Background

Russian Roulette with a Black Widow is a black comedy novel I wrote as a passion project, started in early 2020. It takes place in the early 2010s, following a group of college-aged characters living in Hanover, New Hampshire. The story revolves around their struggles with purpose, commitment, and passion, drawing from my time growing up in the Northeast US.

After writing was completed in mid 2021, I started to focus on visual assets for a release on Kindle. I aimed for a Fall 2021 launch, confident that Autumn would be a great fit for the art and story. ​

Cover Art

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As the story focuses on characters with different backgrounds and problems coming together to form a common bond, I aimed to design a cover that would visually represent the often-messy nature of life. A collage suited this goal well, with every object representing one of the book’s 40 chapters.
Making Of
Knowing most of the elements I’d be using for the cover were non-organic, I started by creating a 3D model as a base. This workflow minimized errors with perspective, and gave me a great degree of flexibility in rotating and moving pieces as I saw fit.

This process was particularly helpful for the small city shown within the pipes on the lower jaw. I was able to quickly make the building blocks for different kinds of structures, and situate them where needed.
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As I refined these elements, I started to sketch over them, adding organic pieces and making touch-ups as needed. This went on to serve as the groundwork for the final cover, using crosshatching to represent depth rather than outlines. ​
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Sketch
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Near-final

Layout

Custom solutions for the e-book file were implemented with Calibre, using XHTML and CSS, as Amazon's conversion tools weren't flexible enough for specific fonts and dividers. ​
A layout for the hard cover and soft cover versions needed to be designed as well.

Launch

  • Released on Oct. 8, 2021
  • Free for first 5 days on market; as a passion project, the goal was to get the art and story published - money was secondary!
  • ​30+ copies downloaded in first week
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Ad used for marketing, mainly on Amazon Marketplace and Instagram Ads.

Closing

Completing Russian Roulette with a Black Widow was a personally fulfilling experience, and gave me valuable experience in the world of publishing. A link to the book, available as an e-book, hard cover, and soft cover, is in the description. Thanks for reading!
Click here to purchase Russian Roulette with a Black Widow!
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The hard and soft cover versions!