...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!

Several things to cover today, but first: if you'd like to discuss heavily spoiler-related topics about City of Light, do so in these comments!

Honestly, if you're trying to avoid CoL spoilers, you should probably not be messing around in the comments sections of any recent blog posts. But I thought I'd give you a place to speak freely, anyway.

Second, an update on my status--I'm in Santander, Spain! And also sick in bed!

It turns out that pushing myself to release a book, and then immediately leaving for a convention in Boston, and then turning right around and flying to Spain...well, it wasn't the healthiest idea. The morning of my flight to Spain I woke up with a high fever. I choked down medicine and went anyway, because the tickets were non-refundable, but I've been bedridden and recovering for about 24 hours.

This is one of the reasons I haven't been responding to comments since CoL was released. Reason #1: I needed a break. Reason #2: I've been both incredibly busy and sick.

That's the bad news. The good news is that City of Light has already sold about 4,500 copies! It's selling hundreds of copies a day and staying pretty steady in the Amazon Top 200 Best-Sellers, which is mind-blowing. It even cracked the Top 100 for a while, rising as high as #86 on the Amazon Best-Seller Charts, and I can barely believe that. If you had told me last year that I'd be on the Amazon Top 100, I'd have said something like, "No, not in the next year. God willing, maybe in the next ten years."

But you guys came through. You're all my favorite. Personally and individually.

So anyway, the total novel sales have risen to roughly 76,000. I'm hoping to crack 100K by June 2nd, because then I could say I sold a hundred thousand books in my first year, which would just be fantastic. I don't think I'd be able to tell that to anyone without cackling like a mad emperor.

Anyway, I'll be putting up some more posts pretty soon regarding the future of the Traveler's Gate universe, my summer plans, the new series I'll be starting this fall, etc. Once I recover, hopefully.

In the meantime, discuss City of Light in free, spoiler-full terms! 

Ladies and gentlemen, I couldn't be more excited to announce my new partnership with Facebook!

All my future novels (beginning with City of Light) will be published through the social media website, and will include the full social functionality that I know you've all been missing in your reading material. 

At the end of each page in the book, you'll be prompted to share your progress to your Facebook page, to let all your friends know just how fast you can read. All Facebook users will be allowed to leave comments in the book itself, which are viewable by any future readers and cannot be removed. This is your chance to make a permanent mark on your favorite ebooks, so leave as many comments as you can!

Facebook is very committed to your privacy, so they will never share the details collected during your time reading my books. Your average reading speed, the facial expression you made when your favorite character died, the number of minutes you spent reading on the toilet or in questionable social situations...those are some examples of data that Facebook will collect, but would never release to anyone they didn't absolutely trust to keep a secret.

These improvements will take a little time to implement, of course, so we're "adjusting" the City of Light release date to reflect the changes. You can expect CoL sometime around September 21st, 2017.

And, of course, all my future releases will be announced using the patented "GRRM Calendar" - with dates ranging from "It'll be a while" to "It's done when it's done."

Look forward to the new Facebook-enhanced Traveler's Gate Trilogy, coming "soon!"

Hello, ladies and gentlemen! I come before you this afternoon to address the most common question I am asked every day:

"When, sir, will you release City of Light unto us?" (It's usually phrased exactly like that)

The short answer is I don't know.

The useful answer is "PROBABLY between March 30th and April 10th," because on April 10th I'll be leaving for PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts.

And now that I've gotten those more helpful responses out of the way, hit the jump for a longer answer:

This Sunday, at 12PM Eastern (or 9AM Pacific, for the heathens), I'll be a guest on the Plucky and Woo-Woo radio show!

Their show airs on the Public Service Network, and they like to interview "plucky" people with cool success stories. They also apparently enjoy talking about sci-fi and fantasy novels, so I might have something to say after all.

The show begins at 12PM (my time), and they tell me I should be on the air by 12:20.

I don't know what we'll be talking about. They told me to say something about my books, and then just "join the conversation." So we'll likely end up talking about some random stuff. Feel free to stop by, listen to my words of dubious wisdom, and depart enlightened.

Here's a link! You may notice that the radio station starts playing as soon as you visit the page, so all you have to do is follow this link on Sunday at noon (again, Eastern Time) and turn on your ears.

http://www.psn-radio.com/

You may have noticed that I've been silent for a while, but trust me when I say that's a good thing. I'm running up against my personal deadline for City of Light, so I'm writing like a fiend. I want to make sure you have something to read after you finish Brandon Sanderson's Words of Radiance.

If you haven't started re-reading The Way of Kings, you should soon. Just to prepare. If you haven't read The Way of Kings...you should.

Anyway, City of Light, out as soon as I can get it to you. It's looking like mid-to-late March, but I'll keep you apprised.

I'm writing fight scenes right now. So many fight scenes. And a death scene, but I skipped over that one, because I'll need to come back and write it later to give it all of my attention.

-Will

So I'm working on the January batch of short stories, collectively entitled The Lightning Wastes.

I'm excited about them, and interested to see how you enjoy the chance to tour Endross, Naraka, and Ragnarus. At the risk of almost spoiling you, they tie in more to the novels than the previous six short stories did, so that's nice. There are a couple of characters in these that I really enjoy writing.

Release date for the stories? Before the end of the month.

Work on City of Light is proceeding more slowly than I had hoped. Not because of the short stories; it's mostly because I want to end the trilogy well, so I sometimes get a little too focused on not screwing up. It'll still be early 2014, though. When I say "slowly," I'm talking in terms of weeks, not years.

I did just get the first few CoL cover sketches back from my artists, though (the same ones who drew my previous two covers). It's not quite ready to show you yet, but I'm looking forward to the end product.

Since I like to end on a question, here's an inquiry for you:

What questions would you like to see answered in City of Light? Keep in mind that I will not be answering the full history of Valinhall, as I intend to release a different book about that in the future.

I'm just curious about what you're curious about.

Cheers and salutations!

-Will

Quick update tonight: I've decided not to push Gardens of Mist out for Christmas. It will still be out before the end of December, but after Christmas.

Why? Because now I get to spend some time with my family. I was going to work today and tomorrow uploading the stories, then head home for Christmas on the 25th. Now I get to relax today, and head home tomorrow.

I could still have gotten the book out, but honestly I think I'm doing the right thing by waiting a few days. As many of you have said, it's best to take some time off over the holidays.

So now you know. Gardens of Mist out a few days later than I was hoping, but still before New Year's.

To compensate you a little bit, I will reveal that Crimson Vault paperbacks are finally available, but only through this direct link. Once Amazon shows the paperback properly on the normal Crimson Vault page, I'll make a wider announcement.

Also, thanks again for your enthusiastic participation in the last blog post! I got a lot of suggestions, some of which were e-mailed, tweeted, or private messaged to me. It's neat to see what you all want in your stories, and your responses are helping me decide where to go after the Traveler's Gate Trilogy.

If you want to keep leaving suggestions/requests, feel free. I still monitor the comments on old blog posts, as long as they're not TOO old.

Thanks for reading, and have a Merry Christmas Eve Eve!