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