An important announcement for Audible.com customers who enjoy Michael's story and Tim's narration

 Hey all, Robin here. I have a very important announcement for you regarding Michael's stories, Tim Gerard Reynolds, and consuming titles on the Audible platform.

This is going to be a bit long winded, so I'll do a TL:DR version: If you enjoy Michael's stories, and you like Tim's narration, and if you use Audible.com - you may want to take immediate action. Go to your Audible library and make sure that every single title is currently in it.  If not, either buy credits, use credits, or purchase any missing titles for cash before the end of the year. If you do - they should be yours to listen to whenever you want. If not, you may loose access to them for a long, long time.

I should note that the above statement ONLY applies to the Tim Gerard Reynolds versions. It is not an issue for Graphic Audio full cast recordings (at least I don't think so).

Alright, now for the long version.

Let's start by letting you know that Michael's stories are currently available on Audible.com from one of three ways:

• Distributed by Recorded Books (contracts directly with them and contracts that are sub-licensed through Orbit)
• Distributed by Audible Studios (contracts like Recorded Books - with advances and royalties)
• Distributed by ACX (the self-publishing arm for audiobooks - no advance but higher royalties)

Audible Membership Plans

Some people may not be aware, but there are several different ways books are distributed on Audible.

• Premium Plus Membership - is probably the one that 90% of the people have and what everyone is most familiar with. The "Premium" part is the ability to purchase titles for a credit. And the "Plus" part is the ability to listen to titles in the Plus Catalog (an all-you-can-listen library) for "free." The most common Premium Plus plan is 1 credit a month for about $14.95 - although there are other plans such as 1 credit every other month, 2 credits a month, 12 credits a year, and 24 credits a year - and each of them have a slightly different "price" for a credit. There may be other plans, but the ones I listed are what I remember off the top of my head. Under this form of membership, books you "purchase" with a credit are yours forever - even if you leave Audible's platform. The "plus titles" as you might expect would disappear in that case.  They also would "disappear" if the title is removed from the catalog - more on that later on. Another thing to note about this plan, if you forget (or choose not to) purchase a credit each month it will "roll over" and you'll have two credits for future spending.  At some point, these credits will expire - but it's a long time - I think after one year or something like that. One last thing about plus titles. Initially, they came into existence when Audible offered a "buy-out" with an author. In this kind of arrangement, there is a big one-time payment but no royalties. So whether a book is listened to  by 1 person or a million - the payment to the author doesn't change.
  
  
• Plus Membership - was added a few years ago, and it's about 1/2 the price of the Premium plan - it allows you to listen to as much of the Plus Catalog as you want for that one low price - but you get no credits to purchase "premium titles" with. All that said, you can always buy books for "cash."  But since the cash price is generally MUCH more expensive than the price of a credit, most people don't buy titles for cash.
  
  
• Standard Membership - this was introduced even more recently - and it switches people from an "ownership" plan to a rental plan.  I think its cost is $8.99 a month, and you get one credit to buy (either from plus or premium titles - don't quote me on that). These titles are NOT owned by you - you have access as long as you continue the membership and if you leave Audible you lose access to all the books. I think you can pause your account for a short period of time, but it's important to know that if you "forget" to pick up your one title that month - it DOES not roll over you just miss out.

Okay that sounds complicated, but there is more things coming - so bear with me.

New Royalty Plan

Some time ago - maybe a year or two - time flies by so fast - Audible decided on a new royalty plan, which had several provisions:

• ACX authors (and some Audible Studio authors) could CHOOSE to enroll their titles into the Plus catalog - books in it are paid "less" but they get more exposure because they don't require someone spending a credit to get access to them.  In general, I give this a big thumbs up - more options for authors is a good thing, so I applaud this. As part of this change, these "Plus titles" would now receive a royalty - a model I like more than the get-paid-once-no-matter-how-popular approach that was the "old" compensation model. So again, kudos to Audible for that.
  
  
• Royalty rates would increase.  Under the ACX system authors have been receiving a 40% royalty if they are exclusive to Audible and a 25% royalty if they are "widely distributed" meaning their books can be sold elsewhere - like directly from the author, at Spotify, through libraries (via Libby), through indie bookstores via LibroFM or through a whole bunch of other "distribution" channels such as audiobooks.com, DownPour, and others. Under the new plan those rates go up to 50% for exclusive and 30% for "widely distributed" titles.  Okay - so an improvement - it's still MUCH below standard rates for digital content which is generally 65% - 70% - but it is 5% - 10% more - so I'm in favor. Audible Studios contracts also had an increase for the new royalty model.  They have always been exclusive - so there are not two choices for them. I can't really say how much of an increase this % rate is because different authors get a bigger or smaller increased based on how many books they sell. 
  
  
• Another change (at least I think this is a change) is that authors would get royalty statements monthly rather than quarterly - again something I applaud because seeing the effects of "sales" or other promotions is so much better when you get the data quicker to when the sale occurred.
  
  
• Lastly it let's authors have "some control" over pricing of their books (which we have not had whenever published through ACX or Audible Studios). Yes, there are limitations - basically there will be a "price band" based on title length, but authors will be able to price on the "low" end or "high" end.  Again, more options for authors so I approve.

The Downside

All that sounds great, and it is. But there is one last detail that makes all the difference in the world. And that is the "method by which royalties are calculated" will change.

The difference between the two models is vast, and if I explain all the details I'll  lose people. So, I'm going to try a  KISS (keep it simple stupid) approach. I'll provide only the highlights - so this is a "big picture" explanation.

• Legacy model - when you purchase with a credit - 100% of the value of that credit goes to the author whose title you picked.  Now, that "value" calculation is quite complicated (because some credits are free, and other credits are bought during special discounts, and some credits are at one price and some at another - also some credits are "banked" (not used).  What this means is that the "value of the credit" changes from month to month. But at the end of the day the final payout is based on retail price. So in a given month if two authors have the same "member price" then they receive exactly the same amount.  But titles that are twice as expensive recieves double the amount and titles that are 1/2 the price of the baseline receive 50% of the value of the credit. Still a bit complicated - but easy enough to deal with assuming the "value of the credit" is calculated properly.

• New Royalty model - the "meat of the matter" are the "plus titles," which are indeed "free" for the listener, but as we will see in a moment, there is a price - and it's the authors who pay it. Under the new model, Audible takes into account "listener behavior." so the only time the author gets 100% of the value of the credit is if the audible listener DOES NOT listen to ANY titles in the Plus catalog.  If they listen to a plus title for a small amount of time (varies on length), the title is considered a "qualified purchase" and as such, that title will "take" a portion of the value of the credit. Let's demonstrate with an example. Let say the listener purchased book (a) with a credit - and it's list price is $30 and then they listened to a few minutes of 3 books in the premium catalog such that the books became "qualified purchases." Let's also say the prices of those other 3 books are:  $45 for (b), $15 for (c) and $30 for (d).  Under the new royalty model the author of the "credit" purchase (a) would receive 25% of the credit value - and so would the author of the plus title (d).  For plus title (b) they would get 37.5%, and for plus title (c) they would get 12.5%.  So a "plus title" can actually earn more than the "title purchased with the credit." Even though from the listener's perspective that was "free" content and they probably assumed the author whose book they spent money on (in the form of the credit) would be getting the full support of that purchase."

Audible thinks this is the fairest way to provide the plus titles royalties. Personally, I think Premium titles should have premium payouts. I also think this model is a HUGE incentive for authors to put their books in the Plus library, as they can advertise it as "free" and yet still get paid for it in the same way as premium titles.

Isn't this what Kindle Unlimited does?

No not at all. The two systems are vastly different. 

•  Amazon DOES NOT take money from books that have opted out of Kindle Unlimited to pay for books that are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. In other words I can opt out of Kindle Unlimited and I'm 100% unaffected by those authors who CHOOSE to use it. But in the Audible system, even if I DO NOT enroll my titles in Plus, my payout is being effected by others who HAVE put their titles in the plus catalog.
  
  
•  Kindle unlimited titles are paid based on pages read.  So if someone reads 20 pages and then abandons the book, the author only earns a small amount of money. But in the Audible situation, an "abandoned book" gets paid as if the entire book was consumed.
  
  
• To pay for Kindle Unlimited books - Amazon uses Kindle Unlimited subscriptions. They keep the two transactions separate. Audible said there aren't enough Plus memberships to adequately compensate the plus titles - my response to this is I'd be willing to lower my royalty rate back to the original amounts and Audible could add those funds to the plus pool.  Or another alternative would be to look at the number of premium titles bought and the number of plus titles that are "qualified" and split the money down those percentages. If that were done, I would get 100% of the credit, so no "splitting of the credit." And the plus titles could be paid based off of minutes listened to. That would align with Kindle Unlimited.

What I object to . . .

Okay, to say I had a problem with this "robbing Peter" (authors who have their books in the Premium catalog) to "pay Paul" (authors in the plus program) was an understatement. There are several reasons for this:

• First I don't think the the 5% - 10% royalty increase will offset the "credit dissolution" aspect of the new plan.
  
  
• Second, I don't think this is the way that most listeners would like authors to be compensated.  I think they expect that 100% of their credit goes to the author of the title they picked.  I don't think they "consider" the plus titles at all - and if they do - they think of them as "free" - because that's what Audible messages.  
  
  
• Third - I have no interest in taking money from my fellow authors. I want to earn my money by people buying my books - I don't want to earn by "leeching off" another author by takin money I see as belonging to them. 
  
  
• And as mentioned above, but it bears repeating: I don't like the fact that even if I "opt out" of the Plus catalog, I'm not insulated by those that opt in. 

To say I was shocked and dismayed when I learned about the new model, is a gross understatement. I begged and pleaded with Audible to apply any number of "tweaks" that would prevent the "credit division" portion of their new plan.  When my pleas fell on deaf ears - I created a petition.

The Petition

You can find the petition on change.org  There have been almost 30,000 people who signed it, and almost 1,600 people who "promoted"it ("promoted" is when someone donates money to change.org when signing - this is optional). You can certainly sign the petition without paying anything. But if you choose to donate, please be aware that the money  doesn't go to me - it goes to  change.org to help them keep the doors open. I think they are a worthy organization - so I support that, but  I want to make "the money" aspect of the petition" clear so people don't think I'm "getting rich" off this petition.

In any event - the petition does a deeper dive into how the royalty calculation changes, so please check it out, and if you agree with me, sign it - and leave a comment.

Audible's Position

I should note that after several meetings with Audible about their new royalty model their position was:

• Robin you are the only one who has a problem with the new royalty model
• Robin you just don't understand the new royalty model, and if you did, you would support it
• Robin you will earn more money on the new royalty model than the old one
• Robin we have the data and you do not, so your fears of earning less are uninformed and unwarranted

To these, my responses are as follows:

• I don't think most authors know enough about the details of the new model to have an "informed opinion" about it.  I suspect they only see that royalty rates are going up 5% - 10% so they are thinking "where can I sign."  I believe most aren't even aware of the "split credit" aspect.  Those that ARE aware of the split credit are as "freaked out" as I am, but they don't want to speak out because they are afraid of having their titles removed from the platform and for many it is the biggest part of their author income.
  
  
• I do think that I understand the model better than just about any author out there - because I've talked to people on the new model, seen royalty reports (which are VERY complicated) and analyzed these reports to death.
  
  
• I do think there will be "winners" and "losers" under the new model. And to be honest, I think we might do better under it then many authors. But earning more money for me isn't my primary concern - I want a fair system and if I get richer while other authors get poorer - well I don't feel good about that.
  
  
• I have no rebutal for the uninformed aspect because, of course,  I don't have the data, nor can I get at the data. And to be honest - the guy who came up with the model IS someone I respect and I don't think he'd lie to me. But there are two counter arguments I  can make. (1) I can see NO FREAKING WAY to audit royalty reports on the new model. I mean, not only do I need to know how many of my books sold - but I need to know how many other books were consumed by every single one of my listeners. That can multiply into thousands of data points - and there could be a "math error" in this very complicated formula. (2) The data collected so far was when there were only a small number of authors from the beta program enrolled. As such, there were only a few titles that were eligible for "credit sharing." Once the program "goes live" and once more authors put their titles into Plus - the "credit splitting is going to mushroom. So calculations may show a net positive now, but over time I think the payouts will get smaller and smaller.

Recent contracts

Okay, so I don't like the new royalty model - and I wanted no part of it.  Thankfully, Audible listened to me, and all my recent contracts were written on the "legacy model" with a term for 10 years such that I had "protected" my new titles until 2035 - 2038 depending on the release dates - so nothing to worry about for a long, long time.

There is one book - The Death of Dulgath that recently expired, and because I had no ACX titles - I decided to "try out ACX with it." This title was released in January 2026 and since ACX contracts are for an initial term of 7 years with 1 year extensions - putting it on ACX would keep it on the legacy model until 2033, so I felt like I had dodged a bullet.

The good news is that for most of Michael's books such as: All of the Rise and Fall, all of the After the Fall, and the majority of the Legends of the First Empire, I have them "safely locked in to the legacy royalty model - a concession Audible Studios made for me on the new contracts (and I thank them for that)

As for the ACX contacts, there term is for 7 so I felt lucky to get that "posted" befoer the new royalty model went live.

Now, our most recent contract is for the After the Fall series, which was written in partnership with Lorian Ellis. For this contract, both Michael and Lorian have to agree on how to proceed. The "counsel" I'm providing them is we should just bite the bullet and agree to an amendment to go on the new model.  Why? A few reasons.

• Michael and Lorian have already received $500,000 which would need to be paid back if the contract was terminated.
  
• Lorian paid off her house with her part of the money, so she doesn't have it in the bank to pay back.
  
• Keeping the contract (and not fighting it in court) will guarantee the other $500,000 will be paid as the other books are finished/released. -This is money that I want Lorian to "count on."
  
• It is possible that the new series "doesn't earn out" in which case the $1,000,000 is the only money they will ever see, so it's quite possible they won't "lose money" regardless of what royalty calculations are performed, so in the grand scheme of things what model is used isn't the most important aspect for THIS set of books.
  
• Tim is about to start recording this book in 14 days - and if I tell him not to - because of contract disputes I won't be able to get on his schedule again until late 2028 or 2029 which will mean no new audiobook for October's 2026 release.

Older contracts

Now, some of the "older contracts" end earlier - for instance The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter's contract ends in December 2027, and I expected the new royalty model to be in place at that time.  But "it is what it is." And so I planned to just "make the best of it." For that title, I figured I wouldn't have a choice of royalty models. So whether I went with ACX, Audible Studios, or even with Recorded Books (as I assumed all publishers/distributers would be on the new model) by then - I'd have to accept the new model. My plan was to put it on ACX because while all royalty models are the same I get a higher royalty rate with self-publishing rather than when Audible Studios or Recorded Books are involved

The ACX shoe drops

So on April 28th ACX made an announcement.

• The beta is over and the new royalty model is going live.
  
• Authors can start enrolling in the new royalty model on May 26, 2026.
  
• After December of 2026 no titles will be on Audible on the legacy royalty model.

Because I have a contract, I was confused. So I reached out to my contacts at ACX for clarification.  I was told, that I had until the end of the year to enroll my titles into the new royalty model or they would be archived an unavailable for sale.

I pointed out that: 

• We have a 7-year contract - they can't just ignore that fact
• The contract clearly states the rules by which royalties are calculated
• The contract DOES NOT provide any means by which the royalties can be altered
• While I can terminate the contract at any time - they can ONLY terminate if (a) the book is deemed to be offensive or (b) they determine I didn't have the rights to transfer in the first place.

They informed me that:

• The contract would not be terminated
• They are going to change how the royalties are calculated in all their contracts
• They have the right to remove titles on their platform for any reason at any time, Aa=lthough they refuse to  point to the clause that indicates this)

Okay, so all of this is bad. But I have only 1 title there so it's not the end of the world.  I could file a case for binding arbitration (and I may do that on principle), but I suspect it will take longer then the end of December to get a hearing, so at some point I'll probably have to sign or remove my title from ACX.  The good news is my arrangement with ACX is non-exclusive so I CAN continue to sell the book directly to listeners, even if they delist me.

Then the other shoe dropped

During my conversation with ACX my Audible Studios representative chimed in with a short message. This change effects Audible Studio books as well. We can get you an addendum to sign, if you want to talk let me know.

This is SO MUCH worse because (a) I have a lot of books with Audible Studios (b) their contracts are longer (10 years rather than 7), and (c) unlike ACX where I retain my distribution rights, the Audible Studio contracts have TRANSFERRED ALL RIGHTS TO DISTRIBUTE my titles to them - so I can't distribute them myself. If I did, I would be in breach of contract.

So for these books, if Audible Studios delists them, I will lose 10 years of audiobook income. And for 10 years no one will be able to "get into" the story via audiobooks. Period.

I've butted heads with Audible on the new royalty model - so I'm not exactly their favorite person by a long shot. But I can't imagine that the above will actually be their response. It seems nearly incomprehensible that they could take that position with anyone - even me. I've asked for meetings from both of my Audible Studio contacts, but I haven't heard anything from either of them. My hope is that maybe they are watching the blog - and if they do, I want to offer what I think are reasonable solutions.

• Door #1 - I would be willing to sign an addendum that puts my titles on the new royalty model (at the agreed upon rates that we had before we switched the contract from the new model to the old model) BUT this would have to be a non-exclusive agreement such that I could (a) make these books available through libraries (a venue that is cut off to me under our current agreements), and (b) I could sell audiobooks directly to my readers through my website or Kickstarters. This is a good compromise because we would  continue our relationship (both earning from the titles -- delisting makes neither of us any money), and I would have the means to earn money by selling direct to make up for what I anticipate to be losses under the new model.
  
  
•  Door #2 - we can "part as friends" (a) Audible agrees to terminate my contracts; (b) I pay them for the masters under a sub-license agreement - something we've done for 4 other titles already, and (c) I would make them available on ACX under the new royalty model on the "non-exclusive terms." This would give me the same ability as Door #1 - but I would be "independent" rather than in a partnership, and yes, it would cost me some money - but they are giving me something of value, and I feel it's only right for me to compensate them for that.

I should say these are the two I came up with - but I'm open to hearing other options that Audible Studios may have. What I don't think can happen is for Audible Studios to try to pay me under the new royalty model (without me giving permission to do so) nor do I think they can retain the rights but refuse to distribute the books thereby preventing me from earning from my work for a period of 10 years.  If either of those two things occur, then I have no choice but to file a lawsuit - and since the Audible Studios contracts are governed by the courts, I will make my dispute a class-action filing so that other Audible Studios authors who are upset with this transition can join.

The Bottom line

It's quite possible the either ACX or Audible Studios, or both will delist Michael's titles. I'm 90% sure anyone who has "purchased" (with a credit or via cash)  will retain access to them - but if you have not, then you won't be able to purchase them until litigation is over. Which may be a very long time.

One last thing to note: there are a lot of titles that are under the control of Recorded Books: Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire, Heir of Novron, The Crown Tower, The Rose and the Thorn, Drumindor,  these titles will likely not disappear - but I have no insights into Recorded Books dealings with Audible - I do know they recently renewed their agreement - and I'm not sure what arrangement they came to but I have no reason to doubt that Michael's titles will remain "listed" for those books - but again. I have no way to confirm or deny that - it's just my "experience" that's telling me these books are probably safe. If I learn that's not so, I'll let you know.  Also regarding those books - for an extended period of time (6 months - not sure) - Recorded Books had these in the "plus" library which meant they were in the "free catalog" - but they were move out  - so for people who "got one or more of the books" during that time - you'll see that it is no longer in your library - so you really need to purchase or buy it with a credit just in case these titles get delisted at some point.

Fin.

Okay, I warned you this would be long - but as you can see it's very complicated. I'm hoping that Audible will honor my email requests for a meeting soon. It's odd that they aren't responding.  I'm truly hoping for one of the above proposals to be accepted. In any case, I'll keep you posted either way.

Robin.

Milestone

I started this blog on January 9th 2009. My wife, agent, editor, and publicist insisted I start writing one as a means of helping potential readers discover my work.  

“What should I write about?” I had asked her. 

“Doesn’t matter,” she replied. “Write about anything. Write about your books, write about your day. Whatever. Just write so people can get to know you, so they can know you exist.”

That was more than seventeen years ago. I never thought much of these little posts I began doing under duress—I’ve never felt comfortable self-promoting. I struggled to come up with ideas to write each week. Some were silly, others a bit sad, revealing the mindset of a guy chasing a dream he never thought he’d catch. Looking back, I can see that all these posts are essays chronicling the experiences I’ve had as a novelist—an ongoing history of my career. Some are pretty good. A few reminded me of things I’d forgotten, but mostly they are my footprints left on a sandy beach—(a metaphorical easter egg for long time readers of this blog.)

The general theme promoted by my wife was the idea of the Little Engine That Could. To mark my progress as I chugged along the tracks, I wrote essays detailing events that I saw as mile posts—indicators that I had risen another rung. The first such essay I posted on February 13, 2010 entitled “I Must Be Someone Now” revealed how thrilled I was to find I had a Wikipedia page. About a year later, my next noted milestone was how I could finally support my family with my writing. 

These posts were born from my early experiences on Internet forums where aspiring writers gathered in the hopes of learning how to turn hobbies into careers. One of the topics was "when exactly can you call yourself a writer." This had touched off a massive and contentious debate. Some said that if you write, and wrote a lot, then that was good enough. Others argued that you can call yourself a writer when you feel you are. Still more insisted you had to be published. Because of the nascent but growing self-publishing trend, this then brought forth more perimeters and arbitrary requirements saying you are only a writer when you’ve been published by a traditional publisher. Still others feel you are not a real writer until you’ve written ten novels and support yourself with your writing. As such, I suppose I felt these milestone posts might help new writers gauge their progress. At the very least, they provided me something to write about, and now look back at.

By now, you’ve likely realized, I’ve hit a new one. 

When the Riyria Revelations was first published, an Amazon reviewer, who did not like my books, made the disparaging comment that the positive reviews must all come from friends and family. Robin and I laughed at that since no friends and no one in her family or mine had ever read any of my books despite my providing print, ebook, and audio versions. Obviously, this was disappointing, especially when I hit the New York Times Bestseller’s list on three separate occasions, and still it seemed my family wondered when I would stop this nonsense and do something useful with my life like maybe sheet metal wall art—not kidding, that was a suggestion. 

All in all, it’s probably a good thing. Realities like this keep me from thinking too much of myself. I’ve met a few too many writers whose inflated sense of self-worth is appalling. Better to have a good solid anchor reminding me that my success still rests below that of tin-snipped sailboats welded to wire. After two decades, I hadn’t merely accepted this odd family circle authorial anonymity, but forgot about it. Then, a few months ago I hit a new milestone. The truly curious aspect is that the milestone coincided with a visit from my sister and her husband. 

Robin and I moved from our home state of Michigan to Vermont when I was twenty-seven. We continued to move several more times, each one farther and farther away from Detroit. As the years ticked by, I visited less and less, and my family, being homespun midwesterners, rarely left the state. This meant I hadn’t seen my sister in years. Recently, both my mother and brother died. This reunited my sister and I—the last two survivors of the original six Sullivans—and I invited her to visit. As such, she recently came to the cabin in Shenandoah. Besides seeing her in a hospital room, I really hadn’t seen my sister in a decade. 

While they were staying with us, Robin and I took my sister and her husband to lunch at a small, wood fired pizza restaurant over the mountain. We were seated in the dining area discussing what pizza to order when a man approached the table looking awkward and apprehensive. He wasn’t the waiter. Not only did he not have the required apron, I had seen him sitting at a table across the room with his wife. The two had been staring at me and speaking softly to one another for sometime. 

“Excuse me, are you Michael J. Sullivan?” he asked, and our meal conversation stopped as everyone looked up concerned. When a stranger approaches you publicly and asks who you are, addressing you by your full name the immediate impression is that their next words will be, “You are under arrest or at the very least this summons is for you.” I'm all but certain that’s what was going through my sister’s head. I, however, had seen this look before on the face of many a reader at many a convention. 

“Yes,” I said, and the man showed not the slightest surprise. He was pretty certain or he never would have made the long, exposed trip from his table to mine. 

“I’m a huge fan of your books.”

With that sentence, there were gasps at my table. You see, one of the great milestones for any author is to catch sight of someone in the wild reading their book. It is such an uncommon thing, that few authors have ever experienced it. I still haven’t. But the rung above that is the even more rarefied event of a reader recognizing an author in the wild. As such, Robin and I were shocked. My sister and her husband were astounded. The two sat eyes wide and open-mouthed as I agreed to a photo, and the man expanded on how much he and his wife loved my books. 

When he left, my sister, still looking stunned, told me, “That was like something you’d see in a movie!” That this first time event coincided with her being there was all the more incredible. I’ll admit, it would have been nice if it had happened a few years earlier when she might have told the tale to my mother and brother, delivering news I somehow never managed to properly convey: "That I could, indeed, consider myself "a writer." But I did receive a consolation prize. Before leaving, my sister and her husband requested a set of my books. 

Banana Tree In The Backyard

I have a banana tree growing in my backyard. I didn’t plant it. The thing took root like a weed. Now it’s three feet tall with leaves like something you’d gather in your typical video survival game. I bring this up to illustrate how strange our new home is, at least how strange it is for two old folks from Michigan.  

For those just joining us, my wife and I moved to Key West a few months ago, and we're still adjusting. We’ve lived in Michigan, Vermont, North Carolina, the Washington DC area, and for the last ten years, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. One of the things I learned is that it takes about six months to transition mentally from visitor to resident, when the shiny veneer wears off and the truth of a place is revealed. The gloss dulls, but the reality is richer. I’m still in the honeymoon stage with this island life, and as such I notice all the things I won’t register in another year. 

For example, there are no insects here. Okay, that’s an overstatement. There are certainly termites, a fair amount of tiny ants, and I have seen a butterfly, and two completely unrelated house flies. I have also been bitten by a mosquito, although I didn’t see it. This constitutes “no insects” because in Virginia our cabin is routinely swarmed by wasps, hornets, bore bees, gnats, several varieties of flies, stink bugs, warring tribes of ants, and lady bugs (cute until they cluster inside your house.) We've even battled with Japanese beetles that insisted on turning all of the leaves on our wonderful trees into something akin to fine, laced doilies. Honestly, we had whole "insect seasons" that ran all year because those bugs I just listed were the ones that came to life inside the house. Plenty more buzzed outside. As such all windows required screens, and doors needed to be closed immediately upon passing through. But on this island, the grand total of insects are negligible, falling well within the margin of error. People everywhere leave their doors and windows wide open to let the ocean breeze blow through. It’s nice—disconcerting, but nice. 

Then there is the time disorientation. The length of days are slightly different due to being closer to the equator than Virginia, but the distortion I speak of is more calendar related. There are seasons here, just not the meteorological ones I’m used to. Winter, spring, summer, and fall, have been replaced with wet and dry seasons. (Winter is dry, summer is wet.) While the temperature never fluctuates too much, always roaming around the seventies and low eighties (21-29 Celsius), the summer humidity makes it feel much hotter. I’ve been told it almost never gets into the 90s but recently it has from time to time. And then there are the two non-meteorological seasons defined as the busy, or high, or snow bird season, and the opposing slow, off, or low season. These mostly align with the dry and wet periods and are defined as when the island fills up with tourists and part-time residents which can boost the population by the tens of thousands. And the weather doesn’t change, it is always between 72 and 82 degrees and sunny, and has been since late November creating a Truman Show/Paradise vibe with its unerring perfection. 

The disorientation, however, comes from it always being what I view as spring or summer. On vacation, such a bizarre shift in climate is isolated, a momentary blip. You step through a wardrobe into an imaginary world that is out of sync with your own. You bask, tan, look around, and then you head back through the wardrobe and everything returns to normal. Remaining in Narnia, things get weird. Seeing decorations and hearing Christmas carols in the shops and on the radio during what appears to be the Fourth of July, is bewildering. And the weather, the warmth and sunshine never changes. It’s sort of eerie. 

When I stopped my nine-to-five job to write full-time, days of the week lost their meaning. I no longer keep track, and never know what day it is. Not knowing the day was odd, but not knowing the time of year is disturbing. I was riding my bicycle, looking up at the blue sky and thinking how it felt like spring, almost like Easter. I thought a moment, did a mental check, and was shocked to realize it was spring and Easter was the next Sunday. 

Something else that’s different is how our adopted cat Loki (named because she has proven herself the god of mischief) doesn’t bring home dead mice to prove her worth. She wanders the yard with a dead lizard in her mouth. I don’t know if it’s the same one, if she eats them or practices catch and release, or has a dark corner where she dresses the GEICO mascots up in clown suits, sets them in little stick chairs, and pretends to hold macabre tea parties by moonlight. I mean, well…Loki—right? There are also small dragons the locals call iguanas, and of course wild roosters roam the island constantly competing in the chicken version of The Voice. 

The people here are extremely friendly—really friendly, like Pleasantville nice. I feel less like I bought a house and more like I joined a fraternity. In all the places Robin and I lived, we tried to engage neighbors by greeting them on the street and inviting them to dinner and parties. Nothing worked, and we had really nice dinners. Since we arrived on Cayo Hueso (Bone Island) we’ve been repeatedly accosted and inundated with invitations by absolutely delightful people who want to welcome us to the neighborhood. One man, who lives across the street took us out to the theater for world class chamber music, then had us over for dinner. A woman we passed who was eager to meet us, refused to reveal anymore than her name because we learned the neighbors all along the street were conspiring to have a get-together in our honor and she wanted to save all her best topics for then. The local bakery had been slipping me free pastries because I showed an interest, and the bartenders have a bad habit of bringing two drinks to my wife when only one was ordered. 

The entertainment is non-stop. Bands, stage shows, comedy performances, parades, contests of such diversity they are hard to describe, and too many to catch them all. And the other day Robin met a bewildered man who asked her, “So, what do people do here?” As if he’d booked a five day vacation to the restroom of a Denny’s. Robin replied with an incredulous stare. 

Not everything is wonderful. I have more chores here. The house needs far more upkeep. The date this house was built is not entirely determined. It's possible it was erected in 1892, with an upgrade to indoor plumbing in the mid 1920's,  but it is in great shape because previous owners looked after it. I don’t want to be the lazy one that ruins the thing. Just keeping the the jungle that surrounds the house watered is time consuming. I never lived in a jungle, and I don’t now, but this tropical climate has the foliage of one. While lush and beautiful, it sheds a lot. I’m accustomed to trees dropping leaves in autumn. Here they do it constantly -- while never seeming to change the number of leaves on the trees. Leaf raking is a daily activity. On occasion a huge palm frond will fall, sometimes coconuts. It’s like living in the world of Riki Tiki Tavi, or a Johnny Quest episode. 

And then there’s that banana tree. 

In Detroit, Vermont, Carolina, and Virginia, we had all sorts of uninvited things grow in our yards. Dandelions, picker-bushes, wire grass, maple trees, kudzu, even trash tossed from passing cars or blown by wind, but never a banana tree. Its mother across the fence already dropped a bunch in our yard. They’re good, as are the avocados from the tree in another neighbor’s yard. 

So, in conclusion, no insects, cute geckos instead of mice, and tropical fruit trees instead of weeds. 

Adjusting might take longer than usual.  

What's the most popular Live Kickstarter right now? I'm glad you asked

Robin suspected that the Unbroken Kickstarter would break big - but it's launch surpassed even her high expectations.

On launch the data was coming in so fast, it was difficult to tell exactly how long it took to fund, but it was well under the first minute.  Here are some other stats:

• The $100K goal was passed in less than 4 minutes
• The $200k in less than 15 minutes
• The $300K around the 40 minute mark 
• The $400K hit at just a few minutes past the first hour
• The $500K hit at a few minutes past the 2nd hour
• The $600K hit minutes after the 4th hour - so things we slowing down greatly :-)

Robin and I would like to thank any of my readers who backed this anthology.  It's for a great cause, and it'll be an amazing book.  For those who don't know what this Kickstarter is all about, well, click here to learn more.

Well, it's almost here - Unbroken launches in 2 days!

Hey all, Robin here.  Well this project has been delayed a few times, but we are now just days away from launching the Unbroken Kickstarter - an anthology like no other.  Well, that's not quite true, it's actually a lot like Unfettered, which was an anthology launched to help Shawn Speakman get out of medical debt.  This time the worthy cause is for author Peter Orullian who has amassed a huge financial burden due to both him and his wife being inflicted with cancer. But while UnFettered (Shawn's anthology) was amazing, Unbroken raises the bar even higher. I've never seen an anthology of this scope before. 

• 832 fantasy filled pages
• 275,000 words
• 36 masters of fantasy
  
• 21 New York Times best selling authors (7 of which have hit #1)
• 4 artistic geniuses
• 1 award-winning narrator

Peter is an American fantasy author, writer, and music industry veteran best known for his epic fantasy series The Vault of Heaven. His debut novel, The Unremembered (2011), was awarded the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. It introduced readers to a richly built world where music and magic are deeply intertwined, a theme that reflects Peter's own background in music. To that end, he has a new series coming out (Songs of the Dead) that has been co-written with none other than Brandon Sanderson!

The lineup of authors for this anthology is nothing short of amazing - take a look!

As for Michael's short story, it is called: The Eternal Winter - and here is the teaser description for it:

It all started with a “new thing” called war that heralded the death of thousands. Famine and disease followed. Then the world of Elan was lost to an eternal winter, a dark and bitter cold that lasted years. Those struggling to survive walked upon the face of what they considered to be a corpse. But for the one known as Muriel, the worst thing to happen was learning that the white wolf had found her. 

While this story can be read without any prior knowledge of my other works, it is first

and foremost a foundational tale for those eagerly awaiting The Cycle series.

But it's not just these amazing authors who have donated their time and effort to make this project so great. Check out these amazing collaborators who have lent their skills to produce this amazing work:

• Artist: Donato Giancola
• Artist: Todd Lockwood
  
• Artist: Allen Morris
• Artist: Julia Maddalina
• Narrator: Travis Baldree

And what's really nice about this Kickstarter is that there is an edition to meet any budget.

• $15 - ebook
• $25 -audiobook
• $50 - trade hardcover
• $150 - PNW Edition (partially signed)
  
• $350 - Fully-signed edition
• $1,000 - Leather edition with Clam shell protective box

So when does this all start? I'm so glad you asked: Tuesday April 21st, 11:AM ET / 8 AM PT.  We've already had 8,650 sign up to be notified - click the link and add yourself to the list.

 

The Elan Saga

 Hey there Robin here. Recently, I've been working on some graphics for The Cycle, and while doing that I wanted to create something that could completely illustrate "The Elan Saga" - What I was looking for was something that visually explained individual series that were interconnected and how They Cycle ties them all together.  This is what I've come up with.

If that looks like one too many series, then you've not kept up with what is in the works now.  So, for those who don't know . . . 

After the Fall is the 5th series in the Elan Saga - and the first book: Out of the Ashes will be our 2026 release (coming October 6th). No cover reveal for it yet, but hopefully soon. And yes, there will be a Kickstarter for it which will have hardcovers (regular and deluxe) as well as ebooks.  As for the audiobook, that is already up for pre-order and you can reserve a copy of it now.

Getting Old

 Not too long ago, I was out on my front lawn smelling an old fence post and thinking what an odd job I have. I wasn’t limiting my sniffing to the fence. I also went about the property putting my nose to the bark of trees, and even a bush. Luckily, this was when I was still in Shenandoah where my neighbors are too far away to see my odd behavior. The reason I was imitating the typical dog out on a walk, was entirely due to a scene I was writing. A character was scaling a wall, their face pressed to the surface. No chance the character wasn’t getting a nose full of old wood. Only, what does old dry wood smell like? 

If you’ve ever seen the movie Stranger Than Fiction where the author Karen Eiffel (played by Emma Thompson) goes to great lengths to understand how her characters feel in order write about them, then what you just read might make more sense or merely increase your bewilderment. Most of the time I can imagine sights, sounds, and smells, but I was stumped on wood. This wasn’t old musty attic, nor mushroom laden decaying wood. The best description I had was “earthy.” This would have worked fine if such a word existed in Elan. Only it doesn’t.

One of the annoying drawbacks to writing invented world fantasy is how so many absolutely perfect words, phrases, and common references aren't allowed. Try describing an earthquake without the word earth, afternoon, without the word noon, or the midday meal which used to be called dinner. Some have even questioned the feasibility that people applauded or clapped their hands to show appreciation. What’s worse are words that are legitimate yet they are seen as inappropriate such as shoot, drive, or explode. Incidentally, it is amusing to me that explode comes from the Latin explodere to “drive out or off by clapping or making noise,” as in an audience’s reaction to a theater actor’s performance. I have long chaffed under these and other restraints that hamper my sense of free flowing expression, and force me to backspace over perfectly good sentences and ideas. 

I never wanted to be a fantasy writer. I’d mostly walked away from that section of the bookstore the same time I left high school. I was lured by the vivid relatability of more contemporary stories, the sort where I could simply go to a place and write about what I saw. The hours I spent describing people in coffee shops, or transcribing their conversations into dialog, was thrilling and so much easier than trying to imagine what a princess’s bedroom might look, smell, or feel like. Writing Hollow World had been a blast despite most of it taking place in a distant future. At least the point of view character possessed the same frame of reference as the average American. I didn’t need to explain or omit anything. I could free associate to my heart’s content. And yet, in my grass-is-always-greener mentality I failed to see that despite these limitations and draw backs, the invented world fantasy offers one attribute that all other genre’s lack. It alone possesses the intrinsicly super power of timelessness that bestows at least the chance at on-going relevance for future generations.

Recently, I have been re-reading a few of my favorite Stephen King novels such as The Stand and It. They are still wonderful, filled with inspiring prose and stunningly crafted characters, but they’re getting old. Set in the real-world, and locked in time and place, these grand tales are becoming dated. References are lost, and contemporary terms—like the ones I wasn’t allowed to use in fantasy—are acting as lead weights tied to the legs of a world class swimmer. Given enough time, it is possible these novels will acquire a nostalgic allure, and then perhaps even a historic charm. I recently discovered I owned a first edition of Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms, and found it fascinating to read a book that was both written and printed nearly a hundred years ago. To me the slang, lifestyle, references, and customs were more compelling than the story itself. Hopefully, this, too, will be King’s legacy. 

It was, in fact, Mr. King who first alerted me to this idea of fantasy’s timelessness. I read something he wrote about how mega bestsellers from years ago having been almost entirely forgotten and how only fantasy seems positioned to be resistant to this aging sickness. Nothing is immune.

Given my first book was published in 2008, my works are creeping up on their twentieth birthday and receiving their AARP invitations from readers who post reviews that speak of my stories as established and even enduring. I am forced to acknowledge my accidental good fortune. The world has, and continues to change at such breakneck speeds that not merely references and slang are victims but also fundamental beliefs, attitudes, and ethics. Had I been writing closer to the bone, wading in deeper cultural waters, perhaps I might have made a bigger splash. The cost would have been the ephemeral nature of such fame and the loss of the example my characters appear to have provided to a weary world looking for safe harbor. In another decade, my readers will likely have moved on to greater writers and my books would have been used to steady a table leg or be set out on the curb like a velveteen rabbit. But if I have any chance at all of securing that highly competitive space on the occasionally visited dust-covered top shelf it may well be due to having written fantasy rather than aiming for the great American novel. I think this is important because I suspect people will continue to suffer troubling times in the future, and the next generation may again find a need for refuge from dark skies and turbulent winds.