u/LemonWorldly1100

I’ve been posting on Patreon for about 1.5 years. I write serialized fiction, so usually when people join, they stay until I complete the novel I’m currently posting.

Today, I made a new Patreon post after about a week-long gap, and I noticed something unusual. I got a lot of traffic, but not from Instagram, which is where my traffic usually comes from. This time, it seemed to be coming from Patreon itself.

I ended up getting four new members today, but all four subscribed and then cancelled almost immediately. None of them left an exit survey. This has never happened to me before.

I’m wondering if this could be because of the newer Patreon UI/recommendation feed. Maybe regular Patreon users discovered my page through Patreon, joined to check out the locked content, and then cancelled right away so they wouldn’t get billed again next month. Or maybe they joined, realized the content wasn’t for them, and cancelled.

Has anyone else seen this kind of behavior recently — especially traffic coming from Patreon itself rather than your usual external sources?

Does my theory make sense, or am I missing something obvious?

Also, would you DM the people who cancelled to politely ask why, or would that come across as awkward?

Is Rina Kent aware of this Instagram user making AI movies out of her book God Of Fury?

Link - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYXqvkaPX6q/?igsh=MTE3dzFoM2w5bzV0YQ==

One of my very close writer friends asked me to read her book and give her an honest review. Mind you, she has been incredibly encouraging about my book. She edited my book’s character aesthetics, made me a book cover for free, made promotional reel for me, and everything. We became friends because she fell in love with my book. She is genuinely one of the nicest people I have ever met.

So, naturally, I read her book.

And it’s bad.

It feels very AI-generated. I cautiously asked her if she used AI, and she said she only used it to polish things a little. But it doesn’t feel polished. It has one-word spurts, broken single-letter sentences, and a disjointed plot that genuinely hurt my brain. I couldn’t understand a single thing about the story.

Mind you, she has a good Instagram following, her reels have hundreds and thousands of views so naturally her books get traction. But she dissatisfied with the number of reads and likes on her book. Also, she is very passionate about her story.

My honest critique would be to tell her to stop writing with the intention of being published or expecting others to read it right now. I would want to tell her to write without using AI at all, not even for grammar, and to just put her heart into it. I would also tell her to read a lot more, preferably not only on Wattpad.

But I know I’m going to break her heart if I say all this, and I feel terrible.

How should I go about it?