Titles, Reprise
First a little background. I'm not great with titles. With the Berkley books I don't have to be because I'm stuck with "Heart." All I have to do is pick a good 2nd or 3rd word. For the Luna books, they began as Exotic Summoning - Castle, Alexa or something like that. But Luna is very picky about their titles and I came up with a list. Guardian of Honor was on that list and I think Sorceress of Faith was too. But I didn't find out that those were the titles of the books until an online chat.
No one bothered to notify me. Urgh.
In these days, when publishers expect the author to do a lot a promo, it's wise to at least tell the author when the title has changed.
So, the third book was Knight Protector. I liked Knight Protector (as you can see from previous entries here). Knight Protector was the highest title in the Templars and I like that, too. But my editor wanted Defender of Trust. Hmmmm. I tried it on a little and came to like it, too.
Then Defender of Trust morphed into Defender of the Flight...and though I would have liked to stay with Honor, Faith, Trust, I could see the reasoning behind this. Calli will be defending or helping the volarans (flying horses).
I'd heard the art was in and yesterday I really wanted to know a couple of things about the cover (you all recall that I wanted a woman on a flying horse?) If there was a flying horse, I wanted to know what color it was and how the wings were attached to the horse (look around the web and you'll see what I mean, are they at an angle or are they straight across the body? It depends when you're talking how to ride the pegasus).
I got the current art (yes it's gorgeous, no I won't post it because it's not done -- hey it doesn't have my name on it!), and it says PROTECTOR OF THE FLIGHT. All over the web I've been calling this book, Defender of the Flight. I'm pretty sure the art dept is right and I am wrong.
It never occurred to me that every month or so I should be asking if my title has changed...since this is the last book under contract (I hope to have 6 in the series, but who knows?) I'll have to work up more titles and if I get the 3 more books, I'll have to remember this lesson.
Because though this book won't be out until February of 07 (hey, it probably won't be done until April of 06), it's never too early to get the word out. People may forget between now and then, probably will, but in 2/07 if they see a gorgeous cover of a woman on a flying horse (she's not really blond, more like light brown hair) and see Protector of the Flight, a little bell goes off...as long as they aren't confused about Defender and Protector...
So may you have excellent luck with determining a title, and may you write well today.
Robin
No one bothered to notify me. Urgh.
In these days, when publishers expect the author to do a lot a promo, it's wise to at least tell the author when the title has changed.
So, the third book was Knight Protector. I liked Knight Protector (as you can see from previous entries here). Knight Protector was the highest title in the Templars and I like that, too. But my editor wanted Defender of Trust. Hmmmm. I tried it on a little and came to like it, too.
Then Defender of Trust morphed into Defender of the Flight...and though I would have liked to stay with Honor, Faith, Trust, I could see the reasoning behind this. Calli will be defending or helping the volarans (flying horses).
I'd heard the art was in and yesterday I really wanted to know a couple of things about the cover (you all recall that I wanted a woman on a flying horse?) If there was a flying horse, I wanted to know what color it was and how the wings were attached to the horse (look around the web and you'll see what I mean, are they at an angle or are they straight across the body? It depends when you're talking how to ride the pegasus).
I got the current art (yes it's gorgeous, no I won't post it because it's not done -- hey it doesn't have my name on it!), and it says PROTECTOR OF THE FLIGHT. All over the web I've been calling this book, Defender of the Flight. I'm pretty sure the art dept is right and I am wrong.
It never occurred to me that every month or so I should be asking if my title has changed...since this is the last book under contract (I hope to have 6 in the series, but who knows?) I'll have to work up more titles and if I get the 3 more books, I'll have to remember this lesson.
Because though this book won't be out until February of 07 (hey, it probably won't be done until April of 06), it's never too early to get the word out. People may forget between now and then, probably will, but in 2/07 if they see a gorgeous cover of a woman on a flying horse (she's not really blond, more like light brown hair) and see Protector of the Flight, a little bell goes off...as long as they aren't confused about Defender and Protector...
So may you have excellent luck with determining a title, and may you write well today.
Robin
posted by FantasyAuthor RobinDOwens | 7:22 AM
2 Comments:
Funny you should mention that. I got an e-mail from my Luna editor yesterday telling me they had dropped the "THE" from THE EYES OF CROW because it looked better on the cover. I was fine with the change, but it's less of a big deal than changing an entire word. It doesn't seem like something you should have to reconfirm, but as you say, lessons learned.
I can't wait to see my cover mockup--any day now!
Well, EYES will be farther up the alphabet, like the title. And people probably won't remember Protector or Defender...but my fans would.
Robin
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