Update: Behind the Scenes Stuff

Okay, I've been talking about this for a while now, and I'm finally pulling the trigger on a decision that I probably should have made about 6 months to a year ago. I'm hiring an assistant. Or, rather, a virtual assistant. In practical terms, it shouldn't mean huge changes for how this page operates, but it does mean you'll occasionally see things from a new person. Her name is Kat. She's a friend of mine and has been for a very long time. Please, please, be nice to her, especially in her first few weeks. I've established some routines and processes on here that she's going to need to learn, and that never happens overnight.

Now, what this will hopefully mean is that some things that tend to swallow up my time will no longer be on my plate. With luck, that should free up some of my brain space for more writing productivity. And, let's face it, we all want me to spend more time writing. While she and I are still working out the details of her role, some of the things she'll likely be working on will include boring-but-necessary-to-do things like setting up and scheduling chapter posts, as well as more exciting things like finding artists for new Patreon-exclusive book-related art and setting up/running polls (things which I am perpetually intending to do but never quite seem to manage). That should hopefully lead to a more satisfying patron experience for all of you.

Before anyone asks, she and I have not discussed discord or anything discord-related. Once she's settled in and things are humming along smoothly, I might, might, discuss it with her. I know it's something that a lot of you would like and want, but I've had very negative experiences with discord. I legitimately have no interest in running one because they tend to turn into something ugly unless you monitor them very strictly and enforce pretty draconian rules. All of which is theoretically doable, but also a lot of time, energy, and mental work at a time when I'm trying to offload work that doesn't involve me writing stories to entertain people.

At the moment, the plan is for her to start the first week of March. I may try to get her to do a little post to introduce herself, but you should all just sort of expect her to appear on the page from time to time starting around March 3.

Aside from that, I've got one last thing to share. Jess, the awesome woman who manages art for my publisher, kindly deployed her AI skills to put together a Royal Road cover for Unwillingly Summoned. Before anyone lights a torch, this will not be the final cover. My publisher hires human artists to make covers for all of their books. This cover exists solely and exclusively so that I have something other than an empty rectangle with words in it to put up on Royal Road when I finally start posting the light novel chapters there. So, without further ado, here it is.