Going Indie with audiobooks - The Jester (short story) #4 Bestseller

Hey all, Robin here. Most are probably aware that Michael is a hybrid author (meaning some of his titles are released with big-five publishers like Penguin Random House (Del Rey) and Hachette Book Group (Orbit) while others are 100% controlled by us).  When it comes to audiobooks, we have never done any self-publishing. All our titles have been released by either Recorded Books Media (the largest non-big five audio book producer) or Audible Studios (the audio production arm of Audible.com). Until now . . .

And yes, of course, it's narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds - in fact, we purchased the original recordings from Audible Studios and reposted them using Amazon's ACX platform which is what is used for self-publishing.  Considering we didn't "announce" this, we were quite surprised by it's reception. 342 copies have been purchased in the first few days which has driven it to #4 on the bestselling charts:

For more than 10 years this title was an "Audible Exclusive" meaning that it could only be obtained on that single platform, but now that we control the distribution, we are "going wide" which means it can be distributed by oher platforms.  As such, we're using the amazing BookFunnel to distribute the audiobook for free for those who sign-up to my email list.  You can, of course, opt-out of the email list after signing up, but typically we email infrequently - in fact, it's been more than a year since our last newsletter.

Cyber Monday Sale

Because our warehouse is being used to ship out a huge number of books for a fellow author's Kickstarter, our store is presently closed.  But we have moved a bunch of books to our secondary storage facility and we are running a Holiday sale.  A few things to note:

• All orders that come in before December 9th will be shipped by December 12th which should ensure delivery for the Christmas season.
• All orders over $50 will have free US shipping.
• All orders over $50 will have 50% subsidized non-US shipping
• Selection is limited

The books involved in the sale include:

Savings includes:

• $80 off Deluxe Riyria Chronicle boxset (5 books) - including Drumindor
• $60 off Deluxe Riyria Chronicle boxset (4 books)
• $30 off Regular Riyria Chronicle hardcover box set (5 books) - including Drumindor
• $20 off Regular Riyria Chronicle hardcover box set (4 books)
• Most out of print Legends Hardcovers just $10 each (N/A for Age of Myth and Age of War)
  
  

  Shop the sale from this link

Drumindor 2025 Earphone Award Winner - and on sale this month only!

Hey all, Robin here. Things have been more than incredibly busy at the Sullivan household, but I wanted to take a moment to announce that Drumindor won an earphone award! And if you don't yet have a copy of the audiobook, you can get it through the end of this month for just $6.99 that's 82% off the regular price, and remember . . . even if you leave Audible's membership any books purchased for credits or cash are yours to keep forever!

 

Here is what the exceptionally intelligent people at Audiofile Magazine had to say about the book:

Tim Gerard Reynolds gorgeously narrates this Elan world novel, the fifth in the Riyria Chronicles. In this prequel, a disgruntled dwarf has been fired and threatens to wreak havoc on the towers of Drumindor, thus destroying the lavish town of Tur Del Fur. Royce and Hadrian, friends who together form Riyria, are hired to find the dwarf and stop him. Reynolds brings depth that adds texture to the story: Dwarves have Scottish brogues and raspy voices; evil leaders have deep, slow voices; and the most evil character has a whispery, low voice that is sure to give listeners nightmares. Reynolds manages to make the heroes human as they experience fear and courage in equal measure. L.M.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2025

A big congratulations to Tim!  And in other news, the next book in the Riyria Chronicle series (Blythin Castle) is already written! Unfortunately, we don't have a release date for it yet. Why? Well we are trying to "fill the void" between this year's Drumindor and the release of The first book in The Cycle series. For those who aren't familiar with this "post Revelation's sequel, you can learn more about it from here.

As for next release dates,  Tim will be recording Out of the Ashes, the first book in the After of the Fall series in June of 2026 so we are hoping to have the release of that title soon after that.

Store is open once more!

 
So, we're done shipping packages for the Indie Author Movie, the Riyria Chronicles, and Drumindor Kickstarter, so we've opened up the store once more. And because we purchased extra books (for hurts, damaged/lost in the mail etc. We're making them available on the store - and at discounting to help us clear out the warehouse before we start shipping our next big project - Will Wight's Cradle books #7 - #9 are arriving in port any day now!

We couldn't be happier with how these books turned out.  Without question, these are our best deluxe sets yet.  So if you missed the Kickstarter, be sure to pick up your set.  We are offering them in both 4 and 5 book configurations (with and without Drumindor), and there are regular and deluxe hardcovers available.

• 4 Regular Boxset $196 save $17 now just $179
• 5 Regular Boxset $226 save $27 now just $199
• 4 Deluxe Boxset $340 save $41 now just $299
• 5 Deluxe Boxset $415 save $46 now just $369

As with all books in our store, these are signed (and the deluxe books are numbered).  So get them while you can!

AMA (Ask Me Anything) - today on reddit /r/fantasy

Today was supposed to be the launch day for Unbroken - an anthology Robin and I are helping Peter Orullian with. But there are a few authors that Peter is trying to add to the project, and they need a bit more time. So the Kickstarter will actually launch on January 27, 2026. But, we had already arranged with the mods over at /r/fantasy to do an AMA - so if you have questions for myself, Peter, or Shawn Speakman (who is also helping with the Kickstarter), you can go here.

ABOUT UNBROKEN

Some people might remember an anthology called Unfettered which was edited by Shawn and published by Grim Oak Press. Unfettered’s purpose was to help Shawn tackle medical debt. Michael and Peter were among the contributors to this great volume. Unbroken has a similar purpose, this time in Peter’s interest. Shawn and Michael are among the contributors to this new book. And with Michael’s wife Robin’s experience, they are working together to bring it to life.

CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS

This is going to be a massive anthology (more than 200,000 words and stories from some of the biggest names in the fantasy genre). The full list currently includes:

• J.A. Andrews

• Bradley P. Beaulieu

• Carol Berg

• Peter V. Brett

• Terry Brooks

• Jim Butcher

• Delilah S. Dawson

• Matt Dinniman

• Kate Elliott

• Jessica Day George

• Lev Grossman

• Kevin Hearne

• Nancy Kress

• Mark Lawrence

• Scott Lynch

• Jonathan Maberry

• Seanan McQuire

• Brandon Mull

• Peter Orullian

• Christopher Paolini

• Kat Richardson

• Christopher Ruocchio

• Anthony RyanR.A. Salvatore

• Brandon Sanderson

• Scott Sigler

• Shawn Speakman

• Michael J. Sullivan

• Carrie Vaughn

• Brent Weeks

• Tad Williams

• Janny Wurts

That’s more than thirty of the top names in fantasy, all of whom we’ve invited to this AMA. We can’t guarantee who will stop by, but please consider joining us. We’re looking forward to chatting so ASK US ANYTHING! 

A very late update

To say things are busy around the Sullivan household is an understatement of epic proportions.  But I wanted to take just a minute to update you all on what's going on.

• Yes, the Riyria Chronicle books have arrived, and they are safe and sound in our warehouse. Unfortunately, they arrived when Michael's sister and brother-in-law were out for a visit - their first one in 30 years or so!!  So that put a hold on the Kickstarter shipping as once it begins, it's 18 hour days with little sleep or food.
  
  
• Out of the Ashes - Book #1 of the After the Fall series is in beta. It's running from Aug 16 - Sep 16 and we have copy editors lined up to start working on it starting October 6th.  The soonest we could get on Tim's schedule was June 8th. No official release date yet. A lot will depend on how many changes need to be made once the beta wraps up. 
  
  
• For those that don't know - I (Robin) have been deep in the middle of a brew-ha-ha with Audible - a company that provides the majority of not only our income, but the income for most authors. Period. Over a year ago, Audible announced the coming of a new royalty model, and I was excited by the headline announcing increases promised, but buried in the fine print is a change, one that hurts authors and  circumvents listeners' intention. In short Audible is taking money from higher value "Premium" titles—that people pay for—to give to lower value "Plus" titles in their all-you-can listen catalog. Audible themselves describes those second-tier books as "free." But when consumed with a Premium title, they have a cost - and it's the authors who pay.  I've been trying to do three things:
  
  
• proposing possible "tweaks" to this system that would turn something bad into somethng great
• doing what I can to alert people to the situation
• analyzing royalty reports from authors on the new model to understand the full implications of the change.

To learn more about this situation, you can review the videos below. 

 

If you want to add your voice to those who want to see adjustments made to the new royalty model you can use this link (or scan the QR code below), to sign my peition - 25,000 people have done so.

As some may know, the new royalty model started off when Brandon Sanderson took a stand and kept his "secret novels" off Audible until they raised royalty rates. He got a preview of the plan, and while he had some of the same concerns as I, he wanted to give it a try. Well, a year later, he's not pleased. See the video below which starts 3:05 minutes into it).

Brandon and I have been communicating via email, and Michael and I will be going out to Salt Lake City to meet with Brandon and his team to strategize and discuss "The Audible" situation and what can be done about it.  That will be happening September 10 - 12. I'll be sure to let you know what comes out of that.

• And last but not least. James has locked down the Kickstarter surveys and is starting to organize exactly how many packages need to be sent out. Because of our trip in a few days to SLC, we'll be starting the packaging and shipping on Sunday the 14th - that's about a month later than we had planned, but all that is above are the reasons why.

Next stop Baltimore!

 
The ship with 646 cartons of Riyria Chronicle hardcovers (both deluxe and regular editions) has left New York and is on it's way to Baltimore.  ETA 8/20.  Then it will take a few days for it to (a) get unloaded (b) clear customs and (c) be shipped to our warehouse in Stanley.   

For those who missed the Kickstarter to get copies of these amazing limited printings . . . 

You can use our pre-order page to get your own set as we ordered extras. But once this printing is done, they'll be gone. The first two books of the series are controlled by Orbit and they only allowed a very limited print run of these.