As Darkness Gathers (the Connor series) - Dirk B. (Page 58 of 58)

Ok. This is cool as heck.

It took a couple of tries with the prompt to get an image I was happy with for "The Dockenmacher."
I still wasn't happy because her hair was dark and the skin was too ruddy.
So I used the edit functions—again, as a free user—and managed to change both the color of her hair as well as the tone of her skin.

Link because I'm too inept to embed images.

I'm waffling between titles again; that's what happens when your cat keeps you up until 2 AM:

- The Rise of Connor - still a good title for book 1 and unique on Amazon the last time I checked, although I'm now toying with "The Emissary" as the title of book 1 (see below); the idea of Connor as the Emissary/Holy Emissary will play a major role in the latest draft, hence the reason I'm considering the new title.
- The Emissary - short and catchy; reminds me of the Exorcist as far as catchy titles go; since there are already books with that title, I'd have to rely on the series title (As Darkness Gathers) to distinguish mine; the word Holy in one of my previous dalliances with this title (The Holy Emissary) was overkill since Connor is already wearing a glowing cross and sporting a halo on the front cover. Technically, he's the Emissary of the Lord, although most of the time, he'd be referred to simply as the Emissary.

As Darkness Gathers.

I just realized I hadn't updated the name of this thread with the correct series title. Fixed. The reason I didn't go with "The Gathering Darkness" is that there are too many books on Amazon with that title. "As Darkness Gathers" only occurs once, as a single book name in a series with a totally different title. To be honest, I actually like "As Darkness Gathers" better than "The Gathering Darkness."

Book two will probably be called "The War for Souls," which is from a line spoken by one of the characters near the end of book one: This battle is lost, but I assure you, the war for souls has just begun. The only reason I might go with something different is that someone else released a book in 2024 with that exact title. To be honest, I like that title enough, I'm willing to be one of two books with the same name. Realistically, it will be years before I write and publish book two, so the other author's book will be much older.

Book three will most likely be called "The Lesser King", which will become (spoiler alert) Connor's title at the end of book three. The other options are "The Unholy Shepherd" and "The Immortal Sinner." I may give him all three titles, which isn't uncommon among royalty, but he'll primarily be known as Lesser King Connor.

Hi ncj. Why Gathers the Darkness over As Darkness Gathers?
They're both catchy imo.

I checked. Although there is no exact match for Gathers the Darkness it brings up a page-full of close matches, mostly all close variants of those words. Oddly, my title, As Darkness Gathers, gets far fewer close matches. The exact match is the one novel I mentioned earlier with the same name as my series, and it shows up as number 1. Given the way Amazon operates, I would have expected at least a dozen other, irrelevant, promoted titles to show up first. After all, Jeff Bezos has obscene boat expenses to pay for.