I'm back at DragonCon once again!

First of all, if you're interested in meeting me here at Atlanta this weekend, we have an event this Saturday afternoon for which you DON'T need a DragonCon badge. Details at the bottom of the post.

More importantly, I spent the morning meeting with some cool people. I had breakfast with Dakota Krout followed by lunch with Bryce O'Connor and Travis Baldree, so it's already been an action-packed day. To earn the right to eat with them, I had to fight off all the other applicants with my quarterstaff.

That's what most of my week looks like, actually. Duel and lunch meetings. Maybe I'll visit a panel or two if there's time.

If you would like the chance to meet me, there's no dueling required! You just need to be in Atlanta this Saturday!

Here are the details: on September 2nd at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Atlanta at Centennial Park, I'll be doing a FREE event from 11:30 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern.

Address: 267 Marietta St NW, Atlanta, GA 30313

You don't need to have a ticket to DragonCon. This is not an official DragonCon event, just an official WillCon event (I'm not calling it that).

It's over four hours long because we expect people to filter in and out, since there are panels and stuff going on at the same time. You don't have to stay for the whole thing, but all the best stuff will happen when you're not in the room.

I'll have a Q&A (and Travis Baldree will be able to join me from about 11:30 to 12:15, during which time he will do a reading from The Engineer), some speaking time, maybe another Q&A, maybe a musical number, and then a book signing / photo op thing from roughly 2:30-4:00.

Anyway, that's a lot of information, but I hope to see you there! The signing a few weeks ago blew us away with how many people showed up, so it was a good practice run for this event. I have to warm up before social events so I don't forget how to speak to humans.

If it's been too long since my last conversation, I revert to primal snarling.

-Will

It hasn't been long since I first saw my books in bookstores, which was all thanks to you and your support for the Cradle Kickstarter last year.

But because I haven't been in bookstores, and because the touch of your dread sun drains me of my powers,  I've never done a live book-signing event before.

That's about to change. Soon, I will drag myself from the tunnels beneath my Writing Prison and make my way to Barnes & Noble for an official signing!

I'll be in the Altamonte Mall Barnes & Noble in Altamonte Springs, FL, on Friday, August 4th (that's next Friday!), from 6-8 PM Eastern.

It's not a reading, so I won't be reading anything but your minds. It'll just be a chance for me to sit behind a desk and pretend not to be terrified as I sign the books you've purchased from our lovely local Barnes & Noble.

For more information, click this!

I think I'm also supposed to be answering some questions, so please remember that it's difficult for me to compress my vast cosmic knowledge into your limited human language.

Those with the misfortune to encounter me in person have described the experience as "weird," "off-putting," and "the first time I've ever seen a grown man curl up like an armadillo and roll away."

This is the point where I'm supposed to say "I hope to see all of you there!", but there are too many of you. I hope to see a manageable percentage of you there!

​Maybe if this goes well, I'll do more signings elsewhere, like inside a lucid dream or that old shed behind your dad's house.

-Will

P.S. I have been engineering The Engineer. More information will be forthcoming pending approval from the O5 Council.

In case you missed it, Waybound is up on Amazon in Kindle and paperback! We announced it on our other social media platforms, but I didn't realize we'd need another blog post so fast. Amazon really got the book up quickly this time.

If you haven't read it already, enjoy!

And try to keep big spoilers out of the comments, if you don't mind. A lot of people haven't finished the book yet, and audiobook listeners aren't going to get it until tomorrow.

I hope you like it!

-Will

TL;DR - Ebook pre-orders for Waybound have been canceled, and Amazon says there's nothing they can do about it.

Audiobook pre-orders are unaffected.

I woke up this morning to a phone call that Waybound was down on the Kindle Store and people were getting messages that their pre-orders had been canceled.

Obviously, that's a red alert around here. 

After talking to a senior support specialist at Kindle and checking with our team members, we think it's OUR FAULT. We had uploaded a manuscript and we had multiple people check it, to the point of going through it page-by-page to make sure there was nothing wrong.

But there was a final step we were supposed to complete, and our team member didn't know that. When something like that happens, Amazon automatically removes the file 72 hours before the listed release date.

Apparently with no way to undo it.

We have calls out to different people at Amazon, and we're hoping they know a secret way to reverse all this. If we hear from them, I'll let you know immediately.

If we don't, we'll be uploading the book manually. In that case, it'll come out on time or a little earlier, but it won't be exactly at midnight in your region like the pre-order would have been. Which is one of the major reasons why we did pre-orders in the first place.

On the bright side, hey, we might get you the book early!

FAQ:
Does this affect audiobooks or paperbacks?
It does not! Only the ebook pre-order was affected. Audible pre-orders are completely separate, and in fact you can still pre-order through Audible, and paperbacks didn't have a pre-order process so they're still unchanged.

If I pre-ordered the book, will I get it?
Right now, it looks like you will not. You won't be charged either--the entire thing was canceled. So unless we hear from someone at Kindle who knows the forbidden magic to get it back up, pre-orders are dead.

If your uncle is Jonathan Kindle, by all means give him a call.

Is Waybound still coming out on June 6th?
Yes. I will do everything I can to make sure it is available on or before the 6th.

I'm very sorry.
That's not a question, but I am sorry. We've been doing pre-orders to prevent problems like this, so there won't be any errors in the upload process, and there still was.

This is our biggest release ever, both for me and for you guys, and to let you down on this one is absolutely devastating. I'm sorry, and I still hope we can fix it.

Rough day today.

-Will

Ten years ago today, historians generally agree, I released House of Blades on Kindle.
 
The actual date is somewhat disputed by the academic community. Some sources record House of Blades’ release date as the second of June instead of the first, but these are lies intended to defame my good name.
 
I uploaded the manuscript on the first of June, Anno Domini Two Thousand and Thirteen, but it took Amazon some hours to build the book’s landing page correctly. By the time I had made my first sale, it was already June the second.
 
But it was June first on which I published a book for the first time.
 
Seriously though, it’s hard to believe it’s been ten years. Even harder to believe that Cradle is about to turn seven.
 
I feel like there have been three major eras in my writing career so far: the Traveler’s Gate era, the Elder Empire era, and the Cradle era. Going by feel, I would say that the Cradle era was about half.
 
As in, five years for Traveler’s Gate and Elder Empire (at least, the first four books of EE) and five years for Cradle. But it’s actually 7 years for Cradle and 3 for the others.
 
That doesn’t sound like that much of a difference, but it feels weird for me. 70% of my writing life has been focused on Cradle, and now it’s about to come to an end.
 
Crazy times.
 
As you’d expect, my family and I have been reminiscing about the last ten years during our nightly mind-melds, and we have a lot to be thankful for. I would describe our overall emotional reaction as “Overwhelming gratitude.”
 
We wanted to thank you, so we’re doing what we can, but it’s hard to beat you guys.
 
Yesterday, we gave away about 485,000 ebooks for free. We’ve done this kind of giveaway three times in the past (we’ve done a lot more giveaways than that, but only three of these big ones).
 
Yesterday, more people got more free books than in all those other three giveaways combined.
 
You know why? Because of you. You all push these books so hard we’re giving more and more away each time. You’d think we would run out of people by now.
 
You fans are great. Not only are you the reason why I’ve been able to keep writing for so long, but it’s you all enjoying the books that makes the journey fun. The lengths you’ll go to get people to read Cradle truly astonish me.
 
I thought firing paperback copies of Unsouled through people’s windows with a T-shirt cannon was a little much, but it was when you rented an airplane and began raining copies from the sky that I started to wonder if you’d gone too far.
 
 Thanks for making it a great ten years!
 
Especially those of you who have been fans from the beginning. I don’t know how you found me during House of Blades or why you stuck with me for so long, but some of you were there from the very beginning. Special shout-out to you, for having patience with me for ten years.
 
The main thing we have going on this week, of course, is the release of Waybound in less than a week! But to celebrate that, we also commissioned a sort-of-but-not-quite-recap comic of the Cradle series so far, illustrated by u/meadblossom* (who did the Reaper comic too).
 
I say it’s not quite a recap because it doesn’t really summarize the story. It’s more like a selection of highlight moments from Unsouled all the way through Dreadgod. Some of the coolest scenes, or just Sam’s favorites, illustrated and strung together for your enjoyment.

(This hardly needs to be said, but SPOILER WARNING for all of Cradle so far, Unsouled through Dreadgod. Nothing from Waybound in here, but you know, it's a comic of all the series highlights. If you haven't read the series, there will be spoilers. Also, it won't make a ton of sense to you.)
 
Read the comic here!
 
You’ll hear from me again before Waybound—and we’ll have my usual pre-release stream on YouTube this Sunday night at 6 PM Eastern—but I’m looking forward to your reactions!
 
I hope the finale to Cradle lives up to your expectations, and that you’ll continue on this journey with me to The Last Horizon and beyond.
 
For ten whole years, thanks for reading!
 
-Will
 
*(That’s her Reddit username. Also find her at @bloomejasmine on Instagram and @keithbday on Twitter.)