Courtney Schafer Wins the r/Fantasy Stabby Award

So, how cool is that engraved dagger?

Recently, author Courtney Schafer received the Reddit r/Fantasy "Best Self-Published/Independent Novel of 2015" Stabby Award for her novel The Labyrinth of Flame, book III in the Shattered Sigil trilogy.

I worked on The Labyrinth of Flame, which I wrote about in my November 10, 2015, blog post. And I also wrote a blog post this past January 5 when I received my print copy of the novel.

The Labyrinth of Flame was the product of a very successful Kickstarter campaign (284% funded!). If you missed out on the Kickstarter, you can now purchase both print and ebook editions of the novel from Amazon. And if you are unfamiliar with this trilogy, then you can also purchase print and/or ebook editions of both The Whitefire Crossing (book I) and The Tainted City (book II) as well.

Of course, you can always click on over to CourtneySchafer.com, where the author has sample chapters available for all three volumes for your reading pleasure. But you don't have to take my word for it on the quality of volume three, or the entire trilogy: just check out this award:

Print Edition: The Labyrinth of the Flame by Courtney Schafer

Let's see...I need to recap a few past blog posts on Courtney Schafer's Shattered Sigil Trilogy.

In my April 29, 2015, blog post I was reading mobi editions of the first two volumes of Ms. Schafer's trilogy: The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City. All of this in preparation for working on volume three, The Labyrinth of Flame, as Ms. Schafer had hired me to do a full line and copy edit on the 219,000-word manuscript. (Just an FYI, that's 756 manuscript pages! Whew....)

As I stated in the blog post, Courtney launched a Kickstarter campaign in support of The Labyrinth of Flame, the first two volumes having been published by Night Shade Books. The Kickstarter was fully funded (funded by 284%, to be exact) -- and by my November 10, 2015, blog post, all Kickstarter contributors had received their maps and ebook editions of The Labyrinth of Flame. Since the Kickstarter print editions were still in process, the author shared with her readers the interior illustrations that would be included in the print edition.

By my January 5, 2016, blog post, all Kickstarter contributors had received their signed trade paperback copies of The Labyrinth of Flame -- and I had received my signed comp copy as well. So the Kickstarter campaign was officially complete.

Though the ebook edition of Labyrinth has been available these past few months to the reading public, what has (pleasantly) surprised Courtney has been the demand for print copies of the book beyond those she had printed specifically for the Kickstarter. Back to the drawing board, so to speak.

She again contracted with Thomson-Shore, the same printer who had provided the Kickstarter print editions. In her recent blog post announcing the general availability of print copies, Courtney explains why she again went with Thomson-Shore (quality, quality, and...quality) rather than self-publishing the books via Create Space or Ingram Spark.

So, if a print edition of The Labyrinth of Flame, book three in the Shattered Sigil Trilogy, is what you so desire, then make your way to Amazon.com or the Seattle Book Company to purchase a copy.

If you are not familiar with Courtney Schafer's Shattered Sigil Trilogy, then get ye to courtneyschafer.com, where the author has posted multiple sample chapters of each of the three books. Check it out, sample the samples, then go buy all three volumes of the Shattered Sigil Trilogy.

And enjoy the read.

Book Received: Courtney Schafer's The Labyrinth of Flame

I wrote about my work on The Labyrinth of Flame -- Book III in the Shattered Sigil Trilogy by Courtney Schafer -- in my November 10, 2015, blog post.

The Labyrinth of Flame is the product of a fully funded Kickstarter (284% funded, actually) -- and when I wrote that blog post in November, Kickstarter contributors had already received their maps and ebook edition of the novel. In fact, the ebook edition is available for purchase at this time.

And now, as I write this, all Kickstarter contributors have received their signed trade paperback print edition of the novel as well. (And I've received my signed copy of the book, too!)

Ms. Schafer is currently working on a distribution agreement with Thomson-Shore, and once that is finalized, readers will hopefully be able to order the print edition. As soon as the book becomes available, I'll post an update on More Red Ink -- but in the meantime, whatever process you use to make notes to yourself: Evernote, OneNote, Keep, Pocket, or even the old-fashioned handwritten Post-It note, make a note to read The Labyrinth of Flame. Correction: make a note to read the entire Shattered Sigil Trilogy!

As you may, or may not, know, the first two volumes of the trilogy -- The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City -- were originally published by Night Shade Books. Upon the publisher's demise, and sale, Courtney Schafer decided to self-publish volume three via Kickstarter. Fortunately, the author knows her readers, her audience, and how finicky we book collectors can be. (To paraphrase Ross E. Lockhart from his Facebook post:) Production-wise, Ms. Schafer did the literary equivalent of getting the old band back together: cover artist David Palumbo, cover designer Martha Wade, and Ross E. Lockhart on interior design. So even though the book was self-published, book three perfectly matches the previous two volumes in the series. Readers and fans of Courtney Schafer will not be disappointed in the quality -- both in design and content editing -- of this final volume in the series.

Bibliotropic has a lengthy review of The Labyrinth of Flame, and here's the conclusion to that review (but please do read the review in its entirety):

...the ending of The Labyrinth of Flame is quite possibly the most satisfying ending to a series I've ever read. It ties up everything wonderfully, leaves room for the future, and left me with flailing around like an idiot over what happens to the people I ship. Seriously, I don’t think there's any possible better way for this book and this series to have ended. It closed on a high note, filled with hope and optimism even for difficult tasks ahead, and I'm going to be honest with you all — I actually just went and reread the last chapter again while writing this, because I love the ending that much. It left me with the first book hangover I've ever experienced, and despite having just reread the first two books in the series in preparation for reading this one, all I wanted to do when it was over was pick up The Whitefire Crossing and start over, so that I didn't have to leave the world and characters behind.

Fantasy just doesn't get much better than this!

~Ria, Bibliotropic

Editing in Process: The Labyrinth of Flame by Courtney Schafer

Cover art by David Palumbo

The largest project I had worked on in the past year or two was the short story collection Led Astray: The Best of Kelley Armstrong, clocking in at around 148,000 words.[1]

That is, until I worked on The Labyrinth of Flame, book III in Courtney Schafer's The Shattered Sigil Trilogy -- a massive 756 manuscript pages, totaling 219,000 words of wondrous fiction.[2]

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may recall that back in April (April 29, 2015, blog post) I was in the middle of reading the first two volumes of The Shattered Sigil Trilogy -- The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City -- in order to get up to speed on the world and characters of Ms. Schafer's trilogy.

Since I read ebook editions of these two volumes I can't speak to their actual length. However, using Calibre Ebook Management software (which I highly recommend), I converted the two MOBI files to RTF files, opened them in MS Word, and have the approximate word counts: 135,000 words for The Whitefire Crossing, and 173,000 words for The Tainted City. That's more than 300,000 words of reading just to prepare myself for this current project.

These first two titles in the trilogy were published by Night Shade Books (prior to its acquisition by Skyhorse Publishing and Start Media[3]), after which Ms. Schafer made the decision to self-publish the final title in the trilogy via a Kickstarter campaign. The Kickstarter was more than fully funded (284% to be exact), unlocking three stretch goals.

Unlike far too many other authors, Courtney Schafer is self-publishing The Labyrinth of Flame properly -- which will be evident to her readers when they receive the finished book: She hired artist David Palumbo for the cover art, the same artist who did the covers for volumes I and II, so that the trilogy's covers would match even though the three books were not from the same publisher. She also hired a developmental editor to review the novel's plot, characterization, setting, etc. I was then hired for a detailed line edit and copy edit. After the author made the content changes I recommended, she then hired another copy editor for a final proof of the novel.

Nothing is more frustrating, at least for me, when I attempt to read -- and inevitably give up on reading -- a self-pubbed novel that has blatant typos and awkward (and often ridiculous) sentence structures. Readers won't find these issues in The Labyrinth of Flame: Courtney Schafer has written and published this novel as the professional that she is, and this volume is the worthy conclusion to The Shattered Sigil Trilogy -- and the harrowing adventures of Kiran, Dev, and Cara.

Those who contributed to the Kickstarter have already received their maps and ebook editions of The Labyrinth of Flame and, according to the author, the print editions are currently in process. In fact, Ms. Schafer shared the book's interior illustrations with readers in her October 29 blog post.

If you didn't get in on the Kickstarter but are interested in the ebook, The Labyrinth of Flame Kindle edition is now available for preorder. Print copies will be available for order on December 1, but Amazon doesn't allow preorders for self-published print editions.

You can read more of The Shattered Sigil Trilogy on the Courtney Schafer website, including sample chapters from all three volumes.


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Footnotes:

[1] You can read about my work on Kelly Armstrong's Led Astray, from Tachyon Publications, beginning in my August 26, 2015, blog post.

[2] I actually completed work on this project about two and a half months ago, but new, incoming projects have kept me busy.... I'm using the "Editing in Process" tag in order that this blog post will track with my other editing projects.

[3] "For Immediate Release: Skyhorse Publishing and Start Media Acquire Night Shade Books"

Courtney Schafer's The Shattered Sigil Trilogy

Earlier this year, author Courtney Schafer launched a Kickstarter campaign for her fantasy novel The Labyrinth of Flame, book III in The Shattered Sigil Trilogy. Books I and II in this series were originally published by Night Shade Books. Ms. Schafer then made the decision to self-publish volume III, and thus the Kickstarter campaign was born. At the time, she had a complete draft of the novel and had also commissioned the book cover (art and layout) -- with artwork by David Palumbo, the same artist who had done the covers for the first two volumes. So there was little risk for those who contributed to this Kickstarter project.

The Kickstarter was, in fact, fully funded -- and then some: the campaign achieved 284% funding and unlocked three stretch goals.

I've been reading the mobi editions¹ of books I and II in The Shattered Sigil Trilogy. I completed The Whitefire Crossing a week or so ago, and I'm now about one-third of the way through The Tainted City.

All this in preparation for my next project: I will be working with Courtney Schafer on book III, The Labyrinth of Flame, performing a full copy edit of the final manuscript prior to publication.

On her website, Courtney Schafer has provided a sneak peak at the novel, with chapters one through three available online. And, if you missed out on the Kickstarter but would still like to add this third volume to your library, the author will accept "late pledge" pre-orders until August 1; contact her directly at courtney(at)courtneyschafer(dot)com.

For those completely new to this series, the author provides sample chapters as well for both book I, The Whitefire Crossing (chapters one through six), and book II, The Tainted City (chapters one and two), on her website.

Now, as I said, I haven't finished reading the second volume, but the story has demanded my attention -- a new take on the apprentice mage (Kiran) and thief (Dev) -- with just enough twists and surprises to keep me intrigued. And, if you are a mountain and/or rock climber who enjoys reading fantasy, then this series is an absolute must read.

"Courtney Schafer has the gift of bringing this reader up to the brink, heart in my throat as I think--no! she's not really going to do that, is she?--and then ruthlessly dropping me over the cliff. That's why I love her books."
~Kate Elliott, author of the Spiritwalker trilogy

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Footnotes

[1] I read ebooks primarily on a Nexus 7-2013 using the Kindle for Android app. I do have access to an older Kindle, but prefer the amenities provided by an actual Android device.