Keith Robinson's Blog, page 8

Pre-order Unicorn Hunters and get it on March 15th 2016

It's official -- Unicorn Hunters is available now for PRE-ORDER on Amazon in advance of its release date. If you order it now, for the pitifully low price of $3.99, it will be delivered to your Kindle the very second it's published on March 15th, 2016. And your pre-orders will help boost its ranking, because it will be like a miniature avalanche of orders on one day. (Well, I hope.)

So for all those chomping at the bit to sink your teeth in, get it here:

Buy Now on Amazon US for $3.99 – delivered to your Kindle on March 15th, 2016

Or buy it on Amazon UK and other countries (asin number is B01C4FPR2O).

Unicorn Hunters (Island of Fog Legacies #1)

It's been twenty years since Hal Franklin and his friends arrived in New Earth as full-blooded shapeshifters. It was inevitable that Hal and Abigail would end up together, and sure enough, now they have a child of their own -- young Travis, now twelve himself and wanting to follow in his father's footsteps as a shapeshifter dragon.

Of course, even though the Shapeshifter Program is available to any approved young person, Lady Simone can't allow just anyone to be fearsome beasts like dragons! No, not even the son of Hal and Abigail. So Travis chooses a wyvern, which is technically a dragon but small enough for Lady Simone to bend the rules for -- especially as the old soothsayer on the hill predicts a spot of unavoidable trouble ahead.

Does it involve the recent spate of hunters coming through into New Earth and terrorizing the wildlife? Travis is about to find out when he transforms for the first time and jumps into action to save a unicorn...

This is the first in a new series set in the ISLAND OF FOG universe but with a new generation of characters. Each book will be a self-contained story following the adventures of Travis.

Free short story The Silver Wand (Part 2 of 4) now available

Here we are again, and this month it's Part 2 of "The Silver Wand," continuing the adventures of Hal, Robbie, Abigail, and Lauren as they step across into a strange new world. There they meet scruffy teenager Quincy Flack, who you might recognize as the guy from my novel Quincy's Curse.

Quincy is a troubled character, very lonely, with a sad history. He blames himself for everything, but worse, his horrible aunt and uncle blame him too! This story is just a brief stop outside the town of Ramshackle Bottom, but if you want to read more about this rich world, then you should know that the novel starts right where Part 2 of "The Silver Wand" leaves off.

In case you don't know, Quincy's Curse follows the plight of Quincy as he meets a girl and, together, they wind up in an adventure involving stolen treasure, quite a few colorful characters, a string of amazingly coincidental events, and a sinister villain known as the Red-Legged Scissor Man with his undead henchman Pike. Oh, and there's a taxman named Wormley, who is the worst of the lot.

Though the story follows Quincy throughout, each chapter is told from someone else's point of view, making it a wholly unique experience that I think works really well and gives it a level of interest it wouldn't otherwise have. It's a book I'm really proud of, but it needs more readers.

So go read "The Silver Wand" now on my Island of Fog Free Short Stories page. And if you want to meet Quincy for real, pick up a copy of Quincy's Curse. I'd love to know what you think.

Unicorn Hunters first draft finished!

Today I typed the last word of the last sentence of the last page of Unicorn Hunters. It's now DONE!

Except of course now it's time to edit. The first two chapters are pretty well polished since they started off as a short story on this website, but the rest... not so much. It will take weeks to run through a complete edit, and after that I'll need to read it on my Kindle for further proofreading, and then it'll go to my beta reader, and then it'll come back for more edits, and then... and only then... it will be REALLY DONE!

The novel is around 66,000 words at the moment. That will change as I edit, but it's about right. It's shorter than the original nine Fog books, but a lot of that has to do with having only one main character instead of nine! That said, it's chock full of monsters and one really neat sidekick who will be a regular.

Though this is a standalone story, it really paves the way for plenty of unique adventures ahead, as you'll find out.

The first draft went quickly. I wrote the first two chapters back in September 2015 in the form of a short story called "Unicorn Poachers," but I completed the rest in the first three weeks of January. A first-draft novel in one month! But as I said, I now have to edit, and that's another month's work, plus the beta reading, proofreading, etc. So 2-3 months per novel is realistic.

Things pop into my head at random times. I went to bed the other night and realized Travis has had a 2-day adventure and not eaten a single thing. This wouldn't be noticeable if he was at home, because he could snatch a meal behind the scenes. But he's not at home. He's dealing with bad guys and a plethora of magical beasts, and I follow his movements pretty closely. Still, there are a few places I can add mealtimes, so it's not big deal to fix.

There's another short story called "The Soothsayer," written in November 2015, that relates heavily to this new novel. I considered using it as a prologue in the book itself, but I decided it's just not needed. It does, however, make a great prelude, kind of a teaser. So if you want to get a sneak peek at what's to come, read those two stories, "The Soothsayer" and "Unicorn Poachers," available now for free.

I'm going for an official release date of March 15, 2016, though I reserve the right to change this if I need to.

Now onto the editing...

Free short story The Silver Wand (Part 1 of 4) now available

Okay, so this month's tale is a little different.

I thought it would be a real hoot to let Hal drop in on some of my other series in a way that actually makes sense. To my surprise, it works pretty well. There's a perfectly logical reason how the shapeshifters from the Island of Fog series could end up meeting the characters from Quincy's Curse, Fractured, and Sleep Writer, and that's what you're about to see over the next four months.

This is Part One of a four-part serial. What I love about this story is that it fits into the other three series without interfering with their chronologies. You can read this as a standalone Island of Fog tale and leave it at that... or if you're a fan of Quincy's Curse, you'll get to meet Quincy again... or if you like Fractured, you'll soon run into some of those characters and beasties... or if you like Sleep Writer, you'll quickly realize that what Hal finds is something from the Sleep Writer universe.

If you happen to have read ALL my books across all series, then you should find this particularly interesting and fun, and you'll learn a couple of things you didn't know before. If you haven't, well, maybe this will whet your appetite!

Go read "The Silver Wand" now on my Island of Fog Free Short Stories page.

Sleep Writer series now available in paperback!

Just before Christmas, I worked on getting my three current Sleep Writer titles into print. Now they're available to buy on Amazon in various countries -- or, if you're a USA resident, you can buy direct from the printer, CreateSpace.

If you buy from CreateSpace anytime in January, you'll get 15% off the retail price. Just click the CreateSpace links below and add the books to your cart:

#1 Sleep Writer -- CreateSpace | Amazon US | Amazon UK#2 Robot Blood -- CreateSpace | Amazon US | Amazon UK#3 Caleb's World -- CreateSpace | Amazon US | Amazon UK

Before checking out, enter the discount code SFQ5MWM2, which will adjust the total and take 15% off. Then press the Checkout button and create a quick and free account if you need to.

Or you can get the books at the usual price from Amazon. Be sure to check shipping costs and see what works out best for you!

Either way, I'm chuffed with how they turned out. Because the books have a lower word count than the Island of Fog books, I was able to go with a slightly bigger font and a smaller physical size (5 x 8" rather than 6 x 9").

And just so you know, Book 4 in this series will be released around Summer 2016. It's called Warp Giants, and I'll talk about that more in another post.

New cover for new book in new Island of Fog series!

I'm busy writing the first book in the new Island of Fog spin-off series, and I thought it was time to share a bit more about it. So without further ado, here it is...

UNICORN HUNTERS
(Island of Fog Legacies)

It's been twenty years since Hal Franklin and his friends arrived in New Earth as full-blooded shapeshifters. It was inevitable that Hal and Abigail would end up together, and sure enough, now they have a child of their own -- young Travis, now twelve himself and wanting to follow in his father's footsteps as a shapeshifter dragon.

Of course, even though the Shapeshifter Program is available to any approved young person, Lady Simone can't allow just anyone to be fearsome beasts like dragons! No, not even the son of Hal and Abigail. So Travis chooses a wyvern, which is technically a dragon but small enough for Lady Simone to bend the rules for -- especially as the old soothsayer on the hill predicts a spot of unavoidable trouble ahead.

Does it involve the recent spate of hunters coming through into New Earth and terrorizing the wildlife? Travis is about to find out when he transforms for the first time and jumps into action to save a unicorn...

The short story I wrote in September, "Unicorn Poachers," is in fact the first two chapters of this new novel, though the title will be Unicorn Hunters. Poaching brings to mind killing for skins and tusks, whereas this book is more about kidnapping magical beasts to create a personal zoo for a powerful millionaire collector.

In that short story, readers might remember Hal and Abigail's son was named Cale. Well, I changed this to Travis because Cale is so similar to Caleb in one of my other books, and also similar to Kyle in another. So I'll be making that change to the short story and in future will refer to the twelve-year-old as Travis Franklin. Why Travis, though? No particular reason, but it's funny how in my original sci-fi novel Caleb's World, the main protagonist was a boy named Travis. Since Travis became Liam in the reimagined version of the book, suddenly I had a displaced name to use. It just seemed fitting to repurpose Travis as Hal and Abigail's son.

You'll notice also that the new series is titled "Island of Fog Legacies." I wanted to keep the connection to the original series, only the new books really have very little to do with a fog-covered island -- hence the addition of the word "Legacies." And this is what the series is about, a legacy of shapeshifting made possible because of Hal and his friends, who helped bring home Bo and Astrid (the sphinxes) and thus discovered a better way to run the Shapeshifter Program. Anyone who's read the series will know what I'm talking about.

Unlike the original series, the Island of Fog Legacies books will not have volume numbers. Each book will be a standalone story, though still following Travis in his adventures. According to my research, I understand that many readers these days avoid series because each book typically ends with a cliffhanger and then makes you wait for the next book. Readers have been known to avoid series until the last book is published, at which point they binge-read.

I don't want that to happen. I want each book to stand alone even though they show an overall progression of Travis's life. Also, I don't know how many books there will be. Thanks to a very clever plot point, the new series has the potential for many more volumes than the original series ever did... :-)

For those who are curious, grown-up Hal and Abigail will feature in a few early chapters of Unicorn Hunters and toward the end, and of course they'll pop up as recurring characters throughout the series. They are, after all, Travis's parents. There will be plenty of references to other favorites from the original series, and in later books I'm certain Travis will go visit his "Uncle Robbie and Aunt Lauren" -- not actually his uncle and aunt, just what he likes to call these great family friends.

I'm also excited about an imp called Nitwit who follows Travis around. She'll be a fun character. But useful? Not so much. She's an imp, after all.

So the first book is well underway, already a quarter written. I expect to finish the first draft by the end of January and work through the edits in February, with a view to publishing sometime in March.

Watch this space!

Just over a million words

Fellow author and all-round jolly good chap Brian Clopper wrote a post the other day, Well past a million words, detailing his mammoth word count to date. In writerly circles, talking about word count is something very nerdy and boring to anyone but authors. I don't care. I'm posting my own word count here anyway.

I thought I'd take it back to my humble roots, April 2009, when I debuted Island of Fog (which was actually finished the previous November) and quickly followed up with the second book:

2009 (total 190,699 words)
-- 97,155 Island of Fog
-- 93,544 Labyrinth of Fire

The next three years look quite lazy in retrospect, with each novel taking about eight months:

2010 (total 150,318 words)
-- 105,318 Mountain of Whispers

2011 (total 103,010 words)
-- 103,010 Lake of Spirits

2012 (total 99,478 words)
-- 99,478 Road of Madness

In fact I was working on a couple of other projects as well (Quincy's Curse and the original version of Caleb's World), but these didn't see publication until later. See below.

In 2013, someone must have lit a fire under me because my word count shot through the roof. I remember that I just "got quicker" at writing books, and the next couple of Fog titles only took 4-6 months each. And bear in mind I'd started Chamber of Ghosts in 2012, so really some of that word count should be spread out. But there was also Fractured, co-written with Brian Clopper. I've only included my half here:

2013 (total 309,855)
-- 100,050 Chamber of Ghosts
-- 50,835 Fractured (my half)
-- 91,776 Valley of Monsters
-- 67,194 Quincy's Curse

Quincy's Curse was half-written already from some of those previous "lazy" years. I just had to finish it.

2014 was a good year too, with the 2-part Fog finale (each title taking about 4 months each) and the first exciting installment of my new Sleep Writer series:

2014 (total 231,020 words)
-- 86,345 Prison of Despair
-- 92,605 Castle of Spells
-- 52,070 Sleep Writer

And finally, 2015 was a mixed bag:

2015 (total 249,031 words)
-- 54,372 Unearthed (my half)
-- 34,942 Eye of the Manticore
-- 58,849 Robot Blood
-- 40,749 Monsters in the Fog
-- 60,119 Caleb's World

Eye of the Manticore was a short novella, and Monsters in the Fog was a collection of short stories (but all written in 2015 and posted to the website). The other three were full novels; Unearthed, which was the second part of the Fractured story and again co-written with Brian Clopper (my half included here), and also Robot Blood and Caleb's World, the second and third parts of the new Sleep Writer series. Caleb's World was of course partially written a couple of years before.

And so the grand total is 1,114,712 words.

Brian has almost reached 1.5 million words, and I'm at just over a million, so obviously he's well ahead. But it's close enough that we're in the same race, if indeed you can call it a race. It's not, really. But it's a nice sense of accomplishment.

So what's planned for 2016? Quite a lot! I'll go into that in the New Year, but for now I'll just quickly say there's the first book in the new Fog-related series, plus the fourth book in the Sleep Writer series, plus monthly short stories and perhaps a compilation ebook, AND something totally different and outside my usual genre and age group. As I said, more on all this in the New Year.

Until then... Happy Holidays, y'all, and thanks for reading my stories! :-)

Free short story Be Good for Belsnickel now available

This is a story with some Christmas spirit, a year on from the shapeshifters' first festive season in New Earth. This year they've discovered a long-standing tradition where children head off up a snowy hill to a cottage, where an old man named Belsnickel will determine how well-behaved they've been. If they've been good, they receive a small gift. But if they've been bad...

There's some real-life folklore in this story. I included Belsnickel and Krampus as aspects of good and bad. You can look them up online if you want more information. There's also a Christmas comedy movie called Krampus, and I've spotted the mythical creature popping up in various other places too. He's doing the rounds at the moment!

Anyway, my take is entirely made-up as usual, only loosely based on the "known" legend, but I like to think my version is the real reason we heard about these legends in the first place. ;-)

Happy holidays, y'all!

Read Be Good for Belsnickel and other short stories, and look for another next month!

My name is Keith Robinson and I'm a writer

If there was such a thing as Writer's Anonymous, where habitual writers go to talk about their inability to stop scribing, I would miss every meeting because I'd be too busy writing. Or I'd sit there during the meetings peeking at my laptop.

I can't ever get enough time to write even though sales have slumped this year. And when I say slumped, I mean Amazon sales in particular have halved (though other channels are about the same). It used to be that I could plan and write a book with the expectation it would bring in a certain additional income over many years. Not any more! Amazon sales have slowed since March 2015, though I don't exactly know why. Whatever's going on seems to be affecting plenty of others too. Maybe it's due to a saturation of new books by new authors? Literally a million or more new books are published each year. It's SO easy to publish these days that everyone's doing it.

It makes me doubt my long-term plan of retiring with a slew of books under my belt. But I'm not swayed, no sirree. In fact, right now I'm moving toward a new generation of Island of Fog shapeshifters in 2016 as well as thinking about Sleep Writer Book 4 for next summer. Also, I have a plan for a trilogy of horror books for mature audiences. More on that another time! But the point is, a slow-down of sales doesn't stop me from wanting to write.

I think about writing pretty much all the time. I very rarely have the radio on while I'm driving because there are so many annoying adverts, and the constant talking interrupts my train of thought. Pandora is a good option, but half the time I can't be bothered to hook it up and get it started. I'm happy to listen to the silence, much to the annoyance of my 11-year-old girl. I can easily drive for three hours with nothing but road noise, plotting my next book. I don't understand people who can't just sit still and quiet. Why do kids get bored? How is that even possible...?

We watch a lot of good TV shows -- and ONLY good shows, because life is too short for substandard stuff, so we're pretty selective -- and I'm often sitting there watching a show and thinking about how the story is constructed. And, conversely, I think about TV and movies while I'm writing. I write scenes as if they're being played out on a screen, and this helps me visualize the action and drama.

It might surprise you to know that I don't read much anymore. I should, but I just don't get time. Likewise, I don't listen to audiobooks, though I would if I had to commute to work every day. My wife has a 45-minute drive every morning and evening, and she plugs in and enjoys her audiobooks and makes good use of that time. But me? I'd have to deliberately sit down and do nothing if I wanted to listen to one. Who has time for that? Also, I find that my mind drifts, and I quickly... uh...

What was I saying?

Anyway, I've noticed that overall visits to this blog have also dropped off since the middle of 2015, and I assume it's part of the decline in sales. Reduced free downloads and sales naturally means fewer people finding their way here. But I've also noticed less interest (fewer comments) in what I'm posting, which is entirely my fault. I don't write so many varied posts anymore; usually it's just to announce a new short story or a new book, and I'm sure that gets boring after a while!

ALL of this -- fewer downloads, sales, comments -- coincides with a lack of new Island of Fog books. When I ended the series, it seems like things tailed off a few month later. Coincidence? I'm honestly not sure. Will things pick up when my new spin-off shapeshifter series starts in 2016? Only time will tell.

But despite all this, my interest in writing has not waned one bit. Maybe there's a little less urgency to hit deadlines, but otherwise nothing has changed.

As usual, look for a new Island of Fog short story in a couple of days from now. It features Hal and his friends in a Christmas-related tale. I'll always find time in my schedule to slip in a monthly short story. :-)

My name is Keith Robinson and I'm a writer.

Free short story The Soothsayer now available

With the release of Mountain of Whispers in audiobook format, I was inspired to take a peek at the soothsayer who's popped up once or twice in the series. The first time was outside Dr. Kessler's house after Miss Simone was stung by a manticore, and it was the soothsayer's warning that inspired the shapeshifters to go to Whisper Mountain.

Can anyone remember the next time he showed up and what he warned of? ;-)

The SoothsayerThe old soothsayer has been around a very long time, cursed with premonitions. He usually keeps them to himself, because his dreams come true no matter how much warning he offers. But sometimes a dream is too important to ignore.

This latest short story -- which as always is more of a single chapter than a self-contained story -- follows the soothsayer one morning after a fairly significant dream. Call this a companion piece to the "Unicorn Poachers" story that I posted a couple of months ago, which in turn means it's another hint at the brand new shapeshifter series starting in the new year.

Read The Soothsayer and other short stories, and look for another next month!