ChatGPT and Theft of Swords

Okay, so I  was curious, so I went into ChatGPT and asked: "Can you write a recap of Michael J. Sullivan's Theft of Swords?"

Here is what it said:

The Theft of Swords is a fantasy novel that follows the adventures of two thieves, Hadrian Blackwater and Royce Melborn, as they are hired to steal a sword belonging to a wealthy lord. The duo discovers that the theft is part of a larger conspiracy to overthrow the king, and they find themselves caught up in a dangerous political game.

As the story unfolds, Hadrian and Royce become embroiled in a series of increasingly perilous situations. They are pursued by soldiers, captured by enemy forces, and forced to fight for their lives against powerful foes. Along the way, they encounter a cast of colorful characters, including a cunning princess, a loyal squire, and a mysterious wizard.

As the conspiracy against the king deepens, Hadrian and Royce must use all of their skills and cunning to stay alive and protect those they care about. In the end, they uncover the true mastermind behind the plot and confront their greatest enemy in a thrilling showdown.

Overall, The Theft of Swords is a fast-paced and engaging adventure that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. With its memorable characters, intricate plot, and richly imagined world, it's no wonder that Michael J. Sullivan has become one of the most popular fantasy authors of our time.

I'm good with that. Not sure who the loyal squire is but I'm thrilled with "With its memorable characters, intricate plot, and richly imagined world, it's no wonder that Michael J. Sullivan has become one of the most popular fantasy authors of our time."

Orbit Works - but it doesn't. Not for the publisher, and certainly not for the authors.

 

Hey all, Robin here. I'm temporarily taking over Michael's blog about a recent development in the book industry.  As you may know, we have been published through Orbit in the past, and while both of us have benefited from that relationship, I think their new imprint: Orbit Works is a very bad idea.

What is it? Well, it's a digital-only imprint to distribute Sci-fi and Fantasy titles. A few points about them:

• It's a digital-only imprint - so no physical books are produced or bookstore distribution (one of the best perks about going traditional. I should note that in some cases, they MAY produce print-on-demand books, but even if they do that, they won't be sold in bookstores because the unit cost of a print-on-demand book (and the fact that it has to be paid upfront) doesn't work in the retail chain where 50%+ of the book's list price goes to the retailer.
  
  
• They don't offer advances - again, this is one of the perks of being traditionally published. You have a guarantee of income.
  
  
• They require audio rights - right now, these are the most lucrative rights there are for books. I have several "audio only" contracts in the six-figure range and one that is seven figures to turn over these incredibly lucrative rights to a publisher that offers no advance. 
  
  
• They pay 50% of net on ebooks and 25% of net on audio - now granted the 50% is 25% more than a standard traditional publishing contract, but given their up-front costs are so low and they don't have to shell out money for printed copies, it's still highly weighted to them.
  
  
• They pay twice yearly - this is the same as I'm paid, but given the digital only nature of their business I don't understand why they don't pay like amazon and audible - which is monthly.

Obviously, Orbit Works is targeting the self-published authors.  But no self-publishing author who is doing well would ever accept a contract under these terms. After all, they are cutting their ebook sales in half, and their audio sales by 15% (ACX self-publsihing pays 40% of net). Given that, Orbit Works will only be getting the "bottom of the barrel" titles - and it's nearly impossible to create a silk purse from this sow's ear.  If they believe in a title, it'll go to Orbit, but for works that they feel so-so about, those will be published under the Orbit Works imprint, and that means it's going to get a bad reputation for poor quality.  

So what DOES Orbit Works do for an author?

• Cover design
  
  
• Editing
  
  
• Distribution
  
  
• Marketing
  
  
• Audiobook production

As for the first two, self-published authors are already doing this now, and they can pick the artists they want and editors who they vet.  I'm not confident that, given how little Orbit is investing in these titles they are going to pull out all the stops for books for this imprint.  As for distribution, Oribit Works isn't going to have anything that isn't already available to self-published authors. Now, if they were doing print runs and brick-and-mortar selling, THEN they would have a leg up, but they already said they aren't doing this.  As for marketing, the sad truth is traditional publishing does next to no promotion for a large % of their titles, so why would they do a great deal for this second-rate imprint?  

On the last point, it is true that audiobook production is expensive, but self-published authors don't have to pay that for themselves. As I mentioned previously, there are a ton of self-published authors who receive audio contracts from the likes of Audible Studios, Podium Publishing, Tantor, Recorded Books, Dreamscape, and more. Not only do these companies pay for all the production costs, but they also provide advances - which Oribit Works does not.

To make matters worse, the head of this imprint recently posted on Twitter: 

This doesn't bode well.  Anyone who knows anything about the Lit RPG market knows that (a) they have been completely snubbed by publishing, (b) agents won't touch them with a ten-foot pole, and (c) there are a large number of authors that are pulling in many hundreds of thousands of dollars doing a rapid release of these types of books.  

So to answer Brit's question. The reason you don't have submissions is no one will buy these works, so agents don't sign authors who write these books. If you are trying to put forth that YOU want to be the imprint to break that mode, well, the structure of your compensation won't cut the mustard. IF you were making a REAL competitive offer for these kinds of works, you'd be coughing up some extremely high advances, and even then, most LitRPG people would turn them down because Orbit's lack of knowledge of this subgenre doesn't bode well for a "good" launch of a title in this space.  For instance, most LitRPG readers are using Kindle Unlimited (a subscription service - the Netflix of books), and with a few exceptions, traditional publishers don't release their books through that program. 

Hey, I get it.  There are self-published authors who are absolutely "killing it," and Orbit has its eyes on getting their hooks into that money. They are right to take LitRPG seriously - there is tons of money being made in a subgenre that is virtually non-existent in traditional publishing. But trying to do so with contract terms that are custom-made for the most desperate of all authors means they'll get what they pay for.  The authors who write well will continue self-publishing, and all you'll get are the truly desperate (and generally untalented authors) that would fail if self-published because their work is substandard. In other words, if all you are looking to do is pick the low-hanging fruit, you are likely to find that you have to pick up the rotting produce, and no one wants to eat that.

Anyway that's my two cents worth.

COVERS AND MAPS

(This post is in response to an inquiry made by a reader asking how I created the imagery, covers, and maps for my books. The question was made on Discord, but the response was too large to be posted there. So now, everyone gets to see the response whether you wanted to or not.)

First off, I had an art scholarship to the art school Center for Creative Studies when I graduated high school. 

Center for Creative Studies Detroit

That's not to say I learned much there, and only completed a year and a half before the money ran out. I was poor. I mention this to show that I planned a career as a commercial artist long before I thought of writing for a career. Later, after landing a job at a small company as an illustrator, I used one of the first graphic computers. (It was the size of a small kitchen.) No one else at the studio could figure out how to use it, but I was fascinated and stayed late at work (2-3am) for weeks playing with it and taught myself to make logos for the companies we had as clients. Later still, I got an early Compaq personal computer and began learning how to use a couple of new programs called CorelDRAW and this other neat one called Photoshop. 

I mastered these programs.  (Back then it was a badge of advanced achievement if you knew how to create drop shadows or create embossed text.) Then I learned how to use QuarkExpress. (The leading layout program--the MS Word--of its day. Everyone hated it, because of the tech support, but everyone used it.) With these three programs I founded an advertising agency of my own at a time before computer graphics was common, and printers had to be taught how to use the files. My wife took over getting the clients and I made her my president while I handled all the creative stuff as Creative Director. We had five employees and a beautiful office in a high rise glass building. 

Highwoods office building, the home of Spectrum Design

I did ads and brochures for companies like AT&T and a few global businesses like ABB. Mostly tech stuff. 

All of this is to say that I have a strong background in commercial art, and layout design. So when it came to making my own books, I had all the necessary equipment and all the know-how and skill. I had spent a decade professionally manipulating photos, learning how to use Bryce (one of the first 3D modeling programs) and basically laying out multi-page booklets. So making a novel was easy. I also painted as a hobby since I was twelve. 

 

A couple of pieces I did in college — circa 1980 (so before computers)

Now, to the books

I told AMI (my first publisher) what I wanted for the cover of  Crown Conspiracy: a castle in the distance and a river. I was thinking Alan Lee, but this is what they came back with. 

I was less then pleased. It was a thumbnail, but it instilled no confidence. So, I painted a new one and gave it to them for free. 

They liked free, so they used it. They liked free so much they asked me to do Avempartha’s cover, too. Truth is, I’m not that great of an illustrator. Marc is way better, which is why I pushed for him to do my covers when I went to Del Rey. 

Now, the maps 

So mapping Elan is a story lost to history. I created the very first map way back in 1989. I also had tons of notes about the world. These were locked up in my attic. When I started writing Crown, (in 2003-4) I searched for and found the box with all these notes and the map. Then—somehow—I accidentally threw it out thinking it was trash before I ever got a chance to even look at it. Yeah, I was pretty pissed. No one to blame but myself. So, I had to recreate everything from memory…starting with the map. 

I went online and found there was mapping software. I downloaded it and played. This was very crude software (that no longer exists)  but I managed to create a land form that was close to what I needed. Then I pulled that into photoshop and built out the rest.

This, however, doesn’t print well. So, then I had to lose the colors. Grays didn’t print either, so I had to go all the way to black and white.

I never liked this map much, so when I began the Legends series, I did a complete rework. This time I went about the whole process differently. I began with the real world. Avryn is about the size of Ireland. So I began looking at satellite photos of Ireland. Starting with this, I copied and pasted sat images of different regions of the world blending them together until I had what I was looking for. Then rather than go black and white, I simply made the water white, and faded the landforms to near ghost images so the black text would be readable when printed. 

I also created all the book symbols using Illustrator (which replaced CorelDRAW as the new Vector image draw program.) 

And that’s the story of the maps and a bit about the visuals and covers. Hope this answers your question. 

 

So What Now?

In the last couple weeks, three different people inquired if I had taken any steps to see that my world continues after I die. This gave me pause—like what do they know that I don’t? And what are they talking about? It’s not like I conquered three quarters of the imaginary world space and if I don’t father an heir my name will be removed from every stone pylon. 

I blame Brandon Sanderson. The man is forty-seven and isn’t certain he can finish all the novels he hopes to write, and has already considered what might be done if he can’t. Granted he stepped in for Robert Jordan, so he’s likely more forward thinking than the average author, but I can’t help remembering that when I was forty-seven I was just publishing my first novel. 

Still, this inquiry, morbid as it is, shows a huge interest in where I’m going, and what comes next. Readers have noticed that I have now finished the the Rise and Fall series, the “bridge” that more or less connects Riyria to Legends, and they want to know what comes next. After all, there’s no need to ask about my preparations for a postmortem future for Elan, if Esrahaddon is the last novel I’ve planned in that world. The real question then is…what will I do now? 

To be honest, I’m not sure. 

You see, I never expected to write all these Elan books, and I never thought I’d write another fantasy novel past the Riyria Revelations. I hadn’t set out to be a fantasy author. My previous ten books were anything but. I wrote horror, science fiction, coming of age and literary fiction. I’ve always found writing fantasy to be, ironically, limiting because I can’t utilize common-knowledge-free-association in the manner that is available in nearly all other Earth-based stories. And I was good at that, too. I say was because I realize now that this is a talent similar to being good at sports; the talent fades with age. Common knowledge is generational. I discovered that ten years ago when I wrote Hollow World. The main character Ellis Rogers was only a few years older than I am now, but his life experiences were utter mysteries to the modern reader who had no clue who Archie Bunker was. 

At around the same time that I produced Hollow World, I considered re-writing my first serious effort at a professional novel (one that I hoped to get published) entitled Wizards, which in the rework was retitled Antithesis. I originally wrote Wizards when I was twenty-three, way back in 1985. The main character was a comic book geek, and much of the story was steeped in comic book references. By the time I tried reworking the story I was fifty, and no longer plugged into that world, which had changed dramatically. In addition to other unsolvable issues Antithesis died the same death that Wizards had decades earlier. 

This doesn’t mean I can’t write real world fiction. I have a poignant horror story fully set down in note form and ready for me to start writing that would work fine, but I understand my options for more such stories are limited because I’m no longer swimming in the mainstream. I also have more than one science-fantasy novels I’ve put off for years. But…

Well, there’s you to consider, isn’t there?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle famously hated Sherlock Holmes. He wanted to write what he believed to be more respectable Historical Fiction, and considered the detective's death to have been "justifiable homicide.” His readers had other plans and pressured his publisher to persuade him to raise Homes from the dead. 

I don’t hate Royce and Hadrian. They are good, and now, very dear old friends. In fact, we all took a vacation together recently and had a great time, although Royce got drunk and made a scene. (This will make more sense later.) Given the overwhelming success of Hollow World, however, my readers appear to have similar notions about persuading me to keep going—if not with Royce and Hadrian, at least with Elan. 

I realize this. I do. And yet, it doesn’t factor in as much as anyone might think. Don’t get me wrong, I love my readers, but I’ve never allowed their desires to become my direction. The only person on the planet who has any influence at all is my wife, and Robin’s power over my writing—as she will tell you—is miserably limited. What’s more, she refuses to try because she knows from experience that I do my best work when left to my own devices. That said, she did convince me to start writing the Chronicles. This was just after the year-long failure of Antithesis and I needed a win for my own self-confidence. 

That being said, where did Legends come from?

Good question. 

I was on the fence with that one for a long time. I really didn’t want to commit to another long series in Elan, but the history was wrong. I didn’t want readers of Riyria to think the story of Novron creating the empire for the love a village girl to be the final word. I owed it to my readers, but I owed it even more to myself. I also saw it as a challenge. To build a new story with new characters in an old world where readers already knew the outcome, and still make it worth reading, was no easy task. In a way, it was like writing backward—a strange sort of novelty that posed a compelling set of interesting issues.

And the Rise and Fall?

That was just common sense. I had the beginning and the end, the lack of a middle was just plain annoying. This became even more problematic as I discovered new readers were starting with Age of Myth. Once finished with the Legend series, how could they transition to Riyria with out a bridge. And so, I wrote those. 

But now what?

If you’ve been wondering this, so have I, and it isn’t from a lack of ideas. 

For those of you curious if I have any plans for creating another fantasy world, sorry, but no. Why would I? I have an established universe, which is the hardest part of any invented-world fantasy. No matter what sort of story I wanted to write, I could place it in Elan and be up and running. Creating a new universe, at this point, is a pointless waste of time as I’m not about world-building. I prefer to focus on characters and situations, not reinventing the wheel, (which I already did in Age of Swords.) 

I have two choices. I can either lock the door on Elan and explore realms in real-world, or Earth-based fantasy fiction, or I can do something really stupid. I could take on a ridiculous challenge that just between you and me, I don’t know if I can pull off. It would require writing as many as eight novels simultaneously and would demand that I weave story threads at triple the ply I have been. Just thinking about it makes my head hurt and it would all but kill my chance at writing anything else, possibly for good. I also wouldn’t be publishing any novels during the time I was wrestling with this behemoth. I’ve kept up a pretty consistent book-a-year pace for sometime now, but that would stop. And there is the very real chance that after years of work, I might fail and all that time would be wasted, or like Robert Jordan and young Mr. Sanderson, I might not live long enough to see the whole project through to completion. I’ve already outlived my father by more than a decade. 

On the other hand, if I were to succeed, it would be pretty amazing. 

So, here I sit and ponder the future of an entire universe. 

Fantasy world problems, I know. 

In the meantime, it’s not like I’ve been traveling the world or playing computer games—okay, so I haven’t only been doing those things. I’ve have been writing. 

Drumindor, the fifth Riyria Chronicle, is finished—pending alpha changes and editing. It is presently a bit over 160,000 words—about the same length as Percepliquis. This means it ought to be available to readers sometime in 2024. So you have at least one more Riyria book coming your way, but after that…

You might be on your own for a long while. 

Try not to forget me. 

The Rise of the Readership

I write these Mile Marker posts because I imagine you are interested in what it’s like to have a career as an author. Sadly, I’m not a good source for such research. Granted every author’s story is different, but I suspect mine is more than your usual atypical. Maybe one day I will sit down and tell it to you, but for this installment I wanted to report a new development on the whole career progress thing. 

I began with one book (The Crown Conspiracy) which I sold anyway I could. I pushed them on friends and acquaintances. I begged bottom tier reviewers to look at my novels. I became involved with sites like Goodread’s in their infancy. I did tiny bookstore signings in my local area. I attended local book clubs hoping they would discover I was an author and ask to schedule my novel for the group. Robin and I did everything we could and nothing worked…until it did, and I received my first review from someone I hadn’t personally sold a book.

As chronicled in my 2010 post: Momentum I first noticed other people were starting to help me. That was the start. From there came many more mile stones. 

When I got a Wikipedia Page

When I sold ten thousand books

Goodread’s Choice Award nominations

The first post where I discussed mile markers, was in early 2010: I Must Be Someone Now which explains the whole deal with trying to gauge one’s position in a game where they don’t provide maps or levels. Even then I realized that the goal posts keep being moved back because the field grew bigger. From a puddle, to a pond, to a lake, to an ocean, challenges and opportunities just keep getting bigger. And so I keep track. 

The last major mile stone marker post was Mile Marker Nine in which I reported how stunned I was to find fans at a major convention who had come specifically to see me. The post wasn’t named Mile Marker Nine because it was the ninth marker, but in honor of the grand total of nine readers who came to see me—a record that still stands to this day. Granted that was in 2015 and I haven’t been to a convention since. By now I bet I could pull in a solid twelve…maybe. 

You think I’m joking, or trying to project a false humbleness. Everyone always thinks that, but remember you’re fantasy readers and have great imaginations. You have preconceived ideas that I am famous. I’m not. At least not in the way to think I am. There are moments when I see something online and start to suspect I am, but these are rare and always quickly squashed by the next thing I find. And I still have never seen anyone reading or possessing a book of mine. They are still in the bookstores, however, and I’m more than satisfied with that. 

Nevertheless, I have noticed a few new developments. 

Readers have begun to build things. 

Unless I’m mistaken, fans of my books are creating more and more online sites. I stumble on them by accident. The Riyria Discord site that I mentioned before is but one. Then there are the video reviewers that have held hour long discussions on my entire body of work. Not as a review, just to talk about what they liked. It’s like watching a late night infomercial. I should be paying these people—except that would ruin it. 

And then there is Riyria Explained, which raises the bar to a whole new level. Josiah Collins is a reader who loved watching lore videos on video games and fantasy series (World of Warcraft, Wheel of Time, Cosmere, Lord of the Rings), and so when he first read my books years ago, he was surprised no one was already doing that and it became a long term hobby. 

He started in 2020 and now has 53 videos that help explain my world and include theories that speculate about the future of the world and the series. He even has a nice promo for the novel Farilane with his wife doing a very professional job on the voice over. Thanks to both of you for that. 

Years ago, I was envious of George R.R. Martin’s famous fanbase who kept such good track of his world that he had been known to consult with them on details. Now this is happening to me. 

And so this is Mile Marker 10: Rise of the Readership. 

 

 

 When Swords Fall Silent

The body hit the floor with a thud exposing the third mistake Royce Melborn made that night.

And so begins the short story starring Royce Melborn as his seventeen year old self back in the dark ages of his Ratibor residency. As most of you know—those of you who are plugged in enough to visit this ancient blogsite—I’ve affirmed on many occasions that I do not wish to write about the youth of either Royce or Hadrian because by themselves their stories would be depressing, and more than dark. But now comes this. What the hey?

Of this limited elite crowd who continue to visit this ivy overgrown blog, there are fewer still that know how I hate writing short stories. (Even though I stated this only two blog posts ago.) I don’t like them because I write novels. The two aren’t the same, but don’t tell me that. When I was in high school I received poor marks on essays and research papers because I wrote them in story form. It’s what I do. As such, when writing a short story, I approach it like a novel with one exception. While I need to tell just as complete a tale, I must squeeze it into a little itty bitty living space of less than a tenth the length of a novel. This is as much fun as going on a weeklong ski trip limited only to carry-on luggage. It is then, in this less than appealing hole in the ground that I begin my rejection of the very notion of short fiction. Add to that the previously mentioned aversion to a Royce Melborn biopic and as you might guess I wasn’t much into the idea. 

I will now go way out on a brittle tree branch and say that of that tiny population that visits this blog, and know that I hate writing short stories, fewer still are aware that I have now written twelve, but that I’ve never sold any. I have however given them away. Usually this is for charity of one form or another from hurricane relief funds to helping out fellow writers down on their luck. If you haven’t figured it out yet, this then is the reason I do them. And in this case the cause is St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the criteria, as presented to me, was an assassin story. 

I could have tried doing another wedge-in to the existing Riyria timeline as I have in the past, but there has always been an important bit of information lacking from the Riyria stories concerning Royce. This project provided the perfect opportunity to address: How Royce got his name. 

And so, now there will be an even smaller sub-sub group of hardcore readers who visit this blog and know the answer to that arcane bit of trivia. For the rest of you, the ones who tried to do a search on the capital city of Saudi Arabia, you might consider a new short story about a young assassin who got himself in a bit of trouble. But be careful, for hanging out with Royce can be addictive. 

The anthology containing the short story: May Luck Be With You, is entitled When Swords Fall Silent. And contains the work of more than a dozen of the best modern science-fiction and fantasy authors, including Terry Mancour, Andrew Rowe, Marie Brennan, and many more.

You can obtain the anthology as an ebook, an audiobook, and for a limited time, a gorgeous high-quality hardcover print edition that includes character illustrations. For more information go to the When Swords Fall Silent Kickstarter, running now.

OFFICE EVOLUTION (PART 2 )

In 2016, Age of Myth, my 11th published novel and my first published through Del Rey, was hitting bookstores, and it was at this point I was starting to suspect this writing thing might just work out. 

As my books were paying the bills, I realized this wasn’t so much my hobby anymore, which in turn meant I could actually spend money on it. The first step was getting the iMac. I always knew they were good machines, I just couldn’t afford one. I had also looked into writing software and found Scrivener. But now I turned my mind towards a real office. I wanted something somewhere quiet to avoid being yanked back from where ever my mind was to the real world.  

Hemingway had his office in the top floor of his carriage house in Key West, where he went in the early mornings to write his five hundred words. 

Neil Gaiman has his gazebo retreat. 

Having retired from her career as an engineer/programer/marketer/company president Robin was in need of something to do. So I gave her the task of finding a nice quiet place in the countryside within a two hour drive from DC where we could spend weekends, and summers. A little cottage on a lake, perhaps. She found the idllic valley of Shenandoah, which is like the Shire  if it was as hidden and protected as Rivendell. Here, while she wasn’t editing or marketing my novels, Robin designed and built us a log cabin. 

Before it was finished, I already created a makeshift office. And as the cabin came together, so did my workspace. 

I tried all different configurations—sort of a trial and error feng shui. I thought that facing the window would be good, but the light coming in was a bit blinding, and the screen blocked the view. I also hate having my back to the door. Turning the desk around didn’t help as then the light from the window reflected off the screen, and I also had to turn around to look out. 

I eventually came up with this: 

But I still wasn’t done. Now that I had the money I thought to obtain my dream monitor. This led me on a long quest. I thought a big wide screen would be great. 

And if one was good, three had to be better.

Turns out, they weren’t. The resolution just wasn't there, and I really didn’t need all that screen space. Today, this (below) is the present configuration of the office. 

It is here that I wrote the second half of the Legends series, The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter, Nolyn, Farilane, and Esrahaddon. 

On occasion I do make temporary spaces depending on the season, which are sort of my versions of Ernest’s carriage house and Neil’s gazebo. 

I hope you enjoyed this utterly pointless slideshow of where I spend most of my days. If you did, please hit the “like” button and be certain to subscribe to the….oh, never mind. How about you just come back every couple years to see if I’ve posted anything else? Now that I know this thing works, I’ll see about broadcasting more often. Maybe even open a window.