Pub Rants

STATUS: Busy, busy. It was a big day as I had imagined. Lots of good news that I’ll eventually be able to share.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? IT’S CHRISTMAS (BABY PLEASE COME HOME) by U2

Run away, run away!

Well, it’s still continuing. We came up with a bunch of verb Titles and the publisher just isn’t loving them. I can understand. Titling is hard and they are pretty wed to the title they originally envisioned.

I’m sending it out to you folks in blog world. I need a title for a very sexy, dark paranormal romance. There has to be verb in the title.

Don’t include the word dark but I’m open to seeing anything else you can give me. We’ve tried lots of variations with the word fire, passion, and desire so hit me with something different if you can.

General premise: a witch is on the run from the man she has always trusted when she discovers what he is really doing. After she escapes, she runs smack dab into the hero who has made it his life goal to kill this man and his witch. Trouble ensues (which is rather an understatement).

No werewolves or vampires in sight.

Only serious suggestions accepted!

STATUS: Preparing for a big day tomorrow. More details later.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? FOOL IN THE RAIN by Led Zeppelin

Agenting is a never-ending learning process. So I’m chatting with an editor about the title change we are attempting and she pointed out something I hadn’t noticed.

In all the suggestions we had given her, only one title contained a verb. All the others were nouns with an adjective (or adjectives).

Kristin slaps hand on forehead. The publisher is looking for a more active title. That means the title needs a verb.

Betcha none of you thought of that right off the top of your head. And if you did, you are one smart cookie because to be honest, I hadn’t noticed that.

Guess what Sara, the author, and I will be doing tomorrow morning? Coming up with titles that contain verbs.

And just in case you need a verb refresher, feel free to click here. Ah. Fond memories from my childhood.

STATUS: I finally finished the “out of the office for four days” catch up so I can concentrate on the projects on my To Do list. Yea!

What’s playing on the iPod right now? BIZARRE LOVE TRIANGLE by New Order

Some days it seems like we don’t get paid enough or maybe we get paid too much. You’ll never believe what Sara and I did this morning.

We brainstormed for possible titles for a client’s delivered novel. I kid you not. We spent a good hour, maybe more, cruising Amazon.com and looking up synonyms for the word “dark” (amongst other words).

Why? Because our client hates the title her publisher wants to name her new paranormal romance novel. And I don’t mean she “generally dislikes” the title they have chosen; she is in passionate disagreement. We were agent-bound to come to the rescue.

Title needs to be in by Friday so we got down to the nitty-gritty. Later today it occurred to me that my blog readers might benefit from the strategies we used. Maybe this will spark some good possibilities when naming your own work of art.

A good title often carries the day when we read queries. Just last week I asked for sample pages for a manuscript because I thought the title was so cool, I didn’t care what the blurb was. I’m not joking either. I saw the title, skimmed the blurb, asked for 30 pages.

So here’s what we did:

1. We begun by reading the back cover copy (which is actually quite good) that the publisher did for the novel. (You can use your own pitch blurb that you created for the work.) We listed on a piece of paper the key words that captured the essence of the story so we could play with them in different word combinations. This actually didn’t yield as much as we had hoped for in creating a new list of possible titles.

2. Then we brainstormed for authors who write similar stuff. In this case, we made a list of folks writing sexy paranormal romances.

3. This got the juices cooking when we looked on Amazon for what titles have already been done in the field. We made a new list of words that caught our attention, sounded cool, or whatever.

4. Then we played with combinations. At several points in this process, Sara and I were practically rolling on the floor in mirth. We came up with many stupid titles, let me tell you. It was really clear what didn’t work the minute we uttered it aloud (so maybe share you title choices with others before settling on one).

5. We also did a couple of out-of-the-box exercises by trying to come up with cool titles that at first glance don’t have anything to do with the main thrust of the story. (For example, I think Bantam was brilliant to come up with the title PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS for Sherry Thomas. In a subtle way, it exactly sums up the novel because the two main characters are having a big conflict over a private arrangement that both have agreed to undergo.)

It’s an out-of-the-box title though so you want to reach for things that might be odd but sound cool. Make a list of those choices and play with them as well. Another way to do that is simply to search through titles on Amazon that also stand out (even if the book is a different genre) just because they sound original or unusual. This helps the mind to focus on something other than the themes in front of you. We got stuck often on stuff like that when title brainstorming so that pushed us out of our thinking rut so we could explore some other possibilities.

Happy titling! Once the title is decided upon and with client permission, I can perhaps share more details.

STATUS: So far I’ve spent all day reading—a full manuscript I requested and then a client work. Only one more day until we officially close so I’ll probably be reading late into the evening.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS by Elvis Presley

Diana Peterfreund is talking about titles on her blog and being the lazy person I am this week, I thought I’d piggyback on her topic.

I want to reiterate here that authors should not get too attached to their titles. Sometimes they’re perfect and the author, the editor, and the whole sales department (and the buyer from Barnes & Noble) are giddy with excitement over it.

Then sometimes they’re not. Or they might be perfectly okay titles but not quite the angle the publisher is looking for.

Any agent that’s been around awhile can regale you with tons of title tales and it seems a fitting end to the year. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to share a few.

Paula Reed’s first romance entitled INTO HIS ARMS was originally titled KEEPING FAITH (as in the main heroine’s name was Faith and the hero should keep her). Kensington, her publisher, thought it sounded too inspirational so changed it.

I don’t think anyone can mistake INTO HIS ARMS for a religious tome.

In contrast, the obvious title for Jenny O’Connell’s upcoming second YA is THE BOOK OF LUKE. Speaking of religious references, we thought there was no way MTV Books would let us keep it (although it totally fit because the protagonist takes it upon herself to reform the baddest, most popular boy in school—named Luke of course—and keeps a book about the effort.) We spent days coming up with some alternatives (if I remember correctly, Nice Is A Four-Letter Word was the runner up). It ended up being unnecessary as MTV kept the originally proposed title.

But here’s a great instance to show that a writer shouldn’t get too wed to a title.

For book 2 in Shanna’s ENCHANTED series, she had the perfect title. For years, she had wanted to write a book entitled Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered. Finally, her chance had come in the form of the second book in her series. The manuscript was edited, delivered, and heading to press.

Then her agent opened up the then new spring catalog for Berkley (back in 2005) and lo and behold, you guessed it. Berkley had just released a book with that same title. As a book at Ballantine, we didn’t want to compete with a same-title release from another house.

Suddenly, we had no title. Enchanted Book 2 wasn’t really going to cut it. We spent weeks trying to come up with a new title only to be saved by the Ballantine marketing director. It was he who came up with ONCE UPON STILETTOS—in a moment that could only be described as sheer brilliance because what a great title.

For book 3, DAMSEL UNDER STRESS, the brainstorm brilliance was all Shanna and in this instance, Ballantine loved it immediately.

Title crisis averted—this time!