If you'd like hear Relentless Blades being read to you, please check out my youtube channel. (151) Russell Carroll - YouTube
I'll try to read a little at a time. By no means do I think I'd make a great audio-book reader, but I'm game to give it a try.
I have my first official review from a website, SFF Insiders. I want to give a special thanks to Jonathan Putnam for reviewing it. To say I'm happy for my first review is an understatement. It's better than I could have hoped. Check it out!
Review: Relentless Blades by Russell Carroll — SFF Insiders
That's not my only review, however. Thank you to two of my ARC readers, Gemma Wells and Aurora Bauer for their fantastic reviews, which are posted on Goodreads. Please check them out! Relentless Blades (The Prophecies of Zarune, #1) by Russell Carroll | Goodreads
With the release of Relentless Blades set for October 21, 2024, I'm excited to announce you can read the Prologue and Chapters 1-3 for free! They are pinned at the top of my blog. Check them out!
Please note, I do understand the drop letters are not displaying correctly in the blog post, but I assure you, they are correct in the actual book. Happy reading!
I'm very thankful to SFF Insiders for doing a cover reveal of Relentless Blades. They did an amazing job!
Cover Reveal: Relentless Blades by Russell Carroll — SFF Insiders
I'm lucky to have talented friends. I asked my good friend, Jace Witman to create a cover reveal video I can use to promote my book and he made this for me. He did a fantastic job! He's a talented filmmaker, musician and artist. You can check out his stuff here: Music and Monsters - the art of Jace Witman
I'm excited to announce that SFF Insiders SFF Insiders has agreed to do a reveal of the cover art for Relentless Blades. The illustration is fantastic, and I can't wait to share it with everyone. It will be revealed on August 29, 2024, at 10am PST/Noon CST. Save the date!
While I can't share the cover yet, I can let you know the aesthetic I was going for. My influences growing up were the Dungeons and Dragons inspired fantasy novels of the 1980s through early 2000s. This means cover art by legendary fantasy artists such as Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson, Jeff Easley and Clyde Caldwell. I think the results hit the mark.
The further I progress on this self-publishing journey, the more I understand how much work it is. For example, simply having the art commissioned was the easy part. Far more difficult was ensuring it fit the correct size for publication. I had the dimensions to share with the artist, but they changed slightly when I decided to switch from white to cream paper for the printing.
Once the illustration was set, I had the artist add in all the narrative, book title, my name, back cover blurb, spine text, etc. This was a whole separate process of determining the perfect font style, size and color.
After that, I ordered a preview copy of the print book. The cover illustration looked great on the computer monitor, but much darker than I wanted on the print book, so I had to play around more with the brightness and exposure. Honestly, I'm still doing that and may have to do that several times before the book officially releases.
I still need to go through the actual text to ensure I don't find any errors, then I need to get some ARC readers, and the whole time, continue to market the book. Unfortunately, this has severely hampered my ability to work on the sequel. To top it off, I came down with COVID a few days ago, so that's slowed me down even further. This is the first time I've contracted it. Overall, it hasn't been terrible. It's felt like a pretty typical flu, body aches, headache, congestion, chills, etc. Thankfully, I've not lost my sense of taste or smell, so overall it's been manageable.
The whole process has been exhausting, but also rewarding and thrilling. I wouldn't trade it for anything. Please keep following me and I'll continue to document my publishing journey. Cheers!
