Ah, yes. Titles.
The article begins, “Walk into any bookstore and the book titles aren’t just bad, they’re outrageously bad; and they’re not just outrageously bad, but outrageously bad in very much the same way.”
I couldn’t agree more (Gone Girl has so much to answer for), and with the rest of the essay, which you can read right here. I like the image of titles that prove their point, too:
Did you know the title of the first Kate Shugak novel was originally Termination Dust? The publisher changed it to A Cold Day for Murder because they thought my title was too Alaskan. Termination dust is what we call the first snow on the mountains in the fall (aka the last week of August), as in it signals the termination of summer. I thought it was a fun way to bring the reader into the setting, which was, well, Alaska, as it works as Alaskan imagery and argot both, as well as a tribute to the mystery genre. Termination, get it? Of course you do. But some publishers can’t dumb things down enough for the gen pop.
[Finally got good cover art from Head of Zeus, even if I am forever stuck with that title. I’ve learned to live with it, though, because what else can you do?]
It isn’t the editorial department making these changes.
It’s the marketing department.
Be prepared to cave. You can’t fight the marketing department.
#thiswritinglife Chatter a cold day for murder Kate Shugak Pulitzer bait strange matters titles
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Right or wrong? Well for me I think they got it right in this case – Alaskans I guess may disagree but ‘A Cold Day for Murder’ spoke to me straight away. I thought I knew exactly what I was going to get and was not disappointed – couldn’t have been happier, an un-put downable intro for me – loved this first of many meetings with the Alaskan Gang, canine and all else and have never looked back – thank you Dana …
My characters would laugh at and love being called “the Alaska Gang.” Thanks, Patricia.
Some random thoughts after reading Pulitzer Bait and laughing out loud at some of it…
“Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone” makes perfect sense if you know the book.
My book group read “All the Things We Cannot See” some years back, and our co-chair referred to it, before the actual discussion, as “All the Sounds We Cannot Hear”.
Looked up the original title of “And Then There Were None”. [cringe]
And, not a book title, but tangentially related — just yesterday, I heard an announcer (on NPR, no less!) refer to the Pu-LITZ-er Prize. [smh]
Aaaaeeeiiii! That’s like announcers on Alaska radio who have been here maybe a minute calling NiNILchik NI-nilchik or REdoubt ReDOUBT. Isssshhhhhhhh…
Did you influence Sue Henry’s choice of the title TerminationDiust a few years after you tried to use? Or just an Alaskan coincidence?
Yeah, we talked about it and when her publisher let her use the title I rubbed my publisher’s nose in it.