Unsouled-Blackflame Bookstore Pre-Orders

EDIT: Hey, I learned something! This is NOT limited to the US. Details below.

Often, I have people ask me how they can help support the books besides buying them. People also ask "How can I support you without supporting Amazon?"

To the first question, I usually say, "You've already supported me!"

To the second one, I say, "You can't!"

But now there's a situation where your support would help me out.

Thanks to the success of the Kickstarter, we were able to fund a print run of trade paperbacks and trade hardcovers of Unsouled, Soulsmith, and Blackflame to replace our print-on-demand paperbacks that were only really available via Amazon.

Basically, we used the Kickstarter money to get books into bookstores.

Currently, they are available for pre-order online from Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Walmart, and Target.* We're told they're coming out March 14th!

However, this isn’t a guarantee that they will end up on bookshelves in a real store. It's only a guarantee that you can buy them online.

Ingram (the book distributor) has to go “sell” new titles to the stores to get them to carry our books in physical stores. They have told us that the BEST way to increase the chances of them getting in stores is having a strong pre-order.

The more people who pre-order the paperback books, the more likely bookstores are to actually stock them.

Now, I want to get into bookstores because A.) it would be very cool, since I love bookstores, and B.) because there are still people who only read books that they bought in person. There might be a whole new audience out there who would enjoy Cradle.

Or maybe not, I don't know, but I'd like to find out.

TL;DR - If we sell a bunch of online pre-orders for the paperbacks, bookstores will put them on shelves.

So if you wanted sets of physical books that aren't from Amazon (and you missed the Kickstarter), good news! This would be a great time to order them.

Having said all this, don't feel any pressure from me to buy the books if you don't want to. I'm telling you all this because I know some of you would want to know.

For real, you reading the books is already more support than I deserve. But if you wanted to see the Cradle series on Barnes and Noble shelves, this is the way to make that happen.

I didn't know almost anything about how this worked until, like, today. This territory is as uncharted for me as it is for you.

But, just to be clear...

1.) This doesn't affect the books you got through the Kickstarter. You're getting those regardless. Different set of books; Kickstarter books are still on their way, don't worry.

2.) If you pre-order books through any of the above retailers, you ARE buying the books normally. You'll get books.

Thanks for hearing me out! I feel awkward for even bringing this up,  but when Ingram brought this to our attention, I knew I should say something.

-Will

*EDIT: Turns out, this list is not exhaustive. The books are available for online pre-order from many booksellers, including those outside the United States.

Here's the link for Waterstone in the UK, and if none of these stores ship to you, odds are the books are still available from a store that does! Unfortunately, I can't link every  bookstore site in the world.

Not until my powers reach their peak.