Writing and first-stage editing is completely done for Cassan Astor and the Harbinger’s War and now a new threshold has also been crossed: cover art!
Right now, I am doing a second-stage edit through the Harbinger’s War. After that is complete, I will then order print beta-copies and do a final edit on the physical book. This process usually comes together pretty quickly. Therefore, I expect this should be in its finished stages sometime around the mid-summer, perhaps the month of July.
As I’ve become more prolific with my writing, I’ve gravitated more toward a “when it’s done” release schedule rather than a set time and goal that I want to release on. In the past, and certainly with the Color of Water and Sky books, I had a target date. For example, I would want to release on 4th of July or something of that sort. The idea of a pre-planned release date was to generate hype and excitement to maximize sales on release day. But as I’ve gone through this process, I’ve noticed the uptick in sales for a pre-planned release is only marginally higher than if I just release the book when it’s ready.
To me, the complexity and orchestration of hitting a specific release date is not worth the marginal uptick in release date sales.
In any case, one sign that things are coming together is, of course, cover art! You’ve seen the artwork before, but until now, it never had text on it. The text is once again done by a graphics artist named Olivia, who I’ve worked with for 10 projects now – more than any other artist I’ve worked with!
Olivia did the text graphics on all the following projects:
The Pirates of Vexa Prime Series (Artwork by Justin Davis)
– Seas of the Red Star
– The Daltus Conspiracy
– Return to Red One
– Apex Predator (Olivia designed the entire cover, not just the text)
– Battle Planet: The Champion of Earth (Artwork by Justin Davis)
– Pax Egyptus: Tales of Gods, Kingdoms, and Starships (Artwork by Fiverr.com)
The Cassan Astor Series (Artwork by Justin Davis)
– Cassan Astor and the Desert Empress
– Cassan Astor and the Sea of Krakens
– Cassan Astor and the Immortal King
– Cassan Astor and the Harbinger’s War
And so, we have both Justin and Olivia to thank for this wonderful art:
At 389 pages, the spine isn’t quite as thick as the spine from the previous book, the Immortal King. That said, this is still being edited, so it’s entirely possible the spine thickness could change, though I don’t suspect the size change would be drastic.
For context, here is the current page count for the other books in the series:
Book 1 – The Desert Empress is 347 pages (shortest in the series)
Book 2 – The Sea of Krakens is 383 pages
Book 3 – The Immortal King is 417 pages (longest in the series)
Book 4 – The Harbinger’s War is 389 pages (for now)
As time has gone on, the average lengths of my books have become more “approachable.” For contrast, when I first started publishing the Color of Water and Sky series, my books were far longer. I do worry that the thick tomes I’d released back then may have been too “unapproachable” or intimidating to readers who were new to my series. That is why I hope these more reasonably-lengthed books will be more accessible to new readers.
For context, here is the page count for my first series, the Color of Water and Sky:
Book 1 – Iris is 664 pages (longest in the series)
Book 2 – Kholvaria is 552 pages (shortest in the series)
Book 3 – Veznek is 628 pages
Book 4 – Hive is 621 pages
To my credit, the two spinoff books, Cassidy and Atlantia, were much shorter. Cassidy was a brisk 262 pages and Atlantia was 322.
While the main point of this article was to show you the cover art and update you on the status of Cassan Astor and the Harbinger’s War, there are other updates as well pertaining to the Cassan Astor series.
Work never ends! And while reviewing the Harbinger’s War, I’ve also been writing the next book in the series, the fifth and final book, Cassan Astor and the Dragon Storm. In addition to having a way cool title, Dragon Storm is going to be the culmination of the entire series so far, tying up all loose ends and bringing these spread out, disparate characters together in the same way that Hive brought all the various, spread out characters into one singular place.
With a story this big, there are bound to be a lot of spread out characters. Until now, there have been some main protagonists who have never even crossed paths. Despite the first book being named Cassan Astor and the Desert Empress, those two characters have still never even met! The final book will bring everyone together for a grand climax that includes a certain winged monster.
Currently, I’m working on the fifth chapter of Dragon Storm. I expect this book will be the longest in the series (though I said that about Harbinger’s War, so what do I know?). I’ll give you more updates as I continue to work on the fifth and final book.
No art for that book yet.
In the meantime, enjoy the new cover art by Justin and Olivia. Cassan Astor and the Harbinger’s War should be out soon.
The color of water and sky 