I have a confession. I have only written about 1,000 words for the Relentless Blades sequel since July. I wish I could write that I'm almost finished with it, but I'm not. I'm finding it difficult to write despite having plenty of dangling plot threads to follow.
I will attribute part of this to the stress of promoting and marketing Relentless Blades. I severely underestimated the amount of time and mental energy I'd spend trying to get the book noticed. I'm constantly wracking my brain for new and creative ways to entice people to read it. I've got posts on X, Bluesky, various Facebook groups, Instagram and I even opened a TikTok account. Many days I'm so drained promoting that I don't have the mental energy to focus on writing.
I've reached out to various bloggers and review websites to try to promote the book. I'm running Amazon ads that I check and update almost daily. I've run special promotions through various websites like BookBongo and Robin Reads. It's like pulling teeth to get people to give a new, self-published author a chance. Obviously, on top of that, there is just a lot of competition in the fantasy genre and heavy hitters, with large followings, like Brandon Sanderson, Ryan Cahill, John Gwynne seem to churn out great fantasy regularly.
I think part of the frustration I'm feeling is because I know Relentless Blades is good, great even! That may sound boastful, but this isn't just coming from me. All the reviews so far have been overwhelmingly positive. I have links to them pinned at the top of my blog if you're curious. Russell Carroll - Author of Relentless Blades: Consolidated Reviews Because I know the book is good, and that most readers will enjoy it, it's extra frustrating at how difficult it is to get people to buy and read it. I suspect many, most even, authors feel this frustration.
To add to it, I had some scammer sending me, and some affiliates, threatening emails demanding that I stop promoting the book. They threatened to hack the book and steal it and even review bombed it on Goodreads. Thankfully, Goodreads acted quickly to remove the harmful posts. Still, this got me spiraling and focusing on that, instead of writing the sequel.
I have this overwhelming feeling like Relentless Blades is my child, and I need to see it stand on its own two feet before I can let it go and move to the next book. What I mean is I want some sense that it can get traction in the world and generate sales organically, without my constant attention. I do understand that at some point soon, I need to let it go and focus, but it's been difficult getting there.
Many Indie writers I respect all say the same thing, that the best way to generate interest in your work is to get at least three books out into the world. The bigger your catalog of novels, the more it will snowball with readers. This makes sense to me, and I know the best thing I can do is get to work on the sequel, but I'm still languishing.
This brings me to the larger source of frustration; I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with the sequel. In some form or fashion, I spent two decades plotting out Relentless Blades, so even though it was hard work, I knew the story I wanted to tell. Additionally, as a first novel, I intentionally kept the story fairly small scale and linear. I was cognizant not to bite off more than I could chew. With the follow-up, I feel the pressure to go bigger in terms of the plots and characters. This isn't because I feel I need to, it's a want. I want to explore some of the other characters who didn't have PoV chapters in the original. like the back of my hand, but I don't totally know Alyndra or Everleigh or Fralic. It's exciting to explore them, but also daunting.
I feel confident that I'll get in gear and get going, but I'm not sure when. Hopefully getting this down and out of my system helps. The Holiday season has snuck up on me and with it, even more distractions, but I believe by the New Year, I'll get it done!
