Title Time

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Publishing houses seem to have two speeds: the proverbial molasses-in-winter mode and the we-needed-this-yesterday frantic rush. When an author is waiting on them (such as, ahem, to cut a check), they typically go into molasses mode. But when they need the author to do something, for some bizarre reason it never seems to occur to them to contact the writer until the last minute. I can't tell you the number of times I've been given literally one hour to revise cover copy or come up with a tag line. Usually I'm given a day or two to come up with cover art suggestions. I was once given an hour to rename my heroine after the Powers That Be decided her name was too long. (Seriously. The book was Midnight Confessions, but I don't at the moment recall my heroine's original last name. All I know is that I really hate the substitution. Character names should never be rushed.)

Cover copy revisions obviously depend on having something from the copy department to revise. But the other stuff--tag lines and cover art suggestions--are things authors know ahead of time they're going to have to come up with. So I've learned to give some thought to those things on my own calendar rather than waiting for the inevitable rush email. I have the suggestions for the cover of the book I'm currently writing (Sebastian Book Number Seven) all ready and will simply send them off as soon as I get that we're-cover-conferencing-this-book-on-Wednesday-so-if-you-have-any-suggestions-get-them-to-me-by-morning email.

So you'd think I'd have been prepared for the message that greeted me when I got around to checking my email on Monday afternoon: We need a title for Book Number Seven by Wednesday morning! Silly me. I somehow imagined I'd have until I actually finished the book to come up with the title. Nope. I was caught titleless. I did go through a period last summer when I tried to come up with something; those of you who've been around the blog that long will remember we spent a week or so thrashing about and brainstorming possibilities. But I then pushed the whole title thing onto the back burner, thinking I'd just let it simmer.

Great titles, in my experience, are gifts from the ether. They come seemingly out of nowhere, instantly captivating and awe-inspiring in their inherent rightness. I've never come up with a title that I sweated and fretted over, and ended up really liking. In this instance, I sent the entire long list of suggestions from you, my blog readers, to my editors, along with a half-dozen suggestions of my own. All were knocked back. I came up with some more suggestions; my editor came up with some of her own. We settled on one we thought we could live with. Her boss nixed it. We went down to the wire, with the final decision being made on Wednesday morning.

Titles are so important, I don't think they should simply be grabbed on the fly. On the other hand, sometimes inspiration never strikes and a decision must be made. Or sometimes inspiration strikes and The Powers That Be nix it and come up with a title of their own (What Remains of Heaven being the prime example; I named that book What Hell Marks, referencing a quote from Shakespeare that I actually took out of the book's final copy in the hope that I can get them to use the title for a future book.)

But all this is just buildup to telling you what the title of the seventh book is. Drum roll, please....

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Why Maidens Mourn.

Like it? Hate it? Feel free to be honest. I'm not exactly in love with it myself. But I like it much better than What Remains of Heaven (yeah, I'm still cranky about that one).