Tag Archives: short story collection

The Greatest Show In Town will be available in a week

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GreatestShowInTownCover.inddI’m proud to announce that on Monday 17th December (just in time for Christmas) my short story collection The Greatest Show In Town and other shorts will be released on Kindle (with a Kobo edition following afterwards).

It consists of 11 stories, mostly crime and dark fiction, some of which have been on this blog in a different form, but with several others that are completely new to this collection. Four of the stories (including a couple of longer shorts) involve the exploits of the Stanton brothers, which should hopefully keep fans of The Hunters happy until its sequel The Glasgow Grin arrives. It will eventually be £1.99 ($2.99) but until the new year comes around it’ll be available at the bargain price of 99p ($1.99). You lucky things!

Tell your friends, your neighbours, your loved ones and total strangers about this momentous news. Because I really need the beer money!

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The Greatest Show In Town – cover redux

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Here’s the new, and final, cover for The Greatest Show In Town.

When I posted the first version of the cover the feedback was really quite positive, but a few people pointed out a couple of things that stuck in my craw. Not because they were wrong, but because they were very much right.

I felt that I could do better – much better. Hopefully these minor tweaks have brought out a major improvement.

The basic photograph is still the same as the original, but I’ve applied a few extra colour filters to it, which have given it a stronger more vibrant appearance. I also removed one of the layers, which sadly didn’t add much other than a background texture.

The major change has been to the font, which has been replaced with a stronger, bolder face. I’ve also separated the name and title blocks, which – as a previous comment pointed out – made the top of the cover look cluttered.

Oh, and for those of you who aren’t familiar with the landmark – this is a very nice shot of Teesside’s transporter bridge.

I think it’s a considerable improvement upon something I already thought was quite nice. Hopefully you all agree. Let me know your thoughts.

The cover for The Greatest Show in Town

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The cover for my new short collection - The Greatest Show in TownHere for anybody who cares to have a look is the cover for my upcoming short story collection The Greatest Show in Town and other shorts. It features a very nice photograph of the Transporter Bridge in Middlesbrough as its main image, along with a bit of photo layering and a touch of transparency effects to get something that I feel is quite evocative of the contents within.

It has a different look to The Gamblers and The Hunters, but that was intentional. I wanted to differentiate it, draw attention to the fact that it’s a short collection. The Stanton brothers books will all have a very similar visual theme  – following the look developed in The Hunters. And even though the brothers appear in quite a few of these shorts it isn’t strictly a collection about them. I wanted the cover to reflect that.

Anyway, enough waffle from me…

Let me know what y’all think. If it’s appealing, do tell. Similarly, if you think it’s a big bag o’ crap then kindly tell me why it offends you!