Michael J. Sullivan's Blog, page 39

Nice company to be in

There's been movement on the best-selling epic fantasy for upcoming epic fantasy novels . Pleased to be sharing the top spots with Brandon Sanderson and Peter V. Brett. Keep those pre-orders coming in, and as always I thank you for your support.

What a glorious weekend!

My thanks to everyone who picked up Age of Myth while it was on sale on Saturday. I'm pleased to announce that your support made it the #1 Audible Bestseller! Kind of a good feeling being number 1 out of 358,248 books!




































It also helped out my author ranking substantially as well:




































Usually I'm ranked in the 30's or 40's, which is definitely something to be proud of. Still, it's fun to swim around with the biggest fishes in the business, even if it is only temporary.

In other news, work on The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter continue to go well. Just a few chapters left to go!

Age of Myth is an Audible Daily Deal

I'm pleased to announce that for today only, you can get a copy of the audible version of Age of Myth at a special discounted price . This is an excellent opportunity (and great timing as the second book, Age of Swords, will be coming out in just a few months). How deeply discounted?  Well, you can get it for just $5.95. That's more than 75% of the regular price and  83% off the member price.

Even better...if you've not heard one of my stories read by the amazing Tim Gerard Reynolds, then you're in for a real treat. Tim makes me sound so much better than I really am, and you shouldn't miss his performance.

And if that isn't enough to convince you, to pick it up today, then maybe the opinions of people who have already listened to it will help.  The audio version is rated at 4.6 with more than 5,300 reviews or ratings...and 5,000+ of those have given it 4- or 5-stars.

The only catch is you'll have to hurry, the sale price will vanish at 11:59 PT. I hope you'll give the book a try, and if you do, I hope you enjoy the listen!

New Epic Fantasy Coming Soon to Audible

Brandon Sanderson, Robin Hobb, Terry Brooks, Peter V. Brett, and even little ole me have some books coming out soon, and if you have a few spare audio credits, you might just want to put one of these on pre-order. Out of the 14 Epic Fantasy titles coming soon, I'm pleased that mine are hitting at #4 an #7 when sorted by best sellers. Here's the complete list, along with links if you want to learn more about any of the titles.

Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb narrated by Elliot Hill | 05/09/17 | Book #3: Fitz and the Fool

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson narrated by Kate Reading & Michael Kramer | 11/14/17 | Book #3: Stormlight Archive

War Mage by Terry Mancour narrated by John Lee | 05/19/17 | Book #2: Spellmonger

Age of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds | 07/25/17 | Book #2: Legends of the First Empire

Deadmen Walking by Sherrilyn Kenyon narrated by Holter Graham | 05/09/17 | Book #1: Deadman's Cross

The Core by Peter V. Brett narrated by Pete Bradbury | 10/03/17 | Book #5: Demon Cycle

The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter by Michael J. Sullivan narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds | 12/17/17 | Book #4: The Riyria Chronicles

The Black Elfstone by Terry Brooks narrated by Simon Vance | 06/13/17 | Book #1: Fall of Shannara

The Book of Dust by Phillip Pullman narrator to be announced | 10/19/17 | Book #1:
His Dark Materials

The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams narrator to be announced | 06/27/17 | Book #1: The Last King of Osten Ard

Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner narrated by Steve West | 05/16/17 | Book #5: Queen's Thief

You Die When you Die by Angus Watson narrated by Sean Barrett | 06/20/17 | Book #1: West of West

Forgotten Soliders by Joshua P. Simon narrated by Steven Brand | 05/09/17 | Book #1: Tyrus Chronicles

The Empire's Ghost by Isabelle Steiger narrated by Jeremy Arthur | 05/16/17

The big 1,000,000!

One of the nice (and terrible) things about writing is the fact that there is always a new goal to reach, a new milestone that lies just out of reach. It keeps me striving for that next level and each time one is achieved it acts as a benchmark of success to bolster my spirits on the bad days when a harsh review or frustrating day's writing can make me doubt whether I should be doing "this gig" at all.

One of the goals I've had for a long, long time was to hit that allusive 1,000,000 copies sold benchmark. Technically speaking, I've been what most would consider a "best-seller" for a long time now, but for me it's that seven digit number that has always been the mark where I felt I could say legitimately use that title.

Yesterday, Robin tallied the numbers and according to her estimates I've sold 1,032,220 books. There are many ways to count so let me be specific about what this means:

This ONLY includes full-length English-language novels sold, it doesn't include sales for any of the anthologies I'm in or the short stories I've written.This DOES NOT include any of my foreign language sales (because we just don't have good data from those sources).THIS DOES NOT include any "freebies" so, for instance when I give away an ebook to a purchaser of a print or audio copy I'm counting only 1 sale.THIS DOES include all major formats of my book: hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audio.THIS DOES include my self-publishing sales as well as books sold by Hachette, Penguin Random House, Tachyon, Recored Books and Audible Studios.
So, thank you everyone for making yet another dream come true. Your support is most appreciated and just so you know I'm nearing the conclusion of The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter and the release date remains at December 5th with a recoding date of October 16th.  And of course it's exactly three months until the release of Age of Swords!

Two Legends of the First Empire Giveaways

Hey all, tax day is over, July is on it's way, and I feel the excitement growing for the Age of Swords release. So let's giveaway some books, shall we?




























Robin just launched two Goodreads Giveaways (and opened them up to people from all countries). You can find them here: Age of Myth | Age of Swords

Even if you've already read the first book, go ahead and enter (you can always give a copy to a friend).  For those that are champing at the bit to read Age of Swords, the ARC will get into the winner's hands three months before the release date!

Oh, and I should mention that if you've already pre-ordered Age of Swords, there are a bunch of goodies you can get.  What kind of stuff?  Well, things like:

• First 5 chapters of Age of Swords to read early.
• Online high-resolution map for the series.
• Screen savers featuring Marc Simonetti's Artwork for Age of Myth 
• Online (searchable) Age of Myth glossary.
• Online (searchable) Age of Swords glossary.
• Recap of Age of Myth to refresh your memory.
• Bonus ebook: Inside Age of Myth - a behind the scenes look at Legends of the First Empire.
• Bonus ebook: Making of Age of Swords.
• Bonus Legends short story: Little Wren and the Big Forest
• Bonus Riyria short story: Professional Integrity

To get the freebies, it doesn't matter where you buy the books from or what format they are in (ebook, hardcover, and audio are all eligible).  Just email me a copy of your receipt (please have Age of Sword Pre-order as the subject line so I can see them easily, and we'll get the bonus stuff to you. 

Amazon's First ARC Review of Age of Swords

I'm starting to see ARC's (Advanced Reading Copies) in the wild (sent from Del Rey). John Scalzi had a whole stack of early copies and Age of Swords was in it, and I know Amazon Vine reviewers are getting their copies as the first review has come in.

The review starts with:

Wow! And I thought Book One was good. I just turned the last page on this second book of the “Legends of the First Empire” series and feel blown away! It’s the best feeling I’ve had when finishing an epic fantasy novel in quite some time.

And ends thusly:

The ending of this book was emotional and extremely satisfying and certainly sets a high mark for the following novels in the series still to come. Highest recommendation! 

I know that by posting I'm almost guaranteeing the fickle finger of fate will make the second review a bad one, but I couldn't contain my excitement. So far only the beta readers, my agent, my publisher, and my editors have seen the book that I wrote in 2013, so as you might imagine, I'm anxious to see what people think.

Very excited! July will be here before we know it.

Audible's 5-star favorites for March 2016

It's always great to find an amazing audio book, and even better when Audible.com chooses one of my titles to feature in their "5-star favorites for Sci-fi and Fantasy" I've been so busy that I didn't have a chance to post about the earlier. If you are looking for a good audio listen, You might want to try one of these:
















• The Crown Tower by Michael J. Sullivan narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds | Book #1 | 08/06/13
rating: 4.70 | # pf reviews: 7,438

• To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis narrated by Steven Crossley | 03/28/08
rating: 4.10 | # of reviews: 2,847

• Critical Failures by Robert Bevan narrated by Jonathan Sleep | Book #1 | 09/02/14
rating: 4.30 | # of reviews: 4,313

• Dust and Light by Carol Berg narrated by MacLeod Andrews | Book #1 | 08/05/14
rating: 4.40 | # of reviews: 172

• Stolen Throne by David Gaider narrated by: Stephen Hoye | Book #1 | 03/09/10
rating: 4.20 | # of reviews: 571

• Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos narrated by Luke Daniels | Book #1 | 01/28/14
rating: 4.40 | # of reviews: 5,152

• The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein narrated by Lloyd James | 10/11/06
rating: 4.40 | # of reviews: 5,452

• Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith | 06/15/12
rating: 4.10 | # of reviews: 640

• The Sprit Thief by Rachel Aaron narrated by Luke Daniels | Book #1 | 09/28/10
rating: 4.10 reviews; 1,330

• King of Thorns by Mark Lawrence narrated by James Clamp | Book #2 | 08/07/12
rating: 4.50 | # of reviews: 1,251

Age of Myth: Kindle Deal of the Day on sale for $1.99

Today, Amazon has selected a number of best-selling books to put on sale, and Agee of Myth is one of them . It's just $1.99 rather than $9.99 so that's a savings of 80%!  This is the first time this book has been discounted and with Age of Swords coming out in just a few months, it's a great time to get started with the series. If you already own Age of Swords, please consider telling a friend about the sale, it's a great deal.

Unbound World's Cage Match: And then there were eight

Thanks to all who voted for Suri in Round 2, I'm pleased to say she's moved on to Round 3. Here's how the brackets have been progressing (click on the image below to get a higher resolution version:
























In the next round Suri and Minna will be facing Mira Grant's (AKA Seanan McQuire) Georgia Mason from Feed (Newsflesh Series).  Voting won't open for a few days, and we'll keep you posted!