The real reason I'm re-releasing the Tipsy Pelican Tavern

Dearest Reader,

I must have rewritten this email to you half a dozen times, and here is yet another rewrite.

I’m supposed to tell you that the re-release of Tipsy Pelican Tavern Vol. 1 is now out and you should definitely go buy it. (In fact, it’s been out for the past couple of days and this email was supposed to be sent out a week ago.)

But what I really want to tell you is where I’m at and the reason why I’m re-releasing the books. I’m just not exactly sure how to do that, I guess I’m having one of those moments where one doesn’t quite have the words for the heart-and-mind content one intends to transmit. Probably because I’m a little uncomfortable about it. That’s usually the culprit.

So far, however, this rewrite is going a tad better than the previous ones, so I’m going to continue with it… here goes nothing:

I fell into a deep funk when AI went mainstream a couple of years ago. This was right before Volume 4 released. Luckily it was already mostly written. I fell into a funk because I felt I knew what was going to happen. Not immediately, maybe not even within a decade, but AI was eventually going to replace writers.

I even emailed the author Chris Fox, who is a sort of a guru among us self-published authors, to ask his thoughts on my ill-fated prophecy, hoping for his reassurances.

This was the last line of his reply to me: “I am working my tail off to diversify into other directions like roleplaying games and woodworking.”

Erm… let’s just say that’s not exactly the kind of words you want to hear from your guru.

It’d be like asking Buddha for advice and hearing, “Maybe we should start making animal sacrifices to Aphrodite.”

But I couldn’t fault him.

Chris and I both have a background in software development, and we could both see the writing on the wall. I knew then that AI was going to take away my dream of being a career author. And this shattered me.

I know writers say that we should write for ourselves. And we certainly do that. But writing to me, perhaps especially so, is a lot like joke-making. Sure, coming up with the joke is a joy in itself. But telling the joke holds the true delight. It’s because you get to share in it with others.

Writing was my life’s meaning, and I felt that it was going to be ripped away from me. That’s the real reason I haven’t released Tipsy Pelican Tavern Volume 5. It’s the reason I hadn’t fully gotten back on my writing horse until now.

It’s not that my thoughts on AI have changed. I know many people disagree with me on this (although many less than before), but I still think the writing is on the wall (and now AI probably has had a hand in writing it).

What changed for me is a little too long for this letter, which is already getting overly long, and it’s probably TMI anyway. But the short of it is that I’ve begun to learn to stop worrying so much about the future. The fact of the matter is I still have a shot at being a professional author right now, it’s what I want to do, and so I’m going to do it.

That does bring one to the question of how I’m going to be an author.

Unlike the previous volumes of the Tipsy Pelican Tavern series, Volume 4 had a sharp drop-off in sales soon after it was released despite being the highest rated. I could tell what happened. My covers were no longer winning profitable ad bids–they couldn’t compete with the shiny AI-created ones.

That was then, and the situation has only gotten more competitive. It seems that half the self-published books I see have AI-generated covers. I often see authors on X advocating AI usage, even for writing. There are YouTubers with tens of thousands of followers teaching people how to make and sell books with AI. And Amazon’s algorithm keeps on pushing them, even encouraging authors to use their AI-generated voice tool to create audiobooks.

Let me say here that I’m not here to argue against AI itself. It is what it is and I’m quite sure we’ll all be using it in one form or all of them soon enough. I personally already use it for software development and as a Google replacement.

But I just couldn’t bring myself to use AI to create the Tipsy Pelican Tavern novels.

And therein lies the dilemma. Because my art, as some reviewers have noted, isn’t exactly at the, shall we say, “adequate level.” My ad costs have only confirmed this.

So what does one do?

Well, it turns out the answer was staring me right in the face. My novels are partially influenced by Japanese light novels, which feature covers and interior art drawn by an artist that is not the author. And so that’s what I’ve done with this new release.

I’ve brought in the incredibly talented Elfe Carter to recreate my covers. For the interior art, I’ve teamed up with the wonderful artists at Kantuk Creative. This way, I can focus my time on repolishing prose, running ads, and building a social media presence. (I talk a bit about this at the end of the Vol. 1 release too.)

This new release of the Tipsy Pelican Tavern novels starts with Volume 1 and will culminate with Volume 5.

This has taken months and months of work and a fair chunk of my savings. But I’m giving it my all. I guess you could call it my do-or-die, ultimate-attempt, fifth-day-at-Helm’s-Deep-waiting-for-Gandalf-to-arrive-with-Éomer-final-push to make the Tipsy Pelican Tavern a successful series.

If you’d like to join me in this effort (if you’d like to be my Gandalf), then grab the new release on Kindle, paperback, or the wonderfully narrated audiobook, and share the news on social media. You can also get it on Kindle Unlimited as part of your subscription. But also don’t feel compelled to buy anything if you already have the book. The main story hasn’t changed and I know many of you like the originals.

However, if you’d still like to help me out, you could leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or share on social media. Even a small comment on Reddit can have a massive impact.

Thanks so much for making it to the end of this long message. I guess this is the rewrite I’m going with. Heart and mind content transmitted.

Thanks for reading, and thanks sharing in the Tipsy Pelican Tavern with me.