Just a quick reminder that the ebook version of His Robot Girlfriend is free wherever fine ebooks are to be found. One of those places is iBooks. If you have an iPhone, an iPod, or an iPad stop by iTunes and go to the books section and download this book for free. Once you read it, shoot me a note here at City of Amathar Blog, or the His Robot Girlfriend Facebook page.
A reminder– not only is there an Author Wesley Allison page on facebook, which you should visit and “like,” there is a page for each of my books. I have been reposting old blog entries that are appropriate to each book, so if you missed any you can now read them. I’m also posting new blog entries to the appropriate pages, so if you “Like” the book pages, you can read the my blog on Facebook rather than blogspot. Below are the URL addresses for each of the Facebook pages.
Author Wesley Allison
His Robot Wife
His Robot Girlfriend
Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Elven Princess
Eaglethorpe Buxton and the Sorceress
Brechalon
The Voyage of the Minotaur
The Dark and Forbidding Land
The Drache Girl
Tesla’s Stepdaughters
Women of Power
Princess of Amathar
Do to some change in the way Lulu works their distribution, and which is impossible for a normal human being to figure out, His Robot Girlfriend is no longer available as a case wrapped hard bound book. This isn’t much of a big deal, as it is still available as a digest paperback, not to mention available free wherever you find fine ebooks.
Of all my characters, none has gone through as much of a change between first draft and published work as has Patience Smith from His Robot Girlfriend. Originally she was a rather Amazonian figure, physically very imposing, but much more submissive. Some might argue that Patience is still submissive, but I think she’s not so much. When I rewrote the short pieces into a long story, she needed to have much more force of personality so that she could advance the storyline of forcing Mike to change. A college professor once told me the main character is the one in the story who changes the most– and that would be Mike.
When I started rewriting, I just wasn’t happy with her physical description, so I started completely from scratch, using a young woman I knew as a model– so yes, there really is a Patience out there. I observed her as carefully as possible (without seeming too creepy) so that I could describe her movements and gestures– like when Patience bounces on her tip-toes or incorporates dance moves into everyday movement. Since then, I’ve tried to find a human being to at least think about when I write my characters. Yes, I still know the young woman I patterned Patience after, and no, I never told her she was an inspiration. I still think it’s a little bit creepy.
The story that became His Robot Girlfriend consisted originally of some short flash fiction and the characters were not very well developed. When I decided to turn it into a book, I completely rewrote it, adding an ending. I had to turn some cardboard people into real characters. In the case of Mike Smith, I just decided to make him– me. He was a school teacher, about five years older than me, when I started, and instead of being happily married with two kids, he was a widower with two surviving children. Personality-wise, language-wise, and description-wise, he’s about as close to me as I could get. As i neared the end, I started feeling a little uncomfortable that he was so much like me, and I began working in little things that made him at least somewhat different. In the end, physically at least, Mike changes quite a bit. Patience really gets him into shape. I just started at the gym two months ago (though I don’t have a Daffodil pushing me along), so this might be a case of life imitating art.
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun and interesting, May 1, 2011
By N. M. Legel “Author of Deadly Vanity” (Phoenix, AZ) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME) This review is from: His Robot Girlfriend (Perfect Paperback)
This short story is a fun read and I, personally, love that the author took inflation and commercialism into account when building his vision of America in the not-so-distant future. There are a few conflicts going on in this story that I would love to have seen developed further, but that is to be expected in a story this length that is trying to cover as complex a concept as falling in love with a robot. I can definitely say that this story is worth the little money it costs and I have since purchased the sequel to this story and I am looking forward to reading it.
There has been a huge increase in downloads of His Robot Girlfriend in the past month– although it has been downloaded at more than 5,000 times per month for some time. Although available at Manybooks, Smashwords, and Feedbooks, it seems that readers are discovering it now at Kobo, Diesel, iBooks, and B&N.
I’ll be honest. I was happy enough with it when it was first done, but now I think I’ve improved quite a bit in my story telling and writing and I’m a little embarrassed that it’s not better than it is. Oh well, many people seem to like it– there are more 5 star reviews than 1 star reviews.
I’m here in Springdale California today, staying at the home of Mike Smith and his robot wife Patience. Their house at 11 North Willow, is lovely and futuristic… I guess duh, since it is in the year 2037. The first adventure of Mike and Patience is detailed in His Robot Girlfriend and is available at any fine ebook store absolutely free. The new adventure His Robot Wife is just 99 cents, again, where fine ebooks are sold.
I am not an obsessive person by any stretch of the imagination, but if there is anything I obsess over, it is whether my books are selling. I check my sales daily. It’s not about money. I guess you could call it pride. Writing is still a hobby for me, but someday in the distant future, I’d like it to at least supplement my retirement.
I have been selling more than a book a day on average for a while now. I also knew that His Robot Wife would be guaranteed to sell. After all, His Robot Girlfriend has been downloaded over 100,000 times. Of course, it’s free. In the first two weeks His Robot Wife has sold 46 books, and its not even in iBooks or Barnes and Noble or Kobo yet (HOPEFULLY SOON).
I have to say that it’s a really good feeling to get up in the morning and know that I will sell some books that day. My personal goal is to sell 8,000 copies of His Robot Wife in the first year. I’ll let you know how that goes.
His Robot Wife hit the iBook Store last night at about 8PM. It will be a nervewracking couple of months before I find out how it is selling. That’s one great benefit of publishing at the Kindle Store.
On a related note, His Robot Girlfriend, which was number 1 on the Free Science Fiction and Fantasy charts at iBooks, dropped to number 7. I can’t feel too bad about it since numbers 1-6 are all Star Wars books.
City of Amathar 