Ladies and gentlemen, as of a few hours ago, over one hundred thousand copies of the Traveler's Gate Trilogy books have sold on Amazon.

I don't really know what to say.

One year ago today, I was hoping to sell five hundred copies of House of Blades in the first month. It would be hard, I knew, but my high goal was five hundred. I ended up selling five thousand.

For the year, I was really hoping for fifteen thousand sales, but I knew I could get by on ten thousand without getting another job. I didn't expect to sell that many, but it was a lofty goal to work toward.

And the reality was an order of magnitude greater than anything I'd hoped for.

So thanks to all of you. Everyone who bought the books, or recommended them, or sent me an encouraging email, or comments on and follows this blog...thanks. Because to me, the sales weren't the craziest thing to happen this past year. Sales are great, but they really serve as a way to measure and quantify what's going on with the books.

People have enjoyed my books. A lot of people.

And that's a cool, humbling, unbelievable thought.

...and also, happy Memorial Day!

For those of you wondering, the revised House of Blades is available on Amazon. They were supposed to send out an email to everyone who purchased the HoB ebook, but they didn't, so that's that.

Eventually Amazon may email you, but in the meantime, you can update your e-version of House of Blades to the new stuff by asking them for an update. You can do so at this link: http://www.amazon.com/kindlesupport

To summarize once again, the major changes are in the beginning of the book. There are minor changes in every chapter, including a couple of new scenes, but I really wanted to make sure that the beginning got new readers off to a good start.

In other news, I should cross ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND total novel sales sometime in the next 48 hours.

This is mind-blowing to me.  House of Blades technically went up for the first time on June 1st, 2013, although it wasn't REALLY available for sale until the 2nd.

But either way, that means I've sold 100,000 novels (I'm not counting the short stories) in my first year as a professional writer.

That's incredible. Some days, I still don't believe it.

Today, I'm putting the finishing touches on the new version of House of Blades.


It's still got some issues. I've only worked on it for two weeks, and--just like any book--I could re-write it forever without ever feeling like I was really 'done.' The plot still lurches forward in a few places, and certain facts aren't explained quite as well as I'd like.

But it's noticeably better than it was.

I've made adjustments throughout the book, but most of the severe changes/additions are in the first 40-50 pages. That was the section of the book that needed the most attention, as it originally took some effort to read all the way to Valinhall.

Hopefully, it should be a little easier now.

EDIT: I've realized this wasn't clear, so I'm adding a note in here to explain how things work. If you own the Kindle version, you WILL NOT have to purchase anything else. The book should update automatically within the next couple of days. Amazon should send you an email notifying you when it happens. Thank you.

I'm posting the revised prologue here, to give you a taste of what's changed in this edition. Keep in mind that only the first four chapters were altered to this extent; again, I've made corrections/added a bit of polish in every chapter, but I focused most of my attention on the first section.

Could I spend longer on this book? Yes. But every hour I spend here is an hour I'm NOT spending on a new story. At some point, I simply have to move on.

Anyway, here's the new prologue! I hope you like it! As usual, if you notice any typos, errors, or awkward sentences, just let me know and I'll change them.

(Hit 'Read More')

I always need some time off when I finish a book, but now I'm back and ready to get back to work!

First on the agenda: some quality of life improvements to House of Blades. The first half of that book is pretty rough, so I'm going to add in some scenes, fix up some others, in generally edit the story to bring it up to the level of Crimson Vault and City of Light.


That should be complete in the next week or two. I should have the City of Light paperback and House of Blades audiobook online shortly after that.

In the meantime, I'll be starting on the next story!

I'm really excited about that: making the stories is the fun part for me. Bringing ideas together, coming up with names, making it all work. I've been enjoying it so much that I've started, like, three different stories while on vacation.

So where will I end up? I don't know. But we'll get there by this fall, I can tell you that!