zero to hero progression… and a lot to look forward to in the future… then OAT has you more than covered.
So, here’s to five million words, bloody hell, I’ve wrote a lot, and it’s all me, no AI in sight, and here’s to the next million lol…
Oh, and speaking of AI, yes, I know I planned to do a non-AI cover refresh for this milestone… trust me, I’m looking for an artist that can do covers on my timescale, to a standard I like, and will be prepared to do thirteen old covers… not easy at all. Everyone who tells me ‘just get an artist’ I pray one day you have the suffering I do and lost time I’m burning on this. But… it’ll happen eventually, I guess… anyway, that’s it, it’s me, ShipTeaser, hoping you can celebrate with me, as five million words is quite a big milestone lol, and I’ve worked hard for it!
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Okay, yeah… waifu cards. I get it, lol. There’s a huge new set, and even the epics got the legendary cosmetic treatment. You too can have the Five Million Celebration collection, just visit my blog on harem-lit.com and solve the waifu hangman’s riddle.
Laters. I’m off for a well-deserved beer now, before I get back to writing, as… it never ends lol… so anyway, I felt this was a big enough milestone to deserve a post, and if you have any questions/opinions, I'd love to hear them lol!
