And with Chapter 83, KERES - Book One: The Unseen City comes to an end!
A bit of backstory
I'm so happy I was able to publish KERES on Royal Road, a story I started writing in 2010 when I was still a teenager in high school, but then I simply abandoned it when I finished college around 2016, never to see the sunlight ever again... until last year I signed up for Audible membership and got my first ever audiobook. Yes... 2023 was the first time I listened to audiobooks, before that, I was 100% paperback.
Audible and audiobooks opened my eyes and showed me hundreds of titles and writers I have never seen before... you seem I'm a bit traditionalist, I don't particularly like ebooks. I started on Audible by listening to the included-in-my-membership classics (Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens... etc.) Then some well-established but more modern fantasy writers such as Brandon Sanderson, T. Kingfisher, V. E. Schwab, etc... I even listened to the Britney Spears memoir later realizing that my girlfriend had purchased using my unspent credit I was saving up for something else.
Then out of the blue, it was through the Audible algorithm that I discovered stories like Beneath the Dragoneye Moon by Selkie Myth, and that one took me to Salvos by MelasDelta / V.A Lewis, Salvos took me to Demon Princess Magical Chaos by Meakashi / JJ Pavlov, and that one to Vigor Mortis by Thundamoo / Nathalie Maher The RR Major Leagues to say the least.
Note that I'm using both their RR usernames and their writes pennames because that is how they appear on Audible!
I somehow hadn't noticed that these were indie authors. Then I realized that all these stories had something in common, many reviewers were mentioning their patreons and that they were webnovels, and with a bit of Google I found Royal Road!
And just because of that, I decided to gather and dust all the notebooks with some notes on KERES I still had and to find the Word doc with the Keres manuscripts. I realized that comparatively, it was utter trash, the grammar was horrible, the story was full of plot holes, and the world-building was simply dogs**t. I really wanted to slap my teenage me for how bad my writing was. So, here came the hardest part, rewrites!
I kept pretty much the same plot (but improved) and most of the characters are the same, the fights were enhanced, too. But everything else was completely overhauled! Worldbuilding, magic system, kaijus, the alternate history, the timelines, the grammar, the style, the descriptions... everything was edited! It took me around 4 months to do all that to book 1, I'm currently doing the same to book 2.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
It's been about 7 months since I published the first chapter. I'm so happy I did. KERES might not be the most popular, even if factoring that it's not the main niche on RR (litRPG), but I'm still happy I published it here.
So, If you liked the story, please consider leaving a review, or a comment, and sharing it with anybody you think might enjoy it.
image [https://thumbnails-photos.amazon.com/v1/thumbnail/7G1qRb0LRn6K5XLWXOsRIQ?ownerId=A1ZT47NEIHVCUH&viewBox=683&groupShareToken=6OfBAYMoQaqGGj8WfxXeTQ.BTaNi9gvcN1_bFyApYLA7q]
Also, join the Keres Discord server: The Ambassador's Office
If you feel like helping me further, join my Patreon, even if just as a free member. Let's make KERES big, help me achieve my goal of getting an audiobook too!
Lucian T. Einar | Patreon
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MISCs
By the way, a reader asked on my Discord if there was a map of the world of Keres, and there is one, sort of... just North and South America. I use this website to get it done www.mapchart.net
It's not exactly accurate because it uses current countries' political subdivision but it's an approximate guess. I will eventually make Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. One day... when I have time (this one took me about 5 hours to make, including research time)
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NEW BOOK
Now, this is an announcement, right? So, I announce KERES - Book Two: The Mask of Samel. I hope you like the new book cover. After publishing chapter 83, I will take a week off. I'll start publishing book 2 on March 19th. You have plenty of time to read all your backlog!
Can you guess who the character in the cover is?
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Thank you for your support!!