It was 2008, and I had just finished writing the first draft of a massive fantasy novel that I was calling The Steel Dragon.  This would eventually become The Voyage of the Minotaur, The Drache Girl, and The Two Dragons.  I printed up 10 copies and handed them out to friends to read and edit over the summer.  Each one was a 4″ thick notebook.  I had also just self-published Princess of Amathar.

While I was waiting for the editing to be completed, I thought I needed something to post to Feedbooks and Manybooks to get my name out there.  I had written some sci-fi flash fiction a few years earlier and thought I could piece them together to make a novel.  This became the first half of His Robot Girlfriend and I wrote the other half over the summer (while teaching summer school).  I published it online and was astounded at the interest.  At one time, it was the third most downloaded book on Feedbooks (It’s since dropped to number 7).

His Robot Girlfriend succeeded in getting my name out there.  It’s been downloaded almost 500,000 times, has been reviewed numerous times, and I get many emails and notes from people that enjoy it.  That being said, I think it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done.  Someday… soon, I plan to make a serious revision to the book.  There are some errors, but mostly, I think I can write much better than I did.  It has to keep the same plot and same major elements, but I’d like to smooth it out, fix the ending (which is weak), and maybe add a bit to it.  We’ll see.

One comment that detractors frequently make about His Robot Girlfriend (feedback is overwhelmingly positive) is that Patience has no will of her own.  She is a robot, duh!  But this gave me an idea for the new book– His Robot Wife: Patience is a Virtue.  It will show a bit more from her point of view and we will find out that not everything is as Mike thinks it is.