Starting From Scratch

So, back in the day, once I returned to writing after a ten-year hiatus, I vowed not to publish because riding the query-go-round and receiving nothing but rejections was just too painful. My plan at that time was to just publish the books online for free, and hopefully, a few friends would read them.

That didn't go well. At the time, they were on a website that few people knew of, and I think I only had three or four people take a look.

These days, there are much better sites for making stories available for free, one of them is Royal Road. It's mainly a place for people to serialize their novels, but for now, I'm going to post some of my short stories out there. The hope is I get some "eyeballs" on it, and then I can post some of my novels in the hope that some new readers will discover my work.

As with most sites of this kind, discoverability is difficult, but I'm hoping that maybe more than three of four of you will read, rate, and comment on my stories, and if you do, others will start to find them. 

Royal Road is free, and there are many stories to be found there. (Mother of Learning - a serial novel that has been doing amazingly well, had a Kickstarter done by Wraitemarked Creative that I backed and I'm enjoying the story quite a bit.

So please go here, checkout my tale, and please comment or rate it so others might find my work.

Farilane Trailer

 It's been over a year since I posted this video, but it was buried in a larger post and so some people might not have seen it so I'm sharing again. If you haven't read Farilane (and you should since Esrhaddon is just a bit more than a month away),  this may get you to give it a try.

My eternal thanks to @RiyriaExplained, a massive fan on YouTube.

Fantasy Review's Six Fantasy Books That Will Make You Believe in the Power of Hope

I'm often asked by readers about other books that are like my own. In many ways, there aren't that many because I tend to see the world through rose-colored glasses, and much of fantasy prefers grim-dark spectacles. But I recently ran across a list from The Fantasy Review that focused on the more positive aspects of fantasy. So I thought I would take a moment and shine a spotlight on the books they picked. So here are their Six Fantasy Books That Will Make You Believe in the Power of Hope.

I hope you find this list helpful, and I have my fingers crossed that you'll find more books to love. Oh, and thanks again to Robin, who did all the hard work of putting the montage of covers together and compiling data from Goodreads for the following chart.

Title	Author	Publisher	Ratings	Reviews
	Travis Baldree	Tor	92,501	19,302
	T. J. Klune	Tor	486,459	80,996
	Raymond E. Fiest	Bantam Spectra	92,472	2,327
	Terry Brooks	Del Rey	94,303	4,662
	Emly Tesh	TorDotCom	16,171	3,126
	Michael J. Sullivan	Orbit	64,926	4,668

SAVE 80% - Age of War Audiobook

There's another great opportunity to save big on a Legends of the First Empire audiobook.  As part of the monthly deals, Age of War is just $6.99 (less than half a credit).  This was my first New York Times Bestseller, and it has a 4.8 / 5.0 rating on Audible with more than 11,900 ratings.  If you haven't picked it up yet, this would be an excellent opportunity to do so.  Get your copy here.

A very big side benefit of writing

When I started writing, I was just hoping to get someone . . . anyone. To read my books. I hoped they would enjoy it, and over the years a number of people have written to me saying that they have. That is, indeed, a gift beyond measure.  But from time to time I get an email like this:

"I have always hated books. I didn’t like that when I was in school I was forced to read them. It did not help that I was always bad at reading; my ADHD made sure of that. Similar to your daughter it takes a lot of energy out of me to read so I just don’t. I have not read a single book (not even my books for class) in full since 5th grade, when I read the Hardy Boys. I am 24 years old now. My friend in college two years ago recommended I try reading the Riyria books. Hesitantly I went to a library and picked up Theft of Swords. I could not put down the book. For an entire week, I spent every bit of my free time reading Theft of Swords. Something inside me changed. I started to actually like the calmness of reading. I was able to quiet my mind because I was diving into this whole knew world. I quickly picked up Rise of Empire and was able to finish that in two weeks. I found a new love of reading."

I never in a hundred years expected to have this kind of impact. As a young boy, I, too, didn't like reading. It was Tolkien who got me to find my "love of reading," and to find out I've done the same for someone else is a treasure beyond measure.

Best Fantasy Books for Beginners

I may not have mentioned it lately, but I'm thrilled to be in one of the best professions in the world. Storytelling affects people in so many ways, and when I get an email saying, "Your books turned me onto fantasy, and now I'm devouring everything I can find," I can't help but smile.

Petrik Leo of Novel Notions does a great job introducing readers to new fantasy books and just did his second Best Fantasy Books for Beginners post. This is great for many reasons, but also because Petrik highlights so many self-published authors — many of whom I consider my friends (and hopefully, they feel the same way about me).

Petrik broke his recommendations into a number of groups, including:

• Classic Epic Fantasy
• Modern Epic Fantasy
• Magic School Setting
• Cozy and Urban Fantasy
• Morally Gray Main Characters or Grimdark Fantasy

Here are all 20 books, and I'm proud to have one of mine included in the group.

Go watch Petrik's, video. He has a lot of insights. But to help you narrow down which books to try out first, I've included a handy-dandy chart below which will take you straight to Goodreads so you can check out the titles (just click the book covers), authors, who published them (pay particular attention to the "Self" ones as these are really the creme of their crop and really are worth checking out, and how many ratings and review each book has.

I hope you find this helpful, and I also have my fingers crossed that you'll find more authors to love. Oh, and thanks to Robin, who did all the hard work of putting the about montage of covers and this chart together.

Title	Author	Publisher	Ratings	Reviews
	M. L. Spencer	Self	3,877	607
	Ryan Cahill	Self	5,104	725
	Raymond E. Fiest  Janny Wurts	Harper Voyager	36,687	1,107
	Michael J. Sullivan	Orbit	36,160	2,078
	Anthony Reynolds	Orbit	2,113	419
	Richard Swan	Orbit	5,445	1,246
	John Gwynne	Orbit	27,746	4,260
	Domagoj Kurmaić (Nobody103)	Wraithmarked  Creative	5,763	352
	J. T. Greathouse	Gollancz	1,897	485
	James Islington	Saga Press	1,239	279
	Dyrk Ashton	Self	2,403	499
	Rachel Aaron	Self	12,852	1,333
	Travis Baldree	Tor	89,410	18,695
	Christopher Buehlman	Tor	15,873	2,441
	Michael R. Fletcher	Harper Voyager	2,798	534
	Daniel T. Jackson	Self	1,466	411
	Peter McLean	Ace	4,795	879
	Mike Shackle	Gollancz	1,438	285
	Krystle Matar	Self	322	142
	Nicolas Lietzau	Self	1,163	329

Recently I learned...

I'm generally oblivious about what's going on with regard to the sales of my books. A pretty good thing in general. It allows me to concentrate on writing new stuff.  But Robin feeds me information from time to time, and the last few days have brought a few revelations.

During this morning's coffee, I learned that Farilane and Nolyn are on the Mover and Shaker List. For those that don't know, it means sales of a particular title have really "picked up."

The cause for this recent rise is that yesterday we learned that the first two books in the Rise and Fall Trilogy are in Audible's 2-for-1 sale. Audible is a smart company, and the timing couldn't be better because we are less than two months away (54 days but who is counting?) from the release of Esrahaddon, the final book of the series. 

What's really interesting is that there are 500 books in this sale, and book #1 on this list isn't in that sale. so Nolyn and Farilane are outselling just about all of those titles (Book #3 is part of the sale). I'm taking a bit of pride in that, but maybe it's because so many people were waiting for the series to be completed before starting the series.

But Robin also put together a little graphic for me to post on Twitter:

And from that, I've learned that the first two books have had 10,523 ratings on Audible (10,526 as of today), so I guess there have been SOME people digging in before the final book was finished.

But are people liking the books? Well, Nolyn has a 4.7/5.0 rating, and some comments from the headers of the 5-star reviews have said: 

"A Great Beginning | He does it again | Loved it! | WOW | Just amazing!"

And Farilane has 4.8/5.0, and its comments are even better:

"Fantastic! | One of his best works yet. | Wow! One of MJS's best! | Outstanding story" 

So, I guess the answer to that is yes.  All this boils down to it's good from time to time to take a look around and see if spending all this time on the books is worth it. I mean, I'm enjoying myself, but it's good to know that others have (a) found the books and (b) like them.  So, thanks, all! Oh and for those who haven't picked up the books yet, save yourself some cash and get the first two for half price. The sale will end June 25, 2023 at 11:59 PM PT (US).  Just click here, or the images, to shop the sale.