The Labyrinth of Flame wins an award! Plus a short update on print release

The combo of business trip and cold recovery made last week less than stellar, but I came home to some truly excellent news: The Labyrinth of Flame won the r/Fantasy "Stabby" award for Best Self-Published/Independent Novel of 2015! I’ve been hanging out in r/Fantasy for several years now–it’s a terrific community, thanks to the tireless efforts of the mod team and the many awesome folks that post there–but I never expected to win one of the awesome Stabby daggers when there are so many talented authors, both indie and trad-pub, in the community. Such a wonderful surprise; I've been dancing on air since getting the news. (It's a measure of how busy/crazy this January has been for me that it's only now, days later, that I've had the chance to post here about it!)

Fellow author Mark Lawrence posted the top 5 finishers in the three novel categories, and I'm going to repost them too, because all these books are well worth checking out. (Also check out the full list of nominations in the voting thread!)

Best Novel:
Shadows of Self - Brandon Sanderson
The Liar's Key -  Mark Lawrence
Fool's Quest - Robin Hobb
The Autumn Republic - Brian McClellan
The Fifth Season - N.K Jemisin

(In addition to the above I particularly recommend Carol Berg's Ash & Silver, V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic, and Kate Elliott's Black Wolves, among the many great books nominated. Also Teresa Frohock's Los Nefilim novellas, which were nominated in the Best Serialized Fiction category.)

Best Debut:
The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
The Grace Of Kings - Ken Liu
Beyond Redemption - Michael R Fletcher
The Vagrant - Peter Newman
The Library At Mount Char - Scott Hawkins

Best Self-Published/Independent Novel:
The Labyrinth of Flame - Courtney Schafer
Forging Divinity - Andrew Rowe
Fae - The Sins of the Wyrde - Graham Austin-King
Bloodrush - Ben Galley
Malus Domestica - S.A Hunt

In other Labyrinth of Flame news, I've been getting emails from people wondering when the book will release to the general public in print. (It's already for sale in ebook on all the major retailers.) I'll be honest, the hold-up on the print version is that I'm still working to figure out a print & distribution option that will offer the same quality as the Kickstarter copies but not result in me coming out at a loss due to distributor fees. (I know everybody else just does CreateSpace or Ingram Spark, but I don't feel comfortable with their PoD print quality, especially for a book with illustrations.)

So I apologize that I don't have any definite print release date yet, but rest assured, I won't give up, and as soon as I decide on the best path and get a release date, I will announce it here. In the meantime, I do have a few extra copies from the Kickstarter print run that I'm willing to sell direct--contact me at courtney (at) courtneyschafer (dot) com if you're interested.