Life, art by Keith Parkinson

Bestselling fantasy author Terry Goodkind is self-publishing his next novel, The First Confessor. The author has been releasing tidbits about the book via social media–he has shared links to two book trailers through Twitter and his Facebook page–and, on Tuesday, unveiled the title of the work. The book will be available on July 2.

Goodkind’s agent, Russell Galen, of Scovil Galen Ghosh, declined to offer any more details about the book, but confirmed that this will be the first title the author has self-published. Goodkind is arguably best known for his Sword of Truth series.

Without a lot to go on (except for one personal story that makes this whole situation extremely interesting to me, but will remain behind my sealed lips), I’m curious whether this is a decision made by Tor (which I doubt) that might reflect the poor sales of his recent novels. The Law of Nines underperformed so poorly that he abandoned that series to return to the Sword of Truth universe (though, really, he never left in the first place), and that novel was published by Putnam Adult, an imprint of Penguin (best known to Fantasy readers for their imprint, Ace), rather than Tor and Macmillan, Goodkind’s long-time publishers.

Or, is this a bold move by Goodkind, who has long felt that he is the master of not only his own domain, but all domains which intersect on the venn-diagram of his existence, looking to capitalize on the success of his name as a brand. I think we can all breath a sigh of relief to see Goodkind finally escaped from the tyrannical clutches of traditional publishers and will now be able to tell the story of “The First Confessor” without bending to the sway of Tom Doherty.