Shawn P. B. Robinson

I’ve been a little slow on posting blogs as of late. I have a bunch of them nearly ready to go, but nearly ready is not ready enough. 🙂

As I mentioned last month, my health has been undergoing some major renovations. I’m still not sure what it’ll look like in the end, but at the moment I’m struggling so you’ll have to put up with fewer blog posts. A number of the posts coming up have to do with the publishing process in terms of cover design, artwork, using Pressbooks, KDP, Ingram, etc. Keep your eye out!

Here’s a quick update on the book situation:

Book Launch Teams

When these are all done, I’ll blog about them and share the process I went through. They have been fun outlets for me in the midst of trying to get the rest I need. Two of them are finished now, and they were great experiences! The third team has two more weeks to go. The young readers on the teams (ages 10-14) gave me a LOT of helpful feedback. They also found a punctuation mistake and a spelling mistake that had yet to be caught. It is amazing how many eyes have gone over that book and did not see those mistakes!

I also had one of the young ladies in one of the groups tell me the book was her favorite book she has ever read. That fed my ego in a disastrous way, and no one will ever hear the end of it.

Book One: Arestana: The Key Quest

Yup, that’s the name of the book! I think that’s the first time I’ve posted the name for it! If you’re wondering what “Arestana” is, you’ll have to read the book. If you’re wondering what “The” is, it’s an article.
The Key Quest is set up and ready to go! It comes out on April 2 which is only a couple weeks away!

Book Two: Arestana: The Defense Quest

In case you forgot, “The” is an article. I think they call it a definite article. Does that help?

The Defense Quest has undergone the bulk of its editing and proofreading, and I’m sure it’s just about cleaned up. I have just ordered a couple proof copies so that we can find another 200-400 mistakes. With book one, I was surprised to find the proof copy experience revealed hundreds and hundreds of mistakes and formatting issues. It was shocking!

I had one of my proof-readers for The Defense Quest tell me that she liked this book more than book one. She also shared that she was continually surprised and had no idea what was coming next. That’s fun. I like that. 🙂

The Defense Quest is set to come out on June 4, 2018. I hope to do some book launch teams for this as well, but it will depend on my health.

Book Three: Arestana: The Harry Quest

It’s “Harry,” not “Hairy.”

Book three is on the backburner. I need to pull it out and clean it up a little bit because I told a couple of my alpha readers that they could read it soon. I think in some ways, book three is my favorite. I tried some things with it that I didn’t try with the first two. I might change it all, though. I think I crossed a line or two that I need to uncross. Nothing evil or bad, just probably some things that need to be taken out. And by “things,” I mean probably a few chapters need to either be rewritten or removed. 🙂

As I move forward, I continue to write. I’m told that writing is very helpful for my recovery, so I continue to do it. That’s good news for me as I continue to enjoy it as well.

I have also finished ten short stories that are about a character that shows up in books two and three. These stories are a spinoff of the main books. The main character in it (a Squirrel) and the stories are based on bedtime stories I used to tell my sons years ago. I just had never put them down on paper before. They have been fun to write and fun to share with some of my early readers. I look forward to sharing them with all of you!

There you have it… my March book update!

Shawn

UPDATE: To check out Shawn’s books, head to My Books page!