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| Romeo and Juliet: proving names matter |
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
Here’s
the thing – spoiler alert – both Romeo and Juliet die at the end, thus
one can argue that, yeah, names do matter and so do book titles. They matter so
much, in fact, there is a dent worn into the top of my desk from where I bang my
head while trying to generate acceptable titles.
Now,
for those of you who’ve read my work, you know I write comedy. Shenanigans and
snappy dialogue are my thing and I like my titles to reflect that. This leads
to some rather pointed discussions with sales and marketing since they are
actually the ones who have the final say on an author’s book title. They argue that since they have to sell the book first, they need a title that allows them to
do so. It’s a fair point, but given some of the titles I’ve had to contortion twist out of myself to get everyone in agreement, again, I defer to the words of
Juliet:
'Tis
but thy name that is my enemy;
True
story, funny story: I decided to write one of my cupcake bakery mystery capers
against the backdrop of a zombie walk, because why not? I mean if you’re going
to have cupcake bakers solve murder mysteries you might as well go all in and
dress them up as zombies, too. I did mention that I write comedy, right? Lots
of humor potential with zombies, I’m just sayin’. Well, when it was time to
come up with the title, my agent at the time thought up the single greatest
title ever…ready…wait for it…drum roll… yes, it’s that good…wait for it…really ready...okay………The Baking Dead!
Brilliant,
right? I know! What did sales and marketing say? Um…it’s not very cupcakey. The
dent in the top of my desk got much deeper that day. Thankfully, a reader came
to rescue and came up with the title Dark
Chocolate Demise, which we all agreed was a good one and then the art
department kicked butt, making one of my most favorite covers, ever, so it’s
all good, but still. Titles! You’re killing me!
And
now, just because I am title obsessed, I want to share with you a few of my
favorites. I won’t list the ones that I find horrible, because that would be
mean, but you know they’re out there. Those are the books where you think, Ish, what were they thinking? Of course,
then the book hits the bestseller’s list and you realize you know nothing –
story of my life!
Some
of my favorite mystery book titles in no particular order:
I Still Miss My Man, But
My Aim is Getting Better by Sarah Shankman
The Old Buzzard Had It
Coming by
Donis Casey
If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him by Sharyn McCrumb
Murder of a Stacked Librarian by Denise Swanson
If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him by Sharyn McCrumb
Murder of a Stacked Librarian by Denise Swanson
How about you, Reds? How
do you feel about book titles? Critical to a purchase? Not so much? What’s a
title that you think is brilliant?
