Why titles matter...and don't matter

In case you missed it Friday, Sourcebooks asked for YOUR opinion on the title of my August debut. There's still time to vote, and if you leave a comment, you could win a signed advance copy of the book.

Watching votes and comments roll in has been fascinating, and has me thinking a lot about sea slugs.

OK, I'm not thinking about sea slugs. Well, I am thinking about them, but I'm also thinking about book titles.

When I first started trying to write fiction, a wise person told me this: "Don't get too attached to the title you give it – most publishers change them anyway."

But I also recognized that an abysmal title leaves a bad first impression with decision makers – the editors, agents, or potential readers deciding whether to read your story or use it as a coaster.

That was never more obvious to me than when I judged a writing contest last fall. Of the six partial manuscripts in my batch, two had such lousy titles that I considered temporarily blinding myself with pepper spray so I'd be excused from reading them.

As it turned out, one of them was lousy. But the other was surprisingly good, and I ended up giving it some of the highest marks.

At the same time, I don't pretend to be an all-knowing title goddess who gets to hand down judgment on what makes a good title. The first book I ever sold was an action/adventure/romance targeted at Harlequin-Silhouette's now defunct Bombshell line (and by "defunct" I mean "canceled a month before my @#$% book hit the shelves," not that I'm bitter).

The book they bought featured a ski patroller heroine who gets sent to a resort in Chile to deal with the area's abundance of accidents that may not be so accidental after all. The title I gave the book was SHADOWS IN THE SNOW.

I thought it wasn't half bad, but in my first conversation with the editor who bought it, she waved it off dismissively. "We'll change the title, of course."

Which they did, to AVALANCHE. In hindsight, I totally get why that was the stronger title. Had the book been released, it might have even sold a couple copies.

The title issue came up again when Sourcebooks was first considering the book that's now scheduled as my August 2011 debut. At the time, we were calling the book WALKING THE PLANK. I still adore that title, and the book made it all the way to the editorial board under that name. Then, the editor came back with grim news.

Several people had voiced concern that WALKING THE PLANK was too closely tied to the grimmer aspects of real, modern piracy. It was a legitimate worry right then, since the piracy situation Somalia had taken some rather terrifying turns (though one could argue that pirates in the news could be a good thing for a novel that parodies traditional pirate romances).

Still, it was a no go. We were sent back to the drawing board and asked to re-tool the book's marketing hook to focus more on the corporate revenge aspect of the story. After all, the story's plot really boils down to a bunch of folks doing something wacky in the wake of job loss. Plenty of people can relate.

We kicked around dozens of titles, reworked a few aspects of the story, and rewrote proposed marketing copy. The book's new title? MAI TAI MUTINY.

I just cringed when I typed that, because really, it's terrible. The editorial board agreed it was terrible, and I suspect several of them fled the room gagging. Sourcebooks didn't buy it, and that was that.

Or was it?

In the end, they did buy the book. It happened almost a year later when my amazing agent sent them a new romantic comedy I'd written and they ended up offering a three-book deal that included the new book, one I hadn't yet written, and the book we were jokingly calling "unpirate."

A rather lengthy titling exercise produced over 30 potential titles for "unpirate," and one was selected last February. If you're a regular blog reader, you already know what that was, since it's what we've called the book for a year now.

But things change – market conditions, news headlines, what the competitors are doing, the position of uranus (snicker). And because Sourcebooks is committed to making sure we have the very best title for this book, we're reassessing. Personally, I think it's pretty cool they're letting you, the potential readers, make the call.

How much thought do you put into titles when you're making book buying decisions? How about when you're writing? Please share!

And don't forget to vote. There are still a couple days left, and you could win a signed, advance copy!

Pick my title, win the book. Pretty cool, huh?

Every book I’ve ever written has a secret title.

In my mind, the three romantic comedies in my contract will always be Piratebitch, Psychicbitch, and Winebitch.

Fortunately, my mind isn’t making the important decisions around here.

There’s a lot of high-level strategy behind book titles that I don’t pretend to grasp. Lucky for me, the folks at Sourcebooks are keeping an eye on the market and taking steps to make certain we have the best title possible for my debut novel.

To ensure we have the title that’s most compelling to the most readers, Sourcebooks wants your input.

See that spiffy poll below? Which of the two titles would make YOU pick up the book and squeal with joy as you run for the cash register? (You can also squeal as you download it to your e-reader. Squealing is an integral part of any book buying experience).

In case you’re new here, this is what the book is about:
When his sleazy boss kicks him to the curb and steals his pension, Alex heads to the Caribbean with a crew of corporate castoffs to intercept an illegal diamond shipment in the most dysfunctional pirate mission in history. Things heat up when Juli – who’s supposed to be dumping her dead uncle’s ashes at sea – mistakenly stows away on their boat.

After you vote, leave a comment about why you chose the title you did. We’ll draw a name from the comments on March 31 and one lucky reader will get a signed Advance Reading Copy of the book.

Pretty cool, huh? Now here are your two choices:



Don’t forget to leave a comment about why you voted the way you did. That’s your entry to win an Advance Reading Copy of the book.

Now go forth and make history!

Why titles are a bitch

I’ve been thinking a lot about book titles lately.

This is probably because I’ve had to come up with a buttload of them in recent weeks, some for books I haven’t even written yet. I think this may be my agent’s attempt to kill me.

Because the truth is that I hate coming up with book titles. I’d honestly rather take a carrot peeler to my forearm and spritz the wounds with grapefruit juice.

In my mind, every book I ever write or consider writing is titled by combining some element of the book’s theme and the word “bitch.” It’s quite simple. The book I sold to Silhouette Bombshell staring a ski patroller was “Snowbitch.” The follow-up starring a heroine competing in the Iditarod was “Sledbitch.”

My most recent projects include “Psychicbitch” (BELIEVE IT OR NOT) and “Dumpbitch” (GETTING DUMPED). I think it startled my agent the first time I accidentally referred to one of my manuscripts this way, but she now shares my habit of forgetting a manuscript’s actual title in favor of the simplified bitch-version.

Unfortunately, my bitch-titles don’t work in the real world.

Fortunately, I’m very lucky to have some excellent tools at my disposal for developing real-world titles. By “tools” I mean friends and family (not that I’m calling you guys tools, but hey – some of you kind of are).

My loved ones have been amazing contributors to the process, sometimes offering terrific ideas and sometimes offering abysmally bad ones that morph into ideas that are actually quite decent.

When my agent asked me recently to conduct a quick poll of friends and family and their feelings about a list of potential titles, I was stunned to have nearly everyone – about 30 people in all – reply within a matter of hours. I was also a little stunned by some of their preferences, which indicate that in addition to the tools, I know a surprising a number of perverts. Apparently several of them feel it’s vital to my writing career that my name someday appear on the cover of a book with the word “booty” in the title.

Another secret weapon in my arsenal of titling strategies is the winestorm. The winestorm is pretty much like a brainstorm except for the obvious distinction of including wine. Lots of it. I have a handful of friends who will gleefully participate in a winestorm regardless of whether they have any notion what the book is about. Or whether they’re literate. Past winestorms have yielded some terrific ideas for book titles, as well as a number of titles that will be useful if I ever decide to enter the adult film industry.

But probably my most treasured resource in the titling warefare is my friend, JJ, a woman known to me as Her Royal Majesty the Title Queen. JJ isn’t a writer. She actually works in the technology field, and to my knowledge, has no aspirations to write a book. But I can give JJ a one-paragraph synopsis of any book and she’ll come back to me with half-a-dozen potential titles that are roughly 1,597-times better than anything I could possibly come up with on my own. When I made the switch from writing women’s action/adventure for Bombshell to writing quirky comedy, I wasn’t certain JJ would still be up to the task. To my delight, she kicks ass at quirky comedy even more than she kicked ass at kickass action/adventure. (And yes, for those of you paying attention, I did in fact name the heroine in GETTING DUMPED for her).

The funny thing is, as much effort as we put into coming up with titles for my books, it’s a fact that publishers will often scrap an author’s title in favor of something they’ve come up with on their own. I know this to be true, which is why I try not to get attached to any of my titles. Even so, it’s crucial for an author to put her best foot forward. No sense giving an editor reason to reject a book based solely on a title that makes her want to beat her forehead with a shoe.

So bottom line, I do my best with titles. And since my best tends to suck, I do my best to absorb the combined wisdom of my friends, family, and all the tools and perverts I know. Isn’t that what writing’s all about?