The Fantasy/Sci-Fi Books Thread Book • Page 151

A character popping in here or there is fine but after wind and truth I need a detox from stormlight

 

Oh if you’ve read Wind and Truth then it’s effectively standalone.

 

Like it obviously builds upon cosmere stuff heavily, but it should scratch the standalone itch for you quite well

 

“Toc Younger. Did you truly imagine that we would say no?”

Just straight up floored me. A scene i had forgotten about and is now one my favorites.

 

I have an odd question for some of the published authors in here - I tried to buy a book that my library system doesn't carry directly from the author's web store. I purposely wanted to cut Amazon out of the equation. it had me put in my email and phone number and everything, but I didn't get any sort of confirmation of purchase or receipt or anything at all. is that normal?

 

I can only speak from my very limited experience, but I've done that exact thing to a buyer haha.

Especially if the author is indie, they're likely running everything themselves. (Usually even the biggest of trad publishers aren't doing a ton with the author's site directly.) So like for me, I've set up a webstore with a third party to process payment, figured out all the shipping and pricing parameters myself, designed everything, ordered stock. When I get an order, it notifies me on my phone/email, and then I'm responsible for fulfilling the order and sending a confirmation email and tracking number and everything.

There are systems you can put in place to do all of that automatically, but that takes time and effort and I haven't done that yet. So a month or two back I had an order come through, prepped the books, took them to the post office, mailed them—and then had an email come through from the buyer saying "I hope I did this right, I didn't get any sort of confirmation or receipt"—and I felt bad because I'd never set that up and I'm sure it feels like just throwing money into the void.

Anyway, more detail than you need, but my guess would be that it's something along those lines and probably pretty normal, just an oversight rather than some kind of error with the system. And I would guess that pinging them about it would get you some info, but that part depends a lot on their availability and time as well.

 

not too much info at all, that's super helpful! thank you very much. I can just be patient and wait. I don't mind. It's worth it to cut bezos out of the equation

 

happy to help, and agreed - all things being equal, I'd rather not have to use Amazon so heavily for selling books, but the sad reality is that it's far and away the most profitable and easy-access way for me to publish right now, so... we do what we can. That's a big reason I set up my own site though, so that at least I can start fostering more of a direct connection with readers and cut out more of the distasteful overlords.

Also, I know in my own case I've sometimes put off sending a confirmation until I actually have a projected delivery date, which can be weird and hard to predict, so that might factor into it. I'm sure they appreciate the patience on your end too haha.

 

I got impatient when I ordered your last two books and did get them from Amazon, but I'm trying to be more mindful of stuff like that and avoiding it when possible / preferable

 

Much appreciated. It’s a complex thing and I definitely still shop places I’d rather not, but at the same time, it’s not only better economically for people to buy my books from me, it’s just more of a fun personal connection, and that’s the main thing I want at the end of the day.

 

Finished the dungeon anarchist cookbook and I have no idea how the author could keep everything with the tangle straight when writing it lol. But great book, on to the next one.

 

What’s even crazier is I’m pretty sure Dinniman had said he doesn’t outline and kinda just has general ideas of where things are going but he kind of just wings it.

 

I'm reading 7 now for DCC and have a long way to go in that one, but so far, this may be the only series where I legit rank them backwards from latest to oldest for my personal rankings. Sure, there are series that get better, and the later volumes are the stronger ones, but I can't think of a single one where I'd go 6 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1 like I currently am for DCC.

After this, I am going to try to squeeze stormlight book 5 in (abandoned it - not to quality - just wasn't the right time to read it) before I hit the new books in the fall I'm pumped for.

 

it's an insane book (DCC 7).

btw, I got the eARC for Shadows Upon Time but I'm only a quarter into Ashes of Man on my reread

 

I'm famous



jk I'm sure he liked every repost of his post (or whoever runs his account did lol)

 

I just finished The Magicians and I'm clamoring for the second novel. What an emotional book. I really appreciated the gravitas of screwing around with an unknown world. Unfortunately I need to read a novel to unit plan. :( But once that's done, I'm returning to Fillory.

 

The second and third Magicians novels clear the first one by every metric. Both left me in tears at the end.

the show is a terrible adaptation, really, but a magnificent work in its own right, too.

 

So I posted this picture in a Facebook reading/writing group and asked 'which one you reaching for first?'



The results:

Death Gate - 9
Rhapsody - 8
Dragonflight - 35
Ship of Magic - 12
Dragonbone Chair - 14
Jhereg - 6
Magician: Apprentice - 6

No Janny Wurts :(

Guess I need to read some Pern?

 

I read the first three Pern books so long ago now I can’t even remember if I liked them.

 

I've only read The Dragonbone Chair but honestly those all look incredible haha I'm gonna have to pick a few of them up

they randomly have a copy of either book 2 or 3 in the Death Gate Cycle at my work, but not 1, and I've picked it up a few times and have meant to try get my hands on book 1

 

Yeah I’ve read one or two Pern novels but literally 25 years ago. Need to revisit those.

Dragonbone Chair is amazing. Feist is amazing. Death Gate is amazing. Rhapsody is amazing, though I never continued the series after book three, I should do that. Wurts is super high on my TBR, seems like exactly my thing.

good haul!

 

Barnes and Noble event today!

Unfortunately the books they ordered didn't arrive in time so I'll have to dip into my personal stock, which is already pretty low. Here's hoping I sell more than one book!

 

I woke up early this morning before the rest of my family and started this right away, and I'm bummed that I have to go to bed soon to get up at 4 AM for work

 

just lovely! hope you’re enjoying it dude!

 

sold out of all my books at the B&N event! Unfortunately the order they placed for 20 books didn't arrive on time so I had to bring the last of my personal stock. Only 11 books but everyone who bought one came back to have me sign it!

also my custom Legos of my characters arrive today lol