I don’t even know what’s worse, getting your hopes up for an IF only for it to turn out completely different from what you expected, or getting your hopes up for one that never actually happens.
One of my biggest frustrations with IF authors, besides the countless others, is when they come up with a cool idea, make a tumblr for it, hype up readers saying the next update will have this and that, and then they just disappear.
I swear, the first one (of many) that managed to seriously frustrate me a few months ago was the author of Debt of Deception. I actually liked the vibe, and I personally love IFs where you get to take care of kids.
I was checking her tumblr every day, and back in April she made a poll asking if we wanted half of the first chapter that month or if we preferred to wait until the next one for a full chapter. That’s when I saw the red flag. Polls about updates are basically a death sentence at this point.
Then May came, the month she supposedly would post the update, and of course, there wasn’t even a trace of it. But I was patient. I decided to wait until the end of the month, hoping maybe she’d post it by then.
The conclusion? Her last post was on May 29th, and she’s been gone ever since
And despite the frustration, I don’t usually go complain to the authors. I just get frustrated silently and move on. But there are other readers who don’t, who will go and complain, and I don’t think they’re wrong. After all, if you say you’re going to post an update, build up expectations in your readers, and then don’t do it, it’s obvious people are going to call you out for it.
But there are authors who still get mad when you call them out for something they themselves said they were going to do. The ones with Patreon? Don’t even mention them, they’re even worse. After all, how come you’re asking for something you’re literally paying to have? That’s unacceptable!
If they at least made a post saying they wouldn’t be posting an update, or that they lost interest in the IF, or anything like that, I’d even cut them some slack. But instead, they just disappear. And the ones with Patreon vanish too, but still keep draining money from the subscriptions.
