Cryopod's 4 Year Anniversary! Also yay for $400/month! Woo!

I wanted to post an actual blog today, maybe one talking about one of the interesting topics I mentioned in my "future blog topics" post. Instead, this will be the long overdue Cryopod 4 Year Anniversary post! Woohoo!!

As many of you know, Cryopod sprang into existence on September 14th, 2016. Actually, that was just the day I made the sub, since I actually started posting 7 parts on the /r/WritingPrompts sub the day before, but who's counting, eh?

Over the course of the next two weeks, I wrote 200,000 words and established a gigantic fanbase. Yes, you read that right. I wrote the equivalent of 1/5th of Cryopod Refresh's current length in two weeks. It was a crazy writing speed. The rest was history.

However, a lot can change in four years. In terms of readership, sadly, Cryopod Refresh is not as popular as it used to be. It maintains a sizable dedicated following, but I'll be the first to admit it's been in decline for a while now. However, I believe this is not really because Cryopod has gotten worse (to the contrary, Refresh is far better than Classic ever was) but simply because of the reasons I've outlined in other posts, like this one. (Spoilers for Chapter 2 of Cryopod Refresh)

But even though Cryopod has fallen into decline, for a variety of reasons... The Last Precursor is rebuilding the Cryoverse fanbase, one reader at a time! While Cryopod typically experiences 60, maybe 70 upvotes on its posts, The Last Precursor nets an easy 300 within just 1-2 days on average. As of this blog post, Part 1 of The Last Precursor is nearly at 500 upvotes, and still slowly climbing! Clearly, I haven't actually become a writing hack like I'd feared!

So, today, I'd like to cover the history of the Cryoverse, and hypothesize on what comes next. I'd like to review the stats, examine the numbers, and see where I can make improvements. Don't worry, I won't rehash the ideas I've made in my previous blog post. I'm not going to elaborate on story spoilers or discuss anything essential about Cryopod or TLP's plot/characters/etc.

Let's just... reflect. Think about what has been, and what will be.

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I'm 28 years old as of July 2nd. That's not old, but it's not young, either. I'm approaching middle age. I took several English-focused college classes from ages 21-25(ish) and those classes made me the author I am today. If it were not for three extremely excellent teachers, all of whom taught me different but important concepts, I would not be the author I am today.

Cryopod Classic was not only the first 'real' thing I ever wrote... it was actually the first thing I ever wrote period. Before Cryopod, I only made three attempts to write anything. Both of them sucked booty.

The first was a story for a Fire Emblem fan project. I wanted to write the story in novel format first, then translate it into an actual video game dialogue. I got bored after some time and stopped. I tried searching for the PDF of this... but couldn't locate it. It was decently long, so now I am sad. :(

The second was a story I wrote one day because I thought, "Man, wouldn't it be cool if there was a badass assassin who had like a little bird he could talk to that scouted out the rooms of his future victims?" ... and thus, I wrote 'Robin.' Keep your eyes peeled, because this may just become a character we see someday in Cryopod. Download link here.

And the third I wrote while I was in college. I've always loved vampires and zombies... but I also have always hated how boring they are. They're always the same, and Twilight ruined vampires for a whole generation. It's time to make vampires badass again! So, I wrote Vampiris Historia, link here. It's not a great story, not at all. If I were to rewrite it today... well, it would be part of the Cryoverse, and thus automatically better.

These three stories... they were all I had ever creatively written before Cryopod. That's it. In total, maybe 10,000 words of effort in my entire life. Then, I started writing writing prompt responses on Reddit, Cryopod Classic's first part got somewhat popular, so I turned it into my main series.

I'm not a perfect person. I've stumbled countless times. Just one glance at my early writing should tell you all you need to know about how poor my writing quality once was. However, after 4 years of writing almost nonstop, day after day after day, I think I have achieved at least some modicum of writing quality. I know what I'm doing now. I have plans for the future, and those plans seem quite decent.

But in order to plan for the future, I always look at the past. Historical data helps predict future trends.

These are the official numbers for /r/TheCryopodToHell's traffic stats. They tell a story of boundless opportunities, a slow and steady decline, a tragic downfall, and then... like the flames of a Phoenix, the resurgence of hope and the renewal of a forgotten legacy.

The numbers aren't entirely conclusive, nor are they fully accurate. I don't have exact numbers from January to August of 2018. I have the unique traffic views, estimated thanks to an old screenshot I luckily found, but not the pageviews. Still, even with estimates, they show what the rest of the data shows. You should also note that these traffic stats are purely for the main subreddit, not for posts on HFY, nor Writing Prompts, Reddit Serials, or any other subreddit. It's possible the latest numbers for the past year are actually quite a bit higher if we add in viewers on other platforms.

Nevertheless, one can see how I was slowly being forced into a corner. The first five months of Cryopod's life also coincided with the first 300+ parts of Cryopod Classic. I wrote an insane number of posts in that time, and readership, comments, everything flourished.

But time passed. Cryopod became messier, gained more plotlines, had a bunch of screwy events happen in the story (remember, I was still an amateur writer) and this led to a slow peeling-off effect over time. Cryopod once averaged 400 upvotes per part in its first five months. By the time of the finale part of Classic, that one got just over 200 upvotes. Still a good number... but a decline, nonetheless.

Then came Refresh.

I've said it before, so I won't rehash it. Refresh plummeted readership and upvotes and general interest in the story from 200 upvotes in Classic's final part to maybe 100 in Refresh's first part. That quickly dropped to 50. By the time we hit the Ancient Era (Chapter 2) it dropped even lower.

All of this happened over the course of two long, slow, grueling years. I've never been someone who gives up. I persevere, stick to my habits, and continue to iterate and improve. Even if Cryopod's reader base drops, I'm still going to appreciate the effort and investment, since it means I am learning how to write better and teaching this old dog new tricks.

Still, up until July, three months ago, things looked rather bleak for Cryopod. If you look at the numbers, you'll see that Cryopod had multiple months with fewer than 1,000 unique visitors. To be fair, that is STILL 1,000 unique people reading my story every month. That's not a small number. In my mind, the mind of an eternal optimist, there are plenty of authors out there who may never EVER get 1,000 people to read their work, not even if they write for 50 years straight.

In the back of my mind... I had an ambition. I wanted to see if I had slowly become a writing hack, or if my story was just too long, or if there was some other reason for Cryopod's decline.

Most importantly, I wanted to revive Cryopod.

So, somewhere around January of this year, I started jotting down concepts. I wanted to take HFY by storm and write a HFY story of the purest caliber, something that would create a new, energetic fanbase. This was important for many reasons, not least of which involved my financial security. On the internet, what matters most is often big huge bursts of activity making something extremely popular. Everything stagnates once people start looking at something they like as just 'part of their daily routine.'

So, I came up with The Last Precursor.

TLP is similar to Cryopod in many ways. It has my signature third-person present-tense writing style. It has power systems, deep worldbuilding, and an overpowered main character.

However, the most important thing about TLP is that it's part of the Cryoverse. Not only does it enhance Cryopod, but Cryopod also feeds back into it. TLP serves as a 'gateway drug' to get people interested in Cryopod. If you like TLP, the odds are you'll like Cryopod, too.

The most important thing about TLP's success is that it proves, at least to me, in my mind... it proves that I have improved and my writing can still excite people. I now get messages on the daily from people saying things like...

And even...

(^That one had some spoilers so I didn't include the whole post)

There are countless others, but these are the recent posts I remember seeing.

TLP is the future of the Cryoverse, because people who read TLP will invariably have an interest in reading its parent series, Cryopod.

But what about post-TLP? Will that be the end of the Cryoverse? Of course not! Even after TLP, I will write more stories in the Cryoverse, expanding and fleshing out the storylines Cryopod will leave open or that TLP will enable me to tell.

Even now, I'm considering a story focusing on the first human Hero facing off against the demons on Earth. A story like this has just as much HFY potential as TLP itself. This story would literally be the Ancient Era of Cryopod, the story that 'failed' Cryopod Refresh the hardest... but when put in a HFY context, I am certain it could even beat TLP in popularity.

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Cryopod is 4 years old. TLP is 3 months old. However, when I factor in my previous experience, my knowledge, my understanding of myself and creativity... I see a world out there bigger than ever, one where my fiction could really make a splash.

It won't happen today. It might not happen for a few years... but eventually, I think Cryopod will become a success story of perseverance and triumph. The Cryoverse will take time to mature, but I have faith it will flourish and become something people wholeheartedly recommend to fans of the genre.

A big thanks to everyone who's kept reading... and also a big thanks to all of my patrons!

This month we returned to $400 a month. My patronage increased by a whopping $101, which is important because I nearly dipped below $300. 

My rent every month is $400 exactly. That doesn't include any essential things like toiletries, food, or any other basic expenses... but being able to cover my rent in full is still a huge weight off my shoulders. Naturally I want to expand my safety net further, which will relieve the dreadful anxiety I've been suffering since I quit my job from Coronavirus.

And the only way I can do this is by continuing to write! The Last Precursor is presently my biggest and probably my only source of new patrons. I'm not going to stop writing Cryopod, but you can expect me to continue putting priority on TLP for the forseeable future.

My new scheduling plan is as such:

1st of every month to about the 15th: Cryopod Refresh parts

16th of every month to the end of the month: The Last Precursor parts.

10th of every month: New blog post for Patreon. (Possibly patrons-only)

25th of every month: New blog post for Patreon. (Usually for the public)

This puts me on a steady every two week rhythm. Cryopod for two weeks, then TLP for two weeks. Then two weeks separating each blog post.

Schedules and rhythm are important for me. I don't know if these will hold up, but I certainly will make an effort to maintain my pace. I will write two more TLP posts this month up to the 30th, then I will return to Cryopod for two weeks until the 15th before jumping back to TLP, and so on.

I hope this schedule will allow me to more readily plan for Cryopod and TLP's switches, since switching between the serials rapidly is just too mentally exhausting. TLP is still a new story, it has plenty of wiggle room and freedom, but Cryopod is extremely complicated. Every part takes a huge amount of effort remembering all the complicated characters, plotlines, and whatnot. 

So, yeah! New Cryopod posts coming in the next week or so, and we'll see what happens after that!

Thanks for reading guys, and thank you for 4 years of love and kindness!