ARE YOU GAME TO CHANGE YOUR BOOK TITLE? WEP October challenge--CONSTELLATIONS/HALLOWEEN!

Hello fellow scribes!

It's the September/October school holidays in Oz, so I'm chilling at the beach. Hard to think about blogging, but I can't leave Crystal Collier's cover reveal up forever!

George Santayana said: "To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring." I don't know. We Aussies are hopelessly in love with every season except summer. In these days of global warming, it's just way too hot and we're sick of getting melanomas cut out! So at the mo', we're enjoying beautiful spring weather and that means the sun, surf and sand and relaxing.

I keep a special desk on the deck so I can ponder the Pacific blue.

So, after much pondering I came up with a post!

Book Titles.

We writers can be overprotective and pathological hoverers when it comes to book titles.

Okay. We’ve made the monumental effort of producing a book. Maybe the monumental effort of choosing the title is the final hurdle we have to jump over. 

Or maybe we think it’s no-one’s business but our own what we call our little darling.

If you’re traditionally published, a book’s title is subject to hot debate and sometimes you have little/no input. 

The creative and commercial worlds collide.

Usually, the commercial wins.

But I did a little research and found that history shows us that that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Here are a few title changes which should warm your heart, and help us to trust editors and others when they offer advice re the title of your baby.

• The Jewboy became Whacking Off which then became Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint.
• Jane Austen’s father submitted an early version of her second novel, First Impressions. It was rejected, only to re-emerge as Pride and Prejudice.
• Jacqueline Susann’s They Don’t Build Statues to Businessmen became Valley of the Dolls.
• How about 1984. George Orwell’s The Last Man in Europe doesn’t quite have the ring. Changing its name resulted in commercial success.
• One of my favourite stories—the publisher Faber plucked Strangers from Within from the slush pile. With some masterful editing, it became Lord of the Flies. Say no more.
• Margaret Mitchell's blockbuster Gone With the Wind was tentatively titled Tomorrow is Another Day.

Now if you’re self-published, as more and more of us are these days, you don’t have whole marketing departments, sales teams, book chains and publicity directors clamouring over your book, demanding the commercial title of their choice.

You may say, just as well. My title is sacrosanct.

Is it?

After reading some of the examples above, maybe we should pay closer attention to our titles and throw them out there for opinions other than our own.

What do you think?

In 2015 I dusted off a manuscript from 2010, a story which I’ve always thought of as The Perfect Silence of the Night. One night as I was creating in my head instead of sleeping, I had another title pop up (fired by Michael di Gesu’s blurb). So my paranormal romance which I self-published for Halloween last year (having not submitted it to any traditional publishers—maybe next time), has the new title—Under the Tuscan Moon. And I couldn’t be happier!

Now I'm pondering the title for my contemporary women's fiction/chick lit/women's fiction...whatever...

My working title has always been Carpe Diem. Then I began thinking, maybe not everyone knows that Latin saying...maybe they'll think it's about a special Catholic mass. Then I thought of adding Art and Love in Paris (the hero is an artist) as a sub-title to replace Paris Never Leaves You. Then I thought of The Art of Loving in Paris, then decided that could be mistaken for porno or erotica. Hmm. Tricky things, titles.

I know you've got better things to do, but if you have a suggestion for my title, I hope you'll leave it in the comments.

I'm curious. Have you ever changed your book title? Had to run with one your publisher chose and you hated? Please tell us...

Thanks for stopping by. Would you believe blogspot had a glitch and I had to write this twice, so if it doesn't altogether make sense, that's because who likes to write a blog post twice? I mean, I'd rather be pondering how many shades of blue there are in the Pacific Ocean.

The October Write...Edit...Publish challenge is looming! There is a choice of themes: CONSTELLATIONS or HALLOWEEN, or if you're very, very clever, a combination of both! So get your little sci-fi, fantasy or horror brains around the next challenge. Linky goes up October 1! Should be a double hoot!