SPFBOX finalists - SPFBO 10

 300 contestants are being narrowed to 10 finalists for the 10th time!

Finalists for SPFBO 10

The Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off finalists are listed and and are being scored on this page.

The process of selection is documented here.

click on any score on the table for the associated review

Scores for the finalists: The Matrix!

	Fantasy-Faction	Fantasy Book Critic	Lynn's Books &  Critiquing Chemist	The Weatherwax Report	Before We Go Blog	Queen's Book Asylum	Philip Chase	Covers With Cassidy	Kitty G Books	Captured in Words
By Blood, By Salt  7.70	8**	6	8.5**	7.5	9**	8.5**	9.5**	7.5	4	8.5*
Mushroom Blues 7.70	8	8***	8.5	8.5	7	6.5	8	7	7	8.5**
Runelight 7.45	7.5	6	7.5	8.5*	7	6.5	8	7.5	8.5	7.5
The Forest at the Heart of Her Mage 7.30	8*	6	7.5	8.5	6.5	6	7.5	8	8	7
Oathsworn Legacy  7.25	7	6.5	7	6.5	8.5	6.5	7	9***	7	7.5
By A Silver Thread  7.20	7	7	8.5*	8	6	7.5	7	7	7.5	6.5
The Humane Society for Creatures and Cryptids 7.10	6	6.5	7.5	7	7.5	7	7	8	9***	5.5
Gates of Hope 6.95	6.5	6	6.5	7.5	8*	7	8	6.5	6.5	7
The Tenacious Tale of Tanna the Tendersword 6.60	7.5	6	6.5	7	8	6	8.5*	4.5	5	7
Wolf of Withervale 6.10	6	6.5	6.5	6.5	3	7*	6.5	6.5	7.5	5
	7.15	6.45	7.45	7.55	7.05	6.85	7.70	7.15	7.00	7.00

                   

* = blogger chose this finalist

** = top score blogger awarded

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Booklet of the Ancestor!

UPDATE:  It's live!

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DF7GTLGC

US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DF7GTLGC

I should really post this next week, but in a desperate attempt to have more than one post a month I'm jumping the gun!

Also, this should make the elite few who actually read my blog get that warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing stuff that others don't.

I've put all three of my Book of the Ancestor short stories into one volume and for the first time I've self-published a paperback!

This was a learning curve but in due course I'm hoping to try a hardback edition, and then, armed with that knowledge, I will do a US paperback & hardcover of Road Brothers, and a paperback & hardcover collection of the three Library Trilogy short stories.

Who knows, I might even find somebody to do a special edition for some of these.

Here's the ARC (Advance Reader Copy) - cover art from Francesca Resta (originally sent to me as reader art!).

The paperback releases on the weekend (31st of August) and the ebook is out already.

The short stories (also available in ebook separately) are:

The Devil You Know (Book of the Ancestor #1.5)

Bound (Book of the Ancestor #2.5)

Thaw (Book of the Ancestor #3.5)

ebook links UK & US

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Prince of Thorns becomes a teenager today!

Prince of Thorns has been on the shelves for thirteen years!

The book is now the same age as Jorg himself is on the first few pages 😮

Worldwide the Prince of Thorns has sold about 1,000,000 copies... and UK paperback has reached at least 30 printings.

I'll take the chance to say thanks - thank you to my readers (and my publishers) for letting me spend the past 13 years writing stories, and more than that - living in them. It's been an unexpected privilege.

In other news, I now have a Patreon. Check it out!

Check out the 12th,11th, 10th, 9th, 8th, 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st birthday round-ups. 

I now have 18 books on the shelves!

The most recent addition was The Book That Broke The World, in April.

Plus we have the short stories, Overdue & Returns.

Being a numbers guy as well as a words guy I like to keep track of things and record them for when I'm doddery and old, looking back at my 'glory' days.

In the past year my books have added 54,158 ratings on Goodreads!

The site has recovered somewhat, so I can show you the first page of my author dashboad as I've traditionally done.

 

Prince of Thorns -- 3.84 -- 116,437

King of Thorns -- 4.18 -- 67,066

Emperor of Thorns -- 4.23 -- 54,337

Prince of Fools -- 4.05 -- 33,373

The Liar's Key -- 4.24 -- 20,608

The Wheel of Osheim -- 4.32 -- 17,072

Red Sister -- 4.17 -- 58,711

Grey Sister - 4.36 -- 35,343

Holy Sister -- 4.31 -- 28,762

Road Brothers (both versions) -- 4.27 -- 3,176

One Word Kill -- 3.75 -- 20,249

Limited Wish -- 4.04 -- 7,531

Dispel Illusion -- 4.23 -- 5,915

The Girl And The Stars -- 3.81 -- 11,470

The Girl And The Mountain -- 4.14 -- 6,020

The Girl And The Moon -- 4.25 -- 4,527

The Book That Wouldn't Burn -- 4.05 -- 20,916

The Book That Broke The World -- 4.10 -- 4,728

This blog continues to chug along. Blogs seem to be a dying means of communication, with most people prefering the immedacy of social media. Should reach 5 million hits this year.

Twitter seems too big to fail, so my quest to conquer it crawls on! Look, Elon wants me to "get verified". He can get...

It's also worth noting that this year has seen the release of the individual 10th anniversary special editions of The Broken Empire books from Grim Oak Press (US) and Broken Binding (UK). 

You can now pre-order the special limited 10th anniversary edition of Prince of Fools from Grim Oak Press - leather bound goodness with interior art from the original cover artist Jason Chan.

Where things stand with my special editions:

Grim Oak Press

The Broken Empire omnibus - SOLD OUT

The Red Queen's War omnibus - SOLD OUT

10th anniversary Prince of Thorns - SOLD OUT

10th anniversary King of Thorns - 88 remaining.

10th anniversary Emperor of Thorns - recently released.

Broken Binding

10th anniversary Prince of Thorns - SOLD OUT

10th anniversary King of Thorns - 16 remaining.

10th anniversary Emperor of Thorns - recently released.

If you want to see how they appreciate, try buying a copy of the sold out editions on ebay.

Well, that's my annual stock-take. Over & out, until next year.

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Tempus fuck it!

In a few short days, Prince of Thorns becomes a teenager and will be the same age as Jorg himself for the first few pages of the novel!

I never expected to be an author. I certainly never expected this guy to pay off my mortgage. And I absolutely didn't expect to still be signing copies of the book in my local Waterstones 13 years after it was published.

The shelf life of an author is typically one book. Fantasy authors more often get a trilogy, because that's how fantasy rolls. But yup, not many of us hang around for long, and the past 13 years are littered with the bright flashes of many fine writers who came along about the same time as me.

I've said - so often that I'm bored of hearing myself say it - that all forms of writing success require large doses of luck. Skill at writing and at story telling are what buys you the lottery ticket. After that you need the stars to align.

It's easy to focus on the hyper-rare examples where the celestial alignment has been of atonishing proportions, and to feel a measure of discontent. But I'm constantly aware that so many fine writers have failed to flourish where I've been fortunate enough to make a living for over a decade now.

So, in part this post is a big thankyou to all you readers who've made that possible.

It's scary to look back at my bibliography and think that (with the exception of the Impossible Times books) each of those novels represents a year of my life. I have grown significantly older doing this...

People often talk to me about pride and about legacy, as if these stories are somehow more of an achievement than the myriad things everyone else has spent the last 13+ years on. I don't subscribe to that point of view, at all. Almost every book is a line drawn in wet sand and if the wave that will wash them away hasn't arrived in 13 years, then it's certainly going to hit the beach at some point, and sooner than most folk think.

I'm pleased and grateful that I've been able to share these stories, but 'proud' isn't a word I'd use. It's ... complicated.

Anyway, enough navel gazing. Just as I had no idea what the 13 years after Prince of Thorns hitting the shelves would look like, I have no idea where we'll be when the book reaches 18 or 21. Will anyone remember Jorg on the 25th anniversary in 2036 ... who knows. 

For now though, the ideas keep coming and the itch to write continues to require scratching. I've finished three books this year, and hopefully will have a 4th done by Christmas.

Thanks for reading!

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Special Edition News!

Grim Oak Press are following up on their spectacular leatherbound, signed and numbered, illustrated 10th anniversary limited editions for the individual books of The Broken Empire by doing the same thing for The Red Queen's War trilogy, starting with Prince of Fools!

The new covers and internal art are all by the original cover artist, Jason Chan.

Pre-order your copy here: https://grimoakpress.com/products/prince-of-fools

Here's a piece of the artwork - check the link for more!

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BESTSELLER!!

This blogpost is along the lines of a Public Information Broadcast. It's intended to explain, not to cast shade. We've all got to hustle in the writing business.

When you're looking at books, thinking about your next read, you may have noticed quite how many "bestsellers" and "award-winning" books there are out there. 

It often seems like every man/woman and their dog has written an international bestselling award-winner of a book. Which takes away from these words any discriminatory power they might have possessed.

I had an experience recently which puts some context around this idea of "bestselling".

I self-publish short stories on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), which puts them onto Amazon for sale. I was experimenting to see what it would look like if I published one under a different name - would there be any detectable ties to "Mark Lawrence", so I put out a novella I'd written a while back, a children's story.

I was also interested to see how a book by a new author would fare if they (I) did absolutely nothing to promote the book. So, I didn't mention this novella to anyone.

For 2 months there were no sales at all. Zero.

Then in the 3rd month one copy sold!

In the 4th month I noticed that the copy had sold. (for $0.99).

I went onto Amazon.co.uk (where the sale happened) and saw to my great surprise that despite a month having passed, the book was ranked #77 in the sales category "Children's Other Folk Tales & Myths".

I was a "bestseller" on the back of one sale a month ago. And these sales ranks 'decay' rapidly, so when it happened the ranking would have been considerably higher. 

Another week has passed and that single sale 5 weeks ago still has the book ranked in the top 100 in the category. It has a top 100 best seller rank on Amazon ... it is a best seller!

My book may be ranked 878,460th in the Kindle Store overall, but like most books, a subcategory can be found in which it ranks in the top 100. I sold one copy and forever more I can call it a bestselling children's book. 

And that's it. Just a bit of trivia for you. Why are there so many bestsellers? It's not because the authors are just making it up. They genuinely are bestsellers in some sense. It's just that Amazon makes everyone a winner.

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Cymera Festival 2024

I went to a fantasy book convention!

I was interviewed. And then again on stage - an actual stage with lights and backdrops and everything!

The Cymera Festival's in the heart of Edinburgh - a wonderful little city - and I had a great time. Hopefully, I'll go next year too.

Here are some photos to inspire you to turn up.

First, a shot from Armchair Books - the best secondhand bookshop I've seen! Easy walking distance from the festival site. Sadly, none of my books there - or I'd have signed them.

I signed books in the Waterstones on Princess Street.

In Blackwells they actually had my book in the window - something I've only ever seen once before (Prince of Thorns, back in 2011!)

I signed a ton of books for them - a great shop. Go grab some of them!

I did an interview with Marco from Page One Pod Cast on the Saturday in the smaller venue.

And on the Sunday it was an interview where author (& SPFBO champion) Justin Lee Anderson interviewed me and debut author Gareth Brown (his novel The Book of Doors is doing brilliantly).

And afterwards we signed books for all takers - it was great to meet so many reader. I guess my stay-at-home-iness has led to a backlog of my books out there waiting to be signed!

So yes, had a great time. Might see you there next year!

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