u/grumpybatman

Sins of the Cinder Prophet will be free for all to download on Amazon one day only, July 4.

You like wizards? Sorcerers? Warlocks? Zombie dinosaurs? Well you’re in luck, because this book has all of that and more.

If you want to read it earlier, it’s also FREE on kindle unlimited along with the sequel, Pact of the Nightmare Queen.

If you like it, leave me a review! If you hate it, you can still leave a review. Let me know what you think!

I've written a few chapters of my third fantasy novel, Herald of the Ancient One. If you'd like to.read chapter 1 and provide feedback, I'd be very appreciative. Thanks. Chapter One below.

------
One

Winter came to Glenbrook like an uninvited houseguest: quietly at first, then all at once and impossible to ignore. Snow fell in the night and by morning had buried the cobblestones a foot deep. Ice sealed the brook that gave the village its name, and the mill wheel froze mid-turn and stayed that way until mid-morning when the forge master came out with a bucket of hot water and a great deal of profanity.

The airship sat in the field east of the longhouse, covered in a tarp that Javari had lashed down with impressive precision and then proceeded to complain about for two weeks straight. Beneath it, the vessel was slowly becoming something resembling its former self. Argo had taken point on the repairs from almost the first day, shuffling out each morning wrapped in three layers of fur and a scarf that Big C had knitted badly but with tremendous sincerity. The dwarf would lower himself into the engine housing, bang around for a while, emerge covered in grease, declare that progress was being made, and then go back inside for breakfast. This became the rhythm of his days.

The others found their own rhythms too, in the way people do after catastrophe; not healing exactly, but arranging themselves around the shape of what was missing.

Stryg kept to the longhouse library, such as it was. Jarl Errikson had accumulated a modest collection of navigation charts, old military histories, and a handful of theological texts that the wizard had already read twice each. He supplemented these with notes of his own, filling a fresh journal with everything he could recall of the ancient dwarven ruins beneath Highland: the stonework, the enchantments, the ship’s arcane engine, the crown’s behavior, the armor’s response to Kotowar. He studied the staff each evening by candlelight, testing its limits the way a man tests a scar; carefully, with the constant awareness that pressing too hard might open something that wouldn’t close again.

Big C chopped wood. The barbarian had discovered on the third morning of their stay that the village needed a significant amount of firewood to outlast the winter, that the current woodcutter was a sixty-year-old man with a bad hip, and that swinging an axe required no magical consultation, no moral reckoning, and no conversation. He chopped wood from dawn until the light failed him, stacking it with geometric precision along the longhouse wall. The village children followed him around at a respectful distance, watching with the particular awe reserved for things that are both very large and very dangerous. Gubal rode his shoulders through most of it, occasionally pointing at a log and pronouncing it substandard, which Big C either ignored or agreed with depending on the day.

He did not talk much about dying. He did not talk much about anything. But in the evenings, when the fire was low and the others were half-asleep, he would sometimes take the propeller hat from his head and turn it slowly in his hands, looking at nothing in particular. Kotowar noticed. He didn’t say anything. But then, he was doing a great deal of noticing and not saying anything lately.

Kotowar had removed the armor. This was not as simple as it sounded. The first time he tried, three days after their return, he spent an hour in the stable alone before admitting he couldn’t do it. The armor had not resisted him exactly; there were no locks, no seals, no magical bindings that held the plates in place. It simply felt wrong to take it off. He wore it through the first week. Through the second. Jarl Errikson said nothing about it, though the maid who came to polish the longhouse silver gave the armor a wide berth every time she passed.
On the nineteenth day, Javari sat beside him at the dinner table and ate an entire meal without commenting on it. Then, just before he stood to leave, the dwarf said, very quietly, “It’s not yours yet. Wearing it like it is won’t make it so.”

Kotowar took it off that evening.

The crown he kept. He told himself this was practical. It was valuable, ancient, and someone needed to keep track of it. He kept it on a hook beside his bed and spent a portion of each night staring at it with the particular vigilance of a man who doesn’t trust himself not to put it back on.

Ziarius had not spoken to him since the voidwyrm.

He was not sure whether this felt like relief or abandonment. Some mornings, it felt like both.

For your consideration, the first chapter of Book 3 of The Summerhost Saga. Feedback welcome.

Winter came to Glenbrook like an uninvited houseguest: quietly at first, then all at once and impossible to ignore. Snow fell in the night and by morning had buried the cobblestones a foot deep. Ice sealed the brook that gave the village its name, and the mill wheel froze mid-turn and stayed that way until mid-morning when the forge master came out with a bucket of hot water and a great deal of profanity.

The airship sat in the field east of the longhouse, covered in a tarp that Javari had lashed down with impressive precision and then proceeded to complain about for two weeks straight. Beneath it, the vessel was slowly becoming something resembling its former self. Argo had taken point on the repairs from almost the first day, shuffling out each morning wrapped in three layers of fur and a scarf that Big C had knitted badly but with tremendous sincerity. The dwarf would lower himself into the engine housing, bang around for a while, emerge covered in grease, declare that progress was being made, and then go back inside for breakfast. This became the rhythm of his days.

The others found their own rhythms too, in the way people do after catastrophe; not healing exactly, but arranging themselves around the shape of what was missing.

Stryg kept to the longhouse library, such as it was. Jarl Errikson had accumulated a modest collection of navigation charts, old military histories, and a handful of theological texts that the wizard had already read twice each. He supplemented these with notes of his own, filling a fresh journal with everything he could recall of the ancient dwarven ruins beneath Highland: the stonework, the enchantments, the ship’s arcane engine, the crown’s behavior, the armor’s response to Kotowar, and roughly four pages of increasingly agitated hypotheses about Gubal that he crossed out and rewrote several times. He studied the staff each evening by candlelight, testing its limits the way a man tests a scar; carefully, with the constant awareness that pressing too hard might open something that wouldn’t close again.

He had not yet mastered the arcane focus. He had not yet destroyed it either. He was, as Errikson had ordered, working on that.

Big C chopped wood.

This was not a metaphor. The barbarian had discovered on the third morning of their stay that the village needed a significant amount of firewood to outlast the winter, that the current woodcutter was a sixty-year-old man with a bad hip, and that swinging an axe required no magical consultation, no moral reckoning, and no conversation. He chopped wood from dawn until the light failed him, stacking it with geometric precision along the longhouse wall. The village children followed him around at a respectful distance, watching with the particular awe reserved for things that are both very large and very enthusiastic. Gubal rode his shoulders through most of it, occasionally pointing at a log and pronouncing it substandard, which Big C either ignored or agreed with depending on the day.

He did not talk much about dying. He did not talk much about anything. But in the evenings, when the fire was low and the others were half-asleep, he would sometimes take the propeller hat from his head and turn it slowly in his hands, looking at nothing in particular. Kotowar noticed. He didn’t say anything. But then, he was doing a great deal of noticing and not saying anything lately.

Kotowar had removed the armor. This was not as simple as it sounded. The first time he tried, three days after their return, he spent an hour in the stable alone before admitting he couldn’t do it. The armor had not resisted him exactly; there were no locks, no seals, no magical bindings that held the plates in place. It simply felt wrong to take it off. He wore it through the first week. Through the second. Jarl Errikson said nothing about it, though the maid who came to polish the longhouse silver gave the armor a wide berth every time she passed.
On the nineteenth day, Javari sat beside him at the dinner table and ate an entire meal without commenting on it. Then, just before he stood to leave, the dwarf said, very quietly, “It’s not yours yet. Wearing it like it is won’t make it so.”

Kotowar took it off that evening.

The crown he kept. He told himself this was practical. It was valuable, ancient, and someone needed to keep track of it. He kept it on a hook beside his bed and spent a portion of each night staring at it with the particular vigilance of a man who doesn’t trust himself not to put it back on.

Ziarius had not spoken to him since the voidwyrm.

He was not sure whether this felt like relief or abandonment. Some mornings, it felt like both.

I'm thinking of dipping my toes into Romantasy. Obviously I don't want my mom reading some of this so I'll need a pen name. Any suggestions?

I am not generally concerned when deliveries are delayed. Messages travel, roads collapse, weather interferes. On occasion, reality may fold upon itself and forget which side is supposed to be where. These things happen, as you know.

​

What IS of concern to me is when messages cease to behave as messages.

​

This week's issue arrived three hours tardy at The Quiet Seam. The Nightingale carrying it was disheveled, exhausted, and in possession of a grin that suggested either magical influence or a grave lapse in professional decorum. Therefore, I requested, no, demanded, an explanation.

​

The Nightingale attempted to answer, but was overcome with laughter and fell gracelessly from a lamppost.

​

While this was unusual in and of itself, the pages themselves were more so.

​

You must understand, of course, that a courier such as myself develops instincts in this line of work. We learn the weight of paper, the feel of ink depressed upon parchment, the subtle difference between a love letter and a sealed warning long before the parcel is ever opened. Therefore, it was rather a simple matter to ascertain that these pages were, for lack of a better adjective, wrong. Do not mistake my meaning; it is not that the pages were dangerous, but somehow….amused.

​

One Loose Leaf drifted from my hands and spun twice in the air before landing back into my vacant palm. Another leapt into the air and folded itself into a crude facsimile of a bird to swoop down and light on the lapel of the fallen Nightingale. Yet another sheet danced around my satchel for some time before settling itself into the center pocket.

​

You may imagine my confusion when I opened the satchel to retrieve the sheet only to find that my satchel and it's contents had not changed in the slightest; the third sheet had simply ceased existing.

​

Most peculiarly, despite the absence of the third sheet, my satchel weighed slightly more than it had before the Nightingale arrived.

​

I do not enjoy when objects gain significance without permission.

​

I busied myself with examining the prior two sheets, searching for hidden codes, altered texts, predictive symbols, and other minute details.

​

I found none.

​

I did, however, find three words scrawled on the margin of the second sheet: “Lighten up, Silas.”

​

It is important to note that the hand in which this note was written appears to be my own. The trouble is …I do not recall writing this.

​

I pulled a match from my coat pocket and struck it against my boot. I lifted the flame to burn the page when the damnable thing began laughing at me. In my surprise, I dropped the match and watched as the damp street snuffed the flame. The page resumed its laughter more heartily now.

​

Your readers may interpret these events however they wish; personally, I deduce that these giggles that delayed the Nightingales are less an affliction and more akin to a symptom of something greater. Understand that messages carry pieces of the places they travel through. If enough laughter has found its way into the routes, one may assume that the routes themselves have begun to laugh back.

​

This is a troubling possibility. The Spine remembers travelers; who can say if a paper does not remember being read?

​

In any case, the issue arrived safely. The Nightingale recovered, and the dancing pages settled down eventually.

​

Well, aside from the one that is still following me. It keeps trying to fold itself into increasingly nonsensical maps. Do have a care to teach your parchment that roads run east-to-west, would you?

​

Silas Wren, Courier of Things Better Not Named

​

Postscript: To the Nightingale that informed me that my satchel “could benefit from whimsy,” do not expect gratuity upon your next delivery.

​

So I'm finishing up the outline for the third book in The Summerhost Saga and getting ready to actually begin the work of writing the damn thing. I've got a couple of potential titles I'm pretty jazzed about but I'm not sure which one is more likely to catch a reader's attention. I'm stuck between Herald of the Ancient One or Ashes of Victory. What do you all think sounds better?

Someone, or multiple someones, read 1/5 of my book in just the past few hours! Getting some traction on KU!

Hi everyone, just wanted to share that my first book, Sins of the Cinder Prophet is up on Open Shelf. This is an online bookshelf that allows authors to put their book information up for free, with paid options available for more feedback. If you want to see a whole bunch of books available from indie authors, check them out at the link I posted above. If you want to find Sins of the Cinder Prophet, hit the fantasy button on the site and scroll down. You might just find another fun read along the way.

This morning I woke up to 2 books sold overnight, 35 pages read, and we are almost to 100 subscribers in the subreddit. Despite the hate on my covers spreading like wildfire across reddit, these clowns have simply given me free advertising on my books by sharing the covers. It's a good day.

Hi all. After running my free book promotion this weekend, I checked my stats and saw a modest uptick in pages read. In order to widen access to a further audience, I decided to bring the price on Kindle copies from $9.99 to $4.99 for both books. Paperback copies will now cost $9.99 instead of $14.99. I'll monitor the data over the next week and share my findings soon.

Link to books with reduced prices:

Sins of the Cinder Prophet: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0H1VXLLSD/ref=tmm\_kin\_swatch\_0?ie=UTF8&dib\_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.0V6He0BOJk5ktxsL7TlMvA.JPXmkhrEbdwdBtmY5anEhpfYQbdL2SqvZyrJ8nC6yfU&qid=1780380299&sr=1-1

Pact of the Nightmare Queen: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0H34DXTCG/ref=tmm\_kin\_swatch\_0

I've been getting a bunch of questions about the results of my one day only sale for my second book, so I'm going to attempt to answer all the questions below:

I ran a 1-day free promo for Book 2 of my fantasy series yesterday (Pact of the Nightmare Queen).

Results:

- 27 free downloads

- 1 direct sale of Book 1 during the promo

- Hit #8 in Amazon's Humorous Fantasy category

- Downloads came from the US, UK, and Italy

The situation:

- This was Book 2, NOT Book 1.

- Book 1 remained full price (available in Kindle Unlimited).

- All promotions were organic. No paid ads.

What I did:

1. Made it crystal clear this was Book 2.

   - Every promo explicitly stated it was the sequel. I didn't want readers feeling tricked, but I did hope to get some bites from customers to check out Book One.

2. Leaned into the hook.

   - Book 2 opens in the immediate aftermath of a dragon/mad wizard attack. Instead of "Please read my book," I focused on: "This story starts after everything has already gone wrong."

3. Promoted in relevant Reddit communities.

   - Posted in free ebook and self-promotion-friendly communities (r/kindlefreebies, r/fantasy, r/indiebookpromo to name a few)

   - Avoided spamming unrelated subreddits. No need to burn a bridge or turn away readers.

4. Used local Facebook groups.

   - Shared in a hometown community group (~27,000 members).

   - Kept the tone community-oriented rather than salesy. Introduced myself as a local teacher/community member to leverage the local country bumpkin angle.

5. Created TikTok content (@lordnerevar95)

   - Full disclosure: I used Chatgpt to help generate images based on the character/scene descriptions in my books. I would much prefer human made art, but, I can always commission an artist when revenue trickles in. I then made 30 second book trailers with some hooks to catch reader attention. I also uploaded chapter one of both my books that I narrated in my bedroom closet.

   - Focused on intrigue and consequences rather than "buy my book."

6. Used urgency.

   - Repeatedly emphasized it was a 1-day promotion.

   - Posted "last chance" reminders later in the day.

7. Treated Book 2 as a reader magnet.

   - Rather than worrying that readers would be upset it wasn't Book 1, I leaned into the mystery:

"What happened before all of this?"

- The Book 1 sale suggests this may have worked. Awaiting further data as I check through the day.

8. Monitored results throughout the day.

   - Tracked downloads and adjusted promotion timing.

   - Most promotion happened in waves rather than all at once.

My takeaway:

I expected some downloads, but I was surprised that:

- Readers didn't seem bothered that this was Book 2.

- International downloads happened organically. I did no promotion in European subreddits.

- A free sequel can apparently generate interest in Book 1 if the premise is compelling enough.

I'm planning to continue tracking Book 1 sales, KU reads, and any reviews that come from the promotion to see if there are longer-term effects.

Happy to answer questions if anyone is considering trying something similar.