Michael J. Sullivan's Blog, page 42

The Economics of Publishing

Being an author is an unusual profession and often shrouded in mystery. Readers are frequently surprised to discover just how little an author makes, and how many writers rely on "day jobs" because writing doesn't produce a living wage.

I think part of the problem comes from the fact that discussing income isn't favorably looked upon in many circles, but that lack of information makes it darn hard to know what you are getting into if you're considering writing for a living. Thankfully there is Jim C. Hines who has been good enough to share his income on his blog.  Here's a chart of Jim's data (compiled from several posts).



























There are some interesting things to take note of regarding Jim and his data.

* I'd classify Jim as a "solid mid-list author." Which is to say one that has had a good amount of success, but not so much as to be considered an outlier. In other words, he nicely represents what is possible for authors that write well and keep producing.

* Jim spent a decade honing his craft. He started writing novels in 1995, and his first published book was in 2006. That's pretty much on par with many authors, myself included.

* Jim writes popular fiction (fantasy) with a major publisher. He sells well enough to earn out his advances, and he has significant income from foreign language translations. With his most recent series, he's graduated to hardcovers. The format used by publishers for their top authors.

* Jim quit his day job in 2015, after releasing his 11th book.  He's now one of the rare breeds of writers who earn a living entirely from their craft.

* The fluctuations in Jim's income is typical. Because of the way advances are paid (more on this in a minute), a strong year can be followed by several lean ones.  Jim had a great 2008, but if he had quit his day job then, he would have found 2009 - 2012 to be a financial struggle. Once he had several years producing more than $50,000 he finally cut the cords to his day job. Smart man.

A pie with many pieces
One of the reasons authors earn so little is the large number of fingers in the proverbial pie. I'm going to set aside a discussion of advances for now,  but we'll circle back to it. So, let's look at money from the perspective of the amount spent by the reader and who gets what.

* Royalties (a small amount of money earned every time a book sells), are what provide authors their income. Standard royalties are as follows:

     * 10% - 15% of LIST price for hardcovers
     * 6% - 8% of LIST price for paperbacks
     * 25% of NET (the amount paid to the publisher) for eBooks

* Agents earn their money from the author's share (15% for books sold in the US, and 20% for books with foreign language translations)

* The publisher bears the financial responsibility for creating and selling the book. They incur initial investments to produce the product (editors, cover designers, author advances), and also  the cost of goods sold expenses such as printing, discounts provided to retailers, warehousing fees, shipping, and the losses from returned books too damaged to be re-sold.

* Retailer fees can run 50% - 60% for print books and 30% - 35% for electronic books.

* Printing costs depend on the size of the print run. Larger print runs have a lower per unit cost, but they require a higher initial investment. For instance, 2,000 trade paperbacks might cost $5,000 to print ($2.50 a book), but 10,000 copies might run $12,500 ($1.25 per book).

* Warehousing fees include storage costs (based on the volume of product stored), and distribution fees for picking and shipping books to retailers as orders come in. These costs could run 15% - 20% of the book's list price.

* Shipping costs are not the fees to ship a book to a consumer, because he retailer bears that responsibility. But the publisher has to pay the expenses to move the books from place to place: printer to the warehouse, warehouse to retailer, returns (unsold books) sent back to storage (many of which are too damaged to sell again), and so on.

Okay, with all that in mind, let's look at a $25.00 hardcover printed in a relatively large quantity and bought from Amazon.

* Amazon: $13.75 (some of this money may be passed onto the consumer through a discount)
* Printer: $1.50
* Ingram (warehouse and distributor) $3.75
* Book overhead: shipping, damaged books, and books provided free for reviewers: $0.49
* Author: $2.13
* Agent: $0.38
* Publisher: $3.00

eBooks simplify matters considerably as there is no printing, warehousing, or shipping fees to contend with. The breakdown for a $9.99 ebook sold on Amazon would be.

* Amazon: $3.00
* Author: $1.49
* Agent: $0.26
* Publisher: $5.24

In summary, the author earns 8.52% for hardcovers and 14.9% for an ebook.

Advances
The best way to think of advances is that it is a loan against future earnings. That's not entirely accurate, since an author doesn't pay back the advance if the books don't sell well, but it's a close analogy. When an author's royalties exceed their advance, a book has reached the earned out status. In that case, the author will get a payment twice a year for the sales above the advance that sold in the previous six-month period. Yes, successful books result in two paychecks a year, and that's part of the reason it's had for authors to manage cash flow. I should note that most books never earn out (only about 20% do), so in most cases, the advance will be the only money an author receives.  

The other thing to mention about advances is that not all publishers are offering them these days, or if they do, the amounts are significantly less than they have historically been. For those that do, the author doesn't receive all their money at once.  Depending on the contract the advance is divided into three, four, or five payments (larger advances are spread out more than small ones).  Here are some typical divisions:

* 1/3 when the contract is signed.

* 1/3 when the book has been edited to the "acceptance" milestone (meaning the publisher will definitely be publishing it).

* 1/3 when the book is released.

A book with a larger advance might be divided thusly:

* 1/4 when the contract is signed.

* 1/4 when the book is accepted.

* 1/4 when the hardcover edition is published.

* 1/4 when the paperback edition is published (or sometimes based on some time period after the hardcover release, one year is typical). 

Now the big question is how much of an advance can an author expect? Well, that depends on many factors: the size of the publisher, how "important" the book will be in a particular release season, past sales history, and publisher's income potential projections. Publisher's Marketplace is a venue where agents regularly report book deals and they divide sales into a number of levels:

* $1 - $49,999 = "a nice deal"
* $50,000 - $99,999 = "a very nice deal"
* $100,000 - $249,999 = "a good deal"
* $250,000 - $499,999 = "a significant deal"
* $500,000 and above = "a major deal"

About 80% of the debut authors will fall into the "nice deal" camp, and I'm sad to say that the medium advance is around $10,000.  John Scalzi (a higher than mid-list science fiction author) and a few of his author friends came up with what they think is a better breakdown of advances. You can read the whole post here. But it goes like this:

* $0 - $2,999 = "a shitty deal"
* $3,000 - $4,999 = "a contemptible deal"
* $5,000 - $9,999 = "a "meh" deal"
* $10,000 - $19,999 = "a not bad deal"
* $20,000 - $99,999 = "a "shut up!" deal" (said in an envious tone by fellow admiring authors)
* $100,000 = "I'm getting the next round deal" because you can buy and sell all other authors at your drinking table.

Self-publishing: cutting out some middle men
One of the reasons why self-publishing has become so popular is because more of the reader's money is kept in the author's pocket. The important thing to note, however, is that in this case the author is doing multiple jobs and act as both the author AND the publisher. Generally, self-publishers utilize POD (print on demand) which has a higher per book price but eliminates the need for warehousing, shipping, and book returns as printing only happens once orders are placed.  Also, because no agent is involved, the author gets to keep that money as well. Let's look at the breakdown in self-publishing.

For the following calculations, let's assume a 350 page novel that is sold on Amazon for $14.95 (trade paperback) and $4.95 (ebook).  Using print on demand, the paperback distribution of money would breakdown as follows:
* Amazon $5.98
* Printer: $5.05 (assuming CreateSpace - slightly higher for Ingram Spark)
* Author: $3.92

For ebooks the breakdown would be:
* Amazon: $1.49
* Author: $3.46

So the author/publisher earns 26.2% on print and 70% on ebooks. That's a 300% increase on print books and and 470% increase on ebooks over traditional publishing. But again, keep in mind the author has now assumed all the costs of producing the book including editing, cover design, and layout.

Self-publishing & self-selling: highest income potential
Robin has come up with a crazy idea. It's not her first, and it won't be her last. It's because of her crazy ideas that (a) I've signed 12 books with two of the big-five publishers (b) I've self-published 7 books (c) neither of us have needed day jobs to pay the bills since 2011 and (d) we have a future that is more secure than when we worked for others. For these reasons, and many more, I'm willing to go along with it.  What's the idea? Well, she cut out publishers and agents through self-publishing, and she now wants to remove even more middle men by removing the retailer. The goal is to eliminate everyone except the reader and the author. Okay, we can't actually trim back that far. We're not going to be laser printing books and binding them in our basement, but we can get the process down to just the printer, writer, and credit card processor.

As some may know, I'm currently writing my fourth Riyria Chronicle, and we've already sold the audio rights to that book to Audible Studios (it's how we maximize audio income in that venue). They've already done an amazing job with the release of The Death of Dulgath (more than 20,000 copies sold in it's first year) and their production quality is top notch -- oh, and, of course, Tim Gerard Reynolds will be the narrator - we've made sure of that!

Anyway, the advance for that audio book is enough to allow for a safety net of sorts, so we're going to release the 4th book in a really unusual way...it won't be in stores. Yes, you heard right...you won't be able to get it online or in brick-and-mortar stores-- well at least not initially.

You see, books (especially when in a series), have a huge sales spike when they are first released. After a few months, sales fall off considerably. For some authors, they earn 90% of the lifetime income of a book in the first 4 weeks! Given that, it makes sense to maximize the income as much as possible on the early sales.  People will still be able to get all formats of the book: audio, hardcover, trade paperback, ebook, even limited edition versions, but they'll get them directly from us. We've already done something similar in the past (both by using Kickstarter and selling books directly from my website), but those were always supplemental sales and the bulk was purchased through the retail chain, and they took their massive bites from the overall pie.

To do this will mean a lot of up-front investment for editors, cover designer, layout, formatting, and a good-sized print run. To help with that, we'll run another Kickstarter, which  is a great way for people to pre-order copies while helping to to cover these up-front costs. If the Kickstarter doesn't fund, we'll still go ahead with our plans to sell direct, the only difference is there won't be hardcovers and we'll have higher per book costs due to the use of print on demand. Let's look at some of the possibilities:


* $9.99 ebook - $0.59 credit card processing fee = $9.40.

* $14.95 paperback with print run ($2.00), warehousing/fulfillment ($1.50), and credit card processing fees $0.43 = $11.02

* $24.95 hardcover with print run ($3.00), warehousing/fulfillment ($1.50) and  credit card processing fees ($1.02) = $19.43

* $14.95 paperback using print-on-demand ($5.05) and credit card processing fee ($0.43) = $9.47

So the % going to the us increases to 94% for ebooks, 73.7% for trade paperbacks, 77.9% for hardcovers, and 63.3% if we use print on demand. If we can manage it, that'd be an amazing case study and could blaze a trail to convince other authors to do likewise. If others are able to make more than a few percentage points, maybe many of them won't need their day jobs.

Now, the buy-direct model will be temporary, and eventually the books will be offered through the retail chain. I'm not 100% sure when we'll cut over. I've committed to at least a six-month period of "no retail ebook and print" with Audible (to reward them for providing the seed money to try this experiment). Also, not having a new Riyria boos in the retail chain helps with the non-compete clause in my current Del Rey contract. A lot will depend on the sales numbers for both the Riyria books and the Legends novels, but they will eventually be for sale (at least online). Until then, readers can get any format they want, and since they'll be coming straight from me, they can get them signed!

If you are interested in supporting this experiment, please sign-up using this link. That way you'll be notified when the Kickstarter goes live, and if Kickstarter isn't your thing, then you'll get an email for when and how you can buy the book direct.  It'll be an interesting experiment. I'm cautiously optimistic about it's possibilities. I hope you are as well.

Most Wished For Sci-Fi & Fantasy AudioBooks of 2016

The audiobook of Age of Myth just received another 2016 accolade!  This time it hit the 20 Most Wished For Audio books of 2016 List . This particular distinction is something I'm really pleased about because it comes from readers and is showing proof that this little-engine-that-could continues to gain traction. in fact, a quick check of the number of reviews per book shows Age of Myth a distant last place. You would think that would be discouraging, but it's not...at all. I've already been thrilled with the success of the audio book so far and it shows that it has plenty of room to continue to soar, being on the list shows that people are interested, and I'm hoping they'll be picking it up int the future. So, thank you to all the people who are wishing for copies - I hope you get yours soon!




































To find myself included on a list with the likes of Rowlings, King, Martin, Gaiman, Sanderson and Rothfuss, is really quite surreal...not to mention the other amazing authors on the list.

2016 Year-end News - last day to save on multi-author Holiday Sale & Age of Myth Giveaway

Last Day for Sale & Giveaway
Hey all, I love hearing from readers and I've amassed many emails through my correspondence, friends on Goodreads, and people who have signed up for my newsletters. What I haven't done is a very good job sending out updates to people. Earlier this month, I tried to correct that short-coming by sending out a Year-End News email. If you didn't happen to get your copy (or it was shuffled off to the spam folder), I wanted to take a moment to repeat the information here on my blog as some of of the items on that email are ending today! So here we go...










7 Authors, 50+ items, savings of 10% - 70% off signed books, short-stories merchandise, and ebooks. 

A bunch of authors decided to band together for a multi-author holiday sale. I'm proud to be included with the likes of Brent Weeks, Kevin Hearne, Brian McClellan, and several others to offer books at amazing prices. And the best part, you can get them signed without traveling to a convention.  One thing to note, the sale ends December 15th so don't wait too long to check it out. Click here to find all items on sale

Age of Myth hitting best of 2016 lists
Starting a new series is a frightening prospect. Will readers be so wedded to past characters that they won't accept new ones? Have I completely forgotten how to write? Am I delusional about anyone being interested in my stories? So, there was more than just a bit of trepidation when releasing Age of Myth this June. I'm so pleased that the concern was unfounded, as the book has been so well received. In less than six months it has over 5,000 5-star reviews. Only 2% have been 1's or 2's, 8% have rated the book a 3, and 90% have been 4's or 5's. It's the readers' opinions that I care the most about, but it's also icing on the cake to receive recognition from industry leaders. So, I'm honored that some of the most prestigious best-of 2016 lists have  included Age of Myth. Personally, I find checking out these best-of lists to be a great way to find new novels to read, so please click on the links and hopefully you'll find some books to add to your 2017 reading.

* Goodreads Choice Award Nomination
* Amazon's Best sc-fi and fantasy of 2016
* AudioFile Magazine's 2016 Best Audiobooks
* The Quill to Live Best of 2016

Release Schedule Announced
Many people have wondered why the Legends of the First Empire books are being released on a one per year schedule considering they are already written. My first response, is they're not. Outside of the first two books (which were spaced one year apart), we had only a tentative schedule for the remaining books. The other thing to note is there is a big difference between "written" and "done." You see, after turning in Age of Myth, I spent about a year making changes to the end of the series and that meant that Age of Swords(book #2) sat idle for all that time. Now that the new ending is done, I've started writing a 4th Riyria Chronicle novel and I hope to have its first draft done by the end of February. With five books in various forms of editing, and a sixth book to be finished in a few months, it became apparent that we would have to step up the release schedule. Robin, my agent, and Del Rey have been working on the dates for the next few books and here is what we've come up with.

* Age of Swords (Legends #2) June 2017
* Untitled (Riyria Chronicles #4) Nov/Oct 2017
* Age of War (Legends #3) Jan/Feb 2018
* Age of Legends (Legends #4) June/July 2018

There are a few things to note. First, the covers at these links are placeholders. Marc Simonetti is already working on Age of Swords, and I'll debut it as soon as it's ready. Also, pre-order pages are up for Age of Swords, so if you  know you'll want to read it as soon as possible, please consider buying now. Pre-orders make a huge impact on how much marketing the publisher dedicates and how prominent the bookstores display the books. It's early support that can really impact the success of a release.

I should also mention that the next Riyria novel will have an unusual distribution plan, and initially (first six-months or so), it won't be available from retailers. That said, ebooks, hardcovers, and trade paperbacks will be for sale directly from me via my website and a Kickstarter campaign. Plus, audio versions will be on sale at Audible.com and through the iBookstore.  Because of the unusual way we are releasing, it's best if you sign-up for notifications or you might not see when it's out there. Click here to sign-up for Riyria #4 Notification

Age of Myth Giveaway
From time to time, either myself or my publisher hosts a Goodreads Giveaway, and I have one running right now for Age of Myth. I really wanted to make sure that any winners could get their signed hardcovers by Christmas, so it's only open to the US and Canada. I'm sorry to cut out other parts of the world, but I'll be doing another one early in 2017 that's open for all people. Winners will be chosen at the end of the day on December 15th, so, like the multi-author sale, keep that deadline in mind. Click here to sign-up for the Giveaway

Beta Reader Sign-up
I've been getting a lot of emails from people who want to beta read. Robin runs the  program, and it's a pretty intense system. Her process provides some really amazing feedback and the result is significant improvements to the books. Typically, we get several hundred volunteers, and given we have some beta-reading veterans, we only have room for 10 - 12 new people each cycle. From the sign-up link below, you can learn what's involved in the process, and if it looks like something you'd be interested in, you can add your name to the list. Oh, and just because the link takes you to a page that features Age of War, the form is actually a global list for both series. When you add your name, you can choose which books you are interested in, so, don't let that aspect throw you. Click here for Beta Reader Sign-up


And that's it!
Whew, that's a lot of updates, and I'm sorry it's coming in such a big chunk. I want to be conscious of people's email burden, and as such, I'd rather send fewer messages with more content than the other way around. As always, I never sell, rent, or otherwise abuse your email address, and I try to provide content that you care about. I have no desire to spam, so if this message (and others like it) aren't something you are interested in, then by all means unsubscribe and It'll stop future messages. For your convenience, there is a link at the bottom of the page to do so.

I hope you're having a great holiday season and are as excited about 2017 as I am. I'll keep writing and releasing, and hopefully you'l keep reading.

Audible's Best Fantasy of 2016

I'm starting to feel like a broken record, but I'm pleased to announce that Age of Myth has made yet another Best of 2016 list; this time from Audible.com.  















There are several things that make this list particularly special. First, it was a short list. Just five titles picked (as opposed to 15 or 20 as was the case with the other lists). Given that there were more than 2,100 fantasy audio titles in 2016, that's pretty amazing.

But what I'm most pleased about is that Tim Gerard Reynolds had two nominations, AND he is the narrator on the winning book!  Congratulations to him and Jonathan Renshaw on Dawn of Wonder taking top honors.



Here is the full list:

* Winner: Dawn of Wonder by Johnathan Renshaw narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds

* Finalist: Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson narrated by Michael Kramer

* Finalist: Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds

* Finalist: Super Powereds by Drew Hayes narrated by Kyle McCarley

* Finalist: No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished by Rachel Aaron narrated by Vikas Adam

I'm also thrilled by Rachel Aaron's success with her series of dragon books. These were self-published and she's been rocking both the audible and ebook charts...and making some great coin in the process. Always good to see that happen!

Age of Myth makes another Best-of List

First, here was the Goodreads Choice Award Nomination, then Amazon Picked Age of Myth to it's top  fantasy and sci-fi list, and Audiofile Magzine's top of 2016. I've been so busy reporting on them, that I didn't have a chance to mention that I recently learned that A Quill to Live has narrowed down it's top 15 reads of 2016 and I'm thrilled to say that Age of Myth made #5!!

































I said it before, and I'll say it again these lists are great for growing TBR lists.  And Christmas is just around the corner. So, if you see something you like, tell Santa. Who knows, he might just stuff your stocking with some good reads.

AudioFile Magazine's 2016 Best Audiobooks

Wow, Goodreads, Amazon, and now I learned that Age of Myth has hit another major best-of list.  This one comes from Audiofile Magazine and their editor's top 15 fantasy and science fiction picks of 2016.























I'm especially pleased about this pick because it also highlights the amazing work of Tim Gerard Reynolds (the narrator for The Riyria Revelations, The Riyria Chronicles, and The Legends of the First Empire books). Tim received his first Audie Award nomination for Theft of Swords, way back in the day, and several of my titles have earned him Earphone Awards. I'm always thrilled when Tim's career takes another notch up the ladder, and hopefully he'll keep dragging me along with him.

Things worth believing in

I'm not sure how many people saw the movie Second Hand Lions. It wasn't a blockbuster by any means but it's a favorite around the Sullivan household.  Today, I was speaking to someone in email about my books and why I write optimistic classic fantasy rather than the grimdark reads that are so popular right now.  The person writing the email said,

"Most people I see reviewing on the internet are always bashing books which deal with the dichotomy of good and evil.They keep saying that prefer morally gray/grey characters and would prefer if good didn't always win. That way of thinking tells you how messed up our society as a whole has become. We have enough moral ambiguity in the real world as it is and I'd rather read a story about good people overcoming bad things and have a happy ending."

Reading that reminded me of my favorite lines from Hub's what-every-boy-needs-to-become-a-man speech. It goes like this:

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most: that people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love, true love, never dies... No matter if they're true or not, a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in."

Not sure what drove me to post about this...oh yeah, I just got done reading the news then reading/responding to email ;-)

Release schedule announced

People often ask me why my Legends of the First Empire novels aren't being released quicker since the entire series is written. Well, the quick answer is there is a big difference between "written" and "done." The longer answer requires some knowledge on the steps required from the time I finish writing until it is released to the public.  Here's the condensed list:

* Alpha reading by my wife, Robin, who generally finds issues both large and small that have to be addressed.

* Editing based on #1 above,

* Copy and line editing in preparation for beta reading.

* Beta readers weigh in and more adjustments are implemented.

*Another round of copy edits for any thing added in #4 above.

* Book is sent to the publisher and my agent.

* Structural changes implemented from #6 implemented.

* Another round of copy and line editing in preparation for "final submission.

* Book is turned over to the publisher for their copy editors work to begin.

* Copy edit changes are accepted/rejected.

* A last read through of the book is given before submission for layout.

* Book is laid out, last proofing before printing.

* Book is read by publisher's proof-reader, only minor changes at this point.

* Reading and sign-off of print-ready version.

*ARC (Advanced Reading Copies) are produced and sent to reviewers and bloggers.

* One last check before mass press run.

* Book is printed.

Whew, that's a lot of steps. And each of the remaining books are at various points in that process. In fact, book #2 sat idle (until recently), while I worked on the conclusion of the series.  You see, after reading all the books, Robin had very few changes to book #1, #2, and #3. But she did have some important suggestions regarding how the series ended. One of her biggest problems was that it felt rushed, and she was right.

So, after getting Age of Myth ready for release, I spent about a year reworking the end of the series, and in the process it expanded from 5 books to 6.  There had been a natural stopping point in a particular area, and in many ways one of the books was actually two stories "smooshed" (a technical writing term) together. The rewriting proved my original instinct was correct, and now the series divides nicely between two major story arcs (books 1 - 3 & books 4 - 6). 

With that major rework completed (and deadlines easier to predict), I could give Del Rey a better feel for what to expect when. Because I write so quickly, a book a year was going to produce a tremendous backlog. So, over the last few weeks we've hammered out various options for release schedules.

Complicating the issue was a non-compete clause in my contract. I wanted to continue to release Riyria books, but I was also respectful about not adversely effecting the sales and marketing of Del Rey's releases of the Legends series. Here is what we've come up with:


* June 2017 - Age of Swords (book #2 of Legends of the First Empire)

* Oct/Nov 2017 - Untitled (book #4 of the Riyria Chronicles)

* Jan/Feb 2018 - Age of War (book #3 of Legends of the First Empire)

* June/July 2018 - Age of Legends (book #4 of the Legends of the First Empire)

So, the books will be coming out more frequently -- three books over the span of about a year in fact! Plus there will be another Royce and Hadrian book thrown in as well.  Now, I should mention a few caveats to this schedule.

First off, the new Riyria book will NOT be available through the retail chain. You'll ONLY be able to get books through (a) the Kickstarter (b) buying directly from my site (c) audio versions on Audible.com and iBookstore. There are many reasons for this, which I will go into in a future post, but if you want to read the next Riyria book, be sure to sign-up here to be notified when and how you can get your copy. NOTE: After some period of time (at a minimum six months), the print and ebook WILL be available through on-line stores but we'll likely not have brick-and-mortar sales.

The other thing I should point out is that technically speaking book #4 of Legends isn't under contract. Because of how the storyline breaks I want to keep book 1 - 3 and 4 - 6 with a single publisher. My contract with Del Rey is for 4 books which are: the first 3 books of Legends, and "some" book based in Elan.  There are several possibilities for what that remaining book will be, and my hope is Del Rey will buy books #5 and #6. If that happens, then that 4th book will indeed be #4 of the series. Why don't we know right now? Well, it's just too soon for Del Rey to make a commitment to the rest of the series. If they don't pick up the ending, it won't be a problem. I'll self-produce those novels just like I have with The Death of Dulgath, Hollow World, and the first five books of the Riyria Revelations.

So there you have it. The books will be coming out faster now that I have the ending of the series fixed, and fans of Riyria won't have to wait until all of he Legends books are released in order to get their next Royce and Hadrian adventure. I hope you are excited as I am about the books that are coming soon.

Last Day: Epic Fantasy Audible Sale

Audible put more 470+ titles on sale for $4.95 - $6.95, including the first two books in my Riyria Chronicles (The Crown Tower & The Rose and Thorn). A few days ago I picked out some titles that I though my readers might enjoy, but since then they added 116 more ! It's difficult to go through the whole list, so I set my search to the Epic Fantasy category and went through the first few hundred top-sellers. Here is what I found on sale. But if you want to get any of these titles. Act quickly, sale ends today at 11:59 PM PT.


































 

Multi-author Cyber Monday Book Sale

I'll admit, I'm not a "Black Friday" shopper. I certainly don't want to deal with traffic, parking, or fighting someone for limited quantities of deeply discounted merchandise. So I had a nice relaxing day after Thanksgiving staining doors for the cabin.

I am, however, a big fan of Cyber Monday, and almost all of my holiday shopping is performed from the comfort of my computer. For the second year in a row, I've joined with a group of fellow authors to offer some fantastic holiday deals. Discounted books are always a good thing, but we've gone a step further and are providing signed copies--something that can be really hard to get unless you travel to the various conventions where we hang out.

I should mention that because all of us are selling books (and for some, merchandise) directly from private websites, we're cutting out the middle men. Yes, our publishers will get their cut (we buy the books from them), but by eliminating the retailers, more of your generous support goes to us, the people who actually create the stories. So, not only do you get signed and discounted books, but we earn a bit more coin than if you purchase online or from brick-and-mortar stores.

The deals are set by each author, so they'll vary from site to site. Click on each author's name to see their discounts. 

*  Bradley P. Beaulieu    | 10% - 70% off | 19 items |   Lays of Anuskaya Series  |  Song of the Shattered Sands | Assorted Short Stories

* Wesley Chu | 30% off | 4 items | The Tao Trilogy | The Rise of IO | Time Salvager Books

* Kevin Hearne| 20% off | 8 item | Iron Druid Chronicles

* Jason Hough | 33% - 66% off | 2 items  | Zero World | The Dire Earth Trilogy

* Brian McClellan | 10% - 40% off | 7 items | Powder Mage Novels | Powder Mage Novellas | Unbound | Powder Keg Silver Pin

* Michael J Sullivan |  20% - 60% off | 12 itemsAge of Myth | Riyria Revelations | Riyria Chronicles | Hollow World

* Brent Weeks | 15% - 25% off | 3 items | The Black Prism | T-shirts