Archive for the ‘The Dark Wolf’ Tag
Hello, everyone! It’s Cyber Monday today, which means bargains galore. After putting this off for months, I’m finally having a free ebook sale on The Dark Wolf! 😀 So if you’re curious about the series and been wanting to give it a try, now is your chance. The sale only runs for 5 days, from now to December 1st, so you have a limited time to grab a copy.
Buying from Amazon is easy. Simply create a free account on their site. Once you’re registered, go to the book’s page and press “Buy now with one click”. Done! Now if you don’t have the Kindle app, again, it’s free to download. You can enter your email or phone number to get it straight from Amazon, or just grab it from one of the major app stores out there.
And if none of you mind, please consider leaving an honest review of The Dark Wolf on Amazon once you’re done. 🙂
Here are some of the current reviews for The Dark Wolf:
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Okay.. so overall THE DARK WOLF is something I want to see in a movie. It’s an honest, ‘say yes!’ Characters are well presented, especially with the main two, Darvir and Elaine. There are parts that reminds of LOTR, but I’m happy how you put things together to form a solid and unique turn of the story. – Mary J
For the Dark Wolf of The Heart Of Trilogy. I’m still in love with the book until these days. How I prayed that the book will become a bookseller in the market and will turn out to be a movie. I’m not just saying this because the author is my friend. Rather, the book is greatly written. It has a very intricate plot but I can see the beauty it withhold. And I didn’t see any loopholes. The author weaved together the story wonderfully. And every character in his book have their own tales to tell. May it be the protagonists, the antagonists and even the supporting characters. You definitely can learn from them and even relate to them. Because it may be a Christian fantasy but it’s also happening in reality for some sort. There are some part of the book that made me so emotional. And what I truly love about the book because it really emphasized that Elosha, or Abba Father in reality will always be powerful, merciful, compassionate, loving to His people. – Whinnlight
Truly a five star rating! Could not put the book down. Loved the plot and the characters. This book had excitement, thrilling build-ups, and twist in the plot. Believe me you will not waste your money. Going to go get the second part right now. – Mike B
J.M. Christian weaves together a masterful tale in The Dark Wolf. The reader feels and empathizes with what the characters feel as they go through their struggles. Christian’s development of his characters allows the everyday person to completely relate to them. The entire world comes to life with breathtaking realness. Prepare to be transported to another world by the magic only a skilled author can create…and there are not many of them. –Kya Lightwing
I enjoyed this book very much. For one thing it was fantasy, (woot woot) and for another it has a deeper meaning to its storyline and characters. The adventures were described well and gave it a real feel. The characters were very round and shifted with the book as their circumstances challenged and changed them. There’s more than one story within this book, and each of them adds a special glimmer to The Dark Wolf’s shine. –Trista Vaporblade (Author of Quest for the Swords of Healing)
It’s epic, amazing—without a doubt, it’s one of the best reads I’ve read in awhile! –Angel (Author of Whispers of my Soul)
Yup, I know. I said you wouldn’t have to wait a month for this, and here we are. Although in my defense, having to write up two book reviews to post on here did throw me off a bit. 😛 But enough of that and onto the good stuff.
In between juggling work and my studies on web dev, I’ve been making progress on Return of the Valris and fleshing out certain elements of the plot more. And expanding it.
To quote Nick Fury, “You’ve become part of a bigger universe. You just don’t know it yet.”
And bigger is precisely where we’re headed, folks.
Crown of Ravens really was a defining moment in the series. It expanded upon the world started in The Dark Wolf and was deeper, darker, and more emotional than anything I’d written before. For me, it was probably the best I had ever written at the time. And there was the intimidation. I’d reached the final book in the trilogy, against all odds, and was now faced with outdoing the previous book. A scary prospect.
So I did what I always do, and decided to say a prayer to the Author of all authors. And wouldn’t you know, that’s when the inspiration struck. 😉 Below, I’ve compiled a list of images that, without giving away any spoilers, will give you some ideas of where Return of the Valris is going and hopefully get you as excited for it as I am. 😀
Eldurin, home of the Valris.
As you can see, big difference in the scenery between the two. The second image really defines the path this story is taking, and that’s going more cosmic. Arandil is going to be doing a bit of traveling.
Villains, anyone? 😉 Zar’ul isn’t the only force to deal with, as evidenced here. Evil wears many forms.
A New character who will have a special part in the story. I invite all of you to try and guess her part. 😉
Wings aren’t edged with gold, I know, but it was too awesome an illustration to pass up on to represent the Great Ravens. And speaking of ravens…
We’re going to be seeing Elaine a little differently here. You’ve watched her grow in The Dark Wolf and Crown of Ravens. Her journey from an exiled lonely princess to a strong warrior queen culminates in the third book. Suffice it to say, we’re finally going to see Elaine unleashed like never before.
Of course, the Valris do headline the title, so it wouldn’t be the same without wolves, would it? 😉
And there you are. No spoilers, but hopefully enough visual candy to get your imagination running. I’ll post some updates later, and you can always follow me on Facebook and Twitter for more recent posts.
(Disclaimer: Images used are from Pixabay and belong to the respective uploaders on there. None of the images used express support for my work, and
are used for illustration purposes solely.)
Greetings, all! Been awhile since I posted something that wasn’t a review of a book or movie, so time to change that. And I want to start with giving an update on the final book to The Heart of Light Trilogy, and an apology on the lengthy delay in releasing it. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 2 years since Crown of Ravens was published. In that time, I’ve furthered my career in graphic designing, and just this year started taking courses so I can move into web development and design. I never forgot about the series and writing in general, but it’s one of those things that starts to get put in the back seat when you’re dealing with life and trying to support yourself. It gets harder and harder to make time when so much is needed for the more pressing issues, and every day you’re racing to catch up and cram as much as you can into that short space so you don’t fall behind. And with the audience for my books not being large, it was easier to put off the third book for “later”.
I’ll be honest, I never did much with marketing my books. I take full blame on that one. 😛 When I first published the series, I had to make the art myself, and while I was confident in the story itself (my mom and I did double-time on the editing) I wasn’t as confident in the cover art. If there’s one thing I pride myself in, it’s knowing a good cover. And while I will never knock my old work (it was pretty advanced for what I knew back then) I am brutally honest. It had some serious flaws, and trying to market a book with a cover you know is not put together very well is scary.
Last year was when my skills with making graphic art got to a point that I knew I could finally, FINALLY, give these stories the spectacular artwork I had always coveted in other books, and that they deserved.
I was already in a competition where the contestants needed to choose one of their older works and redo them. I looked through some of my older artworks, and the one for Crown of Ravens caught my eye. Right there, I decided to go for it. And behold, what I got was the art I had always dreamed of seeing on one of my books. I was even able to make the crown itself, a feat all on its own that I was unable to do before. (And yes, I was kicking myself for writing it as black. Gold sure would have easier. 😛 )
So Crown of Ravens was taken care of. It had a gorgeous cover, but now we come to The Dark Wolf. That book will always be my baby because it was my first, and from the start, I was never happy with the cover it got. Don’t get me wrong, I take pride in what I was able to make back then. I had ZERO experience making that stuff, and at the time, I had only a couple tutorials on Youtube to get me going. So it was big thing for me to even make a cover on my own. But again, I knew it had flaws, and it wasn’t the best work to represent the story. The first cover for Crown of Ravens had its own problems, but even that looked visually more appealing. As the years went by and I continued learning graphic art and design, The Dark Wolf went through 4 different cover variations as my skills gradually increased (I feel so sorry for putting it through that 😦 ). Last year was when the cover switching finally ended with the creation of the fifth and final work with a brand new piece of art.
Before
After
Before
After
I got both covers prepped and put together, then uploaded them to Amazon. Honestly, I did get a little thrill when the covers appeared on Amazon. 🙂 It was the art I had always dreamed of having for a story of mine. And at last, I finally had it. I did try to market it, but again I got sidetracked, and that was put on the back shelf. My workload was growing, and when I decided to take the leap into web development, that just added to my already full plate.
It was actually one of my friends who recently read my books that gave me the shot of encouragement and motivation I needed. And I realized I had to go back. I needed to finish what I started, not just for the dear readers out there, but also for myself and for the story that got me started on this journey through life. It was that first book, The Dark Wolf, that led me here. Now, I need to give it and the readers out there the ending they deserve.
Now you’re probably asking, “The update, man! Where are things with that third book (you dang slow author you)!”
Okay, enough suspense here. 😛 Currently, I’m still on the first draft but have managed to reach the halfway point on it. And I have already plotted out the remaining chapters, so no time will be wasted with wondering where the story should go. While a 2017 release is not likely at this point, 2018 is. I can’t give an exact date, but I’m looking at publishing the third book in either summer or fall of next year, depending on my schedule. Regardless, I want to let all of you know that the third book will be published, and the series resolved. And once again, I apologize for the LONG delay. The last chapter of The Heart of Light Trilogy is coming, folks. May have taken awhile, but it is coming, so hang in there.
Next post, I’ll be sharing some exciting news about what to expect for the third book. And I promise, I won’t do my usual and post a month later. 😉
(Disclaimer: Image and art used is my work and copyrighted)
I’ve been meaning to change the cover for The Dark Wolf for awhile, but I kept putting it off. With my second book almost done, though, I figured I had better not delay with it any longer. So anyway, here it is, the official new published cover for The Dark Wolf. And I think it came out pretty good, if I do say so myself. 🙂 Below the new version, you’ll see the old one to compare with it. As you can see, there is a vast difference between the two. Still, it was my first cover and I’ll always have a soft spot for it. 🙂 Please feel free to leave any comments below.
So I finally decided to take a rest from work long enough to write this and give all of you a head’s up on my next project and some other news. As you all know, I am writing a fantasy trilogy of which the first, The Dark Wolf, I got published. Not willing to leave all you eager fans of mine waiting for long, I got started on the sequel, Crown of Ravens. Currently, only two more chapters remain to be written before I can finally start work on editing it. Hallelujah for that! Thank God I have a lot more experience now than I did a year ago, and I am very happy to announce that the editing process will not come even close to the lengthy amount of time The Dark Wolf did, so I will be able to publish this book sooner.
What is more, I have been acquiring a great deal of tutorials from Youtube in order to learn how to create fancier and better art for my books. While it has definitely been a learning process, it has not been in vain and I certainly have more options in what images I can use now than I did when I published my first book. The paperback will be published first, of course, and due to the success of The Dark Wolf as an e-book, I will be doing the digital formatting for Crown of Ravens as well.
I opened up a Facebook author page awhile ago and if you wish to check it out (and maybe give it a like?) you can find plenty of news and fresh updates on my progress with Crown of Ravens, as well as a variant cover I made for the book. https://www.facebook.com/pages/JM-Christian/1413797125535009?ref=hl
Also, I currently have the digital version of The Dark Wolf enrolled with KDP select on Amazon, which apparently allows you to borrow the digital book from them for a certain amount of time. I am not exactly sure how this works since I have never borrowed digital books from Amazon before, but I figure a great deal of you are into e-books and probably do that on a regular basis. So if any of you are looking for an exciting summer read, hopefully none of you will mind giving The Dark Wolf a go. If you’re not sure you will enjoy it, Amazon allows you to preview the first two chapters for free (I know, nice feature) and they also allow you to download a free sample to try out: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Wolf-Heart-Light-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00HSTAVIM/ref=la_B00IIVCHTA_1_1_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398813874&sr=1-1
And one more thing I thought I would mention. I am not sure if I will be doing this or not, but I have been thinking of posting interviews with other Christian authors and showcasing their works. There is a lot of good stuff out there from many Christian authors that are clean and wholesome reads that don’t bore you to death (like a great many do) and I have long wanted to see more of that stuff out there on the market. The only thing is, I am not sure if I will have the time to get into the whole author interviewing thing and all that because of how busy I am. Right now, I am running it over with God to see how He works it all out, so we shall see.
I meant to get this up sooner, but again, I didn’t have the time until now.
As those of you who have been following my blog know, I was forced to take down the e-book of my book, The Dark Wolf, due to multiple formatting errors. After a few days of tinkering with it, I got it back up and running, this time error free. I will admit, this whole thing has been a huge learning process and MORE than a good bit of work. But the pain in my eyeballs from staring at the screen too long, and the general frustration when I saw another snag that needed to be corrected was worth it to finally have this DONE. Now, due to the formatting I used, when you go to Amazon and press the ‘Click to View Inside’ it won’t show any page breaks. This is not due to any formatting errors on my part. I recently learned that this feature Amazon has carries a few bugs, so unless you have really complex formatting, the page breaks won’t show. Seeing as how I’m not into making things harder than they need to, I opted to go with the simpler formatting that still delivers great results.
Those page breaks are there and will show with the e-book itself when you purchase it or download the free sample Amazon offers, so don’t worry. I checked with several authors to be sure of this, and each one verified it. So anyway, here’s the link, (again) and when you buy the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HSTAVIM
And on a sidenote, for my next post, I will leave a few helpful tips on how to format your own e-book. God knows, after what I went through, I want to make sure you guys have enough info so you can avoid the pitfalls.
I am happy to announce that my book, The Dark Wolf, has received its first review, courtesy of a friend of mine who promised to write an honest opinion on it! You can read the review on her blog:
http://kyanalightwing.blogspot.com/2014/01/review-dark-wolf.html
And an update on the e-book version of my book. I temporarily removed it due to Amazon messing up the formatting. Apparently, their online previewer has some bugs in it which threw me off from noticing any errors, and I wasn’t aware of it until I went to Amazon itself to look inside the e-book. Fortunately, I found out what to do and fixed it up so it won’t run into anymore problems. Currently, I have resubmitted it, and it should be available for purchase again within a couple days. I do apologize for the that, and like I said, this time everything should work smoothly with it now.
Goodness, has this blog really fallen into oblivion. My apologies, folks. Lately, I have been busy with getting my book published, and I am happy to say that my book, The Dark Wolf, is finally all taken care of and available for purchase in both print and e-book formats. It was a long process, but God is good, and the dream is now a reality. Talk about finally reaching the light at the end of the tunnel. 🙂 If any of you would like to check it out, here are the links to view the book on Amazon.com.
e-book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HSTAVIM
paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Wolf-Heart-Light-Trilogy/dp/1492260452/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387329736&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Dark+Wolf+by+J.M.+Christian
Heart of Light 