Self-Made Gnome: Will Wight from Cradle to Kickstarter

If Will Wight isn't already on your favorites shelf or your TBR, he's about to be. He is the author of numerous series, including Cradle, and his characters are beloved by millions of readers. A self-publishing success story, Wight is also a gamer, a reader, a fan of anime and animation, and the author of twenty-six (he’s working on number twenty-seven) fantasy novels that you owe it to yourself to check out.

From starting on Kindle Direct in 2013 to launching his own publishing company and running a number of successful Kickstarter campaigns, his is a career to be proud of. These include the Cradle Animatic, which raised over a million dollars to bring together the talent required to produce a two-hour animated feature. With the public release of that feature length animation last year, Will’s reach is wider than ever.

I met with Will last month to talk about his career, from Cradle to Kickstarter and beyond. Our short interview was great, and showed that the humor and heart Will injects into his work are the same that he infuses into his daily life.

Self Publishing and Hidden Gnome

For a time, Will planned to build a following while publishing independently, then pursue a traditional publishing deal. Will’s first foray into self publishing was House of Blades, the first book in his trilogy The Traveler’s Gate. He expected to sell a few copies to people he knew—friends, family, classmates. But by the time he had finished begging accomplices and acquaintances to read his first book, other sales were coming in. A trickle at first, but by the time the second book, The Crimson Vault was ready to be published, that trickle had become a flood. He sold a thousand copies of book two on release day, and his hard work and devoted audience have kept him successfully independent for more than a decade.

While he has his own thoughts about the Traveler’s Gate series thirteen years later, they were beloved by Will’s early fanbase. He’s tempted to go back and rewrite the series, utilizing all of the practice and experience that he has gained since. That experience includes the entrepreneurial enterprise of Hidden Gnome Publishing, the company Will used to publish House of Blades. The company has grown to include employees, contracts, and a Chief Office Gnome. At this point it’s fair to say, “Hidden Gnome Publishing is now a real-deal small-business success story.”

Expanding the Willverse: The Elder Empire and The Last Horizon

Both Will’s readership and his oeuvre have expanded, but since the early days he has worked to create a continuity that rewards readers who follow him from series to series. Will knew to “treat every series like it’s the first.” Fans of the Cosmere will recognize a structure that lets each story stand alone, but features cameos, frameworks, and galactic scale that come into clearer picture with each book released. After finishing The Traveler’s Gate trilogy, Will jumped into an ambitious project with The Elder Empire.

This series tells two sides of the same story, split into two trilogies following different protagonists. Exploring a single conflict from opposing sides and through two complete trilogies is an ambitious project that Will was better positioned to take on because he was self published, despite the fact that “designing that structure is tough,” as Will said. This Pokemon:Red/Blue split lets readers follow the side of the conflict that they find the most interesting. Will is currently working to fuse the Empire’s two trilogies into a unified narrative experience.

Each of Will’s works occur in an “Iteration;” a universe with its own magics and societies, but with an underlying framework that lends a consistency and familiarity to the stories (Cradle, for example, is Iteration 110). The term Willverse originated among the fanbase, but eventually became so ubiquitous that even Will himself uses it, as he admitted with a sly grin and a laugh. “Each of the magic systems uses will-power in their own way, so it worked out.”

This superstructure also lends itself to creative freedom for genre-bending. The Last Horizon is a science-light, magic-heavy space fantasy series that is about sixty percent complete, with four books as of last year.

The Explosive Success of Cradle

Of all the magic systems, worlds, or casts that Will has written for his books, Cradle is the most beloved. The twelve book series follows Wei Shi Lindon, a “runt of the litter” magic user so weak that his clan decides not to train him—the resources would be wasted on a no-talent, no-strength “Unsouled.” But Lindon is passionate about the Sacred Arts (magically enhanced martial arts, strengthened by the meditation and progression systems of this Xianxia inspired epic fantasy), and finds his own path to progression. Along the way, his choices attract the attention of powerful allies and loathsome enemies; and Lindon must leverage his unique understanding of Sacred Arts to overcome challenges that seem insurmountable.

The appeal of this story and series is strong. If you’re a fan of character-driven epic fantasy, system-oriented progression fantasy, shonen anime, or martial arts stories, Cradle has something for you.

Cradle is a huge force in the progression fantasy genre. The audiobooks, especially in the latter half of the series, have topped Audible charts and top ten lists. This success is both a credit to the fans, whose appetite for Cradle grew ravenous over the series release window, and to Travis Baldree, whose voice lent charisma and life to the series’ cast (He also wrote Legends and Lattes, a self-publishing and cozy fantasy monument). Cradle frequently makes it onto “Best LitRPG” lists and other epic fantasy reading guides.

Cradle also inspired Will’s team’s early Kickstarter adventures to involve the community and interact directly with readers. Will wanted to build this community element into his work as part of the “ground floor” of projects like the Cradle leatherbound series.

Unsouled is now celebrating its tenth anniversary. To celebrate, Will’s team and Barnes and Noble teamed up to create a fantastic new cover, and eventually the entire Cradle series will get the same treatment. If you’re interested in checking it out for yourself, head to the pre-order page here. In true Will Wight fashion, this edition comes with goodies: a new cover, map, and bonus scene.

Beyond the Page: The Cradle Animatic

In 2024, Will and Hidden Gnome launched a Kickstarter campaign, called Animating Cradle: Bestselling Fantasy Novels Come to Life! The campaign drew over 8,000 backers and raised over 1.2 million dollars, enough to fund the animatic and encourage Will to write Threshold, an anthology of Cradle related stories that expand on the world of Cradle but separate from Lindon’s journey. Will also wrote the screenplay for the animatic with Cory Gustke.

The animatic brought incredible animation talent together, from the directing chops of Jay Oliva and Dave Hartman (Young Justice, Jackie Chan Adventures, Trese) to voice talents like Steve Blum, Matthew Mercer, Sumalee Montano, and Maxine Phoenix. Travis Baldree reprised his role as Wei Shi Lindon, which lent a great deal of familiarity to the story as it transitioned between mediums. For Cradle fans who followed the project from its inception to the premiere, these talents helped deliver the beloved fantasy in a brand new medium.

On screen interpretation puts many of Will’s inspirations on display. From Eithan’s suave, drunken fist entrance—bobbing and weaving past angry martial artists, to Lindon’s early mastery of the Empty Palm technique, the alchemy of Cradle is well adapted to the screen. When I asked Will about the origins of Lindon’s signature palm strike move, he cited the etymology of karate, which comes from the Japanese “empty hand.” That signature move shares some background with Sing’s Buddhist Palm, from the climax of Stephen Chow’s 2004 cult classic Kung Fu Hustle, and Pai Mei’s Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique from Kill Bill; a testament to the wide appeal that Cradle leverages to create a phenomenal reading, listening, and now viewing experience. It’s no surprise that the story makes an impressive animated project; Will “100% wrote the whole series trying to channel big anime energy.”

What’s Next for Will Wight?

The combined version of The Elder Empire series is underway, but Will has a brand new project that he has been working on in parallel: a standalone LitRPG taking what Will learned about progression fantasy and melding it with his love of video games. A world where the magic system uses the framework of a video game is a major draw to Will. He’s excited to dive into this new genre, and lay the groundwork for a progression story that isn’t “Cradle 2.0.” Rife with references to Will’s favorite games, and with a system for leveling up to gain powers, lovers of Will’s other work and the LitRPG genre have a lot to look forward to.

When I asked what games he had drawn inspiration from, he cited his college days and endless hours of NetHack. Nethack is one of the earliest roguelikes, a video game genre known for permanent death and randomized factors that make every attempt—or “run”—unique. While Will is keeping many cards close to the chest, he was willing to say that NetHack was one of the influences on his LitRPG. After many of my own stupid deaths in roguelike games over the years, I am very excited to see Will’s take on a beloved, brutal genre.

Will is working hard balancing the LitRPG, The Elder Empire combination, and the other gnomish pursuits he and his team are prioritizing this year. You need only tune in to his blog to see just how much his workload has ramped up even in the last twelve months. I asked him how he is spending his non-writing time these days, and Will mentioned that he is reading Matt Dinniman’s Operation Bounce House, playing through Terraria again with all the features from the newest update, and watching the newest seasons of Fallout and Jujutsu Kaisen.

The stories Will tells have become beloved for millions of readers. While it was his writing that won me over, our conversation took me from interested party to life-long fan. I have a lot of reading to catch up on while he finishes his current projects, and I am eagerly anticipating the next projects to come from Will and his team.