Every year–I say every year but this is only the second year I’ve done this, it will be an annual thing, though–I ask the Champions subscribed to my newsletter to vote for the story they would like to see me offer for free on Valentine’s day–February 14. This year’s winning book is…Rumpelstiltskin with 25 votes and 33% of the votes. So mark your calendars folks, Rumpelstiltskin will be free on Amazon on February 14, 2016! Happy Valentine’s day!
Also, the polls are closed and the results are in for the 2016 Hero poll! The favorite hero types are: Prankster Deviants (Friedrich of C&C and Asher and Aron of Life Reader) have a runaway win with 169 votes, Earnest and Sweet (Stil of Rumpelstiltskin and Azmaveth of Princess Ahira) take second place with 146 votes, and the Strong and Silent type (Arion of Red Rope and Severin of B&B) take third with 135 votes. In fourth are the sarcastic and opinionated heroes (Merlin of King Arthurs and Steffen of Puss in Boots) with 126 votes, Villains with Heart (Farrin of Snow Q.) stole fifth with 122 votes, Arrogant but loving (Aysel of the MBRC) took six with 71 votes, the Heroic type (Rune of Wild Swans, Will Scarlet of Robyn Hood) snagged seventh with 51 votes, and loyal flirts (Devin of MBRC and Lancelot of King Arthurs) come in last with 33 votes. I do suspect Devin’s place in rock bottom might be partially due to pairing him with Lancelot, but I didn’t have another example. (Sorry, Devin!)
Looking at the results, I have to say they are fairly consistent with 2015’s poll. In 2015 the strong and silents won with 121 votes, and they were followed closely by the prankster/deviants, the earnest and sweet type, and then the sarcastic and opinionated. There was a bit of an upset with the first three this year, but the vote counts are so close I think it is safe to say the top three winners for 2016 and 2015 seem to be the types you guys prefer. Which brings us to the next poll!
I asked you, Champions, what hero you most wanted to see in future stories, and used your comments from my blog and Facebook to compile the archetypes I offered. Winning by a hair is the Over-Looked Good Guy with 108 votes. The Arrogant/Caustic Genius gave him a close race with 107 votes, and the Trickster Anti-hero wasn’t far off with 98 votes. The Tragic Anti-hero came in fourth with 87 votes, the older brother/mentor type took fifth with 77 votes, and the Awkward and Nerdy guys took sixth with 65 votes. Mysterious placed seventh with 58 votes, the Childhood Friend came in eighth with 57 votes, and the Alpha male grabbed ninth with 52 votes. Last were Male-Damsel-In-Distress with 48 votes, Unapologetic Villain with 42 votes, and nice Jocks with 14 votes.
Thank you to everyone who voted! I consider your preferences as I try to mold and sculpt new characters, so you can bet that you’ll be seeing some of the poll options in future stories. That’s a lot of information for today so I’ll cut it off here, but to give you a quick work update I’m getting ready to start my next Fairy Tale, and Editor #2 is still ripping apart working on Snow Queen 2. Thank you for reading, Champions. Have a fabulous week!