The Title of the Story Is...

Coming up with a title is generally for me not all that hard. Not that I've written hundreds of stories through the years, but I always seem to have the title come pretty quickly to me. With my latest novel "Tracking A Shadow" I struggled a little with the title. Next to the cover, the book title is the first thing a potential buyer will see. And I had several ideas for titles come and go for this novel. When the framework was developing in my mind "The Stalker" was the basic title. But it really didn't fit quite or feel right. I then went through many others:

Mind over what matters

Body and No Soul

Track the Shadow

Shadows

Behind the Shadow

Beyond the Shadow

Underneath the Shadow

Separate Lives

The Game of Distraction

These are the ones I wrote down, but there were many others that rolled through my head. Finding the right theme or the tone was difficult, maybe because of the twists in the plot. I didn't want to give too much away but give an overall feel to what was happening on the pages. The Shadow was really Jarvis being somewhat clueless on what was really going on, while attempting to track down the evidence, bringing it out of the darkness.

I also wanted a title that stood out and wasn't used before. A simple Google search didn't find another story with the same title. I wanted it to be unique to stand out and be first when someone searched it. (No that's not the case as of yet, but close to the top). Hopefully I succeeded in creating an interesting mood of mystery with the title and the cover, which translates when the reader reads the story.

Do others out there struggle with their book titles as well? Is the title as important as the cover when drawing potential readers?

Tracking a Shadow-Now Available on Amazon Kindle

Tracking a Shadow, my new novel with Jarvis Mann PI working a stalking case of a Beautiful Woman with many twists and turns. It is available today as an Amazon eBook for $2.99. Stop by and pick it up today at the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MQHVKJA

Never knowing where his next case will come from, Private Detective Jarvis Mann is thrilled when his voicemail is lit up by the sexy tones of a lady looking to hire him. Successful business woman Emily White with girl next door looks, is certain someone is stalking her and wants Jarvis to track down the elusive shadow. Even with three suspects, an ex-husband who lives to play softball, a sexist pig ex-employee and a mystery man who he encounters with painful results, Jarvis believes it’s all in Emily’s head until a killing in her home convinces him otherwise. Further complicating matters a powerful business man and crime boss becomes involved muddying up the case, leaving Jarvis the prime suspect in the brutal beating of one of the possible stalkers, threatening to put his PI career on ice. Navigating through each twist and turn in the case, and the affections of two desirable women both with an agenda, Jarvis uses dogged determination and razor sharp wit in Tracking a Shadow that moves across the Denver landscape with each shift in the sun.

Also available for free for the next several days in my short story "The Case of the Missing Bubble Gum Card", where Jarvis helps a young man track down a missing stolen and valuable Ernie Banks rookie Baseball card. See where Jarvis Mann PI is brought to life. It's available as an Amazon ebook and on Smarshwords in various other formats (Nook,Kobo, iBook and PDF) for free over the next few week.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/456110

Thanks for reading and I hope everyone is having a great day...

A Break: My Trip to Lambeau Field

I took 10 days off with family to take a trip to Green Bay for the Packers Shareholder Meeting. Being a shareholder allows me the privilege of sitting with about twenty thousand of my closet friends in Lambeau Field to learn how successful the previous year was and what the coming year holds for the team. I enjoyed this immensely as I got to see a legendary stadium that was in perfect shape, looking as if it was just built yesterday. It was a trip of a lifetime the wife, daughter and I will never forget.

But more importantly it gave me a chance to get away from work, writing, and stop interacting on the various social networks. It was 10 days completely away from all of it, which was fabulous. Reinvigorated I'm now ready to get back to the work in front of me. It really is important to step away for periods of time from all of these tasks and come back with a clearer head. I've had two large breaks over the last couple of months that I really needed. And I'd suggest strongly to everyone to do the same when feeling run down, short on energy and ideas. Take a break from it all; no 9-5 working, no posting on social networks and no writing. Disconnect from the information highway as much as you can, even if it's just a simple overnight trip to a hotel out of town with a loved one, a day or two in the mountains where cell signals don't exist or just a nice long ride on a bicycle or motorcycle to have a picnic somewhere. You will find a new perspective that will charge up the creative mind to new limits.

So back to the tap, tap on the QWERTY keys picking up where Jarvis Mann left off...