If you’re in Aurora, Indiana and need some gryphon books, consider stopping by and saying hello! We’re in front of the HQ booth at Red, White, & Boom today helping make 2019 the year of the gryphon.
Author: Vale Nagle Page 5 of 6
If you finished Eyrie and you’ve been waiting to read more gryphon-y goodness, I have some great news for you: Ashen Weald is in stores now!
This is one of my favorite books that I’ve ever written. This was also one of the most challenging books that I’ve ever written, since both me and my editor had health problems during the process. Thankfully, everyone around me chipped in to help, my editor recovered, and the book made it through just fine.
You’re probably wondering: Does it have owl gryphons? Yes, yes it does. Does Hatzel show up? Of course! Does Zeph say things that only he thinks are funny? Definitely. Are there floofy gryphlets? How could there not be?
And if you’re one of those people who finished it overnight and sent me a message saying you loved it… well, first, thank you! I’m glad you did. And second, Starling will be out the first week of August. Another round of proofreaders are rooting out any typos while I’m hard at work getting the fourth book ready.
As with Eyrie, all four versions of Ashen Weald launched at once: the Kindle version, the trade paperback, the dust jacket hardcover, and the large print edition hardcover with the cover printed right on the book. And if you pick up the paper version through Amazon, the ebook price should change to 99 cents thanks to the Matchbook program.
Here are the links. You can get all the versions except Amazon from your local bookstores, if you’d prefer, so I included the ISBNs to make that easier for you.
Ashen Weald Kindle Edition (ISBN-13: 978-1-64392-010-8)
Ashen Weald Large Print Edition (ISBN-13: 978-1-64392-013-9)
Ashen Weald Dust Jacket Hardcover (ISBN-13: 978-1-64392-012-2)
Ashen Weald Trade Paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1-64392-011-5)
Eyrie is free on Kindle until June 17th, 2019!
If you’ve been waiting to try out Eyrie, now’s a great time to get caught up with Ashen Weald coming out next Wednesday. And if you read and enjoyed Eyrie, feel free to let your friends know!
I just got an update from Ally (@RezzitGryph) on the Younce plushies and… they’re ready! Yay!
These three rascals should arrive here next week. You could be wondering: But Vale, why do you need THREE Younces? Isn’t that a bit greedy? And you’re absolutely correct. I may have something in mind for them.
So keep your eyes peeled here for a hardcover + plush Younce giveaway in the not too distant future =]
In the mean time, I’ve been hard at work doing what I need to do to make sure Ashen Weald comes out on time with Starling hot on its tail.
Ashen Weald is a thick book, which led to its own interesting issues. I played around with the idea of increasing the paperback and hardcover/large print price to make up for it, but I think I’ve landed on a solution that keeps the retail price the same as Eyrie.
So unless something goes wrong, their prices should be the same. Talons crossed. I’m committed to doing everything in my power to keep people who buy the large print editions from paying more for accessibility.
If you read Eyrie and you enjoyed it, definitely consider leaving a review =] I’ve had some wonderful reviews and blurbs lately (some of which made me blush), but once I get over ten, I can start doing some advertising/promotional things that I’m locked out of now.
This month’s gryphon giveaway is a paperback copy of Windsworn, the first book in Derek Siddoway’s The Gryphon Riders Trilogy! It’s YA and full of gryphon riders, saber-toothed tiger riders, and arcane-punk golems.
It’s fast-paced and was one of my favorite discoveries from the Gryphon Reading List. If you’d like to try it out—or even if you read the ebook edition and want a paperback—feel free to click the link and enter the giveaway!
Derek has promised three more gryphon books this year =] Now’s a great time to catch up!
The large print edition is now available. Nothing makes me happier. Even though the larger font and friendlier formatting adds a hundred pages, it has the same retail price as the dust jacket hardcovers. Wherever possible, I don’t want people to have to pay more for accessibility.
While you can click the link above to purchase it or give a bookstore the ISBN 978-1643920054 to have them order it, I thought I’d put together a couple of screen shots in case you’re interested in looking for large print editions of your other books. I actually missed that the large print edition for Eyrie was on sale because on Amazon, it’s hard to find.
If you look under the series link and above the main editions, you’ll see a link to “See all 4 formats and editions.” Click that and it’ll bring up a screen like the following:
Now, click the arrow next to Hardcover and it’ll show both editions.
And there you go! If you’re not sure if you’re on the right page after clicking it, look for the words “large print edition” on the cover.
While the large print edition is great for accessibility, I’ve had a few readers reach out and say they love hardcovers and hate dust jackets. The large print edition has the cover printed right on the book (“case laminate”). You can see a comparison of both of them below.
That’s it for today’s update. Eyrie launches in three days, and I’m still preparing myself for the launch. It’s hard not to be nervous!
Thank you to everyone who reached out and wanted a signed copy. I’ll have those out just as soon as the books arrive here. I appreciate your support and interest.
You may also notice the series page has two entries. I went ahead and put Ashen Weald up for a long preorder. It’s finished and going through proofreading now, so it should be out much sooner than that. While I can’t promise that you’ll see a new gryphon book every month for the entire series, I’ve been working hard for the last year so the first three books will be out quickly. I know there’s nothing that worries me more than seeing a book 1 without any sequels. I took care of that by waiting until I’d sent the third off to my editor before they started publishing.
In honor of my attempts to read 100 gryphon novels (I’m up to about 37 now) I wanted to give away another of my favorites, two paperback editions of The Gryphon Generation by Alexander Bizzell! You can click here to enter the amazon giveaway.
The Gryphon Generation is a little slice-of-life contemporary fantasy with sports (gryphball!) set in Macon, Georgia. I was actually able to give feedback on an earlier draft of Gryphon Generation and show up in the acknowledgements, which always helps my ego! As a bonus trivia, I studied computer science in the same city that the book is set in. Our hockey team was called the Macon Whoopee.
Alex is in the middle of finishing up the sequel and the cover art is a beautiful gryphball stadium, so now’s the time to catch up before it comes out!
I had so much fun reading gryphon books in 2018, I thought I’d give away some of my favorites!
First up is SONG OF THE SUMMER KING by Jess E. Owen, a young adult gryphon novel with a gryphon protagonist and a beautiful Jennifer “Nambroth” Miller cover.
To enter, visit the Amazon giveaway page here:
https://www.amazon.com/ga/p/2195802e2dbfed60
I’ll be doing a few more of these over the next month, so stay tuned!
What’s this? A wild gryphon book has appeared?
Eyrie releases on March 31st, 2019! The ebook is available for preorder on Amazon for $2.99. The hardcover and trade paperbacks won’t be far behind. I’ve had quite a few gryphon fans from the reading list ask for a case laminate hardcover edition (that’s when there’s no dust jacket, the cover is printed on the book itself), and I have some proofs coming my way to give it a try. If things look good, I’ll okay it for sale in addition to the dust jacket hardcover.
For anyone who wants to order the book from your local bookstore, the ISBN of the paperback edition is 978-1-64392-000-9 and the ISBN of the dust jacket hardcover is 978-1-64392-002-3. They’re both listed in the catalog bookstores use to order books, and I have some proofs on my shelf. They’re scheduled to be made available on the 31st.
The plan is still to release the first three books in the series before summer. Where Eyrie has been done since October, I’m spending this month getting Ashen Weald through it’s final proofreading checks. Starling is on its way to the story editor. I can’t promise all three will be out before May, but you should get the first two, at least! (I don’t know about you, but I like to start a series once the third book is up for preorder, just so I know I’m not going to be left hanging.)
If you’re wondering if you’re the right reader for Eyrie, the obvious question is: do you like gryphons? Eyrie has all gryphon (and opinicus) characters set in a nature-based epic low fantasy world. It has gryphons based on cats and birds ranging from peacocks to saber-toothed tigers, peregrine falcons to diving petrels, harpy eagles to snow leopards. If you read The Black Gryphon by Mercedes Lackey or Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker, you’re probably in the right place. Just in case, though, here’s the synopsis in all its markety-speak glory!
Gryphons, murder, war, and tasty fish!
Zeph is the craftiest gryphon in his pride. Living in the untamed wilds, he hunts in the shadow of the massive sky-cities of the opinici, evolved gryphon cousins. His taste for parrots leads him to a murder scene and a blood-stained notebook—a notebook the opinici will do anything to get back before he unravels the mystery at the heart of the eyrie.
Kia is a serious opinicus scholar with no time for gryphons, but when her best friend goes missing and only a strange notebook holds a clue of his whereabouts, she’ll even team up with an uncivilized parrot hunter to get him back.
When the peace that has held for so long is shattered, they’ll find themselves mixed up with curious songbird scholars, legendary cranes, murderous owl gryphons, mad scientists, and the cunning peafowl who rules them all.
Will Zeph make the sacrifices necessary to protect the life he’s always known, or will both their worlds crumble to ash?
The hardcover and trade paperback proofs for Eyrie have arrived… and they look good! As you can see here, the hardcover is only slightly smaller than a ground parrot—when the ground parrot is cheating by standing on two books. Seems a little unfair!
There are still a few hiccups to be worked out. The version that readers get when they order through Amazon is much darker, so the cover artist is figuring that out with me. And the proofs use the “Darkbeak” variant of Zeph, an idea we played around with for making Zeph’s beak stand out a little better in the thumbnail sizes that ebooks show up as in search results, so we need to switch them back to the “Lightbeak” version for the paper editions.
A question that’s been going around the beta reader circles is whether the hardcover should be a dust jacket or a case laminate. I’ll be ordering a case laminate proof soon to see how it looks, but if you’re reading this and have a strong opinion either way, let me know in the comments or on the contact form. If there are strong opinions both ways, I could make both available on different ISBNs.
Next up: sending Starling out for developmental feedback and getting Ashen Weald finalized
