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About 11 hours left in Esrahaddon Kickstarter

The Esrahaddon Kickstarter will end in about 11 hours and 15 minutes. It’s been my most successful yet:

  • Fully funded in less than 5 minutes
  • Exceeded $100K in less than 1 hour
  • Exceeded my prior Kickstarters in less than 1 day
  • Currently the 7th most-funded fiction Kickstarter of all time
  • Currently the 10th most-backed fiction Kickstarter of all time

We can break a few more records in the next 11+ hours if we:

  • Adding another $1,219 will get us over $300,000K
  • Adding another 13 backers will move us to the #9th most-backed fiction Kickstarter of all time
  • Adding another $5,107 will move us to the 6th most-funded fiction Kickstarter of all time

Even if we don’t make any of those goals, it’s been a huge success, and we owe it to you. Thanks for being such great supporters. And if you still want to pledge you can do so here.

Oh, and if you happen to miss the Kickstarter, you can come on in through a backdoor. Just tell us which reward level you are interested in and we’ll do a “manual add” in our pledge manager software.

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Mark Your Calendar – Farilane Kickstarter Launches 2/15!

Our 10th Kickstarter has been approved, and it will launch 2/15 at noon EDT.  You can preview the Kickstarter now from this link, and even read the pre-copyedited first chapter of the book. Or, you can use this link to sign up to be notified once the Kickstarter launches.  


SOME TRUTHS ARE DANGEROUS, CERTAIN SECRETS BEST CONCEALED,
AND ONE STORY NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AT ALL.

Being an unwanted twin in the imperial line of succession, Farilane became a scholar, adventurer, and in a time when reading was once more forbidden – a book hunter. Her singular obsession is finding the mythical Book of Brin, a tome not just lost but intentionally buried. Respected and beloved by the Teshlor Knights, not even their legendary skills can protect her for what she finds is more dangerous than what she sought.

Like the Nolyn Kickstarter, we will be creating a faux-leather limited edition version with
  • Hubbed spine
  • Full-cover foil stamp designed by Sarah Sullivan
  • 4-color end sheets with art by Marc Simonetti
  • Limited print run
  • Signed by the author (numbered and dated)
  • Built-in ribbon bookmark
This is what the Nolyn book looks like. Farilane will be similar but probably with navy blue faux leather and silver foil stamp.
We are offering a wide variety of reward levels and most of them come bundled with the ebook which you will receive several months before the retail release date of June 7, 2022.  Here is a breakdown of the reward levels.


If you missed getting a copy of Nolyn, you can add that to your order by choosing the DOUBLE DIGITAL DELIGHT or the DOUBLE TROUBLE reward levels (and we’ve provided a discount for multi-book purchases).

This Kickstarter will also provide discounted add-ons for the other books in my series including:


Calculating overseas shipping (especially if add-ons are selected), can be quite tricky, so we’ve setup the shipping of physical books ONLY in the United States. But non-US residents can still participate through a “manual add” process where we will calculate shipping to your location based on total product weight. If you are outside the US, you can use this form to have the postage calculated for the rewards you are interested in.

And last but not least, our son James is going to be stepping in to manage the Kickstarter and work with our daughter Sarah for the shipping process. This will free up Robin from having so much on her shoulders.

So, go take a look, and if you have any questions, you can provide feedback or pose queries right on the Kickstarter site.  And don’t forget to mark your calendar so you can be there on day #1. It’s usually a pretty exciting launch. We hope you’ll join us!


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Winter Sale – Save 15% – 50% off

It’s that time of year again when we deeply discount our books.  Just a reminder, all physical books are signed and all ebooks are DRM free (and come in .mobi (kindle), .epub (nook), and .pdf (phones and tablets without readers. Here is what’s on sale:

  • ebooks: 50% off
  • Nolyn hardcover – 25% off
  • Individual hardcovers – 15% off
  • Individual trade paperbacks – 15% off
  • Riyria Revelations 3-book set – 20% off
  • Riyria Chronicles 4-book set – 25% off
  • Legends of the First Empire 6-book set – 25% off
We also have done a second printing of slipcases for the Legends of the First Empire hardcovers and while these usually cost $40, you can get them for just $31 when buying the books as well. 

We also have a bunch of ebook short stories for just a penny including:
  • The Jester (a Riyria short and comic editions)
  • Pile of Bone (a Legends of the First Empire short)
  • Little Wren and the Big Forest (a Legends of the First Empire short)
  • The Game – a LitRPG short
  • Burning Alexandria – a homage to Ray Bradbury
  • Autumn Mists – an homage to one of my favorite songs from my youth
The sale is running now through January 21st!



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Winter Sale – Save 15% to 70%

This year’s shipping season was so crazy that we couldn’t guarantee the arrival of packages for holiday gift-giving. So, we’ve morphed our annual holiday sale into a Winter Sale and added a number of free items. Also, all physical books are signed (and limited editions are numbered).

Also, because we had so many issues getting access to sign books at our fulfillment center during COVID-19, we bought a building and brought all shipping in house.  In doing this, we found a number of items that we thought we had sold out long, long ago.  But supplies on these items are extremely limited. Here are some examples:

  • Hardcover First Editions for Age of Myth (remainders), Age of Swords, and Age of Legend, Death of Dulgath, and The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter 
  • LIMITED EDITION hardcovers for Death of Dulgath and Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter
  • Tote bags (Montemorcy (black) & Legends of the First Empire (white)) – people who have received them as part of the Kickstarters LOVE these large, high-quality bags.
  • Legends of the First Empire Black T-shirts (both Men’s and Women’s Styles in various sizes).
  • NOTE: In going through all our stock, we found a few copies whose dust jackets (or covers) are not 100% pristine (no tears but minor signs of wear). We’ve classified these as “hurt books” and are selling them at a significant discount (50% off) just to free up space. These are not “used books” (no one has owned them before), but due to the minor imperfections on the dust jacket or covers, we don’t want them sold at list price.
  • We also picked up (on the cheap) a number of remainders (books that are new but have a small dot on the edge of the pages (indicating they have been returned for credit by a bookstore and can’t be sold at full price).  All of these, are deeply discounted (40% for first printings, 50% for all others). We’ll only make $1 or $2 dollars on them, but it’s high time we started clearing them out for more space.

A few other things I should note:

  • Although we have a fair number in stock, the Ingram warehouses (the place that distributes to large bookstores both online and brick and mortar) are essentially out of the hardcover editions of Age of Death and Age of Empyre. This means we are near the end of their print runs, and once they are gone, only mass-market paperbacks will be available. So, if you want to ensure a full collection of the hardcovers, now is the best time to pick those up.
  • When ordering books from the Ingram warehouse, we received some “hurt books” from the Grim Oak Press product line. It’s too expensive to ship these back, and our other choice is to burn them (which we absolutely don’t want to do), but they are taking up A LOT of space, and we have to get rid of them somehow. So we have hardcover copies of Unfettered III for just $9 (70% off the list price).  This is an amazing anthology of 700+ pages with 27 short stories by the likes of Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson, Terry Brooks, Robin Hobb, Naomi Novik, Mark Lawerence, and many more. There really isn’t a better hardcover anthology deal than this one!
  • All ebooks that I’ve self-produced are on sale at 50% off.
  • Over the years, I’ve created a number of bonus materials as part of Kickstarters and to introduce people to my stories.  I’m making every short story (and a full-length “making of” ebook) available for free as part of this sale.
  • One last thing. We also received a few hurt copies of Terry Brook’s Sci-fi novel Street Freaks (some of them signed). And to get them out of our new space, we’re offering a FREE HARDCOVER COPY(while supplies last), for anyone who purchases at least one other book from the sale.

I hope you’ll check out the sale, and if you want to see more before you do, a full list of the items and their discounts/prices are below.

Shop the Sale Here

All told, there are 67 items on sale. Here is a complete list:

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50% off Hurt Hardcover Sale

A short while ago, we were cleaning out the Ingram warehouses of every Age of Legend book we could get our hands on (because we sold out the first printing, and the second printing wasn’t yet off the presses). In doing so, we were shipped two pallets of books, much more than we were expecting. What we received were “hurt sales” of not only my books but a number of anthologies created by Grim Oak Press. Since these are currently taking up space in my garage, it’s time for a HUGE SALE to clear them out.

What’s a “hurt book”?  Well, when bookstores order copies that aren’t eventually sold, the books are returned to the warehouse. All of these books are new (meaning they’ve never been read by anyone and won’t have any marks or highlighting), but because they have gone back and forth to bookstores (and sat on shelves for some period of time), they have been handled a lot so there may be some minor dents in the cardboard covers or scuffs on the dust jackets. That said, some of the copies I have looked at are 100% pristine, and you don’t even know they’ve been around the block a few times.  

Another type of returned book is a remainder.  Like hurt books, they also may have a little wear, and they’ve never been read by others. There is a small dot placed on the edge of the pages to indicate they aren’t available for returns from bookstores. When Del Rey remaindered a few hundred Age of Myth books we picked them up cheaply. Some of them are first editions, but it’s the luck of the draw whether you’ll get one of those or not. 

Because these books are “gently used” we are selling them at a huge discount. All hurt books are priced at 50% off and include FREE US shipping!  We don’t have any “hurts” for Age of War or Age of Empyre, but I added them to the sale at 20% off so people can buy a complete set while getting their other bargain-priced books in the series.

We’ve already sold a lot of copies, and I now have only two copies each of Unfettered and Unfettered II, but there are still many copies available for Unbound and Unfettered III. These anthologies are massive tomes (500 to 650 pages each), and each is just $15 – $17.50!

These anthologies contain some of the biggest names in fantasy:

  • Unbound has 23 short stories by Michael J. Sullivan • Terry Brooks • Joe Abercrombie • Mark Lawrence • Jim Butcher • Brian McClellan • Rachel Caine • Seanan McGuire • Anthony Ryan • Brian Staveley • Mary Robinette Kowal • Peter Orullian • Sam Sykes • David Anthony Durham • and many more.
  • Unfettered III has 38 stories by Robert Jordon & Brandon Sanderson • Terry Brooks • Robin Hobb • Lev Grossman • Tad Williams • Mark Lawrence • Naomi Novik • Seanan McGuire • John Gwynne • Peter Orullian • Carrie Vaughn • Robert V. S. Redick • David Anthony Durham  • Carrie Vaughn • Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson • Ken Scholes • Delilah S. Dawson • and many more.

You won’t find better fantasy talent than that at these prices. Quantities are limited, so if you are interested, pick up your copies right away.

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For non-US people and those who missed the Kickstarter

The Kickstarter for the Legends of the First Empire Kickstarter was a huge success, and exceeded all my expectations. 822 backers pledged $65,473 to help bring this project to life.

We also heard from another 120 people from Canada and overseas who wanted to participate, so we’ll be doing “mass shipments” to Canada and the UK and have our local fulfillment partners ship the products from there (which will save them significant amounts of money on postage, VAT, customs, and other import fee. We are now in the process of adding all thse people into PledgeBox (which we use to process orders), so keep your eyes out for your survey requests which will finalize your pledge.

And last but not least, if you missed the Kickstarter, it’s not too late. We have a “manual add” sign-up form that will allow you grab your copy of the slipcase (because we are ordering extras). Just tell us what you are looking for and we’ll get you added to the project.

Oh, and in addition to the slipcases, backers can also order:

  • Copies of the hardcovers to complete their collections (two of which have gone out of print, but we have a stash of them.
  • T-shirts
  • Tote bags
  • Posters of Marc Simonetti’s Age of Empyre cover illustration

To all those who participated, thank you so much for the support, and for those who didn’t, you still can if you wish!

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Final Days for Slipcase Kickstarter

I’m thrilled to see Brandon Sanderson embracing Kickstarter as a means for authors to sell directly to readers. It’s a platform I’ve been promoting for years, and I hope the attention his ground-breaking project is garnering will encourage other authors to go this route.

But today I’m here to remind people that we are getting down to the wire on our project to turn Legends of the First Empire hardcovers into a boxset.

A few things to note:

  • We fully funded in the first 15 minutes.
  • We have currently raised more than $56,000.
  • We expected to create about 250 slipcases but it looks like we’ll be doing 1,000 thanks to the high demand (which will allow a few to be available outside of the Kickstarter)
  • If you are missing any of the books from the series, you can add them to your order for $25 per. (A savings of $2 – $3 depending on title). And all the books will be signed and come with a custom-designed bookmark.
  • We have cleared the first three stretch goals which are providing:
    • A foil stamp graphic will be added to the box.
    • Backers will get a sneak peak of the first chapter of my new series in August (a year before the book’s release).
    • Posters of Marc Simonetti’s artwork are available as an add-on.
  • If we can raise another $3,793 we’ll hit our last stretch goal which will make t-shirts an add-on.
  • Non-US people can sign-up for “manual adds” at this link. Your postage will vary depending on the country and whether we ship from the US or we have enough orders for overseas fulfillment. If your country and order combination is not on this spreadsheeet, Robin will add them as she processes after you fill out your form.

I hope you’ll check out the project, and if you like what you see, please consider backing it.

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Slipcases are a huge success

Well we’re just under 2 1/2 hours into the Kickstarter for Legends of the First Empire slipcases and we are already the #1 most-funded fiction Kickstarter that is currently live.

The project was fully-funded in under 15 minutes (which I think breaks a record for us), so I guess people really were interested in these. Thanks all for the amazing support. I’m going to go ahead and lock in some production time for these with the manufacturer!

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Slipcases for hardcovers coming soon…I hope.

Now that all the books in the Legends of the First Empire series are completed, I’ve had a number of people asking about slipcases to add that “special touch” usually reserved for most-beloved books. Well, Robin looked into it, and she found a number of suppliers who can take care of this for us. We’re going to launch a Kickstarter to see if enough people are interested in getting them. The Kickstarter will launch on Tuesday 6/23/20 at 12:00 noon EDT. There are a limited number of early-bird discounts for people who hop in right away.

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Age of Empyre Shipping

While getting a book published at the height of a pandemic has been challenging, we are getting close to having all the pre-orders (both through my online store and the Kickstarter) sent out. Of the 3,077 orders we have 574 left to go. So, we’re at 81% shipped. Hopefully the rest of them will be out this week.