Some things are deadly when broken...
Sold for the price of a pig, trained into the most expensive male escort in the peninsula, Hasheem, the Silver Sparrow of Azalea, finds himself running from his hard-earned life of privilege when a woman decides...
First off...if you have been angels who participated in voting for Obsidian: Awakening in the Indie Ink Awards 2022, which gave me 22 spots as finalists, your effort has been tremendously helpful because...
**** Awakening Indie Ink Awards wins: ****
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
YES! We made Best Debut! We, because this is also your book. You kept reading, you kept me going, you're all my family. You made this happen.
I've opted out of some categories I don't think fits Obsidian well to give other contestants a space to make finalist. In total, I entered 13 categories, won 5, and made 7 runners up. It's more than I thought I could accomplish.
Runners up include:
* Best Cover
* Best Morally Gray Character
* Prettiest Book Interior
* Shadiest Character
* Side Character MVP
* Bisexual Representation
* Gay Representation
Thank you so much, you guys, for giving me this opportunity!
*** SPFBO9***
Another exciting (and anxiety-filled) news. I've managed to squeeze Awakening into SPFBO9 this year. If you're not familiar with what SPFBO9 is, it's basically the Hugo equivalent for Indie authors, or the Wattys for fantasy genre. The contest is called, in full, Self Published Fantasy Blog Off, put together and managed by Mark Lawrence (one of the most popular traditionally published author today and NYT bestselling author). It's a first book, one-time per title contest where 300 books will be split between 9 influential review blogs to read and pick their finalists, once 9 finalists are chosen, all 9 blogs will read them, post scores and review to find the winner. Last year the entry filled within hours (and I missed the window), this year it was filled in 40 something minutes. Mark mentioned his blog was hitting an all-time high traffic. Getting Obsidian in at all was a win in itself. And many readers who follow this are going through entries to read. For more information, google SPFBO9.
Why it's so important?
The publicity for finalists and winners is massive because of Mark Lawrence's fame and his support in promoting this contest on his social media pages. You get full attention from his fans, so to speak, and with 9 blogs recommending your book, make even a finalist, and you've pretty much made it. The Sword of Kaigen was among the winner, it has become one of the most successful indie fantasy book because of SPFBO.
The good news is, two SPFBO judges have read Obsidian last year and already crowned it 5-star top read/book of 2022 so we have hope, but my book is with weatherwaxreport.org blog among 29 other titles, and I have zero idea if I will ever come close to making finalist. So more prayers are needed! I'm not hoping for much, because it's one of the toughest competitions there is. But that's something to look forward to. Finalists will be decided in 5 months (October 2023 I think), so fingers crossed.
Updates on other things...
My life has been a mess for months and it's getting a bit better. I am seriously close to wrapping up book two and looking for time to finish and release a proper, fancier hardcover for book 1. The official website siennafrost.com is working for newsletter sign up, so if you want to be notified on important things (later), please go ahead and give it a subscribe. All my interviews will be posted there as well as unreleased short stories and fillers I have written or will write in the future. It will be your hub for Obsidian.
I'm also talking to a company for audiobook opportunities and may set up a gofundme for it, so that, too, might be available in the future.
For everything else, follow me on Twitter where I'm most active stinnafrst
Again, thank you for being a part of this journey.
