Thank you :)

A video to thank my paid subscribers and readers.

Author’s note: watch it with captions ON. Not trusting AI, I spent hours writing it all out myself. Enjoy!

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Transcript

Hi there! My name’s KJ Harlow. Nice to meet you. I’m the author of “Slice of Death,” a serial bit of speculative fiction that I’ve published on Substack.

365 chapters, one for every day of the year, a prologue and an epilogue. Yeah, all done — and that’s why I’m sharing this video now. Just wanted to basically let people see the person behind the face, behind Ever and yeah, I guess just go through a bit of a thank you video.

Um, so I’ll get started.

Paying Subscribers

I’ll start with my paying subscribers, because, they, you know, have made a difference in terms of the belief that they have instilled upon me, you know, putting your money where your mouth is.

And the first person I want to thank is my first paying subscriber who is...

Asteria Geisterblum

Apologies if I’ve butchered the name.

Asteria’s very well known amongst the fiction folk on Substack and when I first joined, it was just really intimidating to see someone like Asteria just... doing what she does. Because she writes so damn well. And to see her reading my story and Restacking and ultimately being the first person to pay for it was very humbling. I couldn’t believe it, but it instilled in me a strong sense of belief that if someone like her could read it and enjoy it then I could probably do good... I guess.

Furthermore, she did share a Note in the past basically about different songs that she associates with the story. With Slice of Death, the song by Jordan Suaste, it currently escapes my memory (it’s “WHAT IM HERE FOR”)

but a song by that artist is the song that she listens to and since then I’ve been listening to it when I’ve needed a lift if I felt like I couldn’t write that day, or if I just felt stuck. It was very energising to listen to it and to use it to help me get that boost.

So...

Vielen Danke, Asteria!

Next, moving onto my Primordials.

Primordials

So, the higher paid tier of my paying subscribers

So, Ed the Editor, The Circus Dragon and williamphaynes/elliott (and Paola!... but I’ll get to her later 😉)

These three have paid for the highest tier, and yeah, it’s a big deal to put aside basically a year’s worth of the subscription to basically show your support, so thank you very much.

With The Circus Dragon in particular, it was a big deal to get my first piece of fan art. She drew Ever as a dragon.

It was basically a picture of him as a dragon, scooping ice cream for some humans and he looked very warm and approachable. So that was very nice to receive.

Now, moving into readers.

Readers

So the readers are very dear to me because they have stuck with me through literally the whole year. <3

I wake up and I see them for the most part, having already read it over night because they’re in other parts of the world and they may or may not comment, but just to know that they are reading every single day is a big lift for me.

First, is...

Ariadne Pautina.

Ariadne was my first subscriber ever to my Substack. So it’s quite special to think that someone who is your first subscriber, just basically subscribes to someone who is a nobody. Like when I first joined. I had no subscribers.

But then still, she saw something in this poor guy who just joined Substack and thought, “eh, I’ll just give him a shot.” But she’s been reading and she was there til the very end.

So... I’ll get this right... I hope I can get this right...

большое спасибо

So thank you very much, Ariadne.

Then we have...

Paola.

Dearest Paola, she... is nothing short of a super reader. Quite literally, because she read something like... 250 chapters in the space of nearly 24 hours??? It was just pinging my phone non-stop, as she just read one after the other. I don’t know how she did it, but it’s the sort of reader that any writer would dream of.

And it’s the reason, it’s partly the reason why I’ve serialised the story and made it a bit shorter between chapters, to be a bit more bingeable. So yeah, she treated it like a binge-worthy story and stuck with it all the way to the end.

So... to Paola... Grazie mille!

Also worth noting that Paola is actually a good — a really good editor even though that’s not really her main role. I’ll wake up and I’ll see a DM from her, and I’m like, “oh nawrr, what have I screwed up this time?” She’ll pick up something that I mispelt or logically is incorrect or something else.

But no, I very much appreciate her keen eye to help me fix mistakes because I very much lack attention to detail.

So next is...

Leanne Shawler

Fellow Aussie, one of the few people I’ve met in person off Substack. It’s always a bit scary meeting someone literally meeting a stranger off the Internet but we hit it off and it was really fun. Hoping to meet up again pretty soon.

She’s also been a reader and to have someone as accomplished as her in her writing career read the story and have an invested interest in it is a really big deal so thank you very much, Leanne.

Last mention is for Hallie Jules, who I affectionately call... HALSEY!

She wrote a piece of fanfic.

The Real Name

I find these things really nice to receive because you know, I think every writer hopes that they have like, a fandom. People dress up and write stories and this and that. But to sort of see Ever and my characters appearing in a different story is quite a thrill.

And she’s been reading it, despite being as busy as she has been with going through the process of trying to find an agent and stuff like that, so very cool that she still has time to do everything that she does, so I appreciate you very much Halsey.

There’s other readers, and I know there’s more:

• Margo Margan

• Richard Pack

• MaKenna Grace

• Buzz Kantwrite (Another Aussie)

I see your names pop up, don’t think that I don’t notice you, I definitely do. I’m sure there are others because I’ll get 50 odd views per chapter and I have been all the way through. I feel very grateful that that’s the case.

People are still somehow reading it after this long, so it’s a very big deal and I appreciate my readers a lot.

Yeah, so that’s it.

What’s next?

I’m still considering doing read throughs. I just need to wrangle Audacity and just be patient with it and be patient with myself and um... yeah, just try to sit down and do the recordings, I guess.

In the immediate future, I’m going to do the “author self-promotional thing” not heavily into it, and I’m not selling anything... yet. Just more so putting myself out there a little bit more

We’ve got two — that’s right TWO — interviews lined up for this month. one will be a Live with Wendy Russell, where I’ll be reading the first Chapter of “Slice of Death” live, so that will be very cool.

The second will be with none other than the incomparable Bradley Ramsey. So very cool thing to look forward to. Yep, by the end of it all I’m pretty sure you’ll be so sick of hearing me yapping that you’ll wish that I kept Ever’s face on.

But anyway I’m doing them, so suck it up 😜

Anyway, thank you for humouring me and making me feel like I’m a bigger deal than I am. I’m just a guy who’s written a story and hoped to find a readership on Substack and I found so much more. So thank you.

This is me, signing off for now. But yeah, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you guys around, so…

😘

bye. :)