Interesting times at Derrick Towers. As my lovely baby is off for a line edit, and I’m starting on cover design, I sent my potential names from the previous post off to some beta readers and friends and… they seem to have a consesus on a shortlist of names. And they’re all my least favourites!
This brings me back to one of the most difficulet parts for me, shaping the book release to the target market and sales rather than self gratification (If you’ll excuse the slightly unfortunate but possible accurate description). I have a penchent for puns or hidden meanings in titles, as they make me feel nice and clever, and provide an added dimension to the reading experience (I think). Unfortunately they do little for appealing to potential readers.
Last time I excluded my favourite possible title “Wendy Time” so it could be a nice surprise and I could announce my readers loved it. But what I mainly got back was “Eh? I don’t get it”. I chose the title as it is a song by The Cure, the feeling I think matches, Robert Smith’s motivation for writing it (the feeling you get when someone has left the room) and the connotations of Wendy and Peter Pan in a fantasy land all sounded great to me, but no-one got it. A number of the other potentials (“Your singings eyes and fingers” “Amid your breakers”) were allusion to Sirens and lyrics from other great songs, but no-one picked up on them either. So the title may be something far simpler, from the preferences my readers have given me. I have to remember tho, at this stage, the title isn’t for me and exists to serve a purpose. I shall announce it soon!
The choices I have do give me some wonderful marketing ideas tho, more of which soon…
Stay safe,
Kit