About trhickman

NYT Best Selling Fantasy Novelist and Game designer.
Website: http://www.trhickman.com
trhickman has written 42 articles so far, you can find them below.


Chapter 3: Farmer Bennis Posted Today

We are excited to present Chapter 3 today of Eventide. It introduces us to Aren Bennis — an enormous centaur who works his farm just north of the village. There is far more to Farmer Bennis than anyone in Eventide knows and the mysterious centaur intends to keep it that way! When the ebullient Edvard apparently recognizes the farmer, Bennis must act quickly to keep the Bard close enough to silence the Bard from telling one story too many.

This chapter closes Part 1 — “Chasing One’s Own Tale” and brings us to the beginning of Part 2 — “Feet of Prowess: Wherein Jarod tries to find a gift for Caprice in the town but discovers the heart of a poet in the most unlikely of places.”

Chapter 3 — as well as all previous chapters — are available now for download to subscribers. Enjoy!

Listening to Eventide…

Laura and I have been taking such delight in Eventide that we have decided to expand on it. We have taken our love and experience in audiobooks and will now begin releasing our own audio version of Eventide for you even while the writing of the book is in progress!

You may now subscribe to this experience right here at Dragon’s Bard for $15 USD anywhere in the world and download the mp3 files as they are posted. The Prologue and the First Chapter are currently available and future chapters will be appearing for your enjoyment from one to two weeks after we release the printed book chapters to our Elite Book subscribers. Audio subscribers will only get the audio downloads which means, of course, that unlike Elite Book Subscribers, they will not have access to the chapters as they are written nor will they have access to the exclusive forums and behind-the-scenes information on the Elite secure website. Most importantly, Audio Only subscribers will not be receiving that limited-edition, signed and numbered hardback at the end of the subscription.

However, the good news is that everyone who subscribes to the Prepaid Audio Only Subscription will receive a coupon worth a $15 USD discount off of their upgrade to an Elite Book Subscription! Since the Elite subscription includes the audio book, this effectively means that you get your purchase price of the audio only subscription back when you upgrade and still receive the audio book.

Of course, you may want to just buy a chapter and see if you like it … so we’ve made that easy for you, too. You can purchase individual audiobook chapters for $1.49 USD from the Pay-per-download section of the Audio-Only page … but you may want to check out the Compare Subscriptions Page first to determine which plan is best for you.

Welcome to the even grander experience of Eventide!

Evolutionary Publishing

In business, one must evolve or become extinct. Nowhere is this more evident than in the state of Book Publishing today.

Changes both in the economic market and in information technologies have left traditional publishing at a standstill, each waiting for someone else to make a move.

We believe this is due, in part, to many publishers misunderstanding the fundamental function of their business. Generally, book publishers believe that they are in the business of ‘making and selling books.’ This seemingly obvious conclusion is, in fact, misleading. Printers are in the business of making books. Distributors, wholesalers and retailers are in the business of selling books.

The fundamental function of Publishing is to be the Arbiters of Literary Quality.

Publishers and their associated editors have always been the arbiters of quality. ‘Being published’ was and remains a symbol of achievement precisely because it took a quality work to see print. It has never been an issue of censorship – publishers have traditionally been in the forefront of putting new and controversial ideas into print – but it has always been about whether the writing and presentation of the ideas was worthy of the book form.

This ‘mistake of the obvious’ has considerable historical precedence. The ‘Rail Barons’ of the late 18th and early 20th century believed they were in the ‘railroad business’ when, in fact, they were in the ‘transportation’ business and initially failed to evolve when air transportation developed as a direct challenge to their market. Because railroads were slow to understand that the fundamental nature of their business was transportation, passenger rail travel lost its near monopoly grip on passenger transportation and never recovered its previous market share.

Likewise, when the Hollywood studio system collapsed in the 1950’s, motion picture studios believed that they were in the business of ‘making movies.’ The direct challenge to them from emerging commercial television signaled what many in the entertainment industry believed to be the death of motion pictures and their studios. Only when studios evolved and came to understand that their true business was in underwriting, marketing and facilities for independent entertainment production did the motion picture industry recover and is now thriving.

While traditional publishing waits, ebooks and internet delivery systems continue to evolve and consume market share. There needs to be an evolutionary step in publishing to keep pace with the evolution of other information technologies.

Dragon’s Bard represents an evolutionary step in publishing – combining the classic form of the serialized novel with the power of the internet to provide a unique experience for the reader and a treasured book at the end of the journey.

Eventide Begins Today…

The first chapter in the Dragon’s Bard book ‘Eventide’ was made available this morning to subscribers. The download includes:

  • The Prologue: The DragonBard’s Most Sincere Overture and…
  • Chapter 1: The Innkeeper’s Glorious Service

Chapter 2 will be released on June 12th. Laura and I are both very excited to be launching our new project and to enjoy this journey with our subscribers.

Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing…

Tracy Hickman’s interview with ‘Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing‘, a podcast about science-fiction and fantasy books has just released.

Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing – Episode 91

Hear Tracy’s thoughts on the Dragon’s Bard books and the unique challenges and opportunities they present.

I Know a Special Place…

Laura and I have just completed a wonderful audio invitation for our Dragon’s Bard series. You can download and listen to the invitation (60 seconds) right here: I Know a Special Place…

We are less than a week away from the release of our first chapters! Join us on this amazing adventure in fantasy.

Welcome from Dragon’s Bard…

…to an exclusive opportunity!

You are a special part of a journey for only a select few will be privileged to take it with us. New York Times Best-selling Tracy Hickman with his wife and partner Laura Hickman, world-renown fantasy authors for over a quarter of a century are writing this series exclusively for a limited number of their friends by subscription only!

When you subscribe to Dragon’s Bard: Eventide you will receive:

  • A new chapter each week! You can look forward to watching the story unfold each week as you receive a download file containing the edited and formatted text of a new chapter written exclusively for our subscribers.
  • Exclusive Updates and Insights: What are the challenges and rewards of writing a serialization of a novel? Gain insights into the process through special communiques from the authors.
  • … And the signed & numbered limited-edition hardback publication of the book! When the book subscription is finished, you will receive your own hardback, limited-edition copy of the book. This highly collectible publication will be one of only 3,000 in the subscription.

We look forward to your joining us on our first adventures…

…to a journey created especially for you!

I know what you’re thinking! You’ve never seen a dragon at all – let alone any Dragonking named Khrag. You’d be right, friend, and it’s my calling day and night to see to it that you don’t! Now you can see with your own eyes that I’m no dragon-slayer … but I keep old Khrag from burning down your door and savaging your town more surely than any knight that ever tilted a lance!

How? Why, good friend I’m Edvard the Just! You’ve no doubt heard of me. No? But surely you’ve heard of the renowned Dragon’s Bard, purveyor of peace; the minstrel who wanders the land in search of places, people and their tales that save all innocents from the dragon’s wrath. That old and terrible monster Khrag lives for stories and so long as his curiosity is satisfied, he’ll rest at his east in his dark home deep in the ground. When I chanced upon him, he had long ago heard all the great tales – the very epics and sagas you yourself have known since your youth. Indeed, that same dragon Khrag had participated in many of these tales himself and is, I must tell you, frankly bored to dragon-tears with the same old legends of the great and powerful. What keeps him docile and at peace are the tales from places of which no one has heard. So it is that I travel the face of our land, going from village to town, experiencing the lives, sights and sounds of each place so that I might take them back to Khag and…

I beg your pardon? Who? Oh, THAT! That is my apprentice, Abel. He is not terribly promising as a bard but he is a faithful scribe – his ability to write is proving a somewhat useful addition to my already celebrated skills.

Oh, so you read? But of course you do! I knew at once that you were of that learned and educated class that has been trained in the art. Then perhaps I might interest you in this volume of mine, a true and accurate portrait of a village that might amuse you. You may have occasion to visit this charming locale and such a book would serve you well for it would acquaint you not only with the hamlet itself but the people who live there, too. You would know where best to dine, where best to take your lodgings, the important eccentricities of its famed wishing well, the peculiar customs regarding gnomes and who best you might trust there should occasion arise.

And the citizens of that village! This book will acquaint you well with them all. Indeed, Khag himself said just before he fell into a satisfied sleep that he felt that he knew them so well as to make the collection on the whole a treasure of inestimable worth. And I have many such volumes now, each of different places where I have travelled which may be made available to you at price so trivial as to…

My pardon! The name of this town? But of course, you may read it plainly for yourself on the cover. Upside down? Really? Allow me then…

It’s called Eventide.

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