USA Today bestseller!!

We did it!

Thanks to all the support of our great fans, and the endless hours of hard work by the many authors involved, FIERCE has hit #94 on the USA Today bestseller list. We thought it might be a close call, and have been biting our nails since Sunday night waiting for the list to be posted for the current week. Yesterday night fellow author Daniel Arenson posted this pic, and I nearly fell out of my chair.

Being a part of this bundle has been an incredible learning experience. This profession can be a lonely one, and it has been awesome working with and getting to know so many great authors. I would like to thank everyone involved, namely Terah Edun and K.j.Colt. They've proven not only once, but twice, that they have what it takes to put together a bestselling bundle. I'm constantly impressed by their organizational skills and marketing prowess. I expect nothing but great things for these Fierce ladies of literature. :)

*FIERCE will be on sale for .99 until March 31.*

Get your copy here

Check us out on USA Today

Want a free eBook of your choice? Join the mailing list.

Blackthorn Rising now available for pre-order/FIERCE breaks the amazon top 100!

Fans of Dirk Blackthorn are going to love this...

This book had been a lot of fun to write. Dirk Blackthorn is possibly my favorite character in the Whill of Agora books and I think it shows. Book 1 will be released on May 19, with book 2 following only a few months later. Blackthorn 1 begins a few weeks before Dirk and Krentz's fabled meeting on the road to Kell-Torey as mentioned in Whill of Agora book 2.

 Here's the blurb:

Fifteen year old Dirk Blackthorn has arrived in Kell-Torey hoping to make a fresh start. With winter on the way, and all but a rusty coin spent on his father’s drinking, Dirk sets out to make a name for himself in the city’s criminal underworld.

Krentz has always known that she was different than other dark elves. When she learns of a portal in the catacombs of her father’s palace she cannot resist the lure of freedom, and ventures through it to the fabled land of Agora. With Draggard and Dark Elf assassins on her heels she sets out to make a life for herself in the strange new land.

Destined for love, doomed by fate, Dirk and Krentz must fight for a place in an ever changing and often hostile world of magic, deception, and danger.

 

Blackthorn Rising available Here for a special pre-order price.

In other news FIERCE has just broken the amazon top 100!

As you know I was lucky enough to be invited into a fantasy bundle with some amazing authors. Well release day finally came on the 10th, and we have been climbing the charts ever since. This morning FIERCE broke the Amazon top 100, and is now hovering at #85!

Click HERE to get your copy for only .99. 

FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy is now live on all retailers for pre-order.

When I received the invite to be a part of FIERCE on Dec 26 I was both astonished and humbled. Collected in this monster of a bundle are some of today's best-selling Indie authors out there, and I am very grateful to be a part of something so amazing.
For .99 you get 16 books from multiple USA Today and New York Times bestselling authors. With over 1 million words, FIERCE is sure to be a grand adventure into the realm of fantasy.
Here are the links to the various retailers. The book will be delivered on March 10. Enjoy!

Amazon -  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U5CAAZS/

 

Barnes & Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1121316570?ean=2940151740364

iBooks - https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id965680228

Kobo - https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/fierce-sixteen-authors-of-fantasy

Google Play - https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Mercedes_Lackey_FIERCE_Sixteen_Authors_Of_Fantasy?id=-0_aBgAAQBAJ

FIERCE: Sixteen Fantasy Books for .99!

 

USA TODAY cover reveal!

Whill of Agora will be included in FIERCE: Sixteen Fantasy Authors!

 

 

 

 

I have been waiting patiently since Dec 26 to announce this! A few days before Christmas I noticed a multi-author fantasy bundle called EPIC, doing really well on Amazon. I thought to myself, "I have to do something like that!". So I contacted one of the authors that was in that bundle to ask how one would go about putting something like that together. The author steered me toward K.J.Colt, a fellow fantasy author. He said she and another woman had put it all together and they could answer my questions. So I went on facebook to look up K.J so that I could ask her about it, and to my utter surprise, I had a message in my inbox from none other than K.J Colt herself. You can imagine my confusion. Here I was going online to contact her, and she had just contacted me! She said that they were putting together another one, and I was on top of the list! How cool is that? 

(Sometimes the synchronicity of life scares me!)

 

USA TODAY even ran an article for the cover reveal. Check it out HERE.

 

We've got an amazing line-up for this bundle, and some big names as well. Here is the complete line-up: Mercedes Lackey, Michael Manning, K.F. Breene, Morgan Rice, Michael J. Ploof, Daniel Arenson, Kate Sparkes, David Adams, Amy Raby, C. Greenwood, David Dalglish, K.J. Colt, Shae Ford, Endi Webb, Michael Wallace and Terah Edun.

 

The bundle is available for pre-order now from I-Tunes HERE.

 

It will become available for pre-order on other sites on March 1. I will keep you posted in the mean time.

 

We are also running a Thunderclap campaign. The first 100 supporters get a FREE copy of Fierce, Sixteen fantasy books. Support the campaign HERE and get your copy.

 

 

 

Whill 5 and other news

Whill of Agora 5 and other news.

 

Up here in Northern NY the weather has remained at a consistent Freeze-your-ass-off  temperature for the last month (and I don't mean 30 or 40 degrees, I'm talking below zero), and it isn't getting any warmer any time soon. Right about now cabin fever begins to creep in, and I start to feel like I'm living on a spaceship. I've grown a beard, and I've finally gotten a bathrobe to wear around all day over my workout clothes to top off the my Hermit Writer look. Each day blends into the next, and every now and again I realize I haven't left the house in a week. Winter in the North country sucks a big icicle shlong, but it is my most productive time of year. Last February I wrote the first draft of TALON in 18 days. It was an awesome experience.

 

This winter is no different. I currently have 6 projects going on, all in different phases. Whill fans will be glad to know that I am currently 25% through the first draft of Whill of Agora 5, which will be the first of a new Whill trilogy. I am still toying with calling it Whill 5, or Whillhelm Warcrown book 1, since the main plot for the first four books has come to completion. There was a lot of story left to tell at the end of Book 4, too much to wrap up in that book alone. I worked on the Whill series for ten years straight, and when I finished book 4 in the winter of 2013 I needed a break. As fun as those books were to write, I had a lot of other ideas begging to get out of my head. Since completing that book I have written 5 others. I had a nice year long break from Whill & Co, and now I'm ready to tackle by best selling epic again. I've written about 300,000 words since then, and I think I've improved. I can't wait for you all to read it.

 

On another note: Many of you might have heard my announcement that I had been invited to a multi-author Bundle with some BIG names. I can't give you any names just yet, but I can say that it is going to be epic. The cover art is almost done (sick), and soon we will all be able to tell the world. All the authors involved (over 12 of us) are super stoked.

I'll have more on that soon.

 

I just finished my second draft of The Salem Coven: The Orion Rezner Chronicles Book #2  which I hope to release by the end of April. (Cover Below)

 

Trevor did a great job on this one.

 

In an attempt to ramp up interest in my new urban fantasy series The Orion Rezner Chronicles, I am trying out a new marketing tool called Thunderclap to promote my FREE promotion of Afterworld. The book will be free from Feb 23 - Feb 27 on Amazon. Through the Thunderclap, people (like you :)) sign up to have the same message posted on their social media sites at the same time. It's easy to join. A few clicks and your done. You don't have to do anything else. Just agree to have Thunderclap post it for you and it is automated. I have 44 supporters at the date of this blog, and need 66 more for it to even happen. If you could take just a moment I would appreciate it.

Click here to support the Thunderclap

 

I am also working on two new Legends of Agora books, tentatively titled Blackthorn Rising 1 & 2. This spinoff series follows Dirk and Krentz's early years. So far it is coming together great, and both book have completed first drafts.

 

I other awesome news, I have decided to branch out with Whill of Agora. It is now available on Kobo, iTunes, Scribd, Nook, and other sites for free. Once Amazon price matches the other sites it should go to free there too, (It is the only way to get it free on Amazon aside from KDP Select. So tell your friends they should be able to get it free soon.

Did I mention Whill of Agora is available in audio?

 

Check out Whill on Audible

 



If your like me and have an audible account, you sometimes forget you have a free download there every month, might as well spend yours on Whill of Agora. Perfect for road trips. But seriously, Graham Halstead did a great job narrating the characters. Check out the sample, its soooo cool.

 

There you have it. 2015 is a busy year so far. Until that snow melts I'll be in dreamland, seeing what new tales I can conjure for you from the Nevernever.

 

I'd love to hear from you. What book are you most excited to read?

The Salem Coven

Blackthorn Rising

Whill 5

Leave me a comment below. Don't be afraid, say hi.

 





Help spread the word

I've just started a thunderclap campaign to get the word out that I will be giving away Afterworld for free on February 23. I need 100 supporters for the campaign to go live. If you have never heard of Thunderclap, here is the get down: Thunderclap is a social networking site that helps to get the word out about events, causes, and all kinds of stuff. Someone makes a campaign and a message, and supporters sign up to have the message automatically posted through whichever media they choose (Facebook, twitter, etc.) So, on the day of the campaign, the message is posted for them by Thunderclap. All you have to do is click the link below, become a supporter, and pick which social media site. That's it, all done. If you could take a moment to sign up I would really appreciate it. Thanks :)

 Sign up HERE it only takes a moment.

Another spin around the sun.

The squirrels aren't aware of it, the dogs couldn't care less, and the crows are quite oblivious, but to us humans, today is a big day. Ben Franklin said, “Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every year find you a better man.” This New Year, I am going to make an effort to live by those words. Becoming a better you is hard, and in a society where quick and easy is the order of the day, where everyone wants everything like NOW, doing something hard has fallen out of fashion. And while getting what you want when you want it has its own pleasure, that pleasure, like many man-made things, is an illusion.

In my 38 spins around the sun I've learned that if something isn't hard, it is hardly worth doing. Without the chance to rise above challenges, failures, and defeats, life has no meaning. If people always get what they want when they want it, they will never be happy. In the end, the pleasure isn't in the getting, it is in the effort.

I've been writing for a living for nearly a year and a half. Three years ago I would have said you were crazy if you told me that. 2014 has been an amazing year for many indie authors. I have noticed a huge surge of Indies shouldering their way to the top of the rankings. People have begun to realizing that you can make a good living doing this, and in a few cases, a damn good living. The floodgates have opened, and the waters have become quite crowded. As hard as it seems for most authors to get to the top of the heap, the hardest part is staying there.

I believe that in 2015 an even greater surge of independent authors will surge to the top, displacing the publishing industry’s heaviest hitters and solidifying a platform that was once sneered upon as “Vanity Press”. The gatekeepers are a dying breed, and while they will remain in the game, they no longer make the rules. Readers, like all people, are growing tired of being told what to read, what to watch, and what to listen to, and I am honored to be a part of the paradigm shift.

The secret to success has always been staying power, and this will prove true in the world of self-publishing. There have been many changes since the indie revolution began. What worked yesterday will not necessarily work tomorrow.

In 2015, multi-author book bundles will only gain in popularity. The authors of such bundles are already beginning to dominate the top 100 author rankings. I have recently been invited to one such bundle which will include over a dozen great indie authors. I can’t say much about it just yet, other than I am honored by the opportunity, and extremely excited for release day.

More authors than ever will gain fast success, and just as quickly fade away. Being your own boss is hard, and self-publishing is no exception. Not only must you continue to write books that people want to read on a regular basis, but you have to worry about book covers, editing, proofreaders, marketing, social media, promotions, branding, and the dreaded five letter word—taxes. Not to mention getting health insurance cheaper than two mortgages…don’t even get me started. Not everyone is going to be able to keep up. You might be the best writer in the world, but if can’t do all the things mentioned above, and do them well, you won’t last.

In 2012 I published one book, in 2013 I published two, in 2014—my first full year writing full time—I published four. My goal for 2015 is six books. I hope I continue to write books that readers enjoy, because in the end, they decide who stays and who goes.

On an ending note: A big thank you to everyone who supported my books in 2014. I cannot thank you enough. I hope I continue to entertain you for years to come. Have a great spin around the sun!!