How Much Money I Made Publishing Neon Ghosts👻💰 Lessons Learned 📚 & Life Update

hello audience and welcome to a comfy cozy catchup video here on the channel where I'm just going to be going through and doing a easy Bree catch up on all the background projects we have going on here on the Channel video update this is out of coffee sadly and uh just keep it minimal keep it relaxed and chill uh first I just wanted to say thank you everyone who's made my rhythm of War video continue to pop off in the algorithm you all rock uh but also another just reminder that tomorrow I believe for you

at 9 9 A.M I'll be dropping my interview with Seth Fishman my literary agent here on the channel uh where we're going to be able to take questions from you all in the comments after you get to know him in this interview his legacy within being an author being an agent uh and perspective on stuff that we can then answer in a follow-up interview so uh stay tuned for that should be a really good time and a great way for you to get like direct feedback on what you want and then just getting the other

Quicky things out of the way uh better dead my next book that H I am taking a whole different approach of writing too is up to 122,000 words maybe 123 yeah big progress there uh I've actually been taking a lot of this week off from reading and editing videos and stuff and I've just been focusing buckling down and like writing eight hours a day the best I can and it's had great payoff so yay and it's looking like it might actually be closer to 160,000 words biggest book I've ever written feeling awesome uh for those

you don't know it's a Horror Island Survival epic fantasy book that uh follows a young Magus as he is uh kind of being disillusioned with the system he was born into and also finding Faith uh which as someone who is not exactly a faithful person has been really interesting to write uh so keep an eye out for that really excited to finally pop off hopefully before Dragon steel the first draft to my agent as long as I continue these like eight hours a day of writing that's the plan and then the other final quickie thing

I finally was able to take the money from the TLT deluxe edition and donate it to uh charity um due to some controversy that happened with st judees we ended up not doing that but don't worry we just pivoted to another children's helping place the Mary Kola Foundation yay and the donation amount ended up being about $7,500 which was enough for them to call me and and be very grateful and thank me which I uh I'm already not great on the phone cuz I'm Millennial stereotype and I'm already not good at people saying thank you

or anything along those lines so it was about 20 minutes of me just being like Oh my audience they raised the money thank them I I'm uncomfortable wait this new thing I got cuz if you watch the rhythm of War video Pips broke my last soundboard it's got It's got like it's got effects hold up that should be like a high pitch thing I'm uncomfortable oh the monster I'm never going to use any of those effects ever again and then I wanted to get into the official money's breakdown and hindsight thoughts in this video for

neon ghosts now that it's been released for well over a year now uh and we've gotten the monies I've gotten reviews I've gotten all kinds of feedback uh and give my perspective as an author because I think you know as much as there is a conversation about how like authors need to stay out of reviewer spaces which of course I'm not going to be like coming at any reviewer I also want to give a perspective of like what I've learned from being on a big platform getting a disproportionate amount of feedback that most authors get

because I feel like that is a useful thing to be able to share for The Horde uh so just getting the money's part out of the way I ended up making less money on neon ghost than my Indie published book but I don't think anyone should be surprised by that because obviously I'm sharing the profits of the book uh with a third party hybrid publishing wraith Mark creative uh but I still ended up making I want to put the mount on the screen here I ended up keeping after print was taken out after wraith Mark

took their cut I ended up keeping about $39,000 which just full transparency Bryce and I have both agreed we would approach this widely differently not only is there still hesitation around buying Indie books but there's a massive hesitation still around uh buying books from an author that is not as established through Kickstarter so we kind of inadvertently put up barriers to ourselves and on top of that I ended up kind of having to take a break during this time from YouTube and not able to push my book as much as I wanted we've since then

done things like gotten my books into bookstores and they sell out really quick partially just because I think the cover is amazing on it and also I think the market for cyberpunk right now is pretty hot um so the goal long run is to hopefully get this on shelves or get this available uh through other memes it's currently on Amazon and it's still selling copies every week and Through The Wraith Mark store uh if you want to get a physical one uh there's just you learn a lot doing these different experiments and the main thing

I want to be able to do is share those learnings with you if you have a platform and you can't go Trad and you don't want to necessarily go pure Indie doing a Kickstarter campaign with something like wraith Mark is a great way to go uh if you're able to really aggressively push it but uh there also is if you want to keep more money maybe don't necessarily want you know a publisher backing you to do edits and get you as beautiful a cover as this other ways to go as well for sure uh and

so you know it's a live and learn experience and I still am in love with the final version of this book that actually was put out cuz it's gorgeous which largely went into buying this house and you know getting rid of all debts and life and things along those lines because once again Millennial and the continued sales from there have actually been a bit up from the lawful times month to month but not substantially that there you know people want to check out my books so they seem to be wanting to go for TLT first

uh and a lot of people since the special edition of announced have kind of gone away from that which makes sense they're waiting for that updated version to hit the ebook stores which Bryce when's that going to happen again I've texted him about it like eight times it hasn't happened yet cuz I think it's both of us in like the back of our minds we need we need to make that happen and it'll auto update for anyone who bought the other previous version on eBook I think and then when it comes to the reception for

neon ghosts definitely more positive than my first two books not that I think I was like overwhelmingly negative but you know I'm hopefully improving as an author uh and I think the biggest thing people said is like pros improved a little bit still need work there characterization a lot better but I'm struggling with structure and uh communication of like some higher ideas and there's actually specifically one big regret I have that I pulled from this book that I wish I had kept in that to me was like a transition scene from uh the second act

to the third act like climax takeoff where mild spoiler warning but actually not really as the author I can tell you this is safe uh TAA the main character you see on the cover here originally had a scene where she visited her father in the hospital before things really kicked off and there's this continuing run of just you have to watch ads or see ads everywhere you go in this world and to be able to even visit her father she has to like experience these ads and just like sit there and so frustrating she's also

wanted by this point uh so she sees her father and realizes like he's not going to be able to pay for his bills he's getting kicked out and she's upset uh ends up getting recognized has to go on the run but there's this like she is gone through a transformation at this point and her father like still accepts her so it was like to emphasize like humanity and empathy love over like no matter how Bleak and desolate your world's become I ended up pulling that scene because I feel like it overexplained some ideas that were

going on in the background I regret pulling it a lot I think it would have really helped with the overall flow of especially the second into the third act it's why you need more beta readers I had conflicting beta readers on that scene and my gut kind of got paranoid and I thought well less is more well actually more can be more though good news uh I want to make that now the prologue possibly of the second book so that you know at least it can be folded in in a way where you go oh

okay like that now can be added in retroactively at least in the grand narrative because I think it did do some important stuff emotionally for tea uh in the bigger picture of the book as well and then most direct response I will ever make to a review I actually really Lov a criticism that the book guy had uh when he talked about neon ghost where he spef specifically said it seemed like a lot of the ads were uh not directly commenting on the ideas and the direct narrative that was happening in the books and I

agree with him my actual original intent was for a lot of these ads that you see floating around in the book to just be General World building but also foreshadowing for things you'll see in book two which at the time seemed like a great idea but in hindsight until book two comes out a lot of the actual imagery within the ads is just like that's interesting neon ghosts cyber Punk aesthetic stuff but it's not informing this narrative so it was another thing that in hindsight I I think the idea was cool on paper but an

execution until book two is out it it does feel like neat like oh darn but I'm still so proud of this book uh I put my Blood Sweat and Tears into it I think I did a way better job in terms of crafting an actual character arcs here learning as a writer ha and actually helped me inform on like a lot of my rewrites for the lawful times and gosh what I've learned from this has made it so I've just approached better dead entirely differently and it's taken me like twice as long to write that

book but you know how you kind of fall in love with every book you start creating and then it reaches the point where you kind of hate it but then things start flowing again and you fall in love with it again but then you hit that block and then you hated it I'm I'm having that happen like 40 times over for better dead which I've been told is a good sign and then the final thing is just a big Life Update one Kayla and I are going to be a dragon steel this year so if

you are going to be in Salt Lake City for those days swing by and say hi I'll have a booth I'll be selling books and merch uh it's going to be an absolute blast and then uh also we are settled here in Rochester we're totally going to be here for a long time I know I've been moving like mad uh it's funny we you know we make good money here on the channel I'm by no means like on that Jake Paul baller level where I'm fighting an old man but uh I you know I'm I'm

comfortable enough but the reason we ended up moving from Boston is Kayla I kind of went through a transition as a couple where we both got way more just into the settled Suburban life faster than I thought we ever would but I guess when you kind of hit that right beat it just finds you and we wanted to buy a house we wanted to get a little bit of a yard we wanted to prepare for the future um obviously we got engaged we're getting married and we realized we'd never be able to afford a house

in Boston at least not one that would feel like a long-term home uh and we had some friends out here in Rochester obviously wraith Mark's located out here and we decided it seemed like it made a lot of sense uh so we yeah picked up now we're settled I'm in a really old home after buying into a brand new uh condo and Boston and the difference between the two is kind of interesting the condo and Boston was falling apart almost immediately because it was built during covid and they cut so many corners and so the

entire year we were in Boston we were pretty much yelling at our landlords being told things are not their fault when they absolutely were trying to get car chargers installed that were never installed the entire year I was there even though promise to be there just a gargantuan pain so I then moved into a house that's over a hundred years old uh and you know it's it's been well well enough kept we we've needed to do some repairs here and there but the difference is uh this house has survived two world wars a couple recessions

and like the Great Depression so I uh I feel like it's strong and will last and I've had to learn a lot uh my dad actually came up and helped me learn how to fix things like loose windows and all that and it's it's been really rewarding so I from being someone who like hyper believed in buying like new up to code uh that's buy old buy wait hold up I wait no no no no hold up there's there's a sensor there's a sensor effect here where is it where is it here we go that's

bull we got a sensor live I like old stuff now and it's got more character which I like too um anyway that's just the chill comfy cozy Life Update I'll answering uh questions in the comments down below like an hour after this video goes live if you want us to know anything and uh yeah look forward to the interview with Seth dropping tomorrow sorry for not getting Arcane live stream done yet with Kayla we've both just been head down writing and I've heard it's kind of like a mixed bag ending so I guess part of

my brain is also just like damn it I don't want to be disappointed but oh I'm watching lost right now which has also become very disappointing I'm rambling I'll get you a full lost review soon I'm in the last season and man people who claim they answered all the questions no they didn't anyway sorry all right moving on that's it like And subscribe love yall have a good one peace and real quick we're keeping the merch up and live uh until the end of the year just because some people have been like hey I want

to do that for holiday gifts but I need more time and I want to respect that so if you want to grab some more of our bestto the last couple of years merch it'll be there till the year is gone [Music] a [Music]