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The Brent Weeks Online Store is Open

Hi friends,

Y’all have been asking for Brent Weeks stuff lately, and we have great news: the Shopify store is back!

Take note–we will be open for one month only, Nov 1 – Nov 30. Stock is limited, so grab your t-shirts and books while you can. Get your holiday shopping done early! *wink*

There’s a link to the store HERE, and we will be adding a widget at the top of the home page here on the official website…

black-on-black Night Angel 10th Anniversary shirt
C’mon, you know you want one…

Fan Art Tuesday: Dave Copple

This week we are featuring a fun #BattleWornBooks competition photo from Dave. It doesn’t qualify as an entry, but we enjoy his effort and creativity. We’re guessing he has spent a fair bit time on Fark, dominating the Photoshop contests…

Battle Worn Books, Night Angel

You can check out Dave’s Instagram page for more images, etc.

Also, remember: there’s still time to enter the BattleWorn Books competition to win a copy of the new 10th Anniversary omnibus, plus some sweet Night Angel swag!

Fan Art Tuesday: Jared Stonecypher

Our friend Jared (better known as kylarguile on Instagram) made these really lovely bookmarks to celebrate the upcoming release of the Night Angel 10th Anniversary omnibus.

black bookmark with black ribbon and the words Night Angel etched into it black bookmark with black ribbon and the words Night Angel etched into it closeup of the bottom of the bookmark; round imprint of a ka'kari

Jared maintains the (unofficial) Brent Weeks fan page over on Instagram, and has shared some pretty sweet fan art with us in the past. Most importantly, he is giving away at least one of these bookmarks! Head over to Instagram now for a chance to snag one!

And before you ask, yes, Stonecypher is his real, awesome last name. How do I know? I asked, of course.

Fan Art Tuesday: Brandon Sheppard

A while ago I found this stellar image of Kylar becoming the Night Angel over on DeviantArt:

Kylar Stern becoming the Night Angel from the series by Brent Weeks.

The artist, o85cur3d on DeviantArt, created this gem years ago. I’ve only just recently stumbled onto it…. Which means I can’t find the guy! If anyone knows Brandon, tell him how much we enjoy his work.

Fan Art Tuesday: Salomé Bisson

Motion design student Salomé Bisson (who is studying in France) created this awesome trailer for Way of Shadows:

Here’s a translation of the text:

Pour Azoth survivre est une lutte de tous les instants
For Azoth survival is an every day struggle (battle)

Son seul espoir,
His only hope,

la voie des ombres,
the way of shadows

en devenant l’apprenti
by becoming the apprentice

du maitre assassin
of the master assassin

Durzo Blint

You can see more of Salomé’s work on their YouTube page.

Throwback Thursday: Night Angel Edition III

It’s already Thursday again, mateys! As this is being written, there are 2 weeks, 5 days, 3 hours, and 15 minutes left until the 10th Anniversary NIGHT ANGEL Hardcover Omnibus is released. Not that we’re excited or anything.

This week’s Throwback Thursday post on Brent’s official Facebook page features a rough draft of Brent’s pitch for MORTAL, a version of the story that eventually became WAY OF SHADOWS.


Remember to pre-order your copy of the Omnibus! Also you can enter the BattleWorn Books competition for a chance to win some sweet, sweet Night Angel swag! Also I’ve been told that exclamation points are most effective as triptychs!

Throwback Thursday: Night Angel Edition

Hi everyone!

We’re rolling out more sweet throwback photos to celebrate The Night Angel Trilogy’s tenth birthday! They tell the story of how Night Angel came to be, and how a clever guy named Brent became The Brent Weeks.

This week’s installment can be found on Facebook (and also Instagram).

You can pre-order a copy of the 10th Anniversary Omnibus from one of these fine retailers:

Barnes & Noble

The Signed Page

Amazon

You can also enter to win a copy of the Omnibus, The Way of Shadows graphic novel, and other great prizes by submitting your BattleWorn Books to us by September 12.

Throwback Thursday: An Agent Finds Brent

It’s likely true that Brent Weeks was presented to the world on one balmy summer night in New York in 2006. Legend has it his agent was enjoying a nightcap on a sidewalk patio in Brooklyn that fateful evening and—according to an anonymous friend sitting next to him—wondered aloud when the Next Great Novelist would emerge from the dark recesses of unpublished obscurity. By some accounts, a choir of angelic voices could be heard singing a wistful “Ahhhhh” in C minor when the sky opened up, and Weeks fell from the heavens directly into his agent’s lap.

But we’re not here to discuss legends, per se. We’re here to present a more believable story of writing, revision, research, rewriting, blood, sweat, tears, aphorisms, more revising and rewriting, and landing your dream agent.

First, Brent wrote a novel in college, a sprawling manuscript full of… words. Then he revised it. Then he revised it again. Then he abandoned the book entirely. But one particular character stuck with him, and he decided to take that character and…. Write a screenplay.

Which he then abandoned.

Then he wrote another novel, focusing entirely on this one kid. He called it Reaper of Shadows Mortal. He went through every word to the point where he was changing things back to the way they were before his last editing pass. The manuscript sparkled. The climax shattered expectations, broke hearts, moved mountains.

Brent, being an industrious and intelligent fantasy reader, found some 40-odd authors whose books were similar to his and looked in the acknowledgements. The result of this research was a list of 33 agents who he thought he would be happy to have represent him. Some were longshots that he knew were too big for him. He tried anyway.

Fifteen never wrote back. Fifteen rejected him. Three were interested enough to ask to see more. Two dropped out after seeing the whole MS.

While waiting to hear the wet squish of rejection from those agents, he looked into writing conferences. As luck would have it, two agents from his list were going to the Willamette Writers’ Conference–and they both were accepting pitches! He almost didn’t go. The cost was a huge stretch for him and his wife. He went anyway.

He walked into that conference with a checklist of weapons:

great novel (or so he thought).

extrovert mask–Check.

logline– wait, huh?

one paragraph pitch–what?

two minute pitch–ummmmm…

anti-perspirant. Check.

At this conference, one of the agents was… well, a little too strange for Brent. But the other one gave a talk that blew Brent’s mind. Donald Maass asked, “What is the one thing your main character would never do?” Brent imagined his response, and the agent followed with, “Now what happens to your novel if your main character does that?”

It was at that moment a small, hard shell in Brent’s brain cracked open with a faint “Ahhh, shit.” Because inside that shell lay the key to making Mortal Then Dies A Hero twice as good. (What would Kylar never do? What would Durzo never do?)

He’d come to the conference thinking his novel was ready to sell. Now, knowing he needed to do a major re-write, he had to pitch it anyway.

Ouch.

The first pitch to Don Maass went something like this: “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon meets Pulp Fiction meets Batman.” Don gave Brent a very puzzled look, like he was really trying to follow and just had no idea where he was going. Weeks had blown it.

But the inimitable Maass knew that the people with whom he met at writing conferences were serious about treating writing as a profession. (Unlike many of the other 300 pitches that cross his desk every week.) So he told Brent to remind him that they had met at the Willamette Writers’ Conference in his next query letter. (Brent didn’t mention Don had already rejected this book.)

Nine months later, Brent was ready. He sent a second query. The blacker-than-black sky parted, and Don heard what may have been bells ringing—the sweet, tinny chime of a cash register. A mere two years later, Don sold the book to Orbit. It became a New York Times bestseller, and continues to sell well to this day. Oh, did you want to see some of this legendary correspondence? Well, I happen to know where you can get an exclusive look.

We’re celebrating Night Angel’s 10th birthday with a special edition Hardcover Omnibus, to be released in the US on September 18, and in the UK on September 20, 2018. (Because 10/10 would read it again.) If you haven’t already, pre-order a copy today!