[Status Update #31] & [Poll]

Hello, I'm back with another Status Update. Remember how I asked what should we do with Loli Elf project back in late October? More than 50% of you suggest we pick a new novel, some of you suggest we should increase the monthly quota of our current projects such as Transcendent or Demon Sword Maiden.

First, let me just say that, negotiation with the Chinese translator broke down so we're still in the middle of searching for a new translator. That is partly why there hasn't been any update on our plans moving forward.

Next, I have assigned 15 chapters per month to our new translator for the Transcendent project the past two months now, I'm still not sure how long will the translator be able to keep up this pace but if everything looks good, we might be able to increase the monthly release for Transcendent just a little bit.

Then, regarding Demon Sword Maiden, oh god is this project cursed, even with 2 translators on the clock working on this project, we still barely meet the 20 chapters monthly quota. The good news, however, is that the original translator of this series just recently contacted me again, who was apparently afflicted with COVID and has been hospitalized for the past three months. He has expressed his interest to get back into translating this series, albeit at a slower rate, so if we are able to get him back, we might be able to finally meet the monthly quota persistently and even increase it to 30 chapters per month! I am hopeful but with low expectation since all the translators have track record of being late, and yes, that includes the newest translator we just hired, he's not working as fast as he'd hoped, probably due to all the unfamiliar terms he encountered in the novel.

And finally, probably the most important news in this post, for the past six months now, we've been losing pledges on this page, if this keeps up, we won't be able to continue paying our translator and all our plans to increase quota and whatnot will go down the drain.

This is partly the reason why we had to consider dropping Loli Elf in the first place and why I highly advocate we start a new project, but with the consideration of increasing monthly quotas of our current project, we obviously won't be able to ride on the hype of a new project and mooch off the new pledges, which is why I am considering increasing the prices of our current tiers.

My current idea is to change the price of Demon Sword Maiden to $5 per month and upgrade that to Tier 2 while moving Transcendent down to Tier 1. In other words, if you subscribe to Tier 1, you will no longer receive update on Demon Sword Maiden + Dragon Princess but Transcendent + Dragon Princess instead.

What do you think? Will you continue to subscribe to Demon Sword Maiden even after the price and tier have been adjusted? Or would you like it if we pick up a new project instead? Please cast your vote and leave your comment below;