For today only, all my ebooks are free on Amazon!

Here's a tip: if you have the ebook, you get the audiobook for a much-reduced price, usually only like $2 or $3. Since the ebooks are free today, here's your chance to get the audiobook for almost-but-not-quite-free.

FAQ: 
--They ARE available in other regions, you just have to go to your regional Amazon site.
--All the ebooks are free except the collections, but that's still every individual novel I've written.
--Will, where have you been? Why have you forsaken us in our hour of need?

I'm sorry you had to fight all those hell-beasts on your own, but my sword was needed elsewhere. I will blog more fully tomorrow, on the ten-year anniversary of releasing my first book.

Still can't believe it's been ten years.

Enjoy the free books, and I'll talk to you again tomorrow!

​-Will

A big, planet-sized thank-you to all of you who have already checked out The Captain!

We really had no idea what to expect from this book launch. As I've mentioned before, this is the first series I've started since Unsouled in 2016, and I didn't know how many people would be interested in reading something new that's so different from Cradle.

But tons of you read it, the reviews are better than I expected, and all the discussion on Discord and Reddit has been incredible to see.

I know it's a risk checking out a new series, even from an author you like. I salute you, brave explorers, boldly going where there are no Amazon reviews to guide you.

You all are awesome. So many of you read the story that we got up to #12 on the Kindle Store, which is insane for any first book.

I know it's only been out a couple of days, so most of you probably haven't read it yet, but many of you have. I hope you enjoyed it, but thanks for giving it a shot either way!

I look forward to seeing you all in space again soon...but first, of course, we have to finish things up in Cradle.

Thanks for reading!

-Will

The Captain is now available as an ebook!
And as an audiobook!
And NOT as a paperback for some reason! Amazon needs to hurry it up!

In some other regions, the paperback is up, but not in this one. I don't know why. A curse, I think.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the book! Some intrepid readers, or those from future time zones, have already finished.

I hope they enjoyed it too.

Happy reading! Thanks for giving the new series a chance!

-Will

The Captain is coming out on Tuesday!

Honestly, I can't believe it's already almost April. My writing schedule has been insane so far this year. It feels like this is the first time I poked my head out of my Writing Cave, and it's already the end of March and there's a book coming out next week.

As the saying goes, time flies when you're producing word count.

Pre-order The Captain here! Or on audiobook right here! (Unless you're in a different region that can't use the Amazon.com domain, in which case you'll have to find it yourself because there's no way I can list the individual links to all the regions.)

Also, we'll be doing a release stream (as usual) this Sunday night at 6 PM Eastern.

Since this is a new series and not Cradle, I know there won't be as many questions about the story, but it's been a long time since I've done a livestream. I'll probably just hang out for an hour or so and talk about whatever, but I won't be giving out spoiler answers for either Cradle or the new series, The Last Horizon.

Let's keep the spoiler questions to a minimum to avoid angering Gnar'lak'tha, Spirit Guardian of Spoilers. Her seven beaked maws rend bone as easily as flesh.

Speaking of Gnar'lak'tha, I have some completely spoiler-FREE scenes to share with you!

About a year ago now, I promised that if our Kickstarter hit a certain level of support I would write scenes for Unsouled, Soulsmith, and Blackflame that could have been part of the original stories.

Nothing crazy, just an extra 1-2k words of new content per book. Getting to see the old characters again.

"Spoiler-free" in this case means that they take place inside the books and don't require any knowledge from future books. So as long as you've read to the indicated point in Books 1, 2, or 3, you're good to go.

I started working on these last week, and the first two spoiler-free scenes are done! Links are at the bottom of this blog, and the scenes will also be sent out as Kickstarter updates to everyone who backed that.

Of course, as those of you who backed the Kickstarter might remember, I also promised "a spoiler scene or two," meaning a scene set within the first three books but that requires knowledge of the most recent future books. The most recent book, as of the Kickstarter's publication, was Reaper.

If you've read Reaper, you can probably guess the nature of those scenes.

So yeah, those aren't quite ready yet, but we'll have the third spoiler-free scene and the two SPOILER SCENES THAT YOU DEFINITELY SHOULDN'T READ UNLESS YOU'VE READ REAPER out soon! But not yet.

Right now, just a couple of simple scenes set during Unsouled and Soulsmith!

Enjoy!

​-Will​

Unsouled spoiler-FREE bonus scene right here!

Soulsmith spoiler-FREE bonus scene right here! 

~~~

~~~

Another cool thing: ComicBook.com did an interview with me a few days ago that they released today! 

I thought that was pretty neat. Look, Ma, I'm on a real website!

I posted the cover art everywhere BUT here, because I don't want this already-long blog to take up the entire page, but we had a great time working with the artist: Simon Carr, a veteran with a ton of fantasy covers under his belt. 

And that's about all I have to announce! I hope you all enjoy The Captain, and I look forward to seeing you on the bridge of The Last Horizon!

-Will

P.S. Waybound June 6th

EDIT: Hey, I learned something! This is NOT limited to the US. Details below.

Often, I have people ask me how they can help support the books besides buying them. People also ask "How can I support you without supporting Amazon?"

To the first question, I usually say, "You've already supported me!"

To the second one, I say, "You can't!"

But now there's a situation where your support would help me out.

Thanks to the success of the Kickstarter, we were able to fund a print run of trade paperbacks and trade hardcovers of Unsouled, Soulsmith, and Blackflame to replace our print-on-demand paperbacks that were only really available via Amazon.

Basically, we used the Kickstarter money to get books into bookstores.

Currently, they are available for pre-order online from Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Walmart, and Target.* We're told they're coming out March 14th!

However, this isn’t a guarantee that they will end up on bookshelves in a real store. It's only a guarantee that you can buy them online.

Ingram (the book distributor) has to go “sell” new titles to the stores to get them to carry our books in physical stores. They have told us that the BEST way to increase the chances of them getting in stores is having a strong pre-order.

The more people who pre-order the paperback books, the more likely bookstores are to actually stock them.

Now, I want to get into bookstores because A.) it would be very cool, since I love bookstores, and B.) because there are still people who only read books that they bought in person. There might be a whole new audience out there who would enjoy Cradle.

Or maybe not, I don't know, but I'd like to find out.

TL;DR - If we sell a bunch of online pre-orders for the paperbacks, bookstores will put them on shelves.

So if you wanted sets of physical books that aren't from Amazon (and you missed the Kickstarter), good news! This would be a great time to order them.

Having said all this, don't feel any pressure from me to buy the books if you don't want to. I'm telling you all this because I know some of you would want to know.

For real, you reading the books is already more support than I deserve. But if you wanted to see the Cradle series on Barnes and Noble shelves, this is the way to make that happen.

I didn't know almost anything about how this worked until, like, today. This territory is as uncharted for me as it is for you.

But, just to be clear...

1.) This doesn't affect the books you got through the Kickstarter. You're getting those regardless. Different set of books; Kickstarter books are still on their way, don't worry.

2.) If you pre-order books through any of the above retailers, you ARE buying the books normally. You'll get books.

Thanks for hearing me out! I feel awkward for even bringing this up,  but when Ingram brought this to our attention, I knew I should say something.

-Will

*EDIT: Turns out, this list is not exhaustive. The books are available for online pre-order from many booksellers, including those outside the United States.

Here's the link for Waterstone in the UK, and if none of these stores ship to you, odds are the books are still available from a store that does! Unfortunately, I can't link every  bookstore site in the world.

Not until my powers reach their peak.

As always, thanks for a great year, everybody!

We've gained a lot of Cradle fans this year, and thanks to you, I've had another fun year. Now I'm working on both a final book and a first book, both of which have their own challenges, but it's pretty cool knowing that I can write out my ideas and people will read them.

I did wish we could release something more this year, but at least them taking so long means we've saved a bunch of good stuff for next year.

My New Year's resolution is to win all my duels to the death. Last year, I lost about half of them. Got to get that record up.

As for you, I hope each and every one of you encounter mythical creatures this year. I have some drafts due here soon, so I suspect you'll be hearing from me again before too long.

Until then, Happy New Year!

​-Will

...not really, I've just been busy.

With what, you ask?

1.) I finished my first draft of Waybound.

2.) While waiting on edits for that, I continued work on my upcoming space fantasy series. In fact, that's what I'm writing today.

Now, I do want you to understand where we are, so you don't start thinking Waybound is coming out tomorrow. It's only an alpha draft right now. Not even all the beta readers have gotten to read it yet, and there are still scenes to add.

But we're making solid progress. In fact, even without being scene-complete, Waybound is currently second in length only to Wintersteel.

I just like working on books beginning with W, I guess. Probably has to do with my natural affinity for the power of W.

I have to say, it's really blowing my mind that I've been writing full-time for almost ten years. Now I'm wrapping up the ending to my most popular series and beginning a brand-new series that has to follow Cradle. No pressure.

That makes me very nervous. My tiny heart trembles.

Seriously, it's nerve-wracking to be writing the end to a best-selling series and the beginning of a totally new, untested concept. I'm anxious about both, though for different reasons.

What if you don't enjoy the ending to Cradle? What if the text of the new series accidentally forms an incantation that conjures an elder being whose true form mortal minds cannot perceive?

Lots to worry about.

-Will

P.S. Pokémon Violet is really good, dangit. Everyone's talking about the bugs, but hey, I love Skyrim too.

Meanwhile, I'm having tons of fun running around catching Pokémon in an open world. Sure, I sometimes inexplicably turn invisible while throwing a Pokéball. That's part of the charm.

Are you hoping that my books are not coming out soon? Well, have I got a blog post for you!

First off, the bad news: we won't be releasing any new books in 2022.

I wanted to get another release out before the end of the year, but we're juggling a lot right now. ​I know some bright-eyed optimists among you were hoping for Waybound by Christmas, but Santa's sack of toys holds only coal for you this year.

The reason is pretty simple. We're working on three things right now: our first Kickstarter, the first book in a new series, and the last book in the Cradle series.

The Kickstarter concerns the rest of the team more than it does me, but the other two things are enough. I really want both of these books to work, so I'm spending longer on them than I normally would.

I have an unofficial motto that I've shared before: "I want to write the best six-month book I can." I still believe in that schedule, and I think an average of two books a year is the right pace, but in this case I just needed more time.

It's tricky to both launch a series and conclude another, especially one as big as Cradle. And I don't want to give either of those the short end of the stick, so I'm going to continue working on them instead of trying to rush a release before the end of 2022.

Plus, if I release three books next year, that will still be an average of two books per year!

(I'm not saying I WILL release three books next year. In fact, I have no idea what next year will look like. Telling the future is for Jedi and for the one-eyed old lady up the street who keeps telling me to be careful around ladders.)

Anyway, I'm disappointed I couldn't get you guys another book out before the end of the year. I like releasing books almost as much as I like jumping up and down on ladders.

-Will