The First Anniversary Report

From 2022 to 2023

March of last year was when I started the Warthog Report, and now March of this year has arrived. The passage of time has a way of never feeling real when you look backwards. But this is more than nostalgic reflection, I have some announcements as well at the end of this.

Before the Report

What prompted the creation of this newsletter? I don’t like social media, but for writers getting on twitter is all but mandatory. “Get on twitter” was a piece of advice I regularly got from everyone I spoke to in the publishing industry, and I’ve heard of one author being told it was nonnegotiable by their agent. So I made a twitter, and it hasn’t been fruitless, but in terms of self promotion it’s not a game I’m keen on playing or find fun. And it’s not one I started willingly.

Writer twitter has several inherent paradoxes to it. You’re forced to go there to promote your writing and then have to talk about other things so it doesn’t look like you’re there to promote your writing. You have to make people think of you as a twitter user first and author second.

And twitter is not a platform for interesting conversations about writing, which require detail and nuance, things twitter’s format is well known for not having or enabling. It’s easier talking about visual mediums, you can’t share in progress writing the same way you share a sketch or a video game clip. Overall it’s a rather difficult environment.

At ProWritingAid’s Fantasy Writers Week, an annual digital event, I heard someone bring up Substack as an alternative to getting on social media. I’m afraid most of the context around that statement has been lost to my memory already, aside from that it was probably said by one of the speakers.

I do still use my twitter, but I’ve basically given up on it as a writer twitter or tool for self promotion. Instead I’ve found a nice corner of twitter about indie and niche fighting games that’s mostly inoculated against whatever the big discourse of the day is.

Newsletters feel more compatible with me as a writer than social media. It’s easier for me to write a newsletter post sharing my thoughts than reducing it to the constraints of a tweet. I’m not a minimalist, my thoughts and passions are too great for 280 characters to contain. Author twitter feels like a hurdle to writing, The Warthog Report is writing.

Reporting About the Report

I write because I enjoy it, but I share it to connect with people. Ultimately it’s not subscriber counts I’m after. I want to connect with people, which means engagement, quality of connection over quantity.

Since my post about the original Super Smash Bros design doc in December I’ve consistently gotten comments on my non-fiction. Which was part of one of my goals. It’s been great seeing people offer their own thoughts and reactions, I appreciate each individual comment even if I sometimes don’t know how to or take a while to respond. Well, aside from the hate comments, because I recently hit the landmark of getting the first of those.

When it comes to the non-fiction I’ve attempted to vary up my subjects, but maybe that’s being too self conscious. I don’t like that the two blog posts prior to the anniversary were ultimately about me since the same goes for most of my anniversary plans, but I guess in a sense that’s what people are here for. One of my larger concerns is talking about video games too much, but I have a lot to say about video games.

I said consistent engagement on non-fiction was part of my goal because the goal in question was to consistently get comments on everything, and Battles Beneath the Stars has been left behind in that regard. I’ve been able to talk about Quiahuitl’s story with people I know personally, but the comments sections for all of her chapters are completely empty. And letting people vote on the next story to do stopped working after the first edition of the thread.

While the optional discussion prompts haven’t gotten anyone to try to answer them, I’m going to keep at them for a bit longer. I think it’s part of a good formula, it’s just missing some other component needed for the reaction.

Now I said subscriber counts ultimately weren’t part of my goal, but for the growth of any newsletter they are important. So here are the stats as of the afternoon of Feb 28th 2023.

Currently there are 33 subscribers, which is at least a big enough number that I know I’ve reached beyond people I know personally. As you can see the growth of subscriber numbers has been slow and small, though it’s already had some churn. And no paid subscribers, but that’s an optional ‘if you feel like supporting me’ tier, so it’s not unexpected.

Open rates generally end up sitting somewhere in between the 40s and 60s, with non-fiction getting higher open rates and more views than fiction. Most traffic comes from the emails, with the substack app and ‘direct’ frequently swapping which one is the second highest source of traffic.

My post from back in November criticizing Fate Grand Order’s usage of Aztec mythology appears to be the only post to have broken into the triple digits for views, which is also what got me the first hate comment I mentioned earlier. Looking at the traffic sources and comparing it to my other posts from that month make it clear the post was linked somewhere fairly recently and that’s how it suddenly got so many views. Not the best way to reach that milestone but it happens.

One interesting feature substack added was the ability to see both the geographical spread of subscribers and your overlap with other substacks, here’s what that currently shows for the Warthog Report.

Fictionistas

having the most overlap makes sense, since it's a community for fiction writers where I regularly participate in events like the monthly zoom calls. And

Adventure Snack

being in second place for the most overlap is also a bit logical, since I'm a regular commenter there and its offerings of Choose Your Own Adventure stories is somewhat similar to Battles Beneath the Stars in offering a reading experience with gaming elements.

With the geography stats there’s not much I can think of to say or analyze. It’s not that shocking due to the nature of the internet, but confirmation of my writing crossing national borders is always interesting to look at. I wonder what will happen first, the Warthog Report being read across 25 states or 10 countries?

For recommendations, The Warthog Report is being recommended by three other substacks,

Metanoia

,

Chokemail

, and

Tales from Desert Storm

, all three of which are also worth checking out.

I believe that should cover the stats and other details that a reader might find interesting. If there’s anything else you’re curious about feel free to ask me in the comments.

Moving Forward

Flexibility has been my key to keeping the newsletter running for a year. At first I wanted to bundle all of my different ideas in a single monthly package, but then I decided to split it up into distinct posts. Then I gave Battles Beneath the Stars a consistent posting schedule of once a week. Along the way I picked up a new monthly feature dedicated to me rambling about things I like.

I’ve decided to maintain that flexibility with some changes going forward. Battles Beneath the Stars will be slowing down. After the finale to Quiahuitl’s story tomorrow, new chapters will be posted every other week. This will give me more time to prepare and polish the future chapters. And I feel the rapid pace of new chapters being uploaded may be part of the low engagement it has had recently.

Additionally, I’ll be pushing back the first chapter of Amezwar’s story even further by giving the next chapter slot to a sneak peak at a short story I’m currently writing, which is set in the same world as Battles Beneath the Stars. There might be other bonus pieces posted between stories in the future. Could be a possible paid exclusive later down the line.

Since they haven’t worked out, I’ll be replacing the thread for voting on the next story with a more general purpose anniversary thread. Maybe that feature will come back later down the line, but for now I don’t like having empty threads.

There will also be a new feature, monthly interviews, starting this month. These will be done in the style of my mutual interview with Mark Dykeman of

How About This

, in other words I’m stealing his approach.

On top of all that, I’m making a fighting game. It’s not Battles Beneath the Stars, but it is another step towards eventually making it into a real game. At first I wanted to do a 2.5D game based on Lovely Spirits, but trying to learn 3D modeling and animation feels like banging my head against the wall. So instead I went for the one style of 2D art I knew I could at least make functional, letting me focus more on learning game design.

The art style is inspired by Joy Mech Fight, an old fighting game featuring robots with floating limbs, which is also what these characters are. I can’t draw human looking characters, but things get a lot simpler when the limbs aren’t attached. It also lets me move each body part individually, so making different sprites of the same character isn’t too complicated.

There’s a lot I could say about my intentions for the game, but since I’m working with a new and still in development engine, things could change based on how the engine grows. I doubt I’ll outpace the growth of the engine, but even if I do, having something force me to slow down isn’t the worst.

It will be some time before the game is even ready for early access, I’m not experienced enough to say how long and it’s also dependent on the development of the engine. But when it is, I’ll be distributing the early access download link through this newsletter. Once it’s complete I’d like to sell it through stores like Steam, but that’s even further in the future.

As for the immediate future, I’m keeping the anniversary fanfare going for the whole month with anniversary editions of the usual features. I won’t say what they are exactly, you can look forward to finding that out yourself later this month.