Kelly Francis asked:
How do you come up with the titles for your books???
CP: Personally I try to go with something catchy that I can work into either the idea of the book or the marketing. For example, The Hot Zone series came from the name of the PR firm the Jordan sisters ran/the sports agency their uncle owned, The Hot Zone – hence Hot Stuff, Hot Number, Hot Item.
For Cross My Heart, it came from that old childhood saying and it’s used in the prologue, for it’s sequel Sealed with a Kiss, it came from looking for a similar type of saying and I saw the anacronym SWAK in a women’s magazine and it just struck me at the moment. Same for the Simply’s … I liked Simply … and worked with the alliteration. I think from reading this, there is no great secret or method to my titles! And of course, the publisher has to OK and approve, so I like to get that OK b/c I need the title in order to write. The only published book other than my first, Brazen which started as Weekend Lover, which was changed, was Under the Boardwalk which began as Jersey Girl but ultimately proved too limiting. And we often ask each other or other writer friends for help!
JEL: I have a love/hate relationship with titles. I’m actually pretty good at coming up with my own titles and have for more than half my books. My “Dirty” titles came after I’d already turned in the first Marisela book as Mighty Aphrodite, which was Marisela’s codename within Titan. Pocket couldn’t use that for various reasons and as I was flicking around the Internet looking for ideas, I saw a connection between Dirty Girls Social Club (a Latina lit book that inspired me to try writing a Latina character,) Dirty Dancing and a short time later, Dirty Harry. Those three elements combined into Marisela. Since I’m a big Eagles fan, the song Dirty Laundry came to mind, which inspired Dirty Little Secrets and Dirty Little Lies from the lyrics. Coming up with titles is definitely a collaborative effort with friends and editors and marketing.
I actually came up with the title A Fare To Remember for the taxi-cab collection that’s out now. I can’t remember how it came to me (I believe I was at IMDB trolling titles,) but I remember being really excited about it and I would have been crushed if they’d said no. But it happens. I’ve lost a few titles to other authors, which is annoying. (Meaning that I came up with something PERFECT for my book, but other authors had books with the same title coming out before mine or just after and I had to change.) That’s how I got stuck with my most unfavorite title–Brazen & Burning.
LK: I almost never get to keep my titles because my editor usually comes up with very good ones and overrules my generally lame suggestion. But when I do come up with one, the title usually references the story in some particular way.
For instance, my next HQN release, Here Comes Trouble, refers to the town, Trouble, Pennsylvania, where the book takes place. Since I’ll be writing more books set in Trouble, I developed a list of Trouble titles (with Janelle’s help!) and presented the list to my editor. Here’s hoping lots of them get used!
Sometimes I have a certain word I want to focus on, go to Internet Movie Database and do a title search with that word just to see if it sparks any good ideas.
JD: Back when I was just writing category romances for Harlequin, most of my titles were changed because mine were so blah. My editor wanted something sexy to reflect the line I was writing for (Temptation & Blaze), and she usually came up with something I really liked. However, when I was writing sweeter romances for Harlequin Romance, I was never able to keep my titles, because the marketing department had “code words” they liked to make sure was in the title for the book. They tracked which books sold the best, and decided that the words within the titles were what drawing readers (never mind the author writing the books!). Some of these code words were Baby, Bride, Cowboy, Daddy, and Wedding. So, I ended up with titles like Bride Included, Ready-Made Bride (geez!), A Dad For Daniel (can it get any more cheesy?), Substitute Father (even though the hero in the book was never a “father”!), and The Baby Surprise (well, they gave away the “surprise” in that book, didn’t they? LOL!). Anyway, I never liked any of those titles all that much, but I didn’t have a choice in the matter.
Now, I pretty much title my own books — with the help of the plotmonkeys. If I have connecting books, I always try to keep a “theme” within the titles. Usually a word I carry over from book to book. I had a set of Temptation & Blaze books that were connected by characters and the word “Seduction” in the title: A Wicked Seduction, A Shameless Seduction, and The Ultimate Seduction. I think that really helped readers to identify the book as one of the “Seduction” series, especially if they were looking for a particular character’s story.
Then there’s my most popular series to date, and what I’m best known for — my “Wilde” series. I knew when I first developed the Wilde brothers that I wanted something catchy that I could use in numerous titles (because there were also Wilde cousins waiting for their stories to be told, as well!) and that’s when I decided that the last name “Wilde” held a whole lot of possibilities. To date, I’ve had six Wilde titles released, and I think since no one else has ever had a series of “Wilde” books, that one word is enough for readers to see on a book on the shelves and know that the story inside is part of the “Wilde” series. The word “Wilde” has also been a great marketing and promotional tool — readers recognize the word, as do booksellers. That one word has had a huge impact on my career.
By all reports, Julie Leto was a sweet child once, somewhat shy, preferring to play quietly in her room making up stories. However, being raised with three brothers in a loud, primarily Italian household did have its influences and Julie discovered her inner tough girl. That’s probably why most of her heroines kick serious butt. Writing sassy heroines has worked out, as she’s sold over forty books to four publishers featuring strong, confident women. Julie lives in Florida with her daughter, a spoiled dachshund, a haughty lynx-point Siamese and a wide range of relatives all within driving distance.
Destiny
Dirty Little Secrets
Once Upon A Valentine
Through The Night
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Thanks for answering one of my questions this week. I have often wondered if a title for a book gets changed for resons beyond the author’s control. And now I have my answer. :) Sometimes I see a book on Amazon under one title and then it gets changed after a few months during it’s “Pre-Order”.
Now I wonder what would happen if you REALLY loved a title you came up with that they wanted changed. Could you override their decison and keep your title the way it is or is that a no-no?
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Ah…the putting down of the foot.
Kelly, I have fought for titles before. In fact, Pocket wasn’t thrilled with Dirty Little Lies. I had put together that flash presentation that is on my Marisela site in order to convince them to let me keep my titles and so far, it has worked. I’ve had to fight for my “Dirty” titles, but they’ve listened. With Harlequin, I haven’t been so successful in my fight except to get a title I really hated changed. I’ve had to do that twice and then we compromised on the title that stuck. The only time I didn’t fight that hard was Brazen & Burning because while I hated the title, I couldn’t come up with anything better (it had to be an “adjective” and “adjective” title because there were two other books in the series–Leslie’s Wicked & Willing (which I liked) and Tori Carrington’s Red Hot & Restless.)
Most of the time, it’s a compromise. I really really really loved the original title for Making Waves (which was In Hot Water) and I did fight it literally all the way to the top, but the bottom line was another book was coming out with that title in HQN (or Mira) a few months before mine. Funniest part? The book that ended up with the In Hot Water title didn’t even have water on the cover! I was a bed. Made. No. Sense.
So while Making Waves was my second choice (and it was my idea), it ended up growing on me. And my cover totally rocked!
By the way…since this is writer day, I wanted to remind everyone that I’ve reactivated my blog over at Readmarisela.com. (http://www.marisela.info/blog) I blog three times a week there and often hit various writing related topics. Not that I want to send people away from Plotmonkeys, but once you’re done commenting here, I’d love it if you popped over to my other blog!
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Thanks Julie!! I wasn’t sure if it was even possible to “fight” for your book title or not. You know, maybe they would refuse to publish the book or use some kind of scare tatic so you “see things their way” type of thing. It is good to know that you do have some control over your work and the final product. I didn’t realize that the book companies have that much clout though.
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Kelly, they are the ones footing the bill, so ultimately, they have ALL the power and clout. But if you are a reasonable arguer (which I am) and you can speak their language (marketing and sales-speak, which I can) then you can work with them. You can’t use a lame argument like, “But I’ve always called the book that!” or “My mother loves the title” or “Suzanne Brockmann used that title, why can’t I?” :d :d
Ultimately, I’ve found that most publishers do want to please the author. Even when I worked with NAL on Dare Me, they listened to all three of the authors about what title we liked best and I wasn’t even one of “their” authors. We worked as a team. I’ve found that at both Pocket and Harlequin. That, to me, is the ultimate author-editor-publisher relationship. I’ve clearly been very fortunate.
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I had no idea that writers were given much input about the titles, but I’m glad that they are, at least to some extent. I love the whole “Hot” and “Dirty” and “Wilde” concepts – sounds like a fun time, doesn’t it? LOL. But seriously, it makes the series easier to connect, and as a reader, I really appreciate that.
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I agree with Stacy….I have always thought it is so clever some of the titles (my personal favorites are “A Fare To Remember” and the “Hot Zone” trilogy titles). For the longest time I couldn’t figure out how to spell the “Fare” title to search for it…now, I get it (DUH, I am a little slow!).
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Thanks for telling us about titles. I have sometimes wondered what “they” were thinking when I see the title of the book & other times the title may have been what made me pick the book up to see what it was about.
There is another whole story I am sure behind book covers. Some of them are great & others are totally unrelated to the book & I can never figure out why someone thought it worked! :) Just my humble opinion!!
I really hate the covers that show male or female & they are totally different than the description in the story about the character. Again I wonder why someone thought it worked–do they think readers are stupid?!! I especially hate cover male models that look about 18 & have no character in their face–but again that is my humble opinion.
Have a great weekend everyone. :) Speaking of covers, I love the cover of Surf’s Up. That to me is a good cover.
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I was wondering about this just yesterday as I was trying to come up with a short story title and finding myself woefully challenged. Also, I’ve read some books recently where it seems that a phrase was lifted from what someone perceived to be a defining moment in the book and used as the title. Sometimes this works, and there’s kind of an “aha” feeling when, as a reader, I get to that part and it feels as if the perfect title was selected. Other times, I say, “Hey, now I know where it came from but why?”
Thanks for enlightening us.
Patricia W
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thanks for the answers, can’t wait until your books leslie
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Thanks for the insight into how the books titles comes about, it is something that I have often wondered about. Especially when the cover and title makes no sense to the book itself.