Keith Robinson's Blog, page 23

How many self-published books sold to date

I've always been interested to know how many books self-published authors are selling. I'm nosy like that. We all know that big name authors sell a bazillion copies of every title, but most self-published "Indie" authors don't sell more than a handful. It's true! So I often browse looking for facts and figures, and there are quite a few authors who are happy to blog about their endeavors and reveal everything, however meager (or spectacular!) their sales might seem. I enjoy reading those blogs. Some authors are doing much worse than I am, which makes me feel good about myself, and then there are those who sell hundreds of books a day, which makes me shake my head in wonder.

So I decided to post my own sales figures. I'm often asked how many I've sold, and I always dodge the question because it's sort of like being asked what my salary is; it just seems like it should be private information. Also, if I say to someone I've sold x amount and he's expecting a much higher figure, he might laugh at me. Or, if he's expecting a much lower figure, then it might seem like I'm bragging. Whether my sales are good or not partly depends on your expectations... but, being completely objective about it, it's safe to say that I'm doing better than some and not as good as others!

SALES FOR ALL THREE BOOKS IN THE ISLAND OF FOG SERIES

These days my books are in print as well as available on Kindle and Nook, but initially I sold only printed editions. Over time, the electronic editions have (slowly) taken over as the majority. But here are the figures to date...

483 printed editions
320 electronics editions:
---------------------------------
803 total

Or, going by the different titles regardless of whether they're printed or electronic, the results are pretty much what I'd expect in that the first book sells a lot more than the other two:

456 Island of Fog
196 Labyrinth of Fire
151 Mountain of Whispers
---------------------------------
803 total

What should I make of this? I'd prefer to see an equal number of books sold, meaning that those who bought the first book liked it enough to buy the other two. But in reality that doesn't happen. Even those who liked it might not have gotten around to buying the others, or they can't afford them. Still, I can't escape the fact that there are bound to be those who didn't like it and didn't want to buy the others. I try not to think too hard about this, though, and I tell myself that I have several incomplete series on my bookshelf (often the first book only) just because I haven't got as far as buying the others yet.

I should add that, in addition to the above figures, I've "given away" 30-50 books (reviewers, swapsies, various agents, managers and publishers, and so on. I've also got all three books in the local public libraries, and in school libraries as well, and I know they're checked out constantly (from what I've been told) -- hopefully by lots of different readers rather than one who hasn't returned them!

PRINTED VS. ELECTRONIC

I've sold more printed editions personally (signed and shipped from my home) than on Amazon. But electronic sales are taking over, and June in particular was a strangely exciting month for me. Recently I've been selling 15-30 Kindle books a month (in the US and UK), but in June I sold 64. Why? What happened? There was a big jump about a week ago, where I sold 10 overnight and then another 10 over the next few nights, and so on... but I can't figure out why. My Google Analytics reveal no sudden noteworthy spikes, so should I assume word-of-mouth recommendation on some forums somewhere? Or just coincidence? Meanwhile, Nook sales show a similar but less pronounced jump, from around 10-15 a month to 29 in June.

I'm not complaining, but this is the problem with Kindle and Nook -- all you see are numbers, and there's no way to figure out for sure what causes these numbers to rise and fall. At the beginning of May I dropped the price of the electronic Island of Fog from $2.99 to just $0.99, which is fairly standard. I'd heard that books then end up on "under a dollar" listings and sales typically increase. Well, I didn't notice the slightest difference, unless this sudden spike halfway through June was something to do with that.

Incidentally, of June's 64 Kindle sales, 58 were Island of Fog. I'm hoping that the readers will go on to buy the other two books once they're finished! Then I'll make some money, because those sell at $4.99 each (of which I get 70%).

MAKING PROFIT, OR NOT

I've read many reports of self-published authors who spend thousands of dollars setting up their books. Some of them earn their money back, and some don't. Most would agree that the money isn't really important. It's true -- obviously we all want to be rich, but that's only going to happen if we "get lucky" and start selling hundreds a day when word-of-mouth spreads like wildfire across the internet. In the meantime we Indie authors know (or should know) that we just need to get our books out there and never mind about making profit.

That said, making profit is important to me in the sense that I'm able to justify spending my time writing when I should be working. Kindle and Nook pay me money each month (June's total electronic earnings are around $75, for example) and this is money earned while not doing anything whatsoever to promote my books (apart from occasional blog posts). Ongoing monthly residual income of ANY amount is good, right?

Initially I spent $750 on an editor for Island of Fog. It was a big leap for me, but worth it. I never paid for an editor again because my brother does it for me now (he's a trained proof reader) so really the only expenses are minor fees here and there, plus stocks of books for myself. Oh, and I bought two huge banners for outdoors "event booths" at $108 a couple of years ago. But even including all these expenses, plus shipping materials and so on, to date I'm $785 in profit. Not that I really "see" that money; it's just lost in everything else, and I only have a spreadsheet to tell me the profit exists at all. But it shows me that my efforts are reaping some small, excruciatingly slow rewards in the long term.

PROMOTION, OR LACK OF

Some authors pay money to promote their books. I don't. Sometimes paid promotion reaps huge sales, and sometimes it doesn't. I have neither the time nor the interest to get into that sort of thing. Most authors agree that it's best to "get involved" with social networks and especially Kindle forums, but again, I have neither the time nor the interest. If it was as simple as posting a "Buy My Book" message, I'd do it. But it's not. You have to introduce yourself, sidle in and mingle, make small talk, add to discussions, gain respect and generally become part of the community before anyone will bother looking at your books. But it's not for me; I can't "get involved" when I really just have one ulterior motive.

So I stick to occasional blog posts. I may never sell hundreds of copies a day and become one of those self-published bestselling successes you read about in the news. But I'm doing what I like doing and I never feel like it's a chore. If it becomes a chore to write and promote your own books, then what's the point?

Lake of Spirits first draft is FINISHED!

It's been just over a month since I last posted and it feels like a lifetime! But I have an excuse: I was in England for two and a half weeks from May 22nd to June 8th, and had a great time visiting family and friends, and also eating good old British food. Oddly, despite having plenty of spare time on my hands while I was away, I didn't feel inclined to write. Why was that? Because it seems I need to be completely alone (with no distractions whatsoever) and in the knowledge that I have at least two or three hours ahead of me to get anything worthwhile done. I decided to just wait until I got home again, so I didn't write a single word while I was away.

But over the last few days I've blown the dust off and finished the first draft. There are a number of things I want to alter, such as deleting a large section early on that now seems completely irrelevant, plus adding bits and pieces here and there, and of course general editing. All this will take another month, so it'll be mid-July before I'm ready to send it out to proofreaders. Then it'll be a further 3-4 weeks of waiting and probably more editing... so we're looking at around end-August or early-September for a final release. Or maybe earlier if I set my clones to work.

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides recently and was a little goggle-eyed at the mermaids. They were almost exactly as I imagine mermaids should be, and the miengu in Lake of Spirits are similar (being mermaid-related). But while my own mermaids are nothing more than mischievous, the miengu are sinister and deadly.

It's funny how things work out. I fully intended for Hal and Abigail to get separated at the end of this fourth book (by circumstances beyond their control) to add to the angst in the fifth... but somehow, when I got to the last page, I realized that Abigail was still there by Hal's side. She had sidestepped my plan, the crafty thing! Well, no matter. The fifth book is going to have plenty of angst regardless.

Meanwhile, I had a great message from a reader in Atlanta about Island of Fog. Kara said:

Holy smokes. Thank you so, so, so much. That was just amazing! You do that wonderful, effortless-looking stylistic thing where a person gets so engrossed in the story that it's only on the second read it becomes clear how very good the writing is. And I did finish it, and immediately turned around and started it right over again. Eeeeeeeee, what a wonderful book you've done. Can't wait to go shopping for the rest of them.

Kara has now bought the other two books, and the story should still be fresh in her mind when Lake of Spirits becomes available in a few months from now. And the same can be said of all those who are buying the books on Kindle and Nook these days! I often wish I could obtain details of every reader to see how old they are, whether they're male or female, etc... but alas, unless books are bought directly from me, book sales are very much anonymous, just a bunch of numbers.

Anyway, stay tuned for updates. :-)

The second trilogy

I'm now into the closing chapters of Lake of Spirits and am already at the length of the other three books. At this rate I'll be 25 pages over. This isn't a major problem, and in any case I'll probably lose 10 pages during editing because I'll find trains of thought that need training and chunks of wordiness that need to be less wordy.

I'm at the stage where I start to panic a bit. I mean, it's all come together nicely in the end and I'm pleased with it, and looking forward to these last chapters... but at the same time I'm thinking, "Is it any good?" Then again, I had the same worries with the other three books so hopefully it'll be all right.

As the novel has progressed, I've had a few extra fleeting ideas about the fifth and sixth books, and these are starting to come alive. The first three books were a trilogy within a series, and now it's looking more and more certain that books four, five and six will be a trilogy also. Certainly Lake of Spirits will end on a cliffhanger, and I believe the fifth installment will too. I'm pretty hyped up about it and can't wait to finish the current book and get stuck into the next.

But I also have another book that I want to edit and finish, and that's The Impossible World, which I wrote last November. The feedback I've had for my completely unedited first draft has been generally positive but with some suggestions about areas that need fixing. I totally agree, and that's going to take a bit of work -- but I think the end result will be worth the effort, even if it means delaying the fifth Fog book.

If Lake of Spirits is ready to go in July, I might be able to get the fifth book out around Christmas or New Year... and then the sixth book around Summer 2012. A book every six months or so seems to be working out nicely for me. :-)

I haven't yet settled on a title for Book 5, but will let y'all know when I do.

Progress in the lake

I'm continually asked how I'm doing with Lake of Spirits, so this is an update on progress so far. With last year's Mountain of Whispers I used a progress bar displaying the percentage complete, and I had a fairly solid estimated publish date. But I'm being a little more coy with Lake of Spirits to avoid putting pressure on myself.

Last night I finished Chapter 17. Since there should be around 23 chapters in all, this means I'm 74% done. Or, going by word count, I'm up to roughly 83,000, although that's a little misleading because the number usually comes down quite a bit after my first edit. To give you an idea by comparison, the first three books were between 95,000 and 106,000 words.

I'm really into the story of Jolie. Hal and his friends have wildly varying opinions of her, and these opinions... well, they vary wildly as the story progresses! Hal goes from being infatuated with her, to disliking her, to thinking she's really very nice, to hating her guts, to feeling sorry for her... and so on. Are the miengu up to something sinister, or are they just badly misunderstood? Different cultures can come to blows over simple errors in communication, or by taking offense at what is intended as an innocent gesture. The lyrics of a classic Depeche Mode song spring to mind:

People are people
So why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

So we're different colors
And we're different creeds
And different people have different needs
It's obvious you hate me
Though I've done nothing wrong
I've never ever met you so what could I have done

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand

At one point I feared there wasn't enough "meat" to this story, but now I see that there's plenty. Here I am about to start Chapter 18 and the tension is thick enough to cut with a knife (to coin a popular phrase). I'm feeling like a bit of a meanie too, because I'm dropping Hal and some of his friends into some really nasty trouble.

And the end of the book is looming. I'm excited about it, because of what it means for the next book in the series. Book 5 is already fleshing out in my head and I expect to get stuck into that very soon after Book 4 is published.

The process of writing, for me (and lots of other writers), is organic. I started out with a very good idea of where I was going overall, but the details of how I get from the start to the finish tend to change as I go along. Some of my ideas have fallen by the wayside, while others have "just happened" while writing. I often hear writers saying how the story literally unfolded before their eyes as they wrote. I think that's going a little far where I'm concerned, but certainly some of the situations have happened almost spontaneously, derailing me for a while... and then I've had to work to drag the story back onto the rails. Sometimes this doesn't work out and I have to delete what I wrote, but often it works just fine.

Still, it makes me wonder how many possible variations of these novels there could be if I had the time and energy to continue various trains of thought and produce multiple versions of the same book -- one where Hal does x and another where he does y, thus leading to two different conclusions. In real life there would never be varying editions of the books, because nobody has that much time on their hands, but still, it would be interesting to let a bunch of readers choose which they prefer.

On that note, I had a "brilliant" idea yesterday, one I've had before but forgotten. I used to read Steve Jackson's "Choose Your Own Adventure" books back in the 1980s, and a particular title springs to mind: Citadel of Chaos (co-authored by Ian Livingstone). These books, as fat as novels, allowed the reader to get sucked into an adventure, and then after a few pages he could choose what happens next and would turn to the appropriate page. The object is to get through to a successful story conclusion after making dozens of choices along the way, but more often than not you end up dead. Since I'm a website designer, it would be child's play to have a website version of a choose-your-own-adventure based on the Island of Fog series. That is, it would be child's play in the technical sense of making it work online -- but also a lot of time and effort writing the story and all the multiple endings. I wonder if something like that would be of interest to readers? Not that I'd have time to do it... :-p

Just a reminder in case you don't know, you can now view the prologue of Lake of Spirits.

The benefits of self-publishing and ebooks

In the past few days I've been thinking about ebooks. My three Island of Fog novels are already available on the Kindle (in the US, UK and now Germany) and the Nook (in the US), and I've seen sales starting to climb lately. Although money isn't everything, I get higher royalties selling ebooks than with printed books, even though my ebooks are less than half the sale price.

There are pros and cons to everything, and ebooks won't suit everybody. I for one won't read electronic books on a screen, as I spend enough time on the computer already. I'll NEVER buy a Kindle or Nook, or even an Android phone, as I just don't need or want another excuse to stare at a screen. Plus, when it comes to books, nothing beats the look and feel of actual printed pages. The cost of a printed book compared to an electronic version doesn't come into -- for me, there's just no argument and printed books will win every time.

But others will argue the opposite, and I can totally understand why. Someone who spends an hour on the train to work every morning most likely prefers an electronic book to read on a Kindle, iPad, or even just their phone. It's the Way Of Things for people on the move or those who don't have access to a computer for most of the day but have time on their hands.

Selling ebooks is very easy, too. It's free and takes no more than a day to set up, and a couple more days for the newly published ebook to show on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. If I come across typos (which I do) then I always correct them in my manuscript, and at any point I can easily upload the new, corrected version of the book -- unlike with the printed version, which is a little more costly and complicated.

Not only am I thinking more about ebooks these days, I'm thinking that self-publishing in general is, in a lot of ways, more desirable than traditional publishing. I say that, but of course I haven't been traditionally published before! Still, consider Scott Nicholson, a published author whose books have all but gone out of print. He decided to rekindle his career (pun intended) by self-publishing his first novel. He had to wait to get the rights back before doing so, but then:

"It immediately found readers, just a few at first, and then more and more, and I realized there was an entirely new audience waiting that the book had missed by being dead for six years. I then began collating all my old short stories into collections -- all stuff that had been professionally published. Somewhere during the summer, when I got the latest 'I can't sell this' from an agent, I realized, 'You can't, but I can.' I have not looked back since. Eventually the dinky little check I was getting every month became the little check that paid my mortgage, and by the end of last year, with multiple titles, my day-job check was the dinky little check in comparison, and that's when I realized it was time to go for it without a net."

And today Scott has 12 self-published thrillers and seems to be doing what he wants to do, which is writing for a living.

I've heard this same story many times. I still dream of being published by a Big Publishing House and seeing my books in the shops all over the world, but the reality is not as rosy as all that for most authors. On rare occasions a book is highly anticipated and the publisher pours all its money into marketing it, and the book takes off and becomes a bestseller, and the author becomes rich and famous... but, as I said, that's rare. I've read that even New York Times bestsellers can't give up their day jobs until they've got a couple more bestsellers on the go. Most newbies will be expected/obliged to promote their books and will be sent along to book signings in stores. Scott Nicholson said:

I did hundreds, and selling 20 books was a major feat. So, counting the drive, that would be an average of six to eight hours, plus $20 in gas, only to eventually get back $8, assuming your book earned out. All under the threat that 'You will be dropped if your numbers decline.'

Again, I've read this kind of comment many times. I always heard that the average number of books sold at a book signing is seven (unless you're J. K. Rowling, in which case seven equals the number of days people lined up for the final Harry Potter book).

I'd like to be published, and I don't think I'd ever be daft enough to turn down a publishing deal. In fact I'd jump at the chance. But at the same time I'm no longer hung up on the idea that being traditionally published is what it's all about. There are pros and cons to everything, and I'm happy to self-publish if necessary. The biggest hurdle is finding a bigger audience. If I can do that, then being self-published would work just fine for me.

As I write this, Island of Fog is being considered by a huge literary agent firm, and maybe I'll get lucky. But I've decided this will be the last stab (in the foreseeable future) at getting Island of Fog published by a Big House. Regardless of what happens, Whitt Brantley will continue to represent the novels for TV and film adaptations.

I've often wondered what would happen if I landed, say, a 3-book contract of some kind. Obviously the current self-published editions would have to be removed from sale, and future books (like Lake of Spirits) would be "on hold" for years while the first books go through the long, long process of being published. At a guess, and based on everything I've read, each book would take a year -- so those waiting for Lake of Spirits in the summer this year would end up waiting until around 2015. Yikes!

Or, if the contract was for the first book only, presumably I'd still need to remove the rest of the series from sale... and if the published book did a nosedive and failed miserably, then that would be the end of it and the book would fade from sight, and then I'd have to wait several years before I could get the rights back to self-publish again.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. I've always got stuff like this on my mind. But no matter what, if I were offered a deal, I'd take it. Better to be published and then fade into obscurity than to not be published at all! In the meantime, I'll continue as I am and start emphasizing the electronic editions a bit more. In case you don't know already, all three books are available as follows:

Island of Fog for $2.99 on Nook (US) or Kindle (US) | £2.08 on Kindle (UK)
Labyrinth of Fire for $4.99 on Nook (US) or Kindle (US) | £3.47 on Kindle (UK)
Mountain of Whispers for $4.99 on Nook (US) or Kindle (US) | £3.47 on Kindle (UK)

And you don't need to own a Kindle or Nook to read these electronic editions. You can download free apps for your PC or phone. The apps, which emulate the real devices, are available on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites to the right side of the screen.

Millions of books sold at Barnes & Noble

Well, okay, maybe not millions...

The book signing at Barnes & Noble went about as well as can be expected. I was with three other authors and I think we sold about the same amount each. It was a very busy Saturday afternoon and I enjoyed talking to customers whether they ended up buying a book or not.

It's a funny business. You go along to book signings hoping to sell your entire stock in a whirlwind thirty minutes, but expecting to sell only a few in three hours. I've been to author events in the past where we've sold none whatsoever, because the bookstore owners hadn't bothered to announce or advertise the event in any way... but usually it's somewhere between five and ten sales in a 3-5 hour period. Yesterday's Barnes & Noble signing was very busy, with a great atmosphere, and yet I only sold six or seven. But that's normal. The most I've ever sold at a book signing is twelve, and that was stretched over a longer period.

Is it worth it? Well, yes. Six or seven book sales is better than none, which is what it would have been if I had stayed home and played on the Wii. Plus, it's not just six or seven sales; Island of Fog is the first book in a series, and customers rarely buy all the books in a series without having read the first. I'm the same; I'll buy the first one, and if I like it, I go back and get the others. So I always try to keep in mind that a sale of Island of Fog might mean the subsequent sale of Labyrinth of Fire, Mountain of Whispers, Lake of Spirits, and so on.

So, all in all, Saturday was a productive day in the end. Oh, and for all those who want to see the printed handout featuring the prologue of Lake of Spirits, here it is in PDF format:

Lake of Spirits Handout

Book signing at Barnes & Noble, Chattanooga, TN

As the title suggests, Barnes & Noble has invited me along to a book signing at the Hamilton Place store in Chattanooga. So if you're local and can drop by on April 16th, please do so! I'll be there with three other authors in the young readers category, and of course will be signing copies of the three Island of Fog books.

As a bonus, I'll be giving away free print-outs of the opening chapters of Book 4, Lake of Spirits, which I expect to publish this summer.

These print-outs are only available at bookstore signings! Although I normally print the opening chapters of each book on this website prior to publication, I won't be doing so for Lake of Spirits until at least June 2011. So if you want an early sneak preview, pop along to Barnes & Noble on Saturday 16th April between 12pm and 3pm.

See you there!

Letters from Jones Dairy Elementary School Part II

Time has been getting away from me lately, and my scanner has been playing up, foiling attempts to transfer illustrations from paper to screen. But I finally got there.

Regular readers of this blog may remember that, in March last year, 5th Grade students from Brian Clopper's class in North Carolina wrote lots of letters and drew brilliant pictures of the characters from Island of Fog. I posted everything here.

Well, ditto this year, with a new class. I'm now proud to present...

    Letters from Jones Dairy Elementary School Part II

Thanks every-so-muchly, Brian, for continuing to support my books! I hope you and your class have enough time to get through the other two books before the summer break. :-)

Many of the students asked about a movie of the book: Is there going to be one? If so, can I be in it? Unfortunately I have no control whatsoever on this subject unless I fund a movie myself, and sure, I could probably scrape up a couple thousand of dollars if I was serious about it -- but that would pay for a second camera and a plate of sandwiches and not much else. It's just not going to happen unless an actual movie producer takes an interest.

In the last few months I've had some excitement on the movie front via my agent, Whitt Brantley at WMBT Literary, Film & Television, but nothing has come of it so there's really nothing much to talk about here. For a couple of weeks it seemed like my books were being talked about by a few Big Important Types, and I had stars in my eyes... but everything fizzled out. This happens from time to time, so I've learned to keep a lid on it and not give up my day job just yet.

And speaking of stars in my eyes, I'm guessing some of you have heard of a certain 11-year-old girl named Jackie Evancho, who has an amazing singing voice and came second in last year's America's Got Talent TV show? It turns out that she read and enjoyed Island of Fog a while back, and as a result I had the opportunity to send her signed copies of all three. Her slightly older brother, Jacob, also liked the book; he's the one I mentioned in a previous post. Jackie and Jacob's mom, Lisa, was still reading it last I heard, while their dad, Mike, said he'd get me a picture of Jackie and Jacob together with the book. Jackie is incredibly famous for someone her age, with over 40,000 Facebook fans. I have nearly 90 fans on my own Facebook page, so I have a way to go yet. (If you look, you'll see that both Mike Evancho and Jacob Evancho are fans of Island of Fog, which is nice.)

One of these days I'm hoping to get an email from Steven Spielberg saying, "Hey, read your book and want to make a movie. Interested?" I'll probably reply something like, "Mmm, yeah, I guess."

The science of fantasy creatures

As I make progress with Lake of Spirits (I'm now starting chapter eight) I'm reminded again of how bizarre creatures from myth and legend really are. Not just bizarre, but downright mind-boggling. How did these creatures come about? We know they never really existed, but why do we even entertain the idea of these things in stories?

I suppose the reason we "accept" them is because they're sort of fun and cool. That's why I write about them. But even as I'm writing about them, I'm questioning how one half of an animal can inexplicably be joined to something entirely different, defying biology with no ill effects.

Take, for example, the griffin -- part eagle and part lion. Its head and front legs, along with its wings, belong to a giant eagle, while the back half belongs to a lion. Talons and feathers at the front, claws and fur at the back. The size of the eagle portion perfectly matches the lion, so it's an oversized eagle we're talking about here. Still, I'm not convinced that those wings, however large, would get the weight of that lion-butt off the ground.

There's a myth that says, "According to science, it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly." This myth was probably invented because of an overly simplified "linear treatment of oscillating aerofoils," where scientists clearly didn't take into account "dynamic stall in every oscillation cycle." It's obvious, when you think about it. Bumblebees can fly perfectly well, thank you. But most fantasy creatures really are aerodynamically unable to fly.

If a griffin was the size of a gnat, maybe it would be okay. Then perhaps the "dynamic stall in every oscillation cycle" would kick in. The laws of physics say that things work differently in the insect world, that their tiny sizes give them strength and abilities we mammals can only dream about. We've all heard that fleas are good at jumping, and it's true, everybody knows they can leap over a foot. Hmm, by that I mean they can leap more than twelve inches, not hurdle someone's boot, although maybe it amounts to the same thing. In any case, that's about the same as a human bounding over two football fields, or as high as a 100-floor building. Pretty impressive even by insects' standards... but if a flea was magically grown to the size of a human, don't expect it to perform the aforementioned leaps across football fields, because it could never happen.

But WHY? I hear some of you screaming (while the rest of you roll your eyes). Why can't a giant flea leap across town? It would happen in a movie, wouldn't it? Well, yes, but movies are utterly wrong. Take a small sugar cube. To make it twice as big, you have to double its height, width and depth, which works out to the equivalent of eight cubes stacked together. So a cube that's twice as big in linear terms (2 x 2 x 2) is eight times the volume and therefore eight times the weight. Likewise, a cube that's three times bigger is going to be twenty-seven times the weight (3 x 3 x 3), and so on. A flea that grows to twice its size must be eight times heavier, so its legs are not going to work quite as well. If it grows to a thousand times bigger -- up from a millimeter to a full meter in length -- then it's going to be a ridiculous billion times heavier (at least to Americans; it's a mere thousand million times bigger if you use the more sensible European numbering system).

Clearly resizing a bug like this isn't going to work. Its legs would snap. Think of a pond skater (or water strider), a small long-legged bug that stands on the skin of the water. It wouldn't be able to stand on the skin of the water if it were the size of a dog. If you dropped a 10-inch lizard from a height of ten inches, it would just get up and run away. But if you dropped a 100-foot lizard from a height of a hundred feet, it would splatter into goo. Size really does matter, you know. As a kid I wondered why a real-life car crumples easily at the front when it crashes into a wall, while my little toy car survived intact even when thrown with force, amounting to a scaled speed of hundreds of miles an hour.

This started me thinking (again) about Abigail, who as you may know is a faerie. She grows faerie wings and buzzes around, but actually her full transformation includes downsizing to the size of a hand -- the true faerie size. So if that's true, and her faerie wings are designed to carry her around while she's no taller than six inches, then how can she fly while at full human height?

Well, I have a few answers, which I'll explore in Lake of Spirits. I'm pretty certain I won't be able to explain fully enough to satisfy physicists, but a smattering of "unknown magic" usually gets writers out of tight spots. One thing that's interesting to note, though, is what happens when you take a "normal" human girl of around five feet tall and 100 lbs (or 1600 ozs), and reduce her to six inches. That's ten times smaller, which works out at a thousand times lighter. So she goes from 1600 ounces down to a mere 1.6 ounces. Sounds about right, if you imagine a six-inch faerie standing on a set of scales. So her wings at this tiny faerie size don't have much work to do. Yet Abigail, even at five feet tall, manages to buzz around quite easily...

This is why a sprinkling of magic dust really, really helps.

Apparently humans put about fifteen times their body weight on their knees when they run. Many animals put on a hundred times their body weight -- think of cats leaping down from fences. If you increase a human's physical size with the use of a magic wand, he only needs to be three times taller and already he's unable to stand up on those weak, feeble legs. That is, if everything else remains relative -- muscles, bone density, etc. But an ogre evolved to be at least three times taller than humans, so I can easily get away with having Robbie transform into one; it's just a natural part of the transformation. The same can be said of Hal, Fenton, and others. But Abigail is an anomaly because she should be the size of a hand.

There's a lot more to it than just weight, but if you're really interested, you could read this brilliant article by a physicist about The Biology of B-Movie Monsters. You'll never see King Kong in the same light again.

But I digressed somewhere along the way. I was going to say that it's weird how halves of animals can be simply thrown together and, apparently, that's enough for the creature to become an "acceptable myth." Emily is a naga -- a snake body with a human head. Does this mean she's a cold-blooded reptile with a warm-blooded head? How does that work, exactly? At least she's all mammal, though; poor Miss Simone is half fish! And I couldn't help wondering about Dewey, the centaur. Strictly speaking, this isn't a half-and-half creature. This is a half-human joined to a more-than-half-horse. The horse section is basically missing its head and neck, but the rest is intact -- so does this mean centaurs have two hearts? I like to think they do, as well as two pairs of lungs and so on. Maybe the human-equine insides are all joined up in a mysterious but biologically sound way. Perhaps there's just one stomach, though; the centaur eats food with its human mouth, and the food is digested throughout the length of its body and finally passed through -- er, well, anyway, you get the idea.

This is the tip of the iceberg when you really stop and think about it, but I've gone on long enough. I was going to start on about shapeshifters and what happens to, say, Hal when he eats a meal while in his dragon form and then reverts to human. Does the undigested food stay the same size...? Yeesh.

Pass the magic dust, someone.

After all this, it seems that the most normal, logical, and credible fantasy creatures are dragons!

The phoenix arises

Whenever I get time, I delve into the world(s) of Hal and his friends. This is usually late at night when the wife, child, four cats, one dog and three goldfish are in bed. (Not all in the same bed, obviously, as that would be ridiculous.)

I write until my eyes start closing, push on past sleepiness with my cup of tea, and eventually stop around 1.00am when I realize that I have to get up at 6.45am and am only going to get about five hours of sleep. Time flies when I'm writing, and it always annoys me how little I seem to have got done. But I'm getting there; I'm halfway through chapter five at the moment.

While the main plot is pretty well established, ideas for sub-plots have been bubbling up. One is about an ancient phoenix being reborn from its own ashes, and the startling results of that rebirth. I decided to name that phoenix Jacob, because of a young reader of the same name who read Island of Fog recently and kindly told me about a typo he found. This makes me wonder if anyone else spotted it! It's fairly obvious; see if you can spot it on page 181.

Anyway, I like it when readers let me know of typos. Obviously I don't want there to be typos anywhere, but if there are any, then I want to know about them so I can put them right. The moment someone tells me of a typo, I correct my original manuscript so that my next printed editions will be slightly more perfect than the last. As a reward for 12-year-old Jacob telling me about this typo, I plan to name the ancient phoenix after him. Jacob replied:

OHHHHH!!!!!!! WOW!!! Thank you so much!!!! I would really like to be a phoenix!!! I can't wait to read those books!!!! ... I can't wait to see what is in store for your new character, I mean MEEEEE!!!!!!

I'm way ahead of myself again. I'm only five chapters into Book IV, Lake of Spirits, and I'm already thinking about Book V, which has a tentative title but I'm not going to mention it yet. In case you're wondering, there's no sign of Book VI in my mind yet; I suspect this won't start revealing itself until I'm writing Book V -- which is probably a good thing as I don't think I'd be able to stand the wait. I wish I'd hurry up!!

More soon.