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.)
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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! |
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