Annual SPFBO Finalist Sale Happening Now

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Cover art collage of books in the SPFBO finalist sale

Cover art for *some* of the featured books

Once again, many of the finalists in the SPFBO competition have come together for a group sale.

If you pop over to the sale page for this year, you’ll find a variety of fantasy genres: epic, urban, horror, romantic, grimdark, and so on. If you see something that intrigues, give it a click. Almost all books areĀ priced at $0.99, with only a few at $1.99.

You’ll also find that some authors have added additional books for sale. For example, Twenty Palaces, the first book in that series, is also (still) on sale at 99 cents.

So if you’re looking for new and unusual (or new and traditional) fantasy to binge, check out that page.

It’s Black Friday Somewhere

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To help promote the two new Twenty Palaces novels I released this past fall, I’ve dropped the Kindle price for the first book in the series, cleverly titled Twenty Palaces, to only 99 cents.

Want to read a dark contemporary fantasy without the usual trappings, including a distinct lack of romance between the two leads? These are the books for you.

Or they’re the book for your pal, the one who reads fantasy voraciously and is always on the hunt for something a little different.

Anyway, it’s a high-value, low-cost gift for the holidays, so maybe buy a copy for a friend and maybe for yourself, too.

Twenty Palaces Audio Book Available for Pre-Order

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What it says above: Tantor will be publishing audio books of all the Twenty Palaces novels (and that novella) and the first one will come out June 10th.

Audible has made the book available for pre-order, which you can do right now if you like.

As I write this, that’s the only place where it’s listed, but if you have a favorite audio vendor, I’m sure it’ll be there soon.

And the rest of the series arrives throughout the rest of the summer, one book per month. I’ll send a newsletter later this year, to announce all of them at once rather than spamming your inboxes once a month.

One Man Audiobook Drops in a Few Weeks

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On May 19th, this will be available:

Yep, the folks at Tantor Media have signed on to make audiobooks of some of my work, starting with this one.

Then, in June through September, they’ll be releasing the four core Twenty Palaces novels:

June: Twenty Palaces
July: Child of Fire
August: Game of Cages
September: Circle of Enemies

And once The Iron Gate and The Flood Circle are finished, they’ll be coming out, too, with “The Twisted Path” piggy-backed onto Iron Gate.

So, that’s a lot of my words to put into the auditory centers of your brain. And… that’s it. That’s what I have to say. Audiobooks incoming. I hope you are keeping safe and comfortable.

5 Things Makes A Twenty-Palaces Heavy Post

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1) First, though, did you know that my brother-in-law teaches jazz drumming at a university in Europe? If you like Jazz, check out this interview he did with jazz writer Debbie Burke: Hard Bop Noir from the Michael Lauren All Stars.

2) Just before Christmas I pointed out that The Twisted Path had 18 reviews and I was hoping readers would drive it up to 25 so it would be favorably considered by Amazon’s algorithms, with the hope it would eventually make 50. As I write this, the review count is 66. Thank you all.

The number of reviews for Bad Little Girls Die Horrible Deaths: And Other Tales Of Dark Fantasy stands at 14, up from 11 two weeks ago. It’s just a short fic collection, but if you read it and liked it, please post a review.

3) The Twisted Path, at less than 25K words, is about a quarter the length of Twenty Palaces. Actually a little more. I know what 20P earned in its first three months, and I was hoping to make about a third of that with the new novella, despite the lower price. It’s not exactly science, but I wasn’t sure how much enthusiasm there was for Ray Lilly’s return and I wanted to set some sort of benchmark to see how well it was working.

It’s been less than a month and I haven’t hit that benchmark yet, but unless things go very screwy, I expect to. To be clear, sales haven’t been through the roof and I’m not saying I’m swimming in gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. The financial considerations here are fairly modest and I expect them to remain that way. Still, if things keep going at this pace, the door is wide open for more Twenty Palaces in the future. However, I won’t even begin work on that until I turn in my current work-in-progress (Working title: Open Enter) to my agent.

4) Speaking of sales, BoingBoing gave a terrific review to The Twisted Path. Check it out.

5) Finally, on a more personal note, we have hit the darkest, coldest part of the year up here in Seattle. Yeah, the days are growing longer, but even a few weeks after the solstice, we’re only getting 8hrs and 45min of sun. Most of that, I spend indoors on a computer, tapping out fiction. The cold and the dark make this a difficult time of year for me, but for the first time I’m armed with a quality SAD light. I’m going to make a commitment to myself to get out more, talk to people outside my family, and stay off Twitter. With luck, I can make it to April without too much unhappiness.

Thank you all once again.

The State of the Novelist Address: I just sent a book to my agent

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I thought I’d pop in and update things for folks, writing-wise.

First, earlier this week I sent a new novel to my agent. It’s a crime/mystery novel, a genre I’ve been reading for years. This isn’t my first attempt at this style, but it is the first one that I feel comfortable with. Some aspects of it fall right down the middle of the genre, while some are probably all wrong and will make me tear my hair out in revisions. We’ll see! But it feels good to start a book and send it to her in under six months. I’m not usually that prolific.

Which means I’ve returned to revision on my Twenty Palaces novella. I know I’ve been talking about this for a while, but this mini-book has resisted several attempts to write it. At this point, I feel I’ve solved most of the problems and hope to have it on sale before the end of the year.

Once I finish that, I’ll be working on something new. No idea what it will be, but I’m just going to pick an idea that sounds cool and run with it.

Thank you for reading this, and being here.

Time is running out on Dark Fantasy StoryBundle

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Mind if I show some covers?

All 9 StoryBundle Covers

The countdown for the dark fantasy StoryBundle is about to run out. If you want to do a little early Giftmas shopping, now is the time.

Some points:

    Pay $3 or more, get five books.
    Pay $12 or more, get all nine.
    You get to choose how much goes to the author and how much to StoryBundle.
    You get to choose which charity, if any, your purchase will benefit.
    You can buy the books as a substantial but inexpensive gift.

Anyway, I’m trying one last push to sell some books. The more retweets this tweet receives, the more free bundles I’ll give away. If you have a Twitter account, please consider clicking that RT button.

No one is ever going to hire me for my graphic design skills. Yikes.

The last Twitter giveaway got over 70 RTs, so I have hopes this one will do ever better. Thanks for clicking “retweet.” Frankly, I need the money.

Dark Fantasy StoryBundle is now live

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Hey, you guys. You know what a StoryBundle is, don’t you? There are several novels all bundled together into one package, and you can pay whatever you like for them (with a $3 minimum). If you’re willing to pay above a certain dollar figure ($12), you get extra books.

Well, currently there’s a Dark Fantasy StoryBundle running for a limited time. You can spend three measly bucks and get five novels. For $12 (or more) you get nine.

Plus, if you so choose, 10% of your purchase price can go to charity. In fact, you can support the ALS Association, the charity that has been benefiting from the ice bucket challenge, but without the social shaming issues that come from “challenging” people. If you think ALS has already received its fair share of support lately, the other options are Girls Write Now and Mighty Writers. There’s a “Learn More” link on the page to tell you more about those charities, but I just want to say that I grew up in Philadelphia and anyone who wants to throw a little love to Mighty Writers would earn my gratitude (not that the other programs are not worthy, too).

You also get to choose what percentage of the purchase price goes to the authors and what goes to the folks at StoryBundle, which is a great way to do things.

All the books are DRM-free. The other authors include a Hugo-winner and a couple of best-selling authors (as well as, somehow, me). The fiction here is *dark* urban fantasy without romance plots, so if you like my work, you might also like these other books. PLUS, it’s super easy to buy the bundle as a gift for someone else.

Anyway, if you guys wouldn’t mind helping to spread the word about this, I’d appreciate it. And check out those books. I’m downloading my bundle right now.

The Bundle will be available until Sept 17. If you’re interested, don’t put off the purchase. It’s going to go away soon.

Here are the covers:

All 9 StoryBundle Covers

Twenty Palace Print Edition Now Available Through Ingram

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Twenty Palaces cover, small imageThe process of setting up my book in Lightning Source is now complete. That means you can buy it from Barnes & Noble or any other brick and mortar store that sells books. If you like buying from indies, swing by your local shop and ask them to check the computer for you.

They might ask you to pay ahead of time, because the discount is thin and I made them non-returnable (to keep the price low) but the books are finished and ready.

One thing: a friend offered to do the interior design for this one, and she matched the book design of the other books in the series beautifully. Seriously, I’m not sure if she wants credit for this, but she did a fantastic job; the inside of the book looks fabulous.

Any complaints about the cover are on me.

In other news, I have a lot I want to blog about and no time to write it. My life is consumed by homeschooling, revision, and trying to get enough steps every day to satisfy the FitBit parasite attached to my wrist. More on that another time.

Print Edition of Twenty Palaces Now Available

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At the moment, I have finally, FINALLY created a POD edition of Twenty Palaces for people who prefer to read (or gift) in paper. Yes, it would have been better if I’d managed this before Giftmas. I know this. I wish it had been possible.

Lightning Source being what it is, the book is currently only available through Amazon.com and CreateSpace. I hope it will be available to all stores everywhere through Ingram in the new year.

[Added later: Yep! Now available at Barnes & Noble, which means your local indie will be able to order a copy for you through Ingram. They may ask you to pre-pay, though.]

If you’ve always wanted to read this book but never have because you only read paper, or you’ve wanted to give it to someone who only reads paper, now is the time.

And if you hate Amazon.com with an icy fire and refuse to give them your money: watch this space. I hope to have more options soon. Very very soon.

If case you forgot what it looks like:

Twenty Palaces cover, small image

Thank you.