Michael J Sullivan

Hey all, Robin again. We’ve seen some recent success at some of our Reader Initiatives including:

But there is one initiative, I’ve invested a lot of time in that isn’t getting much traction, and it’s 100% free! It may be because you just don’t know it exists. So, here I am to “give you the skiny.”

For those who aren’t familiar, Royal Road is a serialized fiction site where authors (both aspiring and established) post stories for free. It tends to lean toward the LitRPG and Progression fantasy genres, but there is also a fair amount of Science Fiction, Cozy Fantasy, and even a bit of traditional epic stories.

I started posting content on this site about a year and a half ago. This includes short stories, entire novels, as well as bonus features (like the deleted scenes from Esrahaddon, and recaps of Legends of the First Empire books).

In the world of Royal Road, Michael is an extremely “small fish” – which is something that baffles me since he has more than 2.5 Million books sold. But, it is what it is, and I’m not planning on abandoning the platform. To date we have 1,645 pages posted (over 500,000 words). Here’s what you’ll find there:

Riyria Chronicles – has three full-length novels: The Death of Dulgath, The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter, and Drumindor – so if you are strapped for cash, but sill want to read stories about Royce and Hadrian, you can go there.
Riyria Revelations – the intention was to post all six books of the Riyria Revelations, in the hopes of getting people “hooked” on his stories, but Orbit objected and they made us remove them from the site. So currently it’s just a “stub” with the opening of Theft of Swords. The reason the three books of the Chronicles are still live is because we control the licensing rights to those books.
Riyria Short Stories – while the cover implies just 4 shorts, it actually has 6 stories in it including May Luck be With You – which is a Royce background tale that indicates how he got his name. Two of these shorts were incorporated into the novel, so if you’ve read them, you already know what happens, but four of them contain original content released in various anthologies.
Burning Alexandria & The Game – are non-Elan based short stories and they are fabulous. I wish more people had wread them – each has only a handful of followers and favorites.
The Elan Dossier – is where the bonus material can be found.

What’s Next is the most important chapter. I (or Michael) regularly update this to let people know where we are on various projects.
Reading Order – alsways a difficult subject to broach, but several options are provided
Q&A – answers to questions posed to Michael – you can submit your own questions by sending an email to michael (dot) sullivan (dot) dc (at) gmail (dot) com – with the subject: Elan Dossier Q&A
Two non-Riyria short stories regarding Elan: Pile of Bones (Suri & Minna), Little Wren and the Big Forest (Origin of Gronbach Myth)
Glossaries from: Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire, Heir of Novron, Age of Myth, Age of Swords, Age of War, Age of Legend, Age of Death
Book recaps: Age of Myth, Age of Swords, Age of War, Age of Legend
Bonus Matter: Making of the Death of Dulgath
Bonus Matter: Nolyn: Author’s Note, Afterword
Bonus Matter: Farilane: Author’s Note, Afterword
Bonus Matter Esrahaddon: Author’s Note, Afterword, Esrahaddon in Riyria, Deleted Scenes
Bonus Matter Drumindor: Author’s Note, Afterword

As you can see there is a lot of good stuff out there but Michael’s Riyria Chronicles has less only 1,057 followers and only 282,595 views. Now 282,595 views may seem like a lot, but on Royal Road it’s nothing. For instance, despite being #31 in the most-rated completed story list, the title at #30 him has had 5,612,600 views, and the top title has 22,141,002 views. So, if you haven’t read these books, consider checking them out on Royal Road – after all they are free. Or if you have friends or family who you’ve been trying to get to read the books and they just haven’t, remind them that they can read three full-length novels for free from here! If you are doing a re-read, consider reading on Royal Road, and of course rate and favorite it. All these actions can get its stats improved, and if that happens, then Riyria will have more visibility on a site that has millions of readers, and you’ll have more people to talk to about these incredible stories.

As always, we thank you for your support.

Free novels, Short Stories, and Bonus Material