Covers side by side -

I am not a cover designer, by far not. I A-B-tested with my family the two options and started out with the "diamond" cover. After a few weeks, also seeing the print version of the book, I decided to make the cover a little bit more friendly.

The content of the book remained unchanged, but by just changing the outer appearance, it felt as if I sorted my book into a different category:
Black/Diamond: focus on stark, slightly haunting, mysterious
Pink/Thief: sunny, romantic, friendly
I haven't analyzed yet, which version brought in more readers.




I am not very happy with either cover, but so far they will do.
When "Brilliant Actors" will come out in 2014 (Book 2 in the Calendar Moonstone series), I will decide what way to go. Either play on the two existing cover themes or have a professional designer create me stylistically matching covers for book 1 and book 2


Print is coming - "Troubleshooter" submitted to Createspace

Finished today the Createspace submission for books on demand. The processing will take a few days but then I have some nice Christmas gifts ready just in time.

The text body formatting was a breeze but the cover design was a little more difficult this time. Alignment was difficult because the book is some pages smaller than "A Brilliant Plan", about 250 pages. Plus the color management was completely missing (tell no one: my first two book covers were designed and published directly from Powerpoint).  So I got myself a Photoshop 30 day trial and started resigning. I copied over the elements from Powerpoint and whenever I was stuck. (A classic example: I want to center the author name on the front page and receive: "Could not use the move tool because the target channel is hidden." Doh?" But the result turned out to be fine. I think.

"Troubleshooter" - the influences (Part 1 - Gavin Lyall)

Troubleshooter is out now, most eTailers already carry it.

I promised you some insight into the influences that were sort of my guideline in style and storytelling. Maybe you discover the writers in this small series of posting for your own library, too.

Part 1:  Gavin Lyall (Link to Wikipedia)

Mr. Lyall was probably the most influential guidance for "Troubleshooter". He was at the height of his writing in the Sixties when he had published a number of thrillers that all had a common denominator: a slightly damaged loner hero getting into a violent situation where his old agent/police/soldier skills are asked for again (if you read Troubleshooter already, this setting might sound familiar). Lyall had written another series (Major Maxim) in the same dry British style like his Sixties novels, but the first set of books remains for me kind of a classic foundation of the post-war non-political adventure thriller.

One other style-bit that I "borrowed" from Gavin Lyall are the very dry cliff hangers at the end of a chapter. Lately the came into fashion again, Lee Childs builds them also into his Lee Reacher novels.

Excerpt from Troubleshooter:  
He put the gangster’s phone in his pocket and retrieved the gun. An automatic. Was there already a bullet in the chamber? Shit, difficult to pull back the slide mechanism with one hand.! Only one way to find out. He switched the safety off and simply shot into the next soft tissue he could find: the dead man behind him. The loud bang of the firearm was driving the curious bystanders back in panic. Paul got up, oriented himself. He was only one block away from the office.
Follow the rat home. Kill all the rats.
Paul started to run.

Maybe Amy and Tom were not dead yet.

Selected Gavin Lyall reading recommendations:
Buy: Gavin Lyall - Shooting Script
Venus with Pistol (Bloomsbury Reader)
The Most Dangerous Game (Bloomsbury Reader)

"Troubleshooter" out now!

Alex Ames - Troubleshooter

Very happy to announce: the new baby is finally out. Troubleshooter is coming out on

Amazon Kindle

and

Smashwords.com

just about now.

One hundred million dollars have gone missing from the accounts of Strom Defense Industries. An underwhelming assignment for ex-soldier-ex-spy-turned-financial-controller Paul Trouble. But soon the case turns into murder and mayhem, and Paul will need all his former skills to stay on top of the game. 

Other eBooks editions will pop up a little later via Smashword distribution at all other major eTailers. The print-version will come last, as it will take some additional formatting. Troubleshooter is my first attempt of a thriller, old style. There are a lot of inspirations that I tried to emulate into the book (I'll start listing them in some separate postings), but hopefully I managed to keep my individual style, too. Up to you to judge.