Posted August 11, 2022
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Today we chat all about burnout and Vy’s story of going from a full-time romance author to burnout to a fantasy LitRPG author serializing her stories, running a subscription, and building visual novels. Vy has an incredible mindset and with over a decade as an indie author, she has endless insights for us all on everything from running a sustainable subscription to building an expansive story studio.
Vy’s Links:
Vy’s Bio:
Vy Starlit is an author of all things fantastical. She tends to write anything from epic fantasy to LitRPG to urban fantasy. Her main focus is to write stories with under-represented people as main characters.
#6 EPISODE OUTLINE:
0:00 – 1:38 Introduction and Context
1:38 – 7:10 How Vy Burned Out After Going Full time as an Indie Author
7:10 – 11:00 How Vy Returned to Writing After Burnout
11:00 -14:40 Switching to Writing Your Passion instead of the Market + Writing for Underrepresented Communities
14:40 -18:20 Tips for Writing on Royal Road
18:20 – 20:28 Making Money with Serial Fiction
20:28 – 22:40 Restarting after Burnout
22:40 – 24:25 Taking Breaks from Your Subscription
24:26 – 28:55 Dealing with Comparisonitis as an Author
28:55 – 33:35 How Vy is Turning Stories into Video Games
33:35 – 37:05 How to Publish and Write a Visual Novel
37:05 – 39:31 Starting a Story Studio
39:31 – 41:06 Subscriptions for Stories + Visual Novels
41:06 – 43:15 Vy’s Closing Advice on Burnout
43:15 – 44:11 Conclusion
Links Referenced In Podcast:
#6 Full Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Michael Evans: Hello everyone. And welcome back to another episode of the Subscriptions for Authors Podcast. Today we are joined with, Vy Starlit. She’s the author of fantasy novels that range from epic fantasy to lit RPG to urban fantasy. She’s a fantastic author. Who’s been writing and publishing for over 10 years. She went fulltime all the way back in 2012, writing romance novels, and then burned out.
[00:00:22] Michael Evans: After a break and getting a job, she returned to the writing world, serializing a novel on litRPG and offering early access to subscribers on Patreon. Super, super fascinating. And we talk about everything from how she came to her burnout, how she dealt with her burnout and really approached her creative career in a more sustainable, healthy way.
[00:00:43] Michael Evans: and also talk about her exciting developments in building visual novels, opening a game studio. Vyis honestly an incredible author and is pushing forward the future of fiction all while creating stories, featuring under represented characters in [00:01:00] fantasy.
[00:01:00] Michael Evans: This is such an inspirational podcast. And whether you are just beginning your subscription and wondering where to start or whether you are killing it at your subscription and wondering what’s next, Vy has amazing insights for you. As always, I wanna remind everyone that Vy’s links are in the description below her visual novel is free to play. So you can see what it looks like and listen to the podcast to find out how she did it. In addition, you can also join the Subscriptions for Authors Facebook Group. It’s a really fun place.
[00:01:26] Michael Evans: And if you’re interested to learning about more about subscriptions with an amazing community of authors, the place to be anyways, we’ll get into the podcast right now. Let’s do this thing.
[00:01:35] Michael Evans: I wanted to start off just by asking you, how did you get to the point of your burnout and what were you doing before burnout to lead you there?
[00:01:46] Vy Starlit: What I was doing is that back in 2012, I was working a full-time job. What happened was that, my first book, birth children, which was a high fantasy book [00:02:00] was picked up by a publisher.
[00:02:01] Vy Starlit: During that time, a lot of publishers were going out of business. And so what ended up happening is my publisher did go out of business. So I went ahead and resent it out. I even got Asked for a full from Bain books and everything, but I realized that. I was tired of waiting and hoping for a publisher to pick up my book.
[00:02:27] Vy Starlit: I’ve been, I had been published multiple times. There was just so many, struggles. And then with the, with publishers just dying all over the place, I was just. I’m just gonna try the self-publishing route at that time. The KDP was a really big thing. It had just launched or was still fairly new and launched, so it was very easy to get into publishing on Amazon.
[00:02:54] Vy Starlit: So I went ahead and threw up my book. A couple of friends, Also [00:03:00] read my romance stuff that I just did for fun. And they were just like, put that up as well. so I did. And, the fantasy, did well, but the romance was the really big one. It shot off really quickly. And so I was like, I don’t like my job.
[00:03:22] Vy Starlit: I really wanna be a full time writer, so I’m just gonna focus on doing my romance, writing. And so I did, and within six months of publishing it, I had enough money to be full time. Yeah, it was, it happened super quickly. But it was happening to a lot of people, like 2012 was like the golden time for that, like I was in a group where people were making 80,000 a month.
[00:03:53] Emilia Rose: wow.
[00:03:54] Vy Starlit: I shot up, really fast and. The problem was, is that [00:04:00] I was writing all the time. I was putting things out constantly. I was writing 10,000 words a day. It was crazy . And so when I finally was making enough to be full time, I quit my job. I was still writing and I was exhausted.
[00:04:21] Vy Starlit: I started to hate writing. and I couldn’t even sit at my computer. And that was when I realized I was burnt out. On top of that, I love romance. Yeah. But fantasy was my passion and I really wanted to, have a lot to put out books that showed underrepresented people as main characters and fantasy, because I felt like that was, A very small group.
[00:04:50] Vy Starlit: And I remember growing up, going to the library and reading through everything on the shelf, but hardly ever finding [00:05:00] anything where there were, Ethnic people as the main character or just anyone that was, different. So I really wanted to show that, for my nieces and nephews, so they could have those same, people.
[00:05:14] Vy Starlit: So that was my goal. And I realized I had went way away from that goal. So after that, it was just really hard to.
[00:05:23] Vy Starlit: Continue writing. And I burnt out and I just stopped. I stopped writing. Luckily I had made enough for my writing to just take some time and not do anything. And then after that I started working just on like a regular job , and for a while I was just like, maybe I’m just not meant to be a writer because I just stopped.
[00:05:42] Vy Starlit: I stopped writing. I knew that I still love writing. But when you suffer from such intense burnout, the passion that you had just goes away. And so for a long time, I just stopped. I mean, I wrote [00:06:00] here or there, but I would have like super anxiety whenever I would go and pull up the screen and try to write.
[00:06:09] Vy Starlit: And my mental health was really, really bad. So, sometimes you just gotta take a step back. And for me, that step back meant me losing years of growth as a writer.
[00:06:23] Michael Evans: This is first of all, such a courageous thing to share, cuz I feel like burnout’s one of those things like we all know is a thing. Like we maybe have all even felt it a little bit, but to have someone like come out and talk about their experience, during a really dark moment of their life is. It’s very difficult.
[00:06:40] Michael Evans: So thank you for doing that. And it’s something I relate to because we were chatting before this, how we figured out, like, wait, if I’s been through burnout, we should like talk about this on the podcast is because I I’ve done a very similar thing to you during a different era, an indie publishing, which was this kind of like book [00:07:00] a month treadmill sorts.
[00:07:02] Michael Evans: It led me to burnout, which is, which is not fun. So for you during this phase of burnout during the time in which you went back to your job, What was going through your mind after a few years, were you thinking you were ever gonna return to writing and spoil she she’s back writing now
[00:07:20] Vy Starlit: I always to, it always thought that I would go back to writing. But I wasn’t sure if I would, go back to it as a career, I had put so much time and effort into writing. It had been my dream for so long. I didn’t wanna give up on it. But. , it was a very long time. So during that time I like just worked a job.
[00:07:43] Vy Starlit: I bought a house, I just lived a normal American life , but I wasn’t happy. And. What ended up happening is that I ended up selling my house, moving to a different state and just trying to reconnect with [00:08:00] what it was that I personally wanted and going back to my roots. And that basically has been the process.
[00:08:08] Vy Starlit: Just finding out. What I wanna do now, one of my issues is I tend to be an overachiever , for my, to give you an example, when I got my master’s degree, I did my thesis and in the middle of doing my thesis for my, grad degree, I was like, I don’t wanna, I don’t want this. And then I wrote a book in two weeks and then sent it into my
[00:08:32] Emilia Rose: Oh my God,
[00:08:33] Vy Starlit: my, advisor. She’s just like, you did this in two weeks. Are you insane? I was like, yeah. And it was the one, it actually ended up being, what I passed with. But that was the kind of person I was, I always felt like if I wasn’t doing like double or triple what everyone else was doing, then I was, not achieving my potential.
[00:08:56] Vy Starlit: And so taking a step back was [00:09:00] extremely hard and just going through the process of. I can do it slow, slow, and steady. It doesn’t have to be rushed and I’m constantly having to remind myself of that. It’s really hard. It’s really, really hard. Even now getting back into writing, it’s still hard. Like I, I mentioned recently, I, I’m writing a book and.
[00:09:27] Vy Starlit: On Royal road and I publish it five days a week. Originally I was supposed to just do it three days,
[00:09:35] Vy Starlit: doing that. And then in the middle of it, I just like, Hey. You know, I always wanted to do a visual novel. I had no game developer experience, but I’ll join this game jam and just do it. And I published a game , recently and I that’s the kind of person I am. I’m just like, oh, let me do 10 things all at once.
[00:09:57] Vy Starlit: And so, this past week [00:10:00] after. Doing, both those things. I was like, okay. So I, I really wanna do all these things, but maybe not all of them together. So I had to kind of step back because I feel like once you jump into burnout, it’s very easy to just go back into it. And the fall, those same habits. I’m.
[00:10:20] Emilia Rose: I, I was just gonna say I’m like the exact same way. Like I will take on a thousand projects at one time and I’m like, I wanna do all of this, like right now, but then I’m like, oh, I like don’t have any time to like sleep anymore.
[00:10:34] Vy Starlit: It’s yeah, you have to be very, very careful. But yeah, I agree. It’s just like when you’re a creative person.
[00:10:43] Vy Starlit: That means everything is a creative opportunity and you wanna do all the things and yeah, the great thing about writing is that writing is everywhere. Everything needs writing. So there’s always so many things to
[00:10:59] Vy Starlit: [00:11:00] get involved in.
[00:11:00] Michael Evans: Oh, yeah. It’s, it’s totally a superpower. I mean, everything you see on television, everything you see everywhere, like it’s a story that eventually has to like come from words at some point. And I think your point on burnout, I want to like circle back to specifically, you were writing romance and that’s what was doing really well.
[00:11:19] Michael Evans: And then you kind of made this shift towards fantasy. And I wanna talk about like writing to market versus writing like your passion. And I don’t even think it has to be versus I, I wanna chat about that because the way that you describe like your mission with fantasy and wanting to showcase underrepresented characters, really connect with people probably don’t normally connect with in that level, the books they’re reading.
[00:11:43] Michael Evans: I mean, that’s something, it seems like you’re really passionate about. So. Romance first took off. But when you came back to writing, you started doing fantasy. What gave you the courage to have that shift, and turn away from what was making you the money?
[00:11:56] Vy Starlit: I guess the thing that gave me the courage [00:12:00] is that everything starts somewhere.
[00:12:03] Vy Starlit: And if no one starts it, because it’s not an immediate paycheck, then it’s never going to happen. I’ve met a lot of people of underrepresented groups who enjoy fantasy, but can’t find those fantasy books. And there are more people who are putting out, media that is for underrepresented people. So there, that just shows that the market is there, but it’s growing.
[00:12:35] Vy Starlit: It’s a slow growth. And so, I felt like if I really wanna do this, if I’m really passionate about it, I really have to step up to the plate. I can’t just be afraid. And I’m afraid all the time. I’m afraid it’s not gonna make money. I’m afraid that people are going to attack me. Because we’ve heard of people being docked for being different or succeeding, things [00:13:00] like that.
[00:13:00] Vy Starlit: I’m all those things are in the back of my mind. But if I live in fear, what kind of life have I lived? What kind of, legacy am I leaving behind? And so that’s kind of what made me jump in it. At first, I was like, I’m just gonna do fantasy, no romance whatsoever. But I realized that I, I wrote romance because it was fun.
[00:13:25] Vy Starlit: I had a good time doing it. I read it all the time. So I’ve been thinking I’ve been, Instead of having that huge rejection of it, I’m pulling it back into my stuff again. I’m just making sure that I’m still doing the fantasy because it’s fantasy is the basis of all my passion. Even when I was writing romance, it was always fantasy and supernatural answers.
[00:13:52] Vy Starlit: So, I love the magic aspect. And so as long as. Drives all of it. I could do a fantasy mystery, a [00:14:00] fantasy romance, a fantasy, whatever, as long as it’s fantasy with underrepresented people as main characters. So it’s hard. It’s definitely hard. Like even Neil Gaiman had someone tell him to change his, black characters in one of his books to white characters and he’s famous.
[00:14:19] Vy Starlit: So you just, you just have situations like that and you realize that’s. Something you’re gonna have to deal with, but you have to decide if that’s, if the money is more important or if, your passion is, and in the end I’ve done the money route and it led me to burn out. So I’m doing the passion route and hopefully it will eventually lead me to money.
[00:14:40] Emilia Rose: I love that. Oh my gosh. You’re such an inspiration.
[00:14:44] Vy Starlit: Don’t don’t think I’m too much of an inspiration. I’ve been a coward, lots and lots of time. And even now it’s, I’m not as brave as I would like to be, but I’m working on it.
[00:14:57] Emilia Rose: Yeah. We all start somewhere. Like you said, like, yeah.[00:15:00]
[00:15:00] Michael Evans: It takes bravery just to like write something on a piece of paper and to begin putting it out in the world. Like that’s the first hard thing. And you know, talking about Royal RO. And where you’ve been posting your stories. It’s, it’s literally the kind of thing where you post a chapter. And for those who aren’t familiar with royal road, I encourage you to go to the site.
[00:15:19] Michael Evans: Whether you read the books that are typically on their portal, fantasy and literary PG does very well there. But. It’s just a really interesting platform for, to see people can comment on each chapter you write, they are like there with you. it’s a little bit different than Amazon in that sense.
[00:15:33] Michael Evans: You don’t just get a review on your book. Every single chapter they get response to. So how has that been for you?
[00:15:38] Vy Starlit: I’ve been a long time reader of Royal road. I’m huge into lit RPG, progressive fantasy portal fantasy. I love portal fantasy.
[00:15:49] Vy Starlit: , it’s pretty much in everything that has high fantasy for me. So. Writing there for railroad was just a natural step. There is [00:16:00] some people in the community that are very negative towards anyone who is different, including women. So sometimes there are some challenges, but for the most part, the community.
[00:16:14] Vy Starlit: Especially, the writers are very, very encouraging and very supportive. And just being able to connect with my readers, because like you said, it’s different from Amazon on Royal road. Your readers leave comments, and they’re hoping that you’re gonna respond to them while on Amazon. The reviews are not for you, therefore the readers, and it’s very bad idea to respond to them.
[00:16:41] Vy Starlit: But on Royal road, you’re building a community it’s interactions. People like people will point out typos, but they’re not being malicious about it. They’re trying to help you improve. They will conversate with you about the world. So you get more people that are more invested in [00:17:00] your story, and your characters in your world.
[00:17:03] Vy Starlit: And I just really love that about it. When I launched wafers Guild, it ended up by the end of the week going to. Rising stars is, which is one of the, showcases for people who are new, are publishing new books. And it did really well, not as like a knockout hit, like I would’ve wanted , but still it did really, really good.
[00:17:31] Vy Starlit: And I just really enjoy my community there. I think I’m at like 700 followers now. and it’s been two months and it’s just, it’s just a great experience. Wow. That’s really awesome. That’s like something I love about serial, like websites like that. Like I write on we pad, which is sort of like the same thing.
[00:17:50] Vy Starlit: Yeah. But for a different genre and I love the community because like, it’s, they. Love responding in the [00:18:00] comments and they love just talking about the story and you don’t get that anywhere else. Exactly. I love that about serial fiction. It’s like one of the best things being able to connect with your community and your fans, because you’re just as excited about the story as they are.
[00:18:14] Vy Starlit: So you wanna talk about it too? So it’s. Really, really great. I, I just really love it now if only my Patreon would grow as much. , I’m waiting for that.
[00:18:25] Michael Evans: Serial fiction sites for people who write in different genres, we kind of put together a list of a lot of the reputable, bigger serial fiction sites segmented out by genres.
[00:18:34] Michael Evans: So you can check the link description. If you wanna just see what sites might be good for you, but when thinking about how to make money on serial fiction. Specifically royalroad
[00:18:43] Vy Starlit: Royal road is a free platform. So what you do is you put out your story for free and then you have a Patreon to offer advanced chapters.
[00:18:55] Vy Starlit: That’s usually the meat of Patreon. You can add other things [00:19:00] as well as incentive, but most of the people are there so they could read the story. So it’s always a good thing to put. Several tiers that have chapters and advance. Once, one of the big things that many serial people will tell you is that you need to have cliff hangers, at the end of your chapters to help bring people into your patron.
[00:19:20] Vy Starlit: I don’t really do that very often, so I’m not actually surprised there aren’t as many patrons in mines, but. You’ll have readers that will complain about cliff hangers, but they’re also gonna go and sign up for your patron. You have to realize that that’s one of the big incentives. So, mostly it’s that and just building up your audience over time.
[00:19:44] Vy Starlit: There are people, there are the rare people have like an instant hit right out of the gate. Usually. There are people who will promote that if you haven’t, reached over a thousand or 2000 followers in three [00:20:00] months, then you should just give up the store. But then there are other who do a much slower build, for example, the Wandering End which has, I think she has like current 4,500 patrons, and has been a very long running story since 2016.
[00:20:18] Vy Starlit: And she said that during her first six months she had zero readers. So that just goes to show that sometimes it just takes time.
[00:20:27] Michael Evans: Wow. Yeah. It’s like that slow, slow burn, which. Connects to burnout because if you wanna be doing it for years to be building this audience and building that trust so that people can join your community, get attached. You. Hopefully eventually also end up paying you, paying you some money to read your stories, which is a helpful thing.
[00:20:48] Michael Evans: To be able to write more stories.
[00:20:50] Vy Starlit: Yes.
[00:20:50] Michael Evans: It’s helpful to also avoid burning out a period where you wouldn’t be able to write for maybe five or six months. So after your experience with burnout, [00:21:00] how were you? Reapproaching
[00:21:01] Vy Starlit: so my approach is to reevaluate and not be afraid to change things. Especially when you’re in the very early stages, building your audience is the perfect time to find out what works for you. One of the things I am going to do is I’m going to be dropping back down to three days a week for my releases instead of the five days a week.
[00:21:23] Vy Starlit: Not, because of burn, but mostly because I want to be able to work on other creative projects. And I won’t be able to do that if I’m writing my story five days a week. And that will end up in trying to crunch it all down into. As much as possible, in my timeframe and then burnout will happen.
[00:21:44] Vy Starlit: So I’m reducing it down. One of the things that I was sure to let my readers know. Don’t just throw it out on them. I gave them, warning ahead of time. Like my patrons, I notify them or I will be [00:22:00] notifying since it’s a scheduled post, that starting in September, I’ll be dropping down schedules for three times a.
[00:22:08] Vy Starlit: So we, I also put breaks. I let them know that I’m gonna be taking a week vacation during this time when I’ll be leaving, when I’ll be back. I think that as long as you are upfront, I love that. And you make them aware that you are still a human being and you need time. Most readers are very understanding about that.
[00:22:29] Vy Starlit: So it’s just making sure that you’re reevaluating and making sure that. You under promise and over deliver, you know, so under promise, give them less. And then when you over deliver, it’s a bonus.
[00:22:45] Emilia Rose: A big misconception with, serial fiction and just like subscriptions in general, when you’re doing like a serial format is like, you have to post like all the time and like you have to continue to provide, new content and you [00:23:00] can’t take vacations and it has to be.
[00:23:02] Emilia Rose: So serious, but like the people who are subscribed to you on like, subscription websites, they’re like your biggest fans. And they’re going to like, understand like, Hey yeah, she’s been like publishing like every single day for the past, like six months, she definitely needs a break. Like she could take a vacation, I’ll be fine.
[00:23:21] Emilia Rose: You know?
[00:23:22] Vy Starlit: And there’s always the option of, writing material ahead and just rescheduling it to both why you’re gone as well. I don’t feel like it’s necessary, but you can always have the option. Like one of the things that I’m gonna be doing during my vacation is I’m going to be releasing some interludes from different characters points of view.
[00:23:42] Vy Starlit: And I’m gonna schedule them ahead of time so that my has something, while I’m gone that week. But it’s not something that’s going to be too much effort on my part or won’t lead to burnout on my part. So that’s what you have to do. It’s not a chapter every [00:24:00] day on the, every day, Monday through Friday, but at least it’s something.
[00:24:03] Vy Starlit: So they know they haven’t been forgotten.
[00:24:05] Michael Evans: I mean, as with everything, like might listen to buy and be like, whoa, that’s like a ton of writing. I don’t know if I could handle all of that. Like that would lead me to burnout automatically. Or you might be like, you know what? I think I can take on more, you know, it’s always about knowing your limits, but.
[00:24:21] Michael Evans: That’s also kind tough because we live in a writer and author community in which we, a lot of us at least communicate in, you know, Facebook groups and discord channels. And we have access to best seller charts that show us who’s doing well and how much readers they have. And it feels like we can constantly like look up, look around and be like, where are we at numer?
[00:24:44] Michael Evans: And it could kind of be a little toxic. So I’m wondering how you deal with that comparison and maybe like the before and after shot of like before burnout and after burnout, if there was a shift in how you treat comparisons as an author
[00:24:57] Vy Starlit: originally, before my [00:25:00] burnout, I was writing like 10 K a day and putting things out while still working for job and, I was in the, I was in the group that believed that the more you put out that was, that would be your own advertisement.
[00:25:16] Vy Starlit: And so it was very much about a lot of quantity. And because I was always a prolific writer, I thought that that would be fine, except for. Being a prolific writer is not the same as being a prolific writer every single day. , being fast and out. A lot of writing, you could probably do that, but usually you have like a rest period after.
[00:25:39] Vy Starlit: So comparing what I found out is that there are actually a lot of different methods of being a writer. There some people who put out books. Every couple of years, like let’s think of Georgia, R Martin let’s think of, the wheel of time series. [00:26:00] All those books were not about like constantly back to back.
[00:26:04] Vy Starlit: They were put out over years and they still found their audience and did very, very well. As a indie. Putting out a lot of books, because you don’t have the marketing budget, makes sense at first, but it’s not gonna make sense if you burn out and you put out notebooks in the end, so it’s better to find your pace.
[00:26:27] Vy Starlit: And build your audience over time, because if your books are good, no matter if you put them out constantly or put them out once or twice a year, eventually you’re gonna build your audience. It’s the people who were gonna read your books, whether you put them, once a month or put them out yearly are still the same people.
[00:26:46] Vy Starlit: So it’s just to keep that in mind. I. Blah, blah . I wanna do everything all at once. All the time, I’m already thinking of a second book and I was already thinking of another visual novel that I’m gonna [00:27:00] do. And I’m like, okay. You, my, you can’t do any of this until you finish this. You can maybe have one more thing.
[00:27:07] Vy Starlit: That’s it? . So it’s just learning your limits. And like I said, reevaluating so that you can see, okay. So I thought I could do this. No, I can’t. I can’t do that much. Uh it’s okay. To change. It’s okay. To do less. Your readers are still gonna be your readers because. A lot of your readers are there for content.
[00:27:31] Vy Starlit: They’re not there for how often the content comes out. Like that’s very secondary. If someone puts out something that’s trash every single day, they’re, they’re not gonna get readers. You know, it’s the people, that. Your readers who like your content, whatever that might be are still gonna be your readers.
[00:27:53] Vy Starlit: No matter how often you put it off.
[00:27:55] Michael Evans: I wanna bring in like a, another form of media. Okay. [00:28:00] To then segue us to what you’re doing with other form of media. Because Netflix actually, I think does this whole binge watching, like are used to really, and Disney plus Hulu, a lot of the other big streamers when they came out with, you know, on-demand platforms kind of took a different approach.
[00:28:16] Michael Evans: Mostly started maybe weekly episodes of new releases kind of did. Old TV model, but it so works out that they actually were able to retain their subscribers better than Netflix. And, and we’ll see what ends up happening in the long run. But Netflix is actually switching their strategy instead of giving people all the content all at once.
[00:28:36] Michael Evans: They’re actually kind of like drip feeding that. And I, I think as an author too, you can maybe look at what’s going on and a lot of really big companies involved in storytelling, what they’re thinking about. And it seems like a lot of the. The Bing of like reading and writing. Although it’s nice.
[00:28:54] Michael Evans: It it’s very tough to keep up with, but when we talk about these other mediums, like movies, it seems like a [00:29:00] dream, right? Like getting your book made into a movie, that’s like, we’ll just compare ourselves to it, but that’s not really gonna happen, but you’re making yourself do something even somewhat more wild, a video game.
[00:29:12] Michael Evans: That’s. Really, really cool. I just want you to share that story.
[00:29:17] Vy Starlit: I’m a writer first. Like, that’s my main thing. I’m a writer. But I’ve always wanted to have my own studio that focused on different medium. Involving storytelling. So animations comics, things like that.
[00:29:32] Vy Starlit: So I’ve dabbled in every, all those kind of medias, because I just like to be able to tell my story in lots of different ways. I’m storyteller. So. What happened is that I am a big player of visual novels. And for my birthday, I got a new visual novel game
[00:29:51] Vy Starlit: and I had been waiting for this game for forever, because one of the great things about this game is that you, can customize your character to [00:30:00] have better representaton and they had a more diverse cast. So I was super excited about it. The art is beautiful. The story is beautiful. So I was playing it and I got so excited playing it.
[00:30:12] Vy Starlit: I was like, The author has a discord. I wanna join the discord. So I joined the discord. And while was, talking with everybody about it. The author had a channel called developers journey and it was all amateur visual novels or people who are just starting out in the visual novel game development field.
[00:30:38] Vy Starlit: Just in there, making their things which I felt was just a very cool thing for the, studio owner.
[00:30:45] Emilia Rose: Wow.
[00:30:46] Vy Starlit: So the people in the development channel, the development journey channel, I noticed that a lot of them were just writers or people who were just beginning in game development. They were just ordinary people, just like [00:31:00] me. And I realized that it was just something that I can do. These people are like me, so why not try to do it?
[00:31:06] Emilia Rose: That’s so amazing. Oh my gosh.
[00:31:09] Vy Starlit: I’ve always wanted to do a visual novel. So I went ahead and did research. I’m really big on doing research I like to research everything. And while I was going through, I went to different forms, different discord, just doing a lot of different things like that. And I came across the game jams and it was particularly through this one, discord, development talk plus, I found a game jam that was about to be happening, in the next few days.
[00:31:40] Vy Starlit: And it was for a week long and it evolved just one asset. So it was a thousand words. You could only use one character, one background, one post. So it was very limited, but that small. Amount that you had to do just made it more reachable and doable. [00:32:00] So I was like, okay, I can try this out and see if I like it.
[00:32:04] Vy Starlit: If I don’t like it, it’s not a big deal. It’s not gonna take too much time because the jam was only for a week. So I went ahead and did it. I ended up only taking me five days to get it all done. I had this wonderful person named Jart Beckett who worked as the voice actor on it. He volunteered for free and I put it all together and it, and ever since then it just took off.
[00:32:30] Vy Starlit: It had a really great reception and it was like my first game. And it was just so astonishing. To final, to be able to say to people, I made this visual novel, I’m now officially technically a game designer. So it was just really amazing.
[00:32:47] Emilia Rose: It must feel so amazing to just like, be able to see your story in like a different form of like art.
[00:32:55] Vy Starlit: Yes, it’s really, really cool to just be able to tell [00:33:00] stories in a different medium, like, I wanna be able to tell stories in all types of mediums. And I think that’s one of the great things about being a writer is that almost everything needs writers. And, now I have this opportunity where I can expand that and just go into all different types of things.
[00:33:21] Vy Starlit: It’s actually something that I really wanna do with the studio itself is that one day eventually open it up to comic. Animation, you know, whatever there is, so that there’s all types of medium for underrepresented people. That stars them as main characters.
[00:33:39] Emilia Rose: I love that so much.
[00:33:40] Emilia Rose: I have actually have a couple questions. I don’t wanna delve too far away, but, where did you publish it? One and then my second question is it like a story that branches
[00:33:51] Vy Starlit: In this case I published it on itch.io.
[00:33:58] Emilia Rose: Mm-hmm
[00:33:59] Vy Starlit: and yes, [00:34:00] the story was multiple different branches. It was super, super fun. I thought that when approaching it, cuz. , it is definitely different, than writing a novel, with the , branches aspect of it, but it ended up being super fun and, not that difficult, it was just a really great experience.
[00:34:18] Vy Starlit: And I just think that if it’s something that you wanna do. If it’s something that you’re interested in, you should just go for it. If I can do it, I’m pretty sure that anyone could do it. I didn’t really have any programming experience. I wasn’t a game developer. I didn’t go to school for anything like that.
[00:34:36] Vy Starlit: I just learned everything on my own.
[00:34:38] Vy Starlit: I used Ren’py it’s R E N apostrophe P Y totally freeware. And, anything else I like did myself or I used free.
[00:34:49] Emilia Rose: That’s what I was gonna ask
[00:34:50] Emilia Rose: nice.
[00:34:51] Vy Starlit: So my thing is just like, go ahead and do it. Don’t let it hold you back, go out, go out there. If that’s what you want to do, like it [00:35:00] doesn’t hurt to try and maybe you’ll find success.
[00:35:03] Vy Starlit: Maybe you’ll find something that you really love. Maybe it won’t be your thing. And you’ll just like move on to the next thing. But like, I’m really big on trying new things, because, I would be very disappointed to never be able to do those things.
[00:35:17] Michael Evans: I absolutely love this. I. Last summer was working cuz after my burnout, I decided to work in the technology space for creators and been doing that for two years now. And last summer I worked on a company that we eventually figured out like. Indy developers and Indy gamers. That’s like a huge problem of discovering these games because there’s so many people out there creating awesome things, but we didn’t really find that there was an awesome place to like, have these things curated.
[00:35:46] Michael Evans: So that was something I worked on for a bit. So I have a lot of familiarity with community and. I found from talking to a lot of developers that a lot like were writers, but weren’t like indie writers from like our indie community. You know, like there wasn’t a ton of [00:36:00] overlap. The fact that you’re bridging that I think is amazing because that specific kind of game is actually my favorite kind of video game.
[00:36:08] Michael Evans: And I telltale was like what got me introduced to it. Cause it was tell tale’s not indie at all, but telltale was. Got me into like, wait, this is basically like a story video game. And I guess I’m describing this to the people who are like, what is this? Don’t know a visual novel is kind, if you think of like a mix between like reading and a movie and a video game in a way, but like the movies, like video game graphics, right.
[00:36:38] Michael Evans: It’s amazing. I think it’s going to be huge. It already is big, but I think it’s going to be insanely huge just because so many people are going to like, want to read in this way. So this is so cool that you’re doing this. I admire you I think it’s amazing that just in five days you went out and did this, it it’s so badass.
[00:36:58] Michael Evans: It’s so badass. And I [00:37:00] honestly hope that you can achieve your dreams of having a video game studio.
[00:37:05] Emilia Rose: And, you know, what’s really cool about like transferring your story into different forms of media, like video games specifically, like there are books that weren’t really popular that got turned into video games then got turned into movies. Like I think the Witcher was one, like that was originally a book and then somebody made it into like a video game and it just exploded.
[00:37:26] Emilia Rose: And now it’s this really awesome. Show and it’s yeah, it’s really, really cool. What you can do with just making a video game out of it.
[00:37:35] Vy Starlit: Thank you. Yeah, I’m really excited to see what, starlet carnival studios is gonna do.
[00:37:41] Vy Starlit: Like I said, I really wanna see it expand one day, but we’re gonna take a slow. I think it’s really important to just take things. Bit by bit, otherwise you can like overwhelm yourself and then of course that’s where burnout starts to come in again. So I’m just trying a little bit of things. I’ve promised myself to only take two [00:38:00] projects at a time, because I’m one of those people, that will just.
[00:38:05] Vy Starlit: Take on everything I possibly can. So I’m trying to like focus on doing it. Just one piece at a time is also one of the reasons that I’m not like super promoting any of my projects right now. Because I wanna make sure that I have like a really good foundation before I start promoting it so that I know that this is almost done, that I’m not gonna disappoint anybody and things like that.
[00:38:28] Vy Starlit: So it’s just. Be aware of your limits and don’t be afraid to change things around when you are getting close to a situation where you feel like you might be burning out. There’s so much you could do. And when you’re making a video game, like it’s just so amazing. Like the current project that I’m looking.
[00:38:47] Vy Starlit: To make, involves trans migration. And I’m going to be doing one with the game where, basically the character gets to go into the body of other characters. The player [00:39:00] does, and solve issues within that world before leaving and jumping into a different. And I’m also planning to also do a story.
[00:39:11] Vy Starlit: That’ll be going into that as well. So that’s like my next project on the horizon. So I’m super excited about that.
[00:39:18] Emilia Rose: That’s awesome.
[00:39:19] Michael Evans: Yeah, 100%. You could also still, like if you’re creating a larger universe, have two different storylines within the universe, one and one medium one, and the other endless, endless possibilities. And for you, I’m curious how you’re thinking about subscriptions in, in this context. Would you ever think about.
[00:39:37] Michael Evans: Monetizing a game through a subscription, like kind of thing. Would you, in, in the gaming industry for those who don’t know. Quite massive. It’s like 250 billion a year in the United States, which is exponentially larger than, the book markets. There’s a lot of different monetization models where you could do like freemium and offer people like maybe side stories that are paid.
[00:39:58] Michael Evans: You know, you paid to [00:40:00] unlock certain things. And a lot of this is still in its infancy and just being done. But have you thought about any of these things?
[00:40:06] Vy Starlit: Yes, actually I have thought about, Monetizing, through patron. I’m actually already getting prepared to do that and make this switch because I really want to focus on making a brand. Currently what I’ve decided my brand is fantasy romance. And diversity, that’s basically the brand that I’m going for.
[00:40:28] Emilia Rose: Oh, my gosh, I love this.
[00:40:30] Vy Starlit: And I really wanna have my patron reflect that. So I’m planning to do that and then have separate tiers where people can, join if they just wanna focus on the stories that I write, if they just wanna focus on the gaming, aspect. And then there’ll be like a tier that’s just for everything. If you just want everything that I have.
[00:40:52] Emilia Rose: Yes. I’m obsessed
[00:40:54] Michael Evans: me too. Me too.
[00:40:55] Vy Starlit: So I’m really excited about that. I don’t know. That’s something that I’m [00:41:00] probably not gonna be putting, out until sometime next year, but I’m already gonna be moving the ball on that right now.
[00:41:06] Vy Starlit: Like I said earlier, it’s just really important to make sure to do things in small pieces and everything. But even if you’re doing just a little bit each day, like most people don’t think are thinking about, well, if I can’t do it all at once, then I’m never gonna do it at all. But if you’re just doing just a little bit, each time, eventually you’re gonna make something.
[00:41:29] Vy Starlit: Fantastic. And also, and all that stuff over time will build up. So it’s just better to just like, even if you can only work on something for like 20 minutes a day, it’s just really great to just go out there and do that because, the only limit is you, you can keep doing it. There’s people who started really late in their careers.
[00:41:49] Vy Starlit: In a particular field and still have made, tremendous leaps in it just by keeping going
[00:41:56] Vy Starlit: Thank you. It’s great to hear that you would support me in that. But I’m [00:42:00] really excited to see what’s gonna happen in the future.
[00:42:02] Michael Evans: Yes. Yes. Oh my God, this is, this is it. You always overestimate what you can do in a month, in a year, but underestimate what you can accomplish in a decade. And when you step back and can have that vision and just go, I’m gonna take it one day at a time. Magic happens. It’s starlit carnival magic.
[00:42:23] Michael Evans: This is amazing. I wanna say that Danny Desatnik, who’s the host of the creator culture podcast. I was talking with him and he asked me a question, which is. What creatives, would you invest in if you could? And I thought, what an interesting question, because that instantly makes me think who’s someone who you don’t think is big yet, but is doing something unbelievably cool.
[00:42:45] Michael Evans: You are officially at the top of that list. I swear. I think that Vy’s mindset. This is the 21st century storyteller mindset. And it’s something that I think will lead to you, really being revolutionary and. [00:43:00] I love just that you had this commitment to not only innovating, not only sticking true to the stories you want, but also connecting with people from underrepresented backgrounds who really need to connect to something in the world.
[00:43:15] Michael Evans: All of Vy’s links are down below. Please check it out, check out her website, Wayfares Guild and the, the imagery is so beautiful. And now I’m just completely obsessed with everything else you’re doing. Thank you again for being here.
[00:43:27] Michael Evans: So before I officially go, just wanna remind everyone you can also join the subscriptions for authors Facebook group. It’s an awesome community. We also have a weekly newsletter that you can join. Totally free insights on how to grow your subs.
[00:43:40] Michael Evans: And run a better community as an author. In addition, we also are launching a subscription platform made by authors for authors. You can check that in the link as well. All right. That’s it for me. Thank you everyone for listening. Can’t wait for next week’s episode, you should definitely tune in.
[00:43:53] Michael Evans: It’ll be releasing next Thursday. All right, everyone. Happy writing.
Creative Attribution for Images:
https://iconscout.com/illustration/employee-tired-and-battery-down-2112527