It's been fun, but...

[nshumate]

I'm sorry to say that I won't be continuing Avalon & Company.

My life has gotten progressively busier (four children and holding, thank you very much), and despite my best efforts, I can't fit all of the projects I want to do into the hours I have each day, even when I cut sleep back to a bare minimum. And when looking for activities to cut, I have to put at the top of the list those which don't have much of an audience or a return. And Avalon & Company tops that list, especially when compared to the effort required each week to maintain it. (By comparison, I could have poured the typing behind each week's installment into scriptwriting and have had two full drafts of a screenplay -- something with a lot more potential economic viability.)

Maybe someday, when my dreams come true and I write for a living, I'll be able to resurrect the series, start where I left off, and promote it to the point that it becomes a self-sustaining enterprise. But even then, maybe not; from what I can tell, there really isn't a large readership out there for serialized fiction. (Which really sucks, because I've got another unrelated series I'd love to do as a serial. But if there's no one to read it, I simply can't justify the effort.)

If you're one of the thirty or so people reading each new installment, I thank you for your support, and I apologize for leaving you hanging. I considered finishing out the current storyline, "Radiant," but it's a very long story, and my enthusiasm has been steadily drained by the lack of response. It just isn't fun anymore.

In the next couple of weeks, I will be collecting the last finished storyline, "Brother's Keeper," into a free ebook for those of you looking for really cheap Christmas gifts. And I'll be leaving the website up, hopefully, in perpetuity.
_________________
Nathan Shumate
Avalon & Company
http://www.avalon-company.com

[Hetta]

[Maracus]

Many thanks from myself as well. I joined the readership of UH.net, well after Magnetron began it's association here, so you were the first NEW author to begin writing for UH.net, and it gave me high hopes of a growing, thriving, empire of evil authors....mwuh-ha-ha...er, no, but it did make me think, hey, this UH.net could be huge, and that would be great, since I've yet to find a group of serial story writers that turn out the sort of quality I'm willing to read, in a consitent, and ongoing manner. Either the quality has been lacking, or it was a series of 5 that someone posted on a free website 10 years ago and never took down. So congrats on the writing you produced, and if you ever decide to add a random chapter, I'll be waiting here.

yours,

maracus

[Lee in Limbo]

I've been largely offline due to financial difficulties of my own, so I regret that I am so many months behind in your announcement to discontinue. I know exactly what you mean about struggling to find an audience for your work. It's hard enough to create fiction with an audience waiting for your next installment, but quite frankly, with a crowd you could give printed books away to for free with negligible loss, supporting and pimping a website in your spare time does seem an awful waste.

Here's to hoping you find a more congenial environment for sharing your work, in a network that follows and suppports you actively without having to scour the net to find you.

And thanks for the stories.
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Lee Edward McIlmoyle

[TechnoAtheist]

Yeah, sorry about that. I've only been able to get unitedHeroes.net as the #1 or #2 link for "Free Original Stories" (a pretty darn popular search term for folks) , a free forum, and the continual offer to host the content on my site with no alteration, ad-free.

Me? Bitter? Never.

Unfortunately, the sad fact is that folks don't read on-line, certainly nothing that requires more than one screen's worth of text. Still, i'll happily fool myself into thinking that someone out there actually might be interested in doing more than looking at poorly drawn college furries playing video games, so I'll continue to pimp mightily.
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The Grayhound Chronicles
"TGC is less like a web serial and more like the Al Azif in bite-size form."
--~Steve-o

[steveo]