As you may know, the hardcover edition of Age of Swords has gone out of print, and resellers have been charging outrageous amounts (currently $92 – $119) to get copies. We ran a crowdfunding campaign to buy the excess copies from Del Rey and I thought I should update everyone on the status of the the Age of Swords hardcovers. So here goes:

• Yes, we have copies now, and they are shipping from our online store.
• We’ve also full-funded our Indiegogo campaign to buy all the remaining stock from Del Rey, and we are heading toward our 3rd stretch goal.
• Goal #1 and #2 are providing signed Age of Swords bookmarks, and if we reach the next goal, Robin and I will do some online Q&A sessions on writing and the business side of publishing.
• The big shipment from Del Rey is in the warehouse, and I’ll be going there to sign those books after the holiday.

In doing this project, I thought it would be interesting to look at the money side in a bit more detail so Robin pulled some data from my most recent royalty statement (sales through 03/31/18) and here’s some interesting information from that:

• $15,360.42: Our “cut” of the hardcover sales of this book to date  (once we subtract off the money we paid Del Rey)
• $108,016.88: Del Rey’s cut of the hardcover sales of this book (including what we paid them).
• $21,490 – gross amount the crowdfunding campaign has raised so far. Yes in 5 days I’ve brought in MORE money than over a year’s worth of royalties from the traditional publisher! Now granted, not all of that is profit, but we still have 2 weeks and 3 days to go, so who knows how much money we will raise.
• $75,264 – my potential income if all the remaining books are sold at the same price as the crowdfunding campaign ($22).

I don’t know about you but I find that pretty eye-opening.