It was twenty years ago today – well, this month, anyway…

This January sees the twentieth anniversary of the first publication of The Thief’s Gamble. That’s quite some milestone, especially considering all the epic upheavals and changes that we’ve seen in publishing, book selling, and the SF&Fantasy genre over these past two decades. So I am tremendously grateful to all the enthusiastic fans who’ve enjoyed my books and spread the word that continues to bring new readers to the Tales of Einarinn. I’m also pleased, and proud, that these stories I devised so long ago stand up to readers’ expectations today.

The advent of ebooks, and an online environment that facilitates small presses, plays a huge part in enabling writers like me to keep our early books available. Accordingly, I’m very pleased indeed, that the digital VAT threshold that I helped campaign for, and secure, has come into force this month. This means that small presses can now sell their own ebooks direct to readers, free of DRM and with a choice of formats as they see fit, and without losing significant earnings for themselves and their authors as 3rd party platforms take 20% VAT straight off the retail price, followed by their own cut of over 50% (Google) and 30% (Amazon). When you’re considering a small press purchase, do check to see if it’s possible for you to buy direct. The cost to you will be the same, and the authors and publishers will benefit.

This change in the legislation means Wizard’s Tower Press has been able to re-open its online bookstore, and Cheryl and I have decided to mark this month’s anniversary with a special offer on all five Tales of Einarinn. From now until the end of January, the five novels are on sale. The prices are US$2.99, £2.35 and €2.99. You can also buy a fabulous omnibus edition that contains all five novels and the short story collection, A Few Further Tales of Einarinn. Until the end of January that’s just $9.99/£7.99.

These offers will also be available through Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google, and Amazon, though apparently Amazon’s website is currently baulking at the omnibus thanks to the adds-on from their own file formatting. Hopefully that can be sorted out, and meantime, if you need a Kindle version you can buy it from the Wizard’s Tower Bookstore. As ever, I am indebted to Cheryl for tackling all these technical issues.

So now’s the ideal time to renew your acquaintance with the world of Einarinn, and to recommend the Tales to new readers. All signal boosting will be very much appreciated, naturally!

Author: Juliet

Juliet E McKenna is a British fantasy author living in the Cotswolds, UK. Loving history, myth and other worlds since she first learned to read, she has written fifteen epic fantasy novels so far. Her debut, The Thief’s Gamble, began The Tales of Einarinn in 1999, followed by The Aldabreshin Compass sequence, The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, and The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy. The Green Man’s Heir was her first modern fantasy inspired by British folklore in 2018, and The Green Man’s Quarry in 2023 is the sixth title in this ongoing series. Her 2023 novel The Cleaving is a female-centred retelling of the story of King Arthur, while her shorter stories include forays into dark fantasy, steampunk and science fiction. She promotes SF&Fantasy by reviewing, by blogging on book trade issues, attending conventions and teaching creative writing. She has served as a judge for major genre awards. As J M Alvey, she has written historical murder mysteries set in ancient Greece.

4 thoughts on “It was twenty years ago today – well, this month, anyway…

  1. Awesome news about being able to buy direct. Congrats to all you folks who worked to make that happen. In other news, I just read “The Green Man” in one sitting, it was unputdownable 🙂 I appreciated the blunt no-romance twist at the end.

  2. I still have my original copy of Thief’s Gamble that I got not long after it came out. Has always had a favorite place on my shelf. Any info on audio books for the Tales of Einarinn?

    1. Good to know 🙂 And you’re not the only one – a second hand bookseller once told me that the Tales fall into the ‘hard to source’ category because once people buy them, they keep them. I was very happy to hear it.

      Audio books? That would be great, wouldn’t it? And the advent of digital downloads has transformed that market. We have waved the rights under a few companies’ noses but so far got no bites. What would most likely tip the balance would be me having a front-list bestseller that prompted fresh interest in my back-list, so we could do some sort of bundled deal. So I’ll keep working on the new epic fantasy novel.

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