A while ago, I told you that I had been nominated to the longlist for the David Gemmell Legend Award for fantasy. That list of 78 authors was nominated by publishers and put to a popular vote to decide on a shortlist of five authors.

Along with incredible, established talents like Juliet Marillier, Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson, and Polish best seller Andrzej Sapkowski, one debut author made the list. (Go on, guess.) Orbit publishing director Tim Holman issued THIS very nice press release. So, thank you very much, because it was people like you–who visited this web page and voted for me–who got me in. It’s an honor just to be listed with these great authors.

BUT! Although I fully expect to get creamed in the finals, I feel pretty optimistic, like THIS.

The winner of the David Gemmell Legend Award is chosen by the public. That means you don’t have to go to a convention, you don’t have to be part of a secret cabal, you don’t have to dress up as a Wookiee, it just takes 3 clicks. Start HERE. Seriously, it’s simple enough that I figured it out. (Though my wife explained the big words.) Voting is open now and ends May 31.

A note: because you aren’t required to login, in order to make sure you only vote once, they monitor votes per ip address. So even if both you and your brother or wife or whatever liked the book, be aware that double votes per household will get both tossed out. (And yes, I imagine some of you are techno-savvy enough to circumvent the system, but please don’t. Cheating to help me would devalue the award, and I don’t want that.)

Thank you again for voting for me, for telling your friends about my books, and just being awesome fans.