“magic school with teeth and rivalry, and an underdog with a mind of her own”
—Janny Wurts, author of The Wars of Light and Shadow
Tag: archived tweets
STEVE-Published Fantasy Blog Off
Written by
Delilah Waan
As of 2025, I permanently moved over to Bluesky and effective from 17 January 2026, I have deleted all of my Twitter posts due to the changed terms of service.
Some of my most popular threads, such as this one, I have preserved on my website (with minor edits, for accessibility and ease of reading) for posterity.
Back when I was working on a Broadway musical, I noticed an interesting pattern in the names of some famous composers: Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz, Stephen Flaherty…
Surely just a weird coincidence? At any rate, I joked for a while that, maybe, to find success I ought to change my name to “Stephanie”.
Fast forward a few years.
I enter Petition into the 2023 Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off contest and notice another interesting pattern in the names of the fellow authors in the SPFBO9 cohort: Steve Hugh Westenra, Stephen Wolberius, Steven William Hannah, Steve D Wall, Steven Paul Watson…
🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨
Presenting the thread that nobody asked for: every SPFBO entry from SPFBO1 through to SPFBO9 under a “Steve”, “Steven”, “Stephen”, “Stefan”, “Stevens”, “Stephanie”, etc in the byline.
—Delilah.
There’s 5 Ste/ve/n/phens in #SPFBO9. I wondered how many were in #SPFBO total.
BEHOLD the 🧵 nobody asked for: every entry under a “Steve”, “Steven”, “Stephen”, “Stefan”, “Stevens”, “Stephanie”, etc in the byline.
(h/t @EASchechter for the @Mark__Lawrence meme idea)
I’ll start with the OG cohort in #SPFBO1 & work my way up to the current #SPFBO9 to feature:
Author headshot (if they have one)
The cover of their #SPFBO entry (from ‘Zon or Goodreads)
An excerpt of their blurb
If I can find ’em I’ll tag ’em!
SPFBO1
Steve Thomas with Klondaeg the Monster Hunter.
“Klondaeg teams up with outlandish adventurers to battle lycanthropic garden gnomes, mummified Elves, a cybernetic bird-man, an acid-drooling wizard, & an army of gold-devouring demons.”
Sounds like a hilarious read!
Steve Muse with Heir of Nostalgia.
“A Gathering Darkness is…about a young prince cast into exile 400 years in the making, a throne empty through treason, & a country silenced by forces unimaginable.”
LONG blurb on GR promising time travel shenanegians.
Steven Roy with Black Redneck vs The Space Zombies.
“The Devourer and her Space-Zombie minions have destroyed untold planets.
Those worlds didn’t have a Black Redneck.”
Apparently it’s zombie/horror/sci-fantasy, so if you’re looking for a #Spooktober read…
Steve S Grant with Conqueror’s Law.
Listed on the original SPFBO1 Phase 1 page as an allocation to Tyson Mauermann of The Speculative Book Review, but no longer available anywhere.
Perhaps it’s been unpublished or re-released under a new title/byline?
Stephanie Caine with Stormshadow.
The pitch on @stephanie_cain’s website says it all: “Self-rescuing princesses, woman pirates, stormwitches…oh, and maybe the end of the world.”
BRB, adding this to my #TBR rn.
@EJStevensAuthor with Burning Bright.
“Things aren’t going well at the offices of Private Eye. Demon problems, pyromaniacal imps, out of control powers attracting the attn of both the Seelie & Unseelie courts.”
YA UF/PNR which is not my thing. Maybe it’s yours?
Anthony Stevens with Shifter Shadows.
“From the dawn of prehistory to an apocalyptic day after tomorrow, shifters and their friends have been in the background of every historical event.”
V. eclectic body of work & impressive creds in psychology per GR. 🤯
Steve Diamond from @ElitistReviews wasn’t an entrant; he was a judge! He’s also the author of Residue:
“Residue follows 17-year-old Jack Bishop after his father is abducted & a monster is let loose in his small town.”
A horror/thriller fantasy for #Spooktober.
The tally so far, in descending order of frequency:
…and I thought 5 in #SPFBO9 was a lot! Anyway. Onwards to #SPFBO2.
SPFBO2
Steve Turnbull with Elona: Patterner’s Path.
“Prophecy says ten-year-old Lady Elona of Faerholme will defeat an invading army…After 6 yrs of political manoevring, Elona’s carefully planned future shatters into a waking nightmare.”
Epic/Sword & Sorcery!
That’s all for #SPFBO2, unless we count Steve Diamond as a judge again. (Nope, no double counting individuals across years!)
“Flame-wielding warriors have been the last line of defense against the nightmare creatures of the World Apart. But their light is fading, & few remain…”
By a kickboxing & karate champ? The fight scenes must ROCK!
Stephan Morse (@FrustratedEgo) with Once Lost Lords.
Paraphrased blurb: Jay, a gang enforcer w/a vamp ex-gf & a troublemaking friend, tries to prove he’s still got his edge by collecting an overdue debt from some elf. Discovers he might not be human?
Looks UF!
Brian D. Anderson & Steven Savile with Akiri: The Scepter of Xarbaal.
“Those who dare test their will against [the Scepter]’s ancient evil are doomed to madness.”
Apparently has dragons?!
BTW @StevenSavile has written for Doctor Who, Stargate, & Warhammer.
R.A. Steffan with The Lion Mistress.
“The gods promised her a savior. The gods are a bunch of lying bastards.”
🤩 dat tagline!
From @RA_Steffan’s bio: families of choice, profound friendships, adventure, danger, good > evil. Lots of sex (mostly non-vanilla).
@stephanie_cain is back with Shades of Circle City.
UF set in Indianapolis, Indiana. Reader described as “a love letter to Indianapolis”.
Last line of the blurb: “Catch the crook, get the guy, & say a few Hail Marys just to be safe.”
Steven Harper Piziks (@StevenPiziks) with Danny.
“Can a teenager use the power of a god?”
Paraphrased ‘Zon review: UF retelling of Ganymede interwoven with the story of Danny, a teen whose single mother moves in with a pornographer.
Blurb has some dark stuff!
Steven Laidlaw (@theRealLaidlaw) with Pulse.
“Since terrorist attacks gave the military power to act on US soil, it’s made life hard for [pickpocket Alexandra Murray].”
@kittygbooks described it on GR as a fast paced spy thriller. YA dystopian by a fellow 🇦🇺!
Cumulative total to #SPFBO3:
5x “Steve” (4 entrants; 1 judge) 5x “Steven” 2x “Stevens” 1x “Stephanie” (2 entries in 2 yrs by same author) 1x “Stephan” 1x “Steffan”
15x total variants
A big increase in the no. of individuals going by “Steven”!
David Joel Stevenson with Victor Boone Will Save Us.
Blurb is GOLD but too long to post. Basically: insecure, overweight Robby Willis uses hunky hulk Victor Boone as his superhero beard but the dude’s been murdered.
BTW @geekoffgrid is also a singer/songwriter!
Steve Thomas returns with something v. diff to his #SPFBO1—The Sangrook Saga, a dark fantasy/horror.
“…warlords, necromancers, demon-worshipers, torturers, & monsters. The Sangrooks ruled half the world before they were defeated, but they were not eradicated.”
Jane Barlow Funk & Steven Boivie with The Pendant Path.
“Two teenagers. Two parallel worlds. Destined never to meet until they stumble upon the secret of the pendant path.”
Looks like a YA portal/urban fantasy!
Steve McKinnon with Symphony of the Wind.
“A bounty hunter with a death wish. A girl with fearsome powers. A kingdom on the brink of destruction.”
@SHRMcKinnon pitches it as: gritty epic fantasy with hardened heroes, thrilling action, dark magic & monsters!
Steve Rodgers with City of Shards.
Author pitches this series as “the story of a childhood left behind, a reconciliation with one terrible mistake from the past, and a quest for love ripped away.”
Has a messenger of the Demon Lord as the protag—pretty cool!
Steven Smith (@dragonsreclaim) with Dragon’s Reclaim.
I’m struggling to parse the blurb. Looks like the world united against dragons, then one kingdom tried to swallow the rest post-victory & story deals with that fallout.
Psst—@Nancy Foster 💉🇲🇽 gave it 4⭐️ on GR!
Stephan Morse (@FrustratedEgo) returns with Continue Online.
“[Grant] dives in headfirst [to an Ultimate Edition of Continue Online, playing as] an NPC deserving of a proper send off. What he discovers…shakes him to his very core.”
Looks like GameLit/LitRPG!
Stephen J. Coey with Scorpion’s Sting.
Paraphrased blurb: A wannabe hero, a jokester axeman, & a farmer on a quest are entangled by a prophecy that says one of them will die.
Free on Smashwords!
(Sorry @StephenCoey for the bar joke pitch; I am bad at this 😅)
21x total variants, several of whom have entered multiple times across multiple years!
SPFBO5
Robin Stephen with Brinlin Isle.
No idea how to summarize the blurb but this has tiny, water dwelling mythical creatures that humans can bond for magical powers.
Robin also writes cowboy horse romances under Stefani Wilder. Does that count for 2x points??
Steven Smith returns with Edgehaven.
It’s a missing person mystery in a seaside town on the west coast of the British Isles, with another 4⭐️ review on GR from @Nancy Foster 💉🇲🇽, who described it as “a [standalone] supernatural thriller”.
Another #Spooktober read!
Steve Turnbull (@adaddinsane) with The Dragons of Esternes.
“What value is freedom when you can’t even ride a dragon?”
Protag is Kantees, a slave responsible for the care of a racing dragon. How’s that for intriguing?
Stephanie Burgis (@stephanieburgis) with Snowspelled.
Blurb summary: first woman magician is snowed in with bickering gent magicians, lady pols, interfering family, & her stubborn ex-fiancé, while an evil elf-lord lurks outside. Oh BTW she’s lost her magic.
Stephan Morse (@FrustratedEgo) returns again with Hound of the Mountain.
“The weight of the world shouldn’t rest on a 17-year-old’s shoulders, but that’s what it feels like for Chase Craig.”
A rescue quest + tournament to join a band of monster hunters!
21x total, plus an hon. mention for one entrant’s alt pen name “Stefani” in another genre
SPFBO6
Stephen Murray with The Longest Shadow.
Blurb summary: the paths of a disgraced general, The Stillborn King, a spy-in-training converge in a succession crisis & a confrontation with ancient terrors.
@Fantasy-Faction’s review says there be gryphons & a giant 🐢!
Steve Thomas returns again with Mid-Lich Crisis.
“An evil wizard has a midlife crisis. Is trying to sacrifice your estranged wife to a bloodthirsty demon an irredeemable act of evil?”
BRB, sending this to an author I know with a WIP titled “Resting Lich Face”.
Anthony Stevens re-entered Shifter Shadows.
…which is, uh, a bit of a surprise. Including this for completeness but not gonna increment the counter.
Stephanie Barr with The Curse of the Jenri.
“Jenri women, every one from the eldest archivist to the smallest babe, strike fear into battle-hardened mercenary hearts.”
Looks like sword & sorcery!
PS: GUYS @Stephanieebarr is a FULL-TIME 🚀 SCIENTIST!!
Stephen James Wright with The Ninth Knight.
Middle-aged knight & 7 companions go on a quest which is hijacked by a mystery 9th knight.
Bio is v. apropos: “@SteveJWright1 uses his full name on his books, but has been described as one of nature’s Steves.” 😂🤣
Steven Smith (@dragonsreclaim) returns with Kingdom of Aces.
According to FB page: “Medieval fast-paced fantasy…Who dies and who rules, their fate is in your hands. Choose Ruby or Ebony.”
Is…is this CYOA fantasy in split novel form? 👀 STEVEN I HAVE Q’s!
Steve Curry with Austin Wyrd.
Magnus is a bouncer at a goth & heavy metal bar who gets caught up in a police investigation of a ritualistic looking murder. He’s also got a psychotic ex-gf with mystical powers & an immortal, vengeful ex-employer.
A Norse UF!
Stephen J. Ethier (@stephenjethier) with The Void Revealed.
From a GR review: “Ancient airships, a crumbling theocracy, and a savage world…Elise, a female Aspirant groomed to save the order, is stranded in an orchestrated accident…”
A sci-fantasy adventure!
Shaun Paul Stevens (@spstevenswriter) with Nether Light.
“A gritty, heart-wrenching tale of high magic and high stakes, loves lost and friendships gained, set in an oil-lit, 18th century world.”
Features a refugee protag and his brother in enemy territory.
This is a strange list lol. Honoured to be in at no. 45…
Delilah Waan
@delilahwaan
It is! 😂 The subject came up randomly today and when I thought about it, I was like, no way, there’s 5 Steves in our cohort, that’s a weird coincidence & then I had to know.
Now I hope somebody (not me) does the same exercise for another name, like maybe “Mark” or “James”.
30x total variants. Look at that jump in the number of people going by “Stephen”!
SPFBO7
Brian D. Anderson & Steven Savile (@StevenSavile) follow up their #SPFBO3 entry with Akiri: Sands of Darkness.
“[Akiri] has turned his back on the gods and their schemes…But the gods will not be so easily ignored.”
🔥 THAT COVER!
Stephanie C. Marks with Stone Magus.
A story about half-elf mage sisters. @LynnsBooks called it a PNR/fantasy romance that focuses on three characters & their relationships with “a very unique twist”.
@SCMarks5 also happens to have THREE degrees in biology. 🤯
Stephen Rice (@writing_steve) with A Handful of Souls.
“Lark has been kidnapped by a spirit worker who can raise the dead. His sisters must travel to rescue him, pursued by a giant with a bleeding grin and guided by a liar.”
Feat. dark humor, violence & whisky!
David Stephenson with Enemy Unknown.
“It took murder for Selvorne to learn his entire life was a necessary lie. One that must continue, if he wishes to live.”
The Amazon page lists David as both author & illustrator so I’m guessing the cover is his art! 👨🏻🎨
33x total variants so far. I’m kind of astounded by how many of you there are!
Stephen Taylor with Candle and Claw.
“Giovel Ullin’s job is to stop witches from crafting experimental magic & destroying the world. It’s a job he never wanted…Packed with hard magic, nuanced characters, & epic conflicts.”
PS: @staylortay is a fellow muso 🎻
Steven Smith returns yet again with Cutthroats and Traitors.
🏴☠️ Pirates on an “alcohol-induced lawbreaking” bender!
Pretty sure @Steven Smith holds the record for “Steven with most #SPFBO entries” at 4 entries! (#SPFBO4, #SPFBO5, #SPFBO6, & SPFBO8.)
Steven Rudy with The Binding Tempest.
“Wheel of Time meets Indiana Jones saga that injects steampunk into High Fantasy.”
@MysticPeddler, please give me book pitching lessons, because yours is awesome.
Shaun Paul Stevens returns with Servant of the Lesser Good.
Feat. a hell-raising virtuoso harpist/socialite whose maid is dead set on stopping her impending marriage to a count.
Also OMG the climax is a harp recital? 🎵
@spstevenswriter I am intrigued.
Stephanie Burgis (@stephanieburgis) returns with Scales and Sensibility.
“A frothy Regency rom-com full of pet dragons and magical misadventures.”
NGL, this is on my #TBR even though Regency romance is really not my thing b/c Austen with 🐉 like come on.
Stephanie Caye (@kittensyay) with The Flaws of Gravity.
“The existence of tequila is at stake.”
That’s as far as I got before I went “OH NO, I MUST KNOW MORE!” (2nd line: “Oh, and humanity too.” B/c Faerie takeover.)
UF is not my thing but tequila totally is.
Steve McHugh (@StevejMchugh) with No Gods, Only Monsters.
“When an old friend arrives looking for help, Diana finds herself thrust back into her old life, and old problems.”
Diana as in the Roman goddess of hunt. Looks like a Roman mythical fantasy!
42x total variants. The Steves win, unless you group “Steven” & “Stevens” together 😂
Disclaimer re: completeness b/c of my ex-auditor brain:
I did not do a full search across the 9 years to see if we had more Steve-judges besides Steve Diamond.
Also didn’t check S initial authors for Stevie-ness.
Am surprised we did not, in fact, have any “Stevies”
Am also shocked we didn’t have any “Stefans” though there was a “Stefani” that I can’t count because that was for a non-fantasy pen name of an #SPFBO entrant.
BTW Steves: is the “Steve” in your byline an abbreviation for a longer name or is it the full name you go by?
Fascinating thread! And thanks for the shout out. Will next year’s #SPFBO be the first populated entirely by Steves? 🤔
A small request to @Mark__Lawrence and the judges: if there is a Steve takeover of #SPFBO10, any chance you can put them all in the same allocation next year? Just for giggles and so us non-Steve authors stand a chance…
Song of the Mysteries by Janny Wurts: Live Reaction (Part II)
Written by
Delilah Waan
Part II of my live-tweeted readalong/reaction Twitter thread to the release of Song of the Mysteries by Janny Wurts.
As of 2025, I permanently moved over to Bluesky and effective from 17 January 2026, I have deleted all of my Twitter posts due to the changed terms of service.
Some of my most popular threads, such as this one, I have preserved on my website (with minor edits, for accessibility and ease of reading) for posterity.
I will be forever proud of the fact that Janny Wurts herself enjoyed my posting so much that she had this reaction:
Follow along if you’re also reading; I wanna know YOUR thoughts.
If you’re not, well, follow along anyway and cackle as I get emotionally wrecked.
Then buy yourself a copy so you can experience the same. Let’s go!
I should probably be sleeping but I CAN’T I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS next in Song of the Mysteries because the last chapter left me on a HELL of a cliffhanger.
Page 191 / 23%: whew. That was some payoff. And this is a hell of a hook into the next chapter!
👀 👀 👀 👀 👀
Alright, this is as good as a stopping point as I’m gonna get. I desperately want to keep reading but I need to be writing words (and good ones too) tomorrow so it’s bed time for me.
Same time tomorrow to see what’s in store next. Good night!
Page 192 / 23%: I normally like to start with a non-spoiler (this kinda is, from a world building standpoint, but viewpoint character doing the thing is spoilery?) but I have to comment on this.
It SUCKS to be in this line of succession. Esp if you’re born at the wrong time.
Page 193 / 23%: that said, some leaders are wiser than others and I am rooting so hard for this right now. This character’s been through, like, six different living hells & I want to see them succeed so bad
Pls pls pls gimme this moment, it’ll be disastrous for everyone else:
That, but imagine he’s discorporal & they’re living zombies.
(I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules about what weird associations my brain makes!)
Page 198 / 24%: I really regret not pressing the left button right now.
It’s gloves off.
SECRETS ARE BEING REVEALED.
This first one rings a bell and I feel like I should know it but I do not remember which book, it’s been so long.
Further down: thing number two is DEFINITELY covered in the most recent books; I know because I did reread books 9 and 10 last year, but this particular one has been floating around for a long, long time, from even further back in the series. I wanna say like, book 6 or 7?
Page 200 / 24%: prophecies kinda have a bad rep now. I get it. I’ve read my fair share of stories w/prophecies that fall apart when you squint at ‘em & feel completely arbitrary.
This one doesn’t because it’s got weight & substance & it’s inseparable from who the characters ARE.
And we’re gonna leave things here for the night, because I cannot possibly get through another 50 pages tonight AND still hit revision targets tomorrow.
It’s been suggested to me that it would’ve been more efficient to actually take two days off & binge it, book hangover be damned, to which I say, trying to binge a Janny Wurts book kinda goes like this:
Some of the homework has been completed so I am taking it as a win & therefore am gonna reward myself with at least part of a chapter even though it’s 10:30 pm & I should be sleeping right now if I want to be up and writing at 5:30 tomorrow morning.
Gonna have to leave it here for the night or I will be completely useless tomorrow!
Right ok we’re getting SERIOUS with the Song of the Mysteries first read because everybody is reading faster than me and I cannot live with missing out 😭 also I hit a writing goal today so I’m telling myself this is a reward
Page 223 / 27%: Sethvir is in full grumpy old wizard mode 😂
Page 227 / 27%: I really wanna see one of the YouTuber luthiers make a real lyranthe. Hey @TwoSetViolin , if you happen to wanna do a video on making real life versions of fantasy instruments and playing them, this would be a really awesome one: https://wiki.paravia.com/wiki/Lyranthe
Most other authors would’ve saved that moment for the final hurrah.
We’re not anywhere close to that.
What is still in store???
Goddddd I want to inject this book into my brain right now. Be back tomorrow for more.
It’s Song of the Mysteries time!!!
I desperately need to know what’s going to happen next.
Page 255 / 31%: yeah I’m with Elaira here. As someone who’s often been the person who gets pressured into doing things they don’t want to do because it’s good for others, I’m GLAD for Arithon.
There’s always a line. And he just got pushed to his. Good on him.
Hahahaha lol Verrain inadvertently dropping intel the F7 doesn’t want Arithon to know is possible in front of Elaira is 👌
Page 257 / 31%: oh WOW yeah it’s one thing to know from the promise made in book 1 this is going to happen and quite another to actually READ ABOUT IT HAPPENING.
I was not prepared for this return.
How is this even going to work?!
Or more accurately, how are they gonna get on?
Page 261 / 31%: “not good” is the answer but I don’t think anyone expected differently. This is some next level culture shock
Page 266 / 32%: Tarens really did not deserve to be put in this position
Page 271 / 33%: this is neither here nor there but I kind of want to see Lysaer’s household accounts. Like where is all the money to pay for this coming from?
Surely not just compulsory acquisition? I don’t think his conscience would allow that.
272 / 33%: why do I have this terrible sense of foreboding about this?
Page 277 / 33%: oh no, no no no no no that is a terrible move, do not do it Lysaer
(He’s gonna, for sure)
Page 282 / 34%: uh Lirenda? Are you conscious of the irony here?
😶😶😶😶😶
Page 283 / 34%: that would’ve been an interesting direction to explore.
Alas, I don’t know that I could envision it. It seems so completely opposed to who Elaira is.
Page 287 / 35%:
When Janny Wurts wants the plot to move, it MOVES
Page 290 / 35%:
‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️
Oh that makes so much sense!!!
Oh this is going to be so epic.
I wish I didn’t have to sleep so I can keep reading but alas, I gotta go past out. Same time tomorrow for more!
Alrighty, tonight’s gonna be a short one because I’m waking up suuuuuuper early to chat to two awesome SPFBO authors which means I gotta go sleep soon.
But there’s no way I’m going to sleep before getting my Song of the Mysteries fix!
Page 292 / 35%: oh this is so damned cool!
Beautiful, beautiful description happening here by the way.
God I love this so much.
Page 293 / 35%: 😂😂😂 okay that was not how I expected that reunion to go but ahaha it’s so apropos
Song of the Mysteries by Janny Wurts: Live Reaction (Part III)
Written by
Delilah Waan
Part III of my live-tweeted readalong/reaction Twitter thread to the release of Song of the Mysteries by Janny Wurts.
As of 2025, I permanently moved over to Bluesky and effective from 17 January 2026, I have deleted all of my Twitter posts due to the changed terms of service.
Some of my most popular threads, such as this one, I have preserved on my website (with minor edits, for accessibility and ease of reading) for posterity.
I will be forever proud of the fact that Janny Wurts herself enjoyed my posting so much that she had this reaction:
If you missed it, you can find Part I and Part II here.
—Delilah.
We are BACK for my Song of the Mysteries first read through!
Table of contents says this is a 14 page section and I am ready for action.
Page 311 / 37%: …oh my god, Arithon is the biggest troll in the known universe.
I’m with Dakar here, I don’t know what to believe. Both possibilities are equally plausible.
For those keeping count, this is reason number 32 why I love Janny Wurts’s books so much.
Page 312 / 37%: Janny Wurts has sailed and it shows in the way she writes all of the seafaring scenes in her books.
Funnily enough, this makes me think about Le Guin and Earthsea.
Apparently people who had sailed told her they were moved by the authenticity of Ged on his sea voyage and were shocked to learn she had never sailed in her life.
Le Guin’s response: yeah, I just used my imagination.
IIRC this was from her book on writing, Steering the Craft.
Imo the style she employed in Earthsea helped a lot too.
Anyway, I’m loving all of these nautical details, even if I couldn’t actually tell you what most of it means.
Making me feel like I should read some more Aubrey-Maturin after this.
Omniscient third is so hard to do right. I’ve never written in it; close third limited/deep third is what I prefer. Even second person comes easier to me. But then I’ll read a passage like this & wonder if I should try it for fun
Page 325 / 39%: oh no, this is not good. Please tell me what I think is gonna happen is not gonna happen??
It’s ridiculous that I want to say “things are heating up” when they’ve been heating up from the get go.
This is slow burn mounting tension like nothing else.
And I have to leave it here for tonight 😭 I’ll be back for more tomorrow!
It’s Song of the Mysteries first read time!
Things are getting serious. I have a sneaking suspicion I know exactly what’s in store based on this ch title. My only thought rn is “uh oh uh oh uh oh” like being spammed on ICQ
(Too dated a reference? Some of you get it…right?)
Like looking through the titles for this chapter set is making me real nervous
Page 331 / 40%: of course the official party line is that it didn’t happen and maybe if they never mention it no one will know it ever happened
Page 334 / 40%: favourite line of the night so far:
What an image to paint in 17 words ❤️❤️❤️
Page 336 / 40%: oooof. This feels a little too real. Call me a cynic but I’d feel comfortable asserting this accurately describes about 95% of our society today.
Page 337 / 40%: re: drum chat, this makes me think of Modesitt Jr’s Spellsong Cycle (also very good books with a world where music is magic where an opera singer gets isekai’d and becomes the most powerful person in existence) where you could do some serious damage with drummers
And now my brain is thinking of the “pon pon pata pon” video game, and that little jingle (yes I’m gonna call it a jingle) is gonna be running through my head for the rest of the night
I don’t think I’ve ever had to eat my words so quickly.
This is reason 624 why I love Janny Wurts’s books.
Page 361 / 43%: or do I?!?!??!??
I have no clue either way and I love it. Usually I can predict what’s gonna happen with 90-95% accuracy so when I can’t it’s an absolute joy. Especially when whatever happens usually turns out to be SO MUCH BETTER.
Page 365 / 44%: I am totally going to use this line the next time somebody tries to talk over me.
Page 371 / 45%: a-hah! Was that the goal here? Seems like it might be!
I feel like all my reactions are just going to be completely incoherent tonight. There’s so much spoiler stuff going on that I can’t say anything without spoiling anything
Page 394 / 47%: ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️
Here’s me hoping for a miraculous twist that will pry these two free
Page 397 / 48%: I want to quote the entire page here because the prose is gorgeous but it’s so spoiler that I’ll just quote my favourite bit (which is still spoiler-ific)
Page 399 / 48%: That was it. That was what we’ve been waiting for. Two decades and change after I first started reading these books and now I’ve finally experienced the thing I’ve been waiting for.
I’m now really really really really really really hoping we can get an end to the you know what in this chapter without giving away the benefit of the you know what.
And that’s the chapter set done! I cannot wait to see what’s in store next. I have no idea how Janny Wurts is gonna top this but I have faith she’s gonna because she always has in every book of hers that I’ve ever read.
Same time again tomorrow night!
Delilah Waan loves the distinctive structure Janny Wurts employs for every book in The Wars of Light and Shadow series, a.k.a. the massive midpoint reset.
Song of the Mysteries by Janny Wurts: Live Reaction (Part IV)
Written by
Delilah Waan
Part IV of my live-tweeted readalong/reaction Twitter thread to the release of Song of the Mysteries by Janny Wurts.
As of 2025, I permanently moved over to Bluesky and effective from 17 January 2026, I have deleted all of my Twitter posts due to the changed terms of service.
Some of my most popular threads, such as this one, I have preserved on my website (with minor edits, for accessibility and ease of reading) for posterity.
I will be forever proud of the fact that Janny Wurts herself enjoyed my posting so much that she had this reaction:
I wonder what heartbreak is in store for me tonight?
Page 448 / 54%: we open on a situation I’ve always wanted to see but unfortunately the narrative was never in a spot where it would feasibly happen and I’m ALL IN for this.
Page 455 / 55%: oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy about high time this happened. Now let’s see what you can do!
Page 460 / 55%: this is a pretty worrying development, though I dare say a certain faction must be celebrating how much power this transfers to them
Page 464 / 56%: annnnnnnd the penny drops.
Honestly Arithon, what did you think was going to happen?
Page 469 / 56%: oh that is going to be an innnnnnteresting confrontation
Page 473 / 57%: oh no 😱😱😱😱😱 he didn’t
OH NO, Sethvir better have gotten that.
And AGH that’s the end of the chapter set
…I shouldn’t tackle another chapter set.
But I’m gonna because HOW CAN I STOP READING HERE?!
Page 480 / 57%: I’m always in awe of how tight Janny Wurts’s narratives are, even in a sprawling complex multilayered narrative such as The Wars of Light and Shadow.
Like this moment that I’m getting right now MY GOD we’re just going from main event to main event
Pages 483 / 58%: I know this is totally the opposite vibes to what is happening right now but it is also the most comparable in terms of the momentousness of the occasion
Page 515 / 61%: Reason 62 why I love Janny Wurts’s books: she never allows the same ploy to let her characters take the easy way out.
This is heartrendingly glorious
Paste 524 / 63%: 😭😭😭😭😭 I don’t want to stop reading but I must otherwise I’m going to be a complete wreck tomorrow
Who else knows exactly where I’m up to and exactly how hard it is to stop reading right now? We need a support group
Not me looking at the chapter titles for the chapter sets ahead, guessing at what’s coming:
…fuck it, I’m gonna; I’m gonna do one more. Tomorrow is supposed to be my admin day anyway, without writing on deck. I can do admin while sleep deprived, I can!
Page 543 / 65%: this is, bar none, the best execution of this concept in existence.
Right, okay, I really am stopping here for the night, because I know if I don’t, I’m gonna binge this until the end.
It’s 1:30 am on Saturday, so after my admin gets done in about 6 hrs and everybody is served with pancakes, I will be able to devour the end to this glorious saga
Saturday pancakes are all done! I have the house to myself. It’s time for SONG OF THE MYSTERIES!
2024 is a year of highly anticipated reads for me, with three authors who have deeply influenced my work putting out new releases: Seth Dickinson with Exordia, Janny Wurts with Song of the Mysteries, and Brandon Sanderson with Wind and Truth.
Exordia blew my mind with its brilliance, because that’s just what Seth Dickinson does. But Song of the Mysteries is incomparable. And while I’m sure Wind and Truth is going to be a very satisfying conclusion to the first arc of the Stormlight Archive, I already know nothing else I read this year is going to measure up to what I just read.
Or if you’re not ready to commit to an 11-book series, read some other books by Janny Wurts. She’s got loads of them and every single one bears the same hallmark.
Delilah Waan thinks that any avid reader of epic fantasy who hasn’t read anything by Janny Wurts is missing out.
Song of the Mysteries by Janny Wurts: Live Reaction (Part I)
Written by
Delilah Waan
This article was originally posted as a Twitter thread as a live-tweeted readalong/reaction thread to the release of Song of the Mysteries by Janny Wurts.
As of 2025, I permanently moved over to Bluesky and effective from 17 January 2026, I have deleted all of my Twitter posts due to the changed terms of service.
Some of my most popular threads, such as this one, I have preserved on my website (with minor edits, for accessibility and ease of reading) for posterity.
I will be forever proud of the fact that Janny Wurts herself enjoyed my posting so much that she had this reaction:
—Delilah.
IT IS HERE IT IS ON MY KINDLE AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I have just done the school pick up. I have just under an hour before the next thing on my calendar.
Other authors do epic by adding scope. More characters, more subplots, more factions, more species, more more more.
Janny Wurts does epic by making everything deep and deeper.
Case in point: there’s a character that most other authors would write as the protagonist of a 3-5 book series. In The Wars of Light and Shadow, this character is just a footnote. Their whole life basically happens during a time skip between books.
Yes, the scale is that epic.
Omgggggg it’s taken me like 30 mins to just read and digest the timeline, reliving all the previous books in my mind, and I both want to stop and go back to do a reread of the whole series RIGHT NOW so I can appreciate the final book more but also I WANT TO READ THE FINAL BOOK.
It’s a brand new Janny Wurts book on my Kindle so I have zero impulse control over this.
I have been waiting for this book for what feels like my entire adult life.
Longer, even. I started reading this series when I started high school.
Am I ready?
🫣🫣🫣🫣🫣
I am not ready.
Since this is a totally brand new book and this is a series that’s finding a lot of new readers, I don’t wanna spoil anything for anyone so here’s how I’m gonna do this live tweet of my read.
2 pages later on from that devastation, I’m giggling at an absurd, but totally fitting visual.
2 pages after that, I’m fist pumping because I did NOT think about things going in that direction but it makes SO MUCH SENSE.
Ath please make it so.
Page 22 / 3%: I love Janny Wurts’s prose.
Page 24 / 4%: am reading about a sight so beautiful it chills and literally feeling chills.
Maybe it’s because winter is coming to Australia.
Or maybe it’s just how reading a Janny Wurts book goes.
Page 26 / 4%: HOW DID I FORGET ABOUT THIS?
Hot damn absolute GOAT payoffs, YES.
Things I love about Janny Wurts books number 513: promises always get fulfilled. ALWAYS.
Page 35 / 5%: Is what I think is about to happen about to happen?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA—
—oh sweet Ath it didn’t; it didn’t and I’m SO glad but wow that was close.
…that means something even more terrible is coming.
Further down: OH NO
😨
😱
😭
WAIT WHAT
…is this what I think it is?
🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
IT IS.
At least, I’m pretty sure it is.
Page 40 / 6%: all I’m gonna say is, Lysaer better finally catch a break.
Pages 47 / 6%: I will never cease to be stunned by how seamlessly Janny Wurts transitions her scenes.
Page 52 / 7%: the Fellowship of the Seven (henceforth the F7) sure do go to some low, low, low lengths.
But you gotta do what you gotta do. Their purpose is not aligned to what you’d expect it to be from what you normally expect it to be in heroic fantasy and it’s 👌
Page 52 / 7%: oh my god this is ice cold coming from THIS particular F7 member (lol that makes them sound like a K-pop boy group, sorry not sorry)
Page 54 / 7%: that exact moment when a character has the realization that the back up back up back up back up super ultimate failsafe backup they thought was gonna be there is not gonna be there
Alright this is where I’m stopping for the night, b/c I’m no longer in my teens or 20s & thus have to be a responsible adult & NOT pull an all nighter reading this book, which I want you all to know is incredibly tempting b/c it is totally possible for me to finish it in 1 day:
WE’RE BACK with the Song of the Mysteries live tweet first read!
Let’s see far I can get tonight.
Page 62 / 8%: Ooooooooookaaaaaaaayyyyy here we go. This is happening. This is really happening.
We’re at page 146 / 18% and the ramping up is ceaseless.
(this is where I realise that I’ve left off location references for all my reactions tonight SORRY GUYS I’ll remember tomorrow)
Alright guys, it’s Sunday morning, I’ve made HK-style French toast, I have my tea and I WOKE UP TO THIS FROM JANNY WURTS HERSELF
so we’re forging on!!
Right, so it turns out that I underestimated the amount of French toast required 😅 which means there was a feeding frenzy at brunch and I got zero reading done.
We’re now at the “we want seconds” stage so guess I’m reading while I’m waiting for the pan of hot oil to heat up.
Page 147 / 18%: For the record, Dace is the MFing MVP. Dace be doing the equivalent of going 1 v 1 with bare fists against Zeus instead of Goliath while Zeus is in battle rage mode.
Page 154 / 19%: this exact moment happens over and over and over throughout the series but I don’t think it ever gets any less heart wrenching.
Also this is very 👀🤨🤔
Page 156 / 19%: I gotta say, in all honesty, Arithon’s quest is very heroic and wondrous, but I really, really, really, really, really personally find Lysaer’s tragedy the more compelling. I wish we had more page time with it and he wasn’t so penned in by Desh-thiere’s curse.
Also, I know a lot of people are aboard the Kadolin broship is the best broship bandwagon but I reckon that’s because most of you haven’t yet read enough of The Wars of Light and Shadow because THIS is clearly the best broship in all epic fantasy:
Page 174 / 21%: every time Kharadmon gets upset during one of these meetings, I’m picturing everybody else doing this:
Page 175 / 21%: it’s moments like these that you’re reminded—very forcibly—that the F7’s agenda is their own.
They are not on your side.
I love it.
Page 178 / 22%: Man, if I were Arithon, I’d be pissed too.
(Also if you like this kind of “grand plans being thwarted by small things geniuses overlooked despite their genius” vibe you should check out some K.J. Parker, though be forewarned those can be some real downers.)
A few paras down and we have the first title drop!!!
Page 179 / 22%: WE’RE ENDING THE CHAPTER HERE?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!
Well, then, since Janny left me to hang here, this is also where I’m leaving you all to hang.
(For now.)
Delilah Waan first discovered Janny Wurts through a bargain bin copy of The Empire Trilogy (co-authored with Raymond E. Feist), then fell head first into The Curse of the Mistwraith and it forever changed her life.
As of 2025, I permanently moved over to Bluesky and effective from 17 January 2026, I have deleted all of my Twitter posts due to the changed terms of service.
Some of my most popular threads, such as this one, I have preserved on my website (with minor edits, for accessibility and ease of reading) for posterity.
In 2025, I saw more and more fellow authors and readers go from simply expressing their frustrations with Amazon, major book retailers, and other titans of the publishing/book industry to actively making plans and taking steps to reduce their dependency on these corporations.
I’m hopeful that 2026 will be the year where we’ll finally see readers buying and authors selling direct become mainstream.
—Delilah.
We’re approaching the end of #IndieAugust and the final days of the Narratess and Epic Sale of #BelovedSFFBooks sales so I thought I’d do a little financial transparency post on running a $0.99 sale as the average self-published author.
Readers, here’s a peek behind the curtains.
Petition is normally priced at $4.99 USD. Other indie books are often priced much lower, for various reasons, but I feel $4.99 USD (i.e. a coffee) is fair for my book:
594 Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC).
~115k words long
430 pages in 5×8 paperback
I initially enrolled Petition in the Kindle Direct Publishing Select program. That allows Kindle Unlimited (KU) subscribers to borrow the book. KU is a great deal for readers. It lets you try out as many books & authors for “free” (a.k.a. as part of your mthly subscription).
For indie authors, it’s complicated.
What authors are forced to give up when their books are exclusive to Kindle Unlimited
Whether to put your book in KU is one of the biggest decisions you make as a new indie author.
I got paid ~$0.005 USD/per KENPC (Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count) page read. A full read is~$2.97 USD. But rates are dropping. It’s ~0.0045 now.
The first & most draconian requirement: KU books must be exclusive to Amazon. The ebook CANNOT be available anywhere else. Period.
One of Amazon’s sneaky tactics lies in their UI design, which prioritizes the Kindle Unlimited program.
Lot of readers will click the very prominent KU button instead of the less prominent buy button, and end up borrowing the book instead of buying it as intended.
For a $0.99 sale of Petition:
using a KCD nets ~$0.57 (70% royalty less $0.12 delivery fee)
manually dropping prices nets $0.35
If my book were in KU, I might get accidental KU borrows, which translates to page reads at ~$0.0045/page with 594 KENPC = $2.67
How other retailers/platforms compare to Amazon
A full read on Kobo Plus nets ~$2.38 (NO exclusivity required here).
What I make per $0.99 non-Amazon sale:
Direct = $0.97 (2.2% CC processing fee)
Kobo = $0.58 (45% royalty)
Google Play = $0.70 (70% royalty)
Apple (via D2D) = $0.60 (70% less D2D 10% cut)
Direct is far and away the BEST. Readers pay no more than they would anywhere else but authors get to keep 97% and get paid the NEXT day, instead of weeks or months later.
“But doesn’t the Amazon algo rec your book?” you ask.
Good question!
Amazon’s algorithm and why it isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be if you’re just starting out as a self-published author
The Amazon “also bought” recommendations can be powerful but these days they’re often crowded out by ads.
Look at all of these ads!
Indie authors are paying Amazon through the nose for these ads. They’re very expensive to run and you often end up losing money.
The best way to benefit from the algorithm is to get enough sales to get your book into the top 100 best seller lists and “stick” there long enough for new readers browsing to find you.
But getting into the top 100 is hard, especially for categories like epic fantasy. You need a LOT of sales in a particular pattern which requires “promo stacking”. For a fee, promo sites like BookBub will send your book out to their subscribers.
Petition also got a spot in Ebookaroo, which is free & run by the wonderful Patty Jansen. International & non-Amazon readers, this is the deal newsletter for you. Books must be available worldwide & at more places than just Amazon to be featured.
Why my books are no longer available on Kindle Unlimited
I pulled my book from KU after 90 days.
Petition is available everywhere because I want my books to be accessible to readers everywhere. And I won’t let Amazon bully me into favoring readers in a few select markets over readers everywhere else.
But Amazon is so dominant that 95-99% of my sales still come via them. At $0.35 USD royalty per sale, I need 77 to break even. At the time of writing, I’m at 63 (58 Amazon, 3 Kobo, 1 Google, 1 direct) and will be making a loss.
KDP sales for Narratess Indie August 2024 so far.Google Play sales for Narratess Indie August 2024 so far.Kobo sales for Narratess Indie August 2024 so far.Direct website sales for Narratess Indie August 2024 so far.
Most authors aren’t as fortunate as I am:
Interestingly, a lot of indie readers would prefer to support indie authors directly…
…but most authors don’t see this happening.
If 10% of the readers who bought via Amazon (6 people) switched to buying direct from my store, I’d be in the black.
They get to own the DRM-free ebook file. Forever. No being locked in and held hostage by your library to a particular retailer or device.
I’d get to keep 3x the royalties—enough for a nice birthday dinner! 🎉
I’m thankful for every reader who gives my book a shot, no matter how you found me. But I thought this was important to share with you so you know your purchasing decisions matter!
Why indie authors choose to run Kickstarter campaigns (and why readers should back them)
Written by
Delilah Waan
This article was originally posted as a reply to on Twitter on 13 September 2024. As of 2025, I permanently moved over to Bluesky and effective from 17 January 2026, I have deleted all of my Twitter posts due to the changed terms of service.
Some of my most popular threads, such as this one, I have preserved on my website (with minor edits, for accessibility and ease of reading) for posterity.
In September 2024, fellow author Maya Darjani had a question:
At that time, I was getting ready to launch Supplicant on Kickstarter so I chimed in with some thoughts.
Looking back at this post in January 2026, having successfully wrapped the campaign and fulfilment, I can say with 100% certainty that launching on Kickstarter was absolutely the right choice for me and my readers.
—Delilah.
There are probably as many reasons and as many ways to run a Kickstarter as there are indie authors, but since I currently have a campaign in pre-launch for Supplicant, I thought I’d share the reasons behind what I’m doing and why.
Find new readers
If no one knows about your book, no one can consider reading your book!
Therefore, you must get the word out. Standard operating procedure (whether trad or self-pub) is to use comps a.k.a. “this book is X meets Y but Z”
Jade City x The Hunger Games
To save her family, Rahelu must beat her wealthy, privileged rivals in a ruthless job hunt tournament.
An immigrant fantasy about love, debt, ambition, and sacrifice.
As a new author, I genuinely believed this funnel diagram (pictured below) to be an accurate representation of how to get people to read my book.
It is…and it isn’t.
Look at the top of this funnel. Can you tell me what’s missing?
It’s traffic. No traffic? No readers.
The discoverability problem
More books are being published than ever before, but discoverability is also worse than ever before. You can’t run out of online shelf space, but you can get buried so far down the search results that no one will find you.
Hence, traffic.
Where traffic comes from (and what it costs)
Content marketing (e.g. social media, blog posts) is “free”. Get good enough at it to create consistent, possibly viral content, and you can generate a lot of traffic.
It looks easy, but is very hard to master, and it also eats up writing time.
Cross-promo, where many authors band together to promote an event, is another option. The Narratess sale is a good example where the buzz of having 350+ books generated far more traffic for every participating author than they could individually.
You can also pay for traffic. Common options & ballpark USD costs:
Sorted by “Magic” = random. Every project has a chance to be on page 1.
Kickstarter also prioritizes current & upcoming campaigns.
It’s easier to be discovered if I’m 1 of 24 upcoming epic fantasy publishing projects versus 1 of 24000 (or even 240) new epic fantasy releases on the Kindle store…because if you’re not in the top 100, you’re invisible.
Discoverability alone is a powerful reason to try out Kickstarter, but it’s not the most compelling reason for me. This is:
Make a liveable wage from my work, with less financial risk
Here are some numbers for you, from a former Chartered accountant.
Books are a volume business. You have to sell a lot of them to make a living from them. Trad pub works by taking a portfolio approach a.k.a. throwing a lot of things at the wall & seeing what sticks. The hits pay the bills.
It’s gambling.
That model doesn’t work for (early stage) self-published authors because you only have your books.
The most important thing self-published authors need to understand is their breakeven point. Given X amount of investment in your book, how many copies do you need to sell to break even?
“How much should I invest in my book?” is an individual question—it varies based on what you can afford, your skills, your network & your risk appetite.
The more formats & distribution channels you add, the more complicated things get.
Let’s start with ebooks.
How much does it cost to publish an ebook?
The ebook is your minimum viable product. You can get fancy, but for a basic ebook that
will appeal to your target readers
can be downloaded from an ebook retailer & read on most devices
all you need is an ISBN & a cover. ~$500 USD tops.
Here’s my cash outlay for the ebook of PETITION: $395 USD Damonza cover $180 AUD beta reader rewards & proof copies* $88 AUD ISBNs (x10) = ~$575 USD
*Since I did paperback & hardcover, I offered my beta readers print copies of the published book, if they wanted them
Breakeven point (BEP) = Total Investment / Profit per Unit
Most self-publishing platforms pay authors on a net basis.
When you buy a book on Amazon for $2.99, Amazon takes your money, takes out their cut (30% + download fees), & pays the balance to the author.
BEP changes based on different price points. Using a very simple model of Amazon USD sales only:
At $0.99, I need to sell 1,643 copies. At $4.99, I need to sell 171 copies.
Every cent I earn after my BEP goes to my cost of living (CoL). Sydney, Australia is high CoL so $575 USD/wk is actually not liveable for me. But it’s enough elsewhere, so let’s say this is how much I need to sell per week via Amazon to live.
1643 new readers is a LOT of new readers to find. Even 171 new readers is a lot. For context, it’s taken me over 2 years to crack 500 paid copies sold, with the vast majority during $0.99 sales and mainly relying on driving traffic via social media.
Since not every reader who sees your book will end up buying the book, in order to find 171 new readers, I need to get my book in front of WAY more people.
But then I end back up at the discoverability problem, and it becomes a bit of a vicious cycle.
The real winners in a system with broken discoverability
Under this broken system, the only winners are corporations like Facebook and Amazon, and book marketing/promo services. What authors earn in royalties gets immediately funnelled back into ads and promos…and the cost of those go up because of demand!
It doesn’t have to be like this.
The BEP is so much lower if readers buy from me directly, especially at lower price points, because I get to keep 97% of the sale price AND I get paid the next day.
At $0.99, I only need to sell 593 copies At $4.99, I only need to sell 119 copies
Direct makes it easier for me to earn a liveable wage with a smaller audience. That’s important!
Barriers to buying direct from authors
Unfortunately, even though indie readers love to support indie authors, many readers are not in the habit of buying direct.
Amazon has a very powerful lock on readers’ purchasing behaviour because the experience is seamless, as they own the whole vertical from shop to e-reader.
To convince someone to buy direct, I have to:
get them to go to my website, not Amazon’s
have them be ok with going an extra step to load the ebook to their e-reader
I lose 99% of people at step 1, because they’re used to going to their retailer.
BUT with Kickstarter…
What makes Kickstarter different to (and better than) Amazon
Kickstarter as a platform began as a way to help creators bypass gatekeepers and logistical and financial barriers by connecting them directly with their audience. They actively put the direct connection between creators and backers at the heart of their business model.
Amazon does everything possible to keep authors from connecting with their readers. Even if you follow me on Amazon, there’s no guarantee you’ll actually get an alert when my next book comes out. And they definitely won’t tell me how you found my book. It’s a black box.
Kickstarter is the complete opposite to Amazon. They’ve built a culture where creators are encouraged to connect with backers as much as possible & backers are in the habit of supporting creators directly.
Successful Kickstarters often develop thriving communities of their own.
How Kickstarter becomes a game changer for authors
Assuming you can write a book, getting it published as an ebook is pretty easy.
With print on demand, even paperbacks & hardcovers are easy, assuming you can invest a little more upfront for a full wrap cover & dust jacket (optional, there’s budget ways around it)
But print on demand (POD) is very expensive. It is easily 2x (or more) of what it would cost for an offset print run.
Authors end up pricing as low as possible, so our readers don’t have to pay through the nose, but we make next to nothing on POD print copies.
POD books also just aren’t as nicely made as offset printed books.
This is my Amazon KDP POD copy of Petition. It’s my reference copy so it lives on my desk and I do flip through it a bit. But it’s only 2 years old and the cover’s peeling and pages have come loose.
While some places like BookVault now offer features like foiling, ribbons, custom endpapers, digital edges, et cetera, stuff like smyth-sewn binding, faux leather/cloth covers, complicated foiling still require an offset print run.
Those have minimum order quantities.
There are offset printers who will do runs as small as ~50-100 books. But the machines they use cost a lot to set up, so it doesn’t really become economical unless you’re doing 200, 300, 500 books.
This is ~100 copies of a ~700 page fantasy novel:
This is about ~250 copies:
It’s a lot of books. Forget coming up with several thousand dollars cash to invest in inventory; just finding a place to store all of these is a challenge.
Kickstarter helps indie authors de-risk book launches
Every author’s circumstances are different so their risk appetite is different.
For me, personally, I can’t justify investing in a print run for 200 books when I know it took me 2 years to sell 500—most of which are ebooks at $0.99.
By running a Kickstarter campaign, I can gauge how much interest there is in a given format before I put any money down.
Are there only 10 people who want hardcovers? No problem, I’ll stick to print on demand.
Are there 100? Great! I can go to an offset printer.
By the way, Kickstarter’s cut is only 10% and half that goes to payment processing.
Retailers like Amazon take 30% or more.
Kickstarter backers pay the same (sometimes less) than they would at retail. But more of the money makes its way into my pocket.
Since Kickstarter has better discoverability, I don’t have to pour all of my earnings back into ads/promos just to make sure people are seeing my campaign so I have a chance at finding new readers.
You know what I can do with that money instead?
The impossible becomes possible
I can commission art from brilliant, talented human artists like Rosemary Fung.
Rosemary is painting character portraits and STUNNING special edition art for my books that I cannot wait to share with you.
I don’t visualize when I write. I don’t do mood boards or fan cast actors. There’s very few descriptions of what my characters look like in my books.
It’s hard to describe how I felt when I saw Rosemary’s concepts for Rahelu & Nheras.
(blurred, because draft)
Like up until then, Rahelu & Nheras were just collections of words in my mind, right? Maybe the words had made it out in a specific order onto somebody’s screen or a page somewhere but still—they were just words from my brain.
Now they’re real.
As a self-pubbed author, I have a limited budget. But with the way Kickstarter works, how it encourages the forming of communities and for backers and creators to go on a journey to make amazing and cool things, the sky is really the limit.
Why you should support authors by backing on Kickstarter, instead of waiting for retail release
I’ve seen people wondering whether there is any point to backing a Kickstarter if it’s just the same as the retail edition, and they don’t care about early access.
Answer: Yes.
It makes a significant difference to the author. These numbers add up.
By backing a Kickstarter, you’re joining a movement that encourages supporting authors and creators directly, rather than concentrating economic power in systems that primarily benefit giant corporations like Amazon.
Kickstarter has been around for 15 years now. While there’s been some high profile duds, there have been many Kickstarter success stories.
Fantasy authors, in particular, benefit given the trail-blazing, record-breaking Brandon Sanderson example:
People have a level of trust in the Kickstarter brand & platform. KS projects, too, benefit from being time-limited events.
It’s easier for an author to convince readers to back a one-off Kickstarter campaign than to buy direct from their store.
Kickstarter is a virtuous ecosystem. By encouraging creators & backers to connect & form communities, everyone benefits & grows with the platform.
Amazon’s system, however, enriches the platform at the expense of customers & authors.
Ways to support an indie author’s Kickstarter
I’ve talked a lot from the author side, so I want flip to the reader perspective for a minute and acknowledge something important:
Not everyone is in a position to back a Kickstarter.
Also Boe Kelley made some excellent points in replies here:
Please don’t come away from this thread with the impression that Kickstarter is the “only” or “right” or “best” way to support indie authors; it’s one of many ways.
Any form of support—even small actions to like and/or retweet—is wonderful. It all adds up.
Conclusion
I hope this has answered some of the questions about why an indie author might choose to do a Kickstarter.
And if you think SIX OF CROWS x MISTBORN with a LOCKED TOMB twist sounds fun, follow my Kickstarter page here:
POSTSCRIPT (17 January 2026): Supplicant launched on Kickstarter in October 2024.
It funded in 9 minutes, ended up raising over $15,000 AUD, and paying for a print run of some truly glorious leather-bound collector’s special editions with all the bells and whistles:
First lines, first paragraphs, and first impressions
What I learned while reworking the first chapters of my debut fantasy novel
Written by
Delilah Waan
This article was originally posted as a thread on Twitter on 29 July 2023. As of 2025, I permanently moved over to Bluesky and effective from 17 January 2026, I have deleted all of my Twitter posts due to the changed terms of service.
Some of my most popular threads, such as this one, I have preserved on my website (with minor edits, for accessibility and ease of reading) for posterity.
In July 2023, fellow author and SPFBO9 entrant Steven William Hannah embarked on a first chapter reading challenge: to read the opening chapter (including the prologue where applicable) of all 300 entrants to the contest. His efforts spurred many members of the SPFBO community on Twitter to do the same, encouraging many readers to TBR books they never otherwise would have picked up based on the cover and blurb.
This happened to collide with some other ongoing discourse on #booktwt at the same time.
I had thoughts, which I had summed up at the time in the following reply:
Every sentence I write has one job & one job only: convincing the target reader for my book to read the next sentence.
If I succeed, they’ll read the whole book.
If they don’t, either I’ve made a misstep or they’re not my target reader.
(IMO, that’s the fairer way to put it.)
After sleeping on it for a day, it turned out that I had more to say. I have a soft spot for this thread because never had I ever imagined that one of my favorite authors, Janny Wurts, would see it, let alone quote tweet it:
I hope you’ll find it informative too. Enjoy!
—Delilah.
Following on from the current discourse re: first lines/paras/pages/chapters, I thought I would share a few things that I learned while working on mine.
Learning from songwriters and their lyrics
The best advice on first lines I ever got was in a songwriting workshop with Pat Pattison when he was visiting the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Pat is a Berklee College professor, author of Writing Better Lyrics, and teacher to Grammy award winning songwriters like John Mayer.
In novels (especially fantasy), you have incredible luxury with word count.
Not so in songs.
Pat asked us how quickly we could establish character. A verse? A couplet? A line?
Beth Nielsen Chapman used TWO WORDS in “Child Again”:
Here’s the first verse from “Child Again”: a day in the life sketched in 40 words.
She's wheeled into the hallway Till the sun moves down the floor Little squares of daylight Like a hundred times before She's taken to the garden For the later afternoon Just before her dinner They return her to her room
And those first two words—“She’s wheeled”—do so much heavy lifting in painting a vivid image of who this character is and what they’re doing because of how specific it is.
What I love about the lyrics of “Child Again” is how evocative they are.
We don’t need to be told this is set in a care facility because we can infer that from “wheeled”, “hallway”, and the “sun mov[ing] down the floor” in “little squares of daylight”.
The purpose of the first line and the first chapter
Establishing character & setting as vividly & quickly as possible is my goal for the first line of every scene.
In the prologue to my #SPFBO9 entry, Petition, I went for the basic: POV proper noun, strong verb, & a setting/sensory detail.
But that was not the first line I actually wrote. I didn’t even have a prologue originally; I added one in AFTER alpha and beta reader feedback because I wasn’t hitting the right tone, story, character, and plot promises with Chapter 1.
Petition originally opened right on Chapter 1. Here’s the side by side of the first two paragraphs: alpha draft versus the published version.
Same POV/scene/beat but the published version has more voice. I don’t love the slight clunkiness but never found a fix I liked. I did two rewrites for character and pacing, then trimmed 600 words in line edits & proofing. See the tracked changes of the full chapter from alpha draft to published version & why I made those changes here.
Here’s the side by side of the alpha draft versus the published opening to Chapter 2 of Petition.
Chapter 2 is the end of what I’d consider the opening of Petition.
By then, we’re ~8,000 words in and all the tone, story, character, and plot promises are established. If a reader isn’t hooked by then, they probably won’t be into the rest of the book.
Because I try to construct my openings as a reading experience of the book in miniature. The highs, the lows, the prose style, the themes—everything that might be divisive for readers, I try to fit in there, to signal audience so no one will feel clickbaited.
I don’t always succeed. There’s a subplot that doesn’t emerge until Chapter 9 that’s significant to the main character’s arc. The ending doesn’t land if you don’t buy it. But that’s where I run into problems with genre conventions/expectations.
Making promises and signaling genre expectations
One thing I learned is the term “romance”—as used by readers like me who read fantasy but not romance—has a very specific meaning in book marketing.
Short version: no HEA/HFN? Not romance! Don’t market as one.
So I don’t. I do everything I can to signal it is not a romance. No meet cute. None of the standard romance beats. No mention in the blurb or hint in the cover. But I do worry I will lose non-romance readers for not signaling the subplot upfront as a result.
Still, I hope by the time they’re ~38,500 words in, I’ll have established enough trust with them and delivered on a few payoffs that they’ll keep reading, for the characters and the rest of the plot even if they don’t enjoy that particular subplot.
The ending clearly works for some readers. The whole subplot is clearly cringe for some.
But every review is helpful in figuring out whether or not the book I delivered was the one they expected and if I missed signaling a promise somewhere.
What a reader’s DNF means for authors
Re: DNFs, for those who are just getting started and in Kindle Unlimited (KU)/KDP Select, it’s interesting to look at page reads.
Amazon KDP doesn’t give us anything as good as YouTube retention graphs, but when you only have the odd reader or two, you can see things. 👀
Petition was in KU on launch for 90 days & had a KENPC of 594.
Full reads tended to be 592-593 pages depending on whether they read the back matter. And KU readers tended to binge the book in 1-2 sessions.
Good, because I tried to write a binge worthy book.
But that ending? Right around Kindle location 5528/5721 or 97% of the ebook or on page 409 of the paperback, there is a pivotal moment. A line that made my writing group scream things at me, like: “GODDAMNIT YOU MADE ME FEEL FEELINGS” and “I TRUSTED YOU” and
I don’t know what the corresponding KENPC is for that point in the book. KDP doesn’t tell me that information.
But when I look at this 582 pages read, I can only conclude somebody got to that exact moment and got so pissed they DNF’d 😂
A deep dive masterclass on writing good sentences
I think it shows that just because you’ve hooked a reader, you can’t assume they’ll keep sticking around. You’ve got to keep on winning them over, sentence after sentence, book after book.
The resource I’ve found most insightful in wrestling with the challenge of writing good sentences is Seth Dickinson’s article, Let’s Hurt Sentences:
I’m doing page proofs on THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT, my September debut. It’s a novel about sex, money, imperial power, colonial resistance, accounting, logistics, psychology, and the price of civilization. It’s a story about a young woman fighting to save her home and change the world. It’s made out of sentences.
I like quite a bit of it. Like any writer, I hate some of it. We can talk about the good stuff when the book comes out! Let’s talk about the sentences I’ve discovered I hate, the specific kind of sentence I loathe the most. Let’s figure out why they’re broken.
(Seth Dickinson is a brilliant author; check out his books & short stories if you haven’t already.)
Doing page proofs, I’ve been hitting a class of sentences that bother me a lot. They’re not clunkingly awful, but they leap out at me as missed opportunities. They’re uninhabited sentences: small, functional pieces of narration that don’t seem slanted by a certain character’s perspective. Every sentence should have a mission, and in the prose style I’m using here, every sentence should be a double agent, achieving a surface goal — say, moving a character through a door — and a deeper goal, hinting at emotion, motivation, past, future. Every sentence should have a voice, an owner. Ideally, the reader should know, at least subconsciously, who that owner is.
It’s an eye opening dissection of prose. Look at how Dickinson thinks about what to emphasize versus what to gloss over.
What is the purpose of each sentence? What reaction do you want the reader to have after reading the sentence?
But these sentences I keep meeting are the faceless stormtroopers of prose style. They just sit there connecting interesting things. That’s a waste! Every word should be interesting! Every stormtrooper should get a chance to bang her head on a door or curse creatively.
Let’s grab one. Baru Cormorant watches a woman come into her office.
“Aminata slipped past Muire Lo, who closed the great door with a firm click, and presented herself at attention with a frame of palimpsest tucked under her arm.”
Things Dickinson considers:
What does the sentence reveal about the POV character & the sentence’s subject?
How does it sound when read aloud?
What kind of rhythm & prosody is established with word/punctuation choice, construction, & line breaks?
How could we fix it? We could just radically simplify it. Aminata snapped to attention. We lose Muire Lo, the palimpsest, and a bit of spatial information. But maybe none of that’s important. Aminata can hit her next dialog beat and we can move on with the scene. This is a simple sentence that builds energy, because the reader doesn’t need to spend time figuring it out.
Look at how Dickinson changes EVERYTHING about the way the moment reads just by changing one line of the prose.
How could we play it? Exploring:
Aminata left her papers with Muire Lo and stepped up to salute.
Aminata left Muire Lo to fumble with her papers. Her straight-backed salute made Baru want to apologize for the state of everything, the accounts, the office, the way they’d left matters on Taranoke.
Aminata snapped to attention. Baru liked the salute so much she almost replied in kind. Muire Lo, still fumbling with Aminata’s papers, scurried out of the way.
Aminata smiled slantwise at Muire Lo, who blushed, and slipped past him to salute and set herself at attention. Baru cleared her throat and wished she could look so damn upright.
Aminata came down the length of the office, past Muire Lo and the plotting table and the wine, to snap a perfect salute. Baru remembered her coming down the back hall at school, coming across the dueling floor, and swallowed.
It’s absolutely fascinating how the subtext and emphasis shifts in these different iterations.
Seriously. Read the whole article. (And read Baru.)
Here’s the version Dickinson ended up publishing for that moment.
“Your Excellence.” Aminata came down to the office to salute and set herself at attention. Baru cleared her throat and wished she could look so damn upright. She must have stopped and dusted her uniform, or had a spare brought off the ship. She looked immaculate. The years had kept her taller than Baru, and her duties had kept her graceful and strong, as forthright and ready as a good javelin. There were many reasons Baru had avoided her on Lapetiare.
I personally like the second variant explored the most at the sentence level. But the final version fits the scene and the story best.
Finally AP Canavan has some great breakdowns on writing on YouTube. I’m going to highlight two videos but definitely check out the whole channel.
First, on the importance of authorial intention, audience, and economy in writing:
Second, a brilliant look at a passage by one of the GOATs in epic fantasy, Janny Wurts:
There’s so much going on in this passage. It’s wonderful. If you haven’t tried any Janny Wurts yet, you definitely should!
Conclusion
The output of good writing looks simple but the process of getting there is hard. Sometimes I feel like a character who just did magic. I have no idea how I did what I did or how to (or if I can) do it again.
But writing is a craft and you can get better at it.
The first lines of the beta draft of Supplicant, the sequel to Petition, are not where I’d like them to be.
But there’s still a long way to publication so 🤞 I’ll figure out something better by then. For now, you can check out Petition.
POSTSCRIPT (17 January 2026): Supplicant was published in December 2024. The opening of the prologue remained the same. The first chapter, however, underwent considerable changes, and the opening lines now read as follows:
Rahelu pelted through the Lowdocks.
Though the sun had yet to crest the horizon, the bare stones of the wet market were already slimed with fish guts and seafowl offal (and gods only knew what else) squishing between her toes. A flock of gulls shrilled at her as she tore through their feasting and startled them into flight.
She cursed.
Why were she and Lhorne both such short-sighted, silly, sentimental fools?
Delilah Waan had nothing to add to “magic school” so she wrote “fantasy job interviews” instead.
Petition is her award-winning debut fantasy novel about an angry Asian daughter of impoverished immigrants fighting privileged rich kids in a ruthless job hunt tournament.
![Kindle screenshot. Text reads:
Winter - Late Spring 5927
[chapter icon]
VI. Sleight and Riposte](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/songotm_react_0035-1024x993.jpg)
![Kindle screenshot. Text reads:
[chapter icon]
VII. Reverberations](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/songotm_react_0045-1024x958.jpg)
![Kindle screenshot. Text reads:
Early Autumn - Late Autumn 5928
[chapter icon]
VIII. Trespass](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/songotm_react_0047-1024x921.jpg)
![Screenshot of Twitter conversation between Janny Wurts and Delilah Waan:
Janny Wurts: Snort: Patrick O'Brien didn't sail either. Armchair research.
Delilah Waan: [shocked emoji] he didn't?!?!?!!?
I am shooketh. All that nautical speak had me fooled!
Janny Wurts: He did his research; he did not sail.
It is more obvious/as a reader/if you have... but the interplay between Maturin and Aubrey was priceless exactly because of the mystique attached to nautical expertise. The books are still wonderful reads.](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/songotm_react_0056-1024x796.png)
![Kindle screenshot. Text reads: Late Spring – Summer 5929
[chapter icon]
IX. Violations](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/songotm_react_0057-1024x895.jpg)
![Kindle screenshot. Text reads: Summer 5929 [chapter header icon]
X. Field of Glory](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/songotm_react_0067-1024x867.jpg)
![Kindle screenshot. Text reads:
Summer 5929
Should your Master of Shadows fail you, or you fail him, the outcome will call down disaster.' Sethvir, Warden of Althain -
Third Age Year 5637
[chapter header icon]
XI. Rebound](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/songotm_react_0070-882x1024.jpg)
![Kindle screenshot. Text reads:
[chapter header icon]
XII. Fugue](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/songotm_react_0075-1024x582.jpg)
![Kindle screenshot. Text reads: Late Summer 5929 [chapter header icon] XIII. Concerto](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/songotm_react_0078-1024x863.jpg)
![Kindle screenshot. Text reads:
Summer 5926
[image of chapter icon]
IV. Tinder and Spark](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/songotm_react_0012-1024x937.jpg)
![Screenshot of Twitter poll by Dani Finn (@DaniFinnwrites) which reads:
Authors in the Narratess sale, how many PAID copies have you moved so far?
My poll about freebies is in the comments.
Poll graph results, with 85 votes and 5 hours left:
0 😭 - 22.4%
1-10 🙂 - 37.6%
11-20 😊 - 18.8%
21+ 😍 - 21.2% [this option is selected in the screenshot]](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/99csales_danifinn_poll-1024x684.png)
![Screenshot of tweet by Kajornwan Chueng (@Siennafrost) which reads:
I do not like selling paperbacks AT ALL. For me to earn $3, my readers have to pay $17.99.
Yeah, I'm keeping my day job.
[Screenshot of KDP dashboard showing pricing and royalties]](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/whyks_pod_pb_margin-818x1024.png)
![Screenshot of the first lines in the published version of Chapter 2 of Petition by Delilah Waan.
Text reads:
Rahelu and her mother raced the light of the rising sun westward through the terraced streets of Ennuost Yrg. By some miracle of the Starfather, they didn’t slip once on the treacherous stair to the Temple district, and not a soul accosted them along the way to demand tribute.
Even so, they could not catch up to the leading edge of the eartharc rays sweeping across the city. By the time they staggered into Market Square on shaky legs, breath rasping in their lungs, the Isonn live fish haulers had already come and gone. They’d put the leaky barrel with her father’s latest catch in a cursed inconvenient spot—between the southern entry to the pavilion and the [excerpt ends here]](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/firstlines_petition_ch2_published-606x1024.jpg)
![Screenshot of Goodreads review. Text reads:
Her relationship with Lhorne was *chef's kiss* - I'm mostly a fantasy and romance reader and I understand that romance is probably not this book's primary genre, BUT the utter longing in the last scene they shared? [REDACTED] I'm going to need ten working days to recover 😭 [REDACTED] I just really loved this particular subplot okay?](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/firstlines_petition_review1-865x1024.jpg)
![Screenshot from the beta draft of the prologue for Supplicant by Delilah Waan.
Text reads:
Prologue: Toll
The 3rd day of truesummer, 530 A.E./A.F.
Uvesht-mo faltered in the midst of his deepnight prayers.
The stars were ringing.
A chime, a gong, whose round tones were so deep they could not be heard, could not be perceived, except as a thrumming in his bones that shook the very substance of his being until his heart felt like it would burst. Lit sticks of incense fell from his limp fingers to land on the cave floor, their scent smothered by the flurry of damp sand kicked up in his wake.
Outside the sea cave, Uvesht-m
the Starfather's gaze and wept. Tears of joy and [excerpt ends here]](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/firstlines_supplicant_beta_prologue-600x1024.jpg)
![Screenshot from the beta draft of the first chapter for Supplicant by Delilah Waan.
Text reads:
Chapter 1: Departure
The 10th day of truesummer, 530 A.E./A.F.
Rahelu leaned on the Winged Arrow's taffrail, watching the shadowed city of Ennuost Yrg shrink from view. They passed by the Isonn fishing fleet as they sailed eastward into the rising sun. At this distance, the individual boats scattered across the calm waters on the south side of the Kuath bay were as minuscule as grains of rice.
Still, she scanned each one: straining her eyes to try and pick out the patched gray sail and plodding lines of her parents' sloop from its fellows. A swift, sharp motion in the eartharc light drew her gaze to one of the smaller vessels with two figures aboard. She [excerpt ends here]](https://www.delilahwaan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/firstlines_supplicant_beta_ch1-600x1024.jpg)