Happy Birthday to Me...and You?

7/29/2015

Anytime you don't hear from me in a few weeks, it's a safe bet that I'm writing. That's really the only thing I go into seclusion to do. If I'm on vacation, I'm usually still online, because a vacation without Internet is no vacation at all.

So thanks to all this writing, I can now safely announce that Of Darkness and Dawn will be released on August 11th...which just so happens to be my birthday.

What present could I get that's better than a book release? A pony, but that's beside the point.

Therefore, as I discussed a few months ago, Of Dawn and Darkness will be released in September. I'd give a more specific date, but I want to leave you in agonizing suspense.

I've said this before, but there's one main reason why I'm not releasing this pair together: because of the way Amazon releases work. It felt like the last dual release competed with one another, which is counterproductive to both of them, so I'm trying to release the books a few weeks apart.

Hopefully that will solve the problem, but whether it does or not, I've learned something! Hooray for experimentation!

So in anticipation of all this, here's the cover for the upcoming Of Darkness and Dawn!

29 Comments

Mitch

7/29/2015 03:26:36 am

Can't wait. Thanks for cranking them out so quickly.

Will Wight link

8/3/2015 01:48:15 am

I do what I can, Mitch! I need to learn how to work smarter, not harder, or my fingers are going to fall off.

Caryn

7/29/2015 05:14:36 am

Yay! Let us know if we can preorder this time around as well.

8/3/2015 01:49:17 am

Not this time, Caryn. The Amazon pre-order service has some problems, so I'm going to avoid it this time. I might return in the future.

7/29/2015 07:53:42 am

Hooray! I can't wait to jump back in with this crew! I hope your birthday present is lots of first day sales (and no Amazon hiccups)!

8/3/2015 01:49:50 am

Me too, BW! No Amazon hiccups might be a little too much to ask, but lots of first-day sales would be great!

Jeremiah

7/29/2015 10:16:37 am

Ready to mow down some elderspawn for the cause!

Also, summon steel and wind

8/3/2015 02:00:51 am

The stench was overwhelming, like a mix of rotting fish and some burning, caustic brew from Asphodel. Simon flinched back, holding a handful of cloak over his mouth and nose.

*I don't know what you expected the living dead to smell like,* Caela said.

*I've never thought about it before, honestly.*

*And now you see where a lack of foresight gets you.*

Something like a skeletal centipede slithered around Simon, hissing at him with a shredded tongue. It left a respectful distance, a seven-foot gap around him, as did the rest of the crawling dead. They'd learned.

Children of Nakothi encircled him, gathering for a single massed push. They were largely cobbled together from drowned corpse parts, but many of them were armored in bone. Those plates might slow his blade a fraction of a second, which could mean the crucial difference between reaching the Great Elder herself or dying here, on a desolate island.

He called steel as he summoned Mithra, and after a second's thought, he summoned a second power. Wind slipped and twisted around the edge of his blade, and for a few short minutes, he would be able to slice the hardest iron like mist.

*You're running out of time,* Caela warned.

*I need them to make the first move.*

*Sheer laziness. You've probably gained a few pounds lately, too. That's gluttony. I'm sure I could make a case for pride, too, but you could use a little more wrath right about now.*

Some days, the debate just wasn't worth it. With an inward sigh, Simon leaped forward to mow down some Elderspawn.

middle initial, "E"

8/10/2015 10:31:08 am

This.

Can't wait for the pending release!

Aaron J.E.

7/29/2015 10:22:29 am

Wow, awesome! As a fellow August birthday, I congratulate you on the superior and fortuitous timing of your birth. Also, your book happens to come out the day before I am taking a 14 hour flight - so I could not be more pleased.
The cover looks absolutely outstanding; your cover artists continue to get better with each passing.

8/3/2015 02:01:43 am

I think so too, Aaron. AT THIS RATE, THE POWER OF MY COVERS WILL SOMEDAY BREAK THE UNIVERSE!

7/30/2015 03:31:24 am

O
M
G

"Breathing deeply"

8/3/2015 02:04:13 am

That's very good, JM. Breathing deeply has numerous benefits over shallow breathing. You won't hyperventilate from excitement, for one thing.

harlequin

7/30/2015 11:53:32 pm

Glad to see the woman and her dagger are forming an amicable relationship ;)

Can't wait to learn more about its capabilities. We know she gets buffed by killing enemies and absorbing some of their power. Is this a permenant change in strength?, will it affect her body in various ways?, will she gain powers or attributes of the ones she kills? I'm so curious!

8/3/2015 02:03:26 am

Many of those questions will be answered in Darkness! Perhaps not with the detail you'd prefer, but you'll definitely get a detailed exploration of what it's like to carry Syphren.

7/31/2015 10:57:47 am

Your blog looks like it is now dubious intentionally

8/3/2015 02:02:34 am

I'm always a little dubious, Jeremiah.

Andrew luscomb

8/2/2015 02:39:58 am

I love your books also thank you for the best bday present ive gotten from an author august 11th is my bday too

8/3/2015 02:02:13 am

All of history's most influential people were secretly born on August 11th. Science fact.

8/3/2015 10:43:15 am

I do believe you are correct good sir

Scott

8/9/2015 11:18:22 pm

Got back from vacation to see this. Woohoo!

8/10/2015 02:31:07 am

Welcome back, Scott!

NoSmallStir

8/10/2015 06:55:25 am

Happy Birthday! I love you!!

8/10/2015 09:04:27 am

I love you too, NoSmallStir. You know I only like big stirs.

8/21/2015 12:22:32 pm

Im a sous chef in a small restaurant so i worked a double on my bdaythen stayed up till 3 am reading your book.it was awesome sorry it took a while to come back here but i work all the time.

8/31/2015 11:42:30 pm

No worries. I got sick almost immediately after releasing the book, which is pretty normal.

Glad you enjoyed it! I, too, spend most of my time working.

Eran

10/10/2015 02:33:14 pm

You should really add more store options. Not everyone buys books from Amazon.

10/10/2015 06:09:29 pm

Well, I mean, apparently the vast majority of people do. There's no way I'll be able to reach EVERYONE, so I'll settle for hitting the biggest market in one place.

It also takes significantly more work for each new market. That means a new place to upload, a new file format, payments from a second source that have to be tracked, sales records on a different site, a different upload process, different upload rates, and more links to the new book. Also, no one else pays as high of a percentage as Amazon does, and exposure on Amazon is worth way more than exposure on any other single site.

In addition, you get certain benefits from keeping your book only available on Amazon. The list of specific benefits is long and ever-changing, but the information I've seen from other authors suggests that it's roughly equal to the benefits I'd see from putting my books up for sale in other markets.

That's never a guarantee, though, and there's always the possibility that I'd see a massive upsurge in sales by expanding to other markets. However, what kind of return on investment can I reasonably expect? The data I'm working with suggests an answer: "not much."

Other writers I've known have published on all available platforms, and for some of them it's been worth it. They'll get a handful of sales a week on Amazon, B&N, Smashwords, etc. But--and please believe me when I say this comes from a place of humility--I'm selling many more books than they are.

As long as I can support myself on my income from Amazon, why branch out? It's a risk, I'm already hitting the majority of the market, and (most importantly) it's a time/energy investment that I'm not sure is worth it.

It's just me over here. I don't have a team to do this stuff for me. So any extra time investments I take on means X amount of time NOT spent writing new books. Which, in my world, translates to "Not working."

Of course, there's one reason beyond all those others that I might choose to expand outward: to reach new readers. The money is just an unfortunate reality of the world we live in (income = time, and I need time to write), but it's not what motivates me. Sharing and interacting with the readers is what motivates me. So, by that logic, shouldn't I put my stories on as many platforms as possible?

Well...not really. Anyone CAN buy from Amazon. It's just that some people DON'T. The Kindle app is free and available for virtually any device, and anybody can order the paperbacks. So, for whatever reason, there's a group of people out there who are choosing not to buy my books even though they could do so. The people who know about my books and choose not to buy them are, by definition, not interested in buying my books.

So why try to force my books on people who don't want them? It's like trying to sell fur coats to PETA.

Man, that turned into a wall of text, didn't it? Sorry about that.

TL;DR - Amazon is most of the market on its own, it would take effort to expand to other markets (which I'm not sure would be worth it), and I'm not convinced there's an eager group of Will Wight fans out there who don't have access to Amazon.

That's my reasoning in a nutshell, Eran.

-Will

10/10/2015 06:14:40 pm

I realized I've said enough on this topic already, and I apologize, but let me clarify one thing:

This is my reasoning at the moment, and I find it sound (obviously, or I'd change it). HOWEVER, it's not like I'm burning any bridges. I haven't signed a contract with Amazon or any other publisher, and I might very well decide at some point in the future to branch out.

Or not.

The world of ebooks is new and protean, and major shifts can happen literally overnight. Tomorrow it could be that all my data is proven wrong and I need to expand to other platforms as fast as possible. Or maybe in the future I'll be well-established enough that people will buy me on any platform, and I won't need Amazon's exposure to survive and gather new readers.

In that case, I'll happily branch out. I'm riding a wave, and God only knows where it will take me.

In which we ramble on.
And by we, I mean me.