The world of publishing has undergone one of the most drastic changes in its history in the last few years. These changes are not over yet and the new shape of the publishing world has yet to settle. Shake-the-Tree is a small UK publisher, specialising in science fiction and working exclusively in e-book format. As well as publishing we also offer a variety of services and advice.
Progress Report for 2020
With one thing and another, it’s been a bit of a quiet year!
The good news is, after a LONG delay, the totally rewritten (and MUCH improved) first book in the popular Astronomicon series is now being posted on Wattpad. If it proves to be as popular as we expect, it will be released on Amazon with new cover art before the end of the year.
It turns out that rewriting a previously written book when it is the start of series is surprisingly complicated! As well as improving the story, the pacing the characters, changing many of the characters, improving the science and adding in some extra features and twists, the novel must also seamlessly lead into the sequel withing causing any contradictions or plot holes. No mean feat!
However, things are going well and the end is in sight!
Astronomicon Book 1
Replanning the first Astronomicon novel is well underway. Lots of exciting changes and many, many improvements on the way. It’s a huge project and it’s going to take a lot of work to get to the end but we’re totally convinced that it will be worth the effort. Years of experience, a better understanding of the science involved, increased descriptive clarity, deeper characters and generally better pacing throughout the story will all make for a much better novel.
It’s got a new title but will definitely still keep the “Astronomicon 1:” prefix. We will do a big title reveal in a couple of months’ time, shortly before the even bigger new cover reveal. More information to come as we get closer to the dates – Watch this space!
The majority of the characters from the original novel will be kept in this new version, especially where the same characters feature in later novels, but a few have been replaced with more interesting and realistic characters.
Developments in 2019
Things went a little off the rails in 2018, mostly due to a major change of direction halfway through the year. Instead of launching new novels, we decided to focus on improving our current offering. The Astronomicon series was the primary driver on that.
The success of the entire Astronomicon series hinges on the first novel in the series “Astronomicon: The Beginning“, which was written more than 20 years ago and, even after several serious edits, not up to the standard of more recent novels.
Another change of tack has been with “Astronomicon: Behemoth“. It was originally planned as a trilogy of novels but due to being unable to find a good endpoint to the first novel and some structural changes to the last two-thirds of the story, it will now be a single, large volume. The aim is for it to debut on Amazon later in 2019.
In the pipeline, we have Sceptic, Behemoth, Deadline, a completely replanned and rewritten Astronomicon: The Beginning. It’s going to be a busy time!
Astronomicon: Distant Relatives available on Smashwords.
Amazon may have the majority of the e-book market, but we know that not everyone likes to get their reading material from the giant. To cater for this we have released Astronomicon: Distant Relatives, the 2nd novel in the series, on popular e-book retailer Smashwords. In the next couple of weeks it will also become available on Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iTunes. We’ll let you know when the other retailers have caught up. Don’t forget you can download the first five chapters for FREE from Smashwords and read them on almost any e-reader on the market. And if you haven’t already read book one (The Beginning) then download the entire 350+ page science fiction novel for FREE too! Get it here.