Webserial platform Laterpress has announced the results of its 2022 Genre Fiction contest. I am pleased to announce that BABYLON BLUES is one of the two wining entries in the Completed Books category.
BABYLON BLUES began as a webserial collection on Steemit in 2019. Combining cyberpunk and cosmic horror, it was an experimental collection, to work out some creative ideas and to explore the viability of the Steemit platform. It has since exploded into a full-blown series of webserials, with 11 published stories spread out across 2 collections.
I am deeply grateful for this victory. It is an affirmation of an intuition I had 3 years ago, to focus my energies on writing the kind of story no one would—could—write, in a format I had never tried before.
The webserial market is potentially a massive untapped market. While webserials are highly popular in East Asia, they have made little headway in the rest of the world due to the language barrier. Only those stories that have been translated into English had made significant traction in the Anglosphere. English-language webserials are also growing in popularity on platforms like Royal Road, but they do not offer a simple and robust means for writers to monetize their work.
Laterpress is a game-changer. It allows authors to post webserials on their platform and monetize their work through Stripe. There is no need to go through an intermediary. Even if the author leaves Laterpress, they can continue to use their Stripe account to accept payments.
Blog readers would be aware of Amazon shenanigans, including my own experiences attempting to get Babylon Red published. In its current state, I can no longer consider Amazon to be a viable long-term source of income. Alternative methods, such as the neo-patronage model espoused by Brian Niemeier and my own explorations into blockchain blogging, that are censorship- and corporate-resistant will be the foundation of my future writing strategy.
Winning entries and finalists in the Laterpress Genre Fiction Contest will be invited to join the Author Working Group. I am excited to see how I can contribute to the webserial space and create more opportunities for authors.
There are two more collections to go in the Babylon universe: BABYLON BLACK and BABYLON WHITE. BABYLON BLACK is complete with four novels. BABYLON WHITE has just one and a quarter stories to go. My writing efforts will be focused on completing the universe and publishing the stories. The entire Babylon universe will be made available on Laterpress and elsewhere.
BABYLON BLUES can be found on Laterpress here. You can purchase it for USD 7.99, or sign up for an annual membership of USD 49.97 to gain access to all stories published on Laterpress. If you would prefer a downloadable ebook instead, you can find it on Amazon here.
I am thankful to all my readers for their support. Please keep an eye out for future stories when they are done.
