*** Emerald Storm Release and Avempartha
Contest ***
For those that are looking to order signed copies of the
Emerald Storm. A page will be going up tonight. A box of
books has been sent and are expected to arrive tomorrow so
I'll be able to start processing orders. So just one
more day to wait. For those that don't know the book is
already live on Amazon.
Also, to my immense surprise Avempartha has made it through
EVERY ROUND in the Book Spot Central Tournament of books and
to claim the final prize just needs to beat out Palimpsest by
Catherynne Valente (a Hugo Award nominee). You don't
have to read both books to vote it's fine if you've only
read Avempartha. One point is given if you just vote,
two points if you state a bit why you liked the book.
Voting is open until 04/19/2010 at this link. I can't tell you
how much I appreciate all those that have come out to vote.
Especially those that have done it multiple times. But I
promise this is the last time. I'm amazed to have gotten this
far (well to even have been nominated). So far my books
have been in a number of contests but never a winner so this
would be a first.
*** Royce
and Hadrian meet their toughest challenge yet ***
Sorry for not updating my page in quite some time. As
I'm sure you'll be happy to hear I've been hard at work on the
Emerald Storm (final edits, proofing, etc, etc).
For those that don't know, Bookspot Central has an annual
tournament where they pick the top 64 books of the previous
year and pit them head to head in a "March Madness-eque"
bracketed tournament. I was shocked and of course humbled to
have Avempartha selected to be among such industry heavy
weights such as: Terry Pratchett, Joe Abercrombie, Brandon
Sanderson, Peter V. Brett, Robin Hobb, and Jim Butcher.
Imagine my surprise when Avempartha won its round one
match up in a landslide over The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya
Huff. Now it's on to round two and an even greater challenge
as it is pitted against Finch by Jeff VanderMeer. I am amazed
whenever I see my "little books" mentioned in the same company
as established authors from the "big presses" but I must say
it makes me feel good. I have no illusions about
"winning this thing" - but appreciate those who have come out
and voted - it might just help a few others become intrigued
enough to give the series a try.
Voting for the second round is open until March 25th, 2010
and you can place your
vote here.
*** Some
Sad News ***
Hey, Robin here hijacking Michael's page again. Last
week we learned that fellow fantasy author, podio book
pioneer, and social media advocate Tee Morris lost his wife
(just 45) to complications due to the flu. She leaves Tee to
raise their five-year-old daughter alone. This is
shocking news and I cannot even imagine what Tee is going
through. Tee needs a lot of help right now (A fund
raising effort helped him to pay for funeral expenses, and is
now extended to help provide money for a trust fund for Tee's
daughter -- Over $20,000 has been raised so far). There is
also a auction being setup with all proceeds going to this
fund. Michael and I, along with several others I
suspect, will be going to Tee's house today to chip in
with cleaning/packing etc. We have donated a signed a
set of Michael's books to the auction. You can bid on it
or a number of other donated items at
this link. I encourage you to make a bid on something from
this site, or just make a small donation. Authors from
"small presses" don't make much money for years of work so if
you can give...please do.
*** Best
Fantasy Books of the 21st Century ***
I was absolutely floored to find my name mentioned along
with the likes of Joe Abercrombie, Patrick Rothfuss, and Jim
Butcher in Ben Lingenfelter's article: Best Fantasy Books
of the 21st Century: Titles and Authors Worth Reading I
have no idea who you are Mr. Lingenfelter but you made my day,
week, and probably whole year of 2010. Thank you.
CLICK TO READ
ARTICLE | CLICK TO READ
BLOG
*** Dark
Wolf's Top 10 of 2009***
Dark Wolf's Fantasy Review posted its Dark Wolf Awards
for the Top 10 books of 2009. I'm honored to
have my Riyria Revelations (Crown, Avempartha, Nyphron
Rising) make this list.Thank you my Dark Wolf your blog is
always informative and your taste impeccable ;-).
CLICK TO SEE ALL 10
PICKS
*** Dec
24, 2009 - Crown Conspiracy Sells out of First
Printing!! ***
Someone ordering a book from me happened to mention
that the book was on back order at Amazon. This seemed
strange to me as Amazon always has the book (sometimes
it will go "out of stock" for a day or so as books are
being transferred from the publisher's warehouse to the
Amazon warehouse) but it has never gone to "back order
status". So then I looked at Borders - same thing...then
Barnes & Noble, and Powells - Ditto.
So I wrote an email to the publisher asking if
something was up and he said "Sales have really
accelerated and a few days ago there was less than 100
copies at the warehouse." By estimating sales from
Amazon rankings I think those are now gone as well. AMI
said they would start a second printing in January, but
that will take time...typos found in the first printing
have to be fixed, proofing has to be done, then there is
the actual printing and shipping. So I anticipate about
a 3-month "outage" for Crown.
On the positive side...I previously purchased 500 or
so books through my author's discount to have on hand
for just such an emergency. I've sold about 200 of
them so still have 300 here that should act as a
bridge until the retail chain is "re-stocked".
Amazon's current discount is 28% and while I can't
match that (their price from the publisher is smaller
than my price from the publisher) I will extend a
15% discount for a limited
time while the book is out of
stock. This discount can be used for any of the
books so you can buy them together if you wish. CLICK TO READ MY BLOG
ON
THIS
*** All three books in Top
20 for Kindle Sales ***
Kindle sales have been
brisk for all the books recently and at various
times one or the other has been pretty high in
the rankings. Received an early
Thanksgiving present today when I checked
the Kindle Rankings and found all three books in
the top 20 for Fantasy
(Historical)!!
*** Fantasy Book Critic buzz
for Emerald Storm & Wintertide
***
It's the time of year when many review sites
look ahead to books they are anticipating for
the coming year. I was honored to see that
Liviu at Fantasy Book Critic took the time to
put both Emerald Storm and Wintertide on his
list. CLICK TO READ
ARTICLE
"The
Ryria
Revelations series shows why
it's good to try small press novels too since
from the almost standalone first novel The Crown
Conspiracy (FBC Rv) to the
superb Avempartha (FBC Rv) that
starts dealing with the big picture in a major
way, to the very good, though somewhat less
satisfying because of being essentially a
transition novel, Nyphron
Rising
(FBC Rv tbp), the series has established itself
as a page turning pure fun adventure tale and
the 2010 offerings #4 above and #5 below are
highly awaited
novels."
Speculative Fiction Junkie has now reviewed
all three books. Some notable quotes from
the review include:
"One of
the things I mentioned in my recent
interview with Harry over at
Temple Library
Reviews was that I cannot
believe that a major publisher hasn't yet picked
up author Michael J. Sullivan."
"The
second half of the book, however, is amazing and
probably constitutes Mr. Sullivan's strongest
work yet."
"Nyphron
Rising is another capable installment in a
fantastic series. Fans of the Riyria Revelations
will not be
disappointed."
If you've been out to
Fantasy Book Critic recently you may have
noticed that Nyphron Rising has been added as a
"Notable Release" along the right hand side of
the site. This is a great honor as most "Indie"
books are usually overlooked and its the "big
boys" that get such distinction. Michael's books
have always been well received by FBC and other
review sites and it has been integral to the
series
sucess.
*** Great Review on SF
Site ***
SF Site is one of the
"big boys" in the fantasy review business.
So big in fact that I never bothered contacting
them with a review copy. Well, some how or
another they found Crown Conspiracy on their
own! Great feature review was just
posted. Here is some of what they
said:
"The
Crown Conspiracy is a well-written and enjoyable
novel. I was invested in the characters and
their travails. Royce and Hadrian's friendship
was particularly fun to read, utilising the
banter and familiarity of buddy cop movies but
placing it in a fantasy setting...Michael J.
Sullivan is an appealing writer and I'll be
interested to see where he goes with his writing
in the future...Sullivan is a solid writer and,
with five more novels in the series to come, he
has plenty of time to explore all the elements
of his world to my satisfaction."
Since its release a few
days ago I've been watching the Ranking on
Amazon for the Kindle version of Nyphron
Rising. It has been doing respectably well
- in the top 25 usually around 16 - 22 in the
category of fantasy (historical). Then a
peek saw it at 9 - breaking the top 10!
Imagine my suprise a few hours later when I saw
it move to 6 and beating out the classic
Princess Bride!
*** Fantasy Book
Critic Giveaway ***
Fantasy Book Critic is
giving away 2 sets of the first three books in
the Riyria Revelations. To put icing on the cake
they had this to say—"This series is a
favoriate of ours here at Fantasy Book Critic!
"
The contest will run through
October 25th, and you can enter by clicking
HERE. Good
luck to everyone who
enters!!
*** Nyphron Rising is
Here!!! ***
The original publication
was October 1, 2009 and as it approached we
modified it to November 1, 2009. It is now
October 11 and I can announce that the book is
officially out. I know that a number of
you already know that because sales rankings at
Amazon for both the paperback and Kindle
have been very good! It will still be
awhile before the book is fully processed
through the bookstore chains, as soon as they
are capable of taking orders I'll post
here. But for now you can buy from either:
Direct (save
15%) | Amazon
(Print) |
Amazon
(Kindle). Remember when buying direct
from me you can use credit cards or checks and
get signed personalized copies. (Plus I
get more cash (even with the
discount) as Amazon and bookstores take 40%
- 55% off the top -
Ouch!)
*** A
Blogging I will go ***
I've actually had this for
sometime (my first post was January 9th,
2009) but a number of people didn't know that
I blog as the address is buried
(a pun for my wife Robin who put it there) on the
contact page. Anywhere the address for the
blog is: www.riyria.blogspot.com and I generally ramble about
various aspects of writing, pulishing, and the
like.
*** Avempartha Reviews in High
Gear***
July is turning out to be another banner month for
the fantasy review sites coverage of Michael's
work. This time it is Avempartha and when it rains
it pours with 3 of the heavy weights posting positive
full length reviews (all within a day of each other!!)
Here's a bit of what they had to say:
"Mr. Sullivan continues to
impress. In Royce and Hadrian he has created
some of the best characters the genre has seen
in some time, and in Avempartha
he shows that he knows what to do with them.
These books should be in every bookstore and I
really hope that they are someday. The Riyria
Revelations prove that the fantasy genre is
nowhere near exhausted and that there is as much
treasure to be mined in its traditional forms as
there are in the newer varieties." -- Speculative Fiction
Junkie
"Avempartha"
is the second novel in "The Riyria
Revelations", but like the previous
novel, "The
Crown Conspiracy", can as easily be
read as a standalone. Also both novels offer a
delightful reading, captivating adventures and a
very interesting author. I am certain that I
will hear more of Michael J.
Sullivan in the future.-- Dark Wolf's Fantasy
Reviews
"All in all, Avempartha is not
only a great book in its own right, delivering
on Michael's promise to give us stand-alones
within a bigger story-arc, but it is also a
better book than The Crown Conspiracy,
showcasing Michael's crowing talents as an
author who is sure to become a Name in the
industry. :-) Well worth a
read!"-- Dave Brendon's Fantasy &
Sci-Fi
Weblog
***
Tweet Tweet Neo***
Did you know that Michael has finally entered the
world of Twitter? If you want to keep up on latest
happenings or information on future releases follow him
at: http://twitter.com/author_sullivan
***
ConCarolinas a huge success***
I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone
(both attendees and organizers alike) for such a
great event this weekend in Charlotte North
Carolina. We met so many nice people, including
some fans who stopped by to say how much they
enjoyed the books. We'll definitely be back next
year. This was a fabulous con which broke all
previous sales records for Michael's books. If you
are looking for a great con for the future
checkout: ConCarolinas
***
Two days and two great reviews ***
Wow May is shaping up to be a great
month! On the heels of winning an award two
reviews came in over two days that were fantastic!
The reviewers really "get" what Michael was
shooting for and wrote beautiful reviews without
spoilers that really give the readers of sense of
The Crown Conspiracy. Please take a look,
and post a comment on the reviewer's blog they
deserve to know their talented work is
appreciated: Speculative Fiction Junkie
and King of the
Nerds
***
2009 National Indie Excellence Book Award Finalist
***
The Crown Conspiracy was selected as a
finalist in the fantasy category for the 2009 National Indie Excellence
Book Award. This award is dedicated to
celebrating and promoting the outstanding work
of independent publishers and
authors."
*** Strange Weird and Wonderful
Interview***
The Spring 2009 edition of Strange Weird and
Wonderful is out and one of the founding editors,
Sharon Black dedicated 5 pages to an Interview
with Michael on his writing. They also
highlighted both "The Crown Conspiracy" and
"Avempartha". You can download a copy and
read the interview on pages 72-77 from
here.
*** Radio Interview at Story
Institute***
Each week the Story Institute presents its
"Rambling Verser" half hour program. The eleventh
installment airing April 2, 2009 includes:
***
2008 ReaderViews Annual Literary Award Finalist
***
The Crown Conspiracy was selected as a
finalist in the fantasy category for the 2008 ReaderViews Literary
Award. Criteria for judging is
content/originality, presentation/design,
innovation, social relevance, production
quality, enjoyment/impact, plot/story line, and
resourcefulness (depending on category.)
Semi-finalists in each category was determined
by a point system. Final judging was determined
by a jury of judges.
