Fiction Books
Two fantasy novels — written, translated from Russian, self-published, and marketed end to end.
▶ Book trailer
Two full-length fantasy novels I wrote, translated from Russian, edited, and self-published on Amazon — then marketed myself: ads, an email funnel, ARC and free-run campaigns (700+ copies, a #1 free-category spot), listing SEO, and a book trailer. They sit on ~5 years of writing and ~15 manuscripts, 6–7 of them self-published in Russian.
Two finished novels
Two full-length fantasy novels, each written first in Russian, then translated into English, edited, and self-published on Amazon:
- And Still, We Made It — a story of betrayal and transformation (74,000 words).
- Rise or Die — a conflict of brothers and corruption (81,000 words).
I owned every stage of both books — writing, editing, translation, cover direction, and launch.
The craft
Original settings, characters, structure, and thematic arcs, built to hold together at novel length. The skills I’ve pushed hardest on are pacing, character development, immersive worldbuilding, and keeping a long narrative coherent from the first chapter to the last.
Taking it to market
This is what separates it from “I wrote a book” — I ran the entire commercial side myself, solo:
- Planned and ran performance marketing across Amazon, Google, and Reddit Ads, owning strategy, budget, and analysis.
- Google Ads at ~4.5% CTR and Reddit Ads at ~0.45% CTR for email lead-gen — ~100 subscribers at roughly €2 each.
- Built a basic email funnel (capture, follow-ups, ongoing engagement) and tested different providers and promo tools.
- Used a free-run promo of 700+ copies to reach #1 in free-bestseller rankings in relevant Amazon categories for two days.
- Iterated the listing like a product — title, blurb, keywords, and cover against CTR, conversion, and reviews (applied SEO).
- Ran ARC campaigns, built a launch list, and directed a freelance cover designer on positioning and audience fit.
- Produced a book trailer (above) — visuals generated in Midjourney, narration voiced with ElevenLabs, cut together in Filmora.
- Managed the whole thing end to end: planning, documentation, prioritisation, timeline, and post-campaign analysis.
Early reception for the debut was warm — around 4.5★ on Amazon and 5.0★ on Goodreads at launch.
The longer story
The two English novels are the polished front door, but they rest on about five years of writing. I’ve started roughly fifteen manuscripts and self-published six or seven of them in Russian on author.today; these two are the ones I carried all the way — finished, translated, published, and marketed. The volume taught me to keep going; these taught me to finish and ship.