Wednesday 30 October 2024

Road Brothers hard copy for America!

Here's me sporting a hardcover and a paper back of Road Brother - the American edition.

These are ARCs (Advance Review/Reader Copies) that Amazon will send an author to check that the end product is satisfactory.

This all happens through KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) for authors who are self-publishing something.

I self-publish Road Brothers in the US because it's more profitable for me to do so, and my US publishers have never requested that I let them do it (which is what happened in the UK).

For seven years I just published Road Brothers in kindle format in the US. Formating for paperback and hardcover is a pain in the arse, and I didn't want to learn.

Recently I went through the learning process to publish the collection of Book of the Ancestor short stories, Tales of Abeth. So I thought I'd finally put out hardcopy of Road Brothers. I didn't think there would be a huge demand, but I went for it anyway.

Publishing through KDP is a nightmare. It's very easy to fall into an insanity loop talking to bots that have ridiculous powers to freeze your account and such like.

I submitted the paperback and got an email back saying I needed to prove I had the rights to publish the thing. I responded by noting that they had been publishing exactly the same words in kindle form for seven years and had sold thousands of copies.

A few days later the paperback was released onto the site.

I moved onto the hardcover and got the same email. You can see where we are with that:

The bots want me to produced 14 separate contracts, all a decade or so old, to prove that the anthologies that these stories went into did then release the rights a year or two later.

All while selling the same words in paperback and kindle...

So watch this space, but I absolutely do not have the time to battle through with scans of contracts and shit.

In the meantime, Americans can get the paperback shown. 210 pages of thrills and spills with Jorg and his companions.

And Brits can get the Voyager edition in ebook, paperback or hardback!



Pray for me!



Monday 7 October 2024

Bookshop chat & signing!


 https://www.waterstones.com/events/an-evening-with-john-gwynne-and-mark-lawrence/bath


I don't do signings very often. In large part due to my disabled daughter's health issues. Currently I'm with her in hospital on day 9 of an unscheduled stay.

The only solo signing I've done is for Waterstones in Bristol, on the launch day of Prince of Thorns. Three people came. It was ... somewhat mortifying 😅

Here I am back in 2011, with an impromptu appearance from Stan Lee ... or a body double.


Since then I've signed books at two or three Grim Gatherings, at ComicCon 2023, and at Cymera 2024. That's it ... I think.

At ComicCon & Cymera it was gratifying to have long queues (less so for the folks in them), which I put down to pent up demand, there being quite a lot of Lawrence books out there wanting a signature.

But on a wet (potentially) Wednesday in Bath, as the late addition to John Gwynne's Bath stop, I'll need all the support I can get to avoid looking like Billy No-Mates 😂 So, do stop by with some books for me to sign if you possibly can.

I'm looking forward to meeting John - we've communicated on social media for over a decade, after we were both debut authors back in 2011/12 and both had very disabled daughters. But we've never actually met. So, that will get fixed.




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Monday 2 September 2024

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
** = top score blogger awarded



Tuesday 27 August 2024

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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Friday 2 August 2024

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,11th10th9th8th7th6th5th4th3rd2nd, 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

Broken Binding
10th anniversary Prince of Thorns - SOLD OUT

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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Monday 29 July 2024

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!



 



Thursday 4 July 2024

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.



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