﻿It's a Thanksgiving Sales Miracle!

It's a Thanksgiving Sales Miracle!

11/24/2016

It's Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S., which means it's time to give thanks for everything awesome in our lives!

I have a lot to be thankful for this year: my Stardew Valley crops are coming in nicely, I've begun recording the City of Light audiobook, there's a new bundle of my old stuff up, and I won a hefty Amazon Kindle Unlimited All-Stars bonus check this month!

So many people read my books on Kindle Unlimited last month that I was dubbed a Kindle Unlimited All-Star, meaning that I'm one of the top-selling writers in the Kindle Unlimited program! In fact, though they didn't tell me my exact rank, they said I was in the top thirty! That means that I'm somewhere between the twenty-first and thirtieth best-selling out of all the authors in Kindle Unlimited!

That's only counting KU borrows, but the All-Star bonus for me was an extra five thousand dollars! It's a Thanksgiving miracle!

So uh...if you have Kindle Unlimited, and you're wondering whether I get paid for KU borrows, fear not: I do!

What that tells me is that people are really enjoying the books, which is awesome! In celebration of the holiday and this new round of good fortune, I'm putting both SEA and SHADOW up for free over the next four days!

That's Black Friday through Cyber Monday, as my culture-savvy friends tell me. Why isn't there a cool name for the weekend? Like Chartreuse Saturday and Buy A Bunch of Stuff Sunday.

TL;DR - Kindle Unlimited is awesome, Of Sea and Shadow / Of Shadow and Sea are both going to be free for the next four days, and I'm thankful for you! A lot of the people on this blog have been with me since the beginning, and the ride's still going!

-Will

P.S. Next time on The Blog: after this weekend, I'm going to put up some sort of progress thingy for Blackflame. Maybe a progress bar, maybe a percentage meter, maybe periodic reports, maybe arcane symbols that flash meaning straight into your brain. We'll discuss it next time!

28 Comments

Simon link

11/24/2016 02:12:34 pm

Happy Thanksgiving Will.
I have a question about Cradle, though it might be a little strange as it concerns the ethnicity. Given that Cradle is inspired by wuxia, and that most of the names are chinese, does that mean you picture your Cradle characters as chinese? I just want to know so I can picture these characters more carefully as I read.

Also, I have noticed a lot of anime-like parts in your stories. I particularly notice that Simon from Traveler's Gate is very similar to Ichigo from Bleach as they both wield ridiculously long swords, both wear black, Ichigo even gets black tattoos that are stripes on his forearms, and Ichigo can summon a Hollow Mask to increase his powers.

With Cradle I noticed a lot of similarities with Naruto. They are both setting in a Asian fantasy setting, Naruto characters use Chakra which is often pictures as a "core" in their body connected to charka veins called the chakra network. This is very similar to the madra system. They use jutsu which means techniques. The Empty Palm Lindon used reminded me of the way Bykugan-users could hit chakra points and incapacitate a person form using chakra. Towards the beginning of Unsouled when the First Elder switched places with Lindon's dad, it reminded me of Sasuke's ability he later gets where he can swap places with people and objects. Also, the madra energy is very similar to Naruto's main villain name, Madara Uchiha.

Since we're making a pattern here, I might as well sat the Elder Empire is like One Piece with the Navigators sort of being like pirates. There, you're three series represent the big three anime. That is just something I noticed and it makes me like your stories more as its like I'm reading an anime.
Keep making great stories.
Also, in the previous comments there have been talk about Simon having romance. I don't mind if that happened but you would have to take it slow to make it believable. Maybe in the Traveler's Blade series you could make him become very close friends with his love interest and move from there.

Sean K

11/27/2016 03:34:27 pm

So, when do we get a forum to discuss Cradle, Travelers Gate, and Elder empire awesomeness?

If Will can't do it (I'd rather he spent time writing :P), here's hoping one of his fans will!

Will link

11/30/2016 11:27:30 am

I do wish there was a better place for these discussions. I just have too much else to do.

Mahfuz

11/28/2016 06:49:49 am

I noticed Masked Simon is lot like a Vizard when he spoke to Leah with his mask on (while fighting Valin). His voice was described as 'garbled' I think. So I always kind of read his dialogue in that awesome distorted Ichigo voice... And he probably resembles post Bankai Ichigo with his cape anyway.

So I admit I kind of visualized madra to look and work like chakra from the anyway xD.

Keep in mind though Will's into Chinese LN like Xinxia and Wuxia and as these things and pretty common in both Anime and Wuxia, it might be just coincidence? 'Cause Cradle is definitely LN based and a LOT of TGT fights read like Wuxia.

So maybe you're right. Who knows?
Oh. He knows.
Probably.

11/28/2016 03:18:49 pm

Cool to know your thoughts. By the way, what do you mean when you say Chinese LN. What does LN stand for?

11/29/2016 03:23:48 am

LN stands for light novel. You know, those anime that get dont get based off of manga? Most of them are based on LN, although I say most as there are a few totally original ones.

But calling Wuxia LN is kind of misleading even though they're pretty close. So uh... sorry if I confused you 😅

11/30/2016 11:30:19 am

Everything I know, I learned from the oracle in the well.

When I wrote TGT, I had read exactly no wuxia, but lots of anime and light novels. I especially admired light novels for their focus on action and economy of detail, and anime-style cinematic fights.

Cradle, obviously, is wuxia/xianxia. Pretty much straight-up. The Abidan I came up with years ago, well before House of Blades, but everything in the actual world of Cradle is straight out of Chinese and Korean cultivation/martial arts novels.

As for the anime parallels...I'm going to go reply to Simon!

11/30/2016 11:48:20 am

My main problem with romance is that it's added to literally every story as though it's a required component, and it's often just thrown in there. In nine out of ten stories, the characters are just in love because they're in love, and we expect that because it's the weird side item that comes with every single meal.

So I intentionally left it out of Traveler's Gate.

But now that TG has become much bigger than I thought it would, if I want to expand on the character's lives, logically there's going to be SOME romance in there. There's romance in everyone's life to some degree.

It just won't be the focus, because the focus is fighting giant interdimensional monsters with a huge sword.

***
As for the anime influences, the parallels to the Shounen Jump Big Three are almost entirely coincidences.

The madra in Cradle parallels chakra from Naruto because they're both based on chi myths and legends that originated in China and Korea. We're drawing on the same source material. But the two magic systems work exactly the same way, so picturing madra flow as chakra flow is dead-on.

The only One Piece connection is that they both involve pirates on a magical sea, but I wasn't intentionally making that parallel. They're pirates because I wanted to do a pirates vs. ninjas thing, and it's a magical sea because awesome things are awesome. I would love to write something that was directly inspired by One Piece, though. That would be amazing.

I love the Devil Fruits system but I wish it had more rules, and I love how haki solves the main Fruit problem (i.e. why aren't the Logia users invincible?) by giving them a catch-all force that can be used against anyone with any powers. But it's also kind of vague, as haki is just sort of "general magical power," so I'd want some more character there.

And if I wrote my own series I'd get to tweak those as I wish, which would be so much fun!

The Traveler's Gate parallels...I get the connection to Bleach, I really really do, but believe it or not it's entirely a series of coincidences. Simon uses a large Japanese-style sword because it's cool, and if I was inspired by anyone it was Sephiroth. With that sweet sweet Masamune.

The black cloak was a last-minute addition. Seriously, it was like the last thing I added to the book. My cover artists had come up with that sweet-looking Nye on the cover, but my beta readers kept assuming it was Simon (because anyone on the cover has to be the main character, I guess). And they were confused when he never wore a black cloak; I had him in peasant clothes all book.

So I gave him a cloak. Now it's Simon on the cover if you want it to be, or it's the Eldest, or it's just a random Nye. However you interpret it.

And the mask was complete improv. I gave Malachi a mask as his Ragnarus artifact, but when he died it was just sitting there on the floor. And I've always had this pet peeve where main characters let their enemies' strongest weapons sit there and rot instead of taking them and use them for good.

So I had Simon take it. Then I had to think...well, he has to find a use for this mask. For Malachi it allowed him to draw more from his Territory, but how would that help Simon? The chains already limit how much he can draw. Maybe they can fix it and make it work for Valinhall...

And that's how that happened.

If I were to take anything from Bleach, it would be shikai/bankai. In fact, I'm trying to figure out how to work something like that into Cradle, because I think it allows for a lot of character individuality.

***

That said, I can tell you where I DID intentionally copy the Big Three as well as a bunch of other anime series, and that's in the fight scenes. I usually picture fights as a choreographed anime sequence in my head, and work from there. If you think of them as reading an anime, awesome!

And finally, to answer your main question: yes, I picture Lindon and Yerin as Chinese, as well as most of the characters. The only exceptions so far are Suriel and Eithan (and, in Blackflame, the rest of Eithan's family).

Thanks for reading, Simon! Glad you're enjoying the stories!

11/30/2016 02:25:35 pm

Damn son. I thought you just dabbled! But Sephiroth?

What's next? You gonna tell us you do it Subbed and not dubbed?! 😂

11/30/2016 02:32:11 pm

...Unless you mean the game and not the LN which makes muuuch more sense

11/30/2016 02:43:50 pm

I meant Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. Who did you think I meant? The only other "Sephiroth" I'm aware of is the concept from Kabbalah, which is where the game got the name.

Also, man, I thought we were friends. How dare you insinuate that I watch dubbed anime? Them's fightin' words.

Kevin

11/24/2016 06:54:37 pm

You have a great job. Glad to know your dreams are coming true and I get to contribute. And good on Amazon for giving you your due. Dying for more Elder Empire, but totally understand your rationale for moving on Cradle first. Keep the fun coming my friend.

11/30/2016 11:50:57 am

Thanks, Kevin!

During my time off over Thanksgiving I actually worked a little on EE. I couldn't help myself.

Chris

11/24/2016 08:34:20 pm

Yes, please hive an update on Blackflame. How's the experiment going with writing it and planning/outling for EE at the same time?

11/27/2016 07:37:02 pm

sorry, please "give" an update on Blackflame... and, how's the experiment with "outlining" for EE at the same time going?

11/30/2016 11:52:01 am

I haven't started the simultaneous writing/planning thing yet because I'm just beginning Blackflame, but I should begin the experiment in the next week or two!

BEN

11/27/2016 02:12:11 am

The progress for Blackflame, obviously, has to be displayed as Copper->Iron->Jade->Lowgold->Highgold->Truegold->Underlord.

11/30/2016 11:52:20 am

I like that a lot.

Andrew

11/27/2016 08:05:13 pm

Please don't do the symbol thing. Last time someone did it to me, I kept teleporting into dragon lairs for weeks. Those things aren't SANITARY, ya know!

11/30/2016 11:53:27 am

Fun Fact: Did you know that an improbably high number of incomprehensible symbols actually teleport you straight into a dragon's lair? It's true!

You'd think they could teleport you anywhere, or have a potentially infinite number of other effects, but nope. Forty or fifty percent of the time, you're in for a dragon's lair.

Nikk

11/28/2016 06:28:19 am

I made my farm into a Winery in Stardew Valley so I make a ton of Starfruit Wine and rake in the gold! And I never wine the drink! I mean... drink the wine!

An update would be great now that I have awoken from my Turkey Coma.

Awakened? Woked Up?

11/30/2016 11:54:10 am

I'm still working on my basic farm from 1.0, but I really want to make a Riverlands winery in 1.1. That just appeals to me.

Mick

11/29/2016 05:08:17 pm

Progress bar... maybe a candle that is burning at both ends that progressively gets closely to the middle to show how hard you are working :P

11/30/2016 11:54:50 am

By the time I'm thirty I'll be nothing but a pair of typing claws attached to the limbs of a desiccated husk.

Dustin

11/29/2016 05:25:38 pm

Congratulations. I always wondered how Kindle Unlimited worked because I'm reading a lot more than $9.99 worth of books a month. Does that mean if only 10 people get a book in a month then that author gets paid nothing, or is there a set rate for each time your book is checked out and if they do really well you get bonuses?

11/30/2016 11:56:59 am

It's convoluted, but here's basically how it works:

Amazon sets aside a flat amount to pay authors for Kindle Unlimited that month. Say $100 million.

Then they divide that $100 million by each page read through Kindle Unlimited that month. Whatever that result is, I get paid that much for each of my pages read in KU that month.

11/30/2016 02:34:06 pm

Well that isn't even remotely any of the ways I considered it going down.

11/30/2016 02:39:27 pm

Yeah, it's weird, and they tweak the particulars a lot.

That said, their current system incentivizes books that are A.) being read all the way through (so good books) and B.) longer (because a bigger book has more pages).

The previous system incentivized releasing a cheap, short book every 2-4 weeks regardless of quality.

So the way they do it now works a lot better for me.

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