Dearest Squad,
What with one thing or another, 11 chapters happened.
Okay, not really.
What happened was that I uploaded a bunch of chapters to Tapas (hello, new Tapas family!).
Tapas is an app/platform that I began researching in 2024 as a possible place on which to release my super fun mainstream-reality-show-idol-romance-drama set in Korea…but then last year Carter Hasegawa became my agent and he really wanted to try shopping it to the traditional publishers. This little Netflix show called K-pop Demon Hunters was getting a lot of buzz…and then BTS released this little album called Arirang… Anyway. The novel (tentatively called Let’s Be Enemies) is being shopped. And why it hasn’t been picked up yet is still a mystery to us both…but I digress.
Tapas is a place that features web comics and web novels. Ever since Let’s Be Enemies burst out of my soul in 2023, I’ve started writing much shorter chapters in a more episodic web novel-esque format.
Now that I’m in charge of what happens to the rest of the Woodcutter Sisters books, I can make them as long as I want and have as many chapters as I want (and take forever to write them…sorry about that one). I can also release them however I please. I am in so many places on so many social media platforms, and you know what I’ve discovered? Not a lot of those places overlap anymore. Everyone creates their own bubble, and they like it there. So if I don’t venture forth into unknown (to me) territory, this series misses out on making a bunch of new fans.
Since there’s a non-zero chance trad publishing will never publish Let’s Be Enemies (don’t get my started—that is its own TED talk), I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try out Tapas with another novel first. And since I’m serializing Thieftess on Patreon anyway…
The thing is, Tapas has a character limit for each chapter entry. Any chapter roughly about 2400 words and over needed to be broken into two.
The first two I just called “part 1” and “part 2.” But then I started making up chapter titles for each of them…and then I realized some of them broke naturally in the middle anyway…
I called Casey—my best friend and developmental editor—and asked her what she thought about me breaking up the actual printed version of Thieftess into smaller chapters. She didn’t see a problem with it. When I asked her if my whole POV-switching thing would be a problem (the whole boy-girl-boy-girl formula gets blown out of the water pretty quickly) she asked me, “Who are you writing this book for? Who is your demographic?”
“The smart people,” I answered.
“Then don’t worry about it,” she said. Because Casey is wise.
So that’s why this chapter called “The Northmen” is now Chapter 39. (And why anyone making their way here from Tapas might be a bit confused). Y’all haven’t missed anything. The story continues right where it left off. There will just be more chapters with more fun titles from here on out.
Chapters that I still need to go write…
Much love!
xox
Princess Alethea
This Patreon has been keeping me alive. You can either subscribe to the Thursday Chapter level and read everything so far or just pay-per-post. Thank you for your continued support!
✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨🖤✨
This Patreon has been keeping me alive. You can either subscribe to the Thursday Chapter level and read everything so far or just pay-per-post. Thank you for your continued support!
