Sunday, September 14, 2008

What's In A Title?


My new book is out. The title is: The Emergency Doctor's Chosen Bride. It's not bad. It's not great. Titles are in the realm of of the publisher and they (for the medicals) choose the titles. When I first started writing medicals, I was a bit shocked at the titles. They were just so. . . not-American-sounding. My first book for Mills and Boon medicals I titled: Runaway Nurse. I thought that said something about the book, would intrigue the reader enough to pick up the book and read the back blurb. But Runaway Nurse wasn't appealing to the UK editors and they changed it to, The Surgeon's Marriage Proposal.
What did that mean? I couldn't pick titles well enough? I was so nervous and excited when my editor called me that I really didn't care at the moment what it was called as long as they accepted it and paid me for it. They did and the book has gone on to be published in romance, medical romance both hard and paperback, large print hardback and French in a duet wtih another book and author.
So what does that tell me?
Not to be married to my titles. I use a working title, the most recent of which was Scars, another was Small Town Story. It gives me a little bit of focus every time I open the computer to work on it. In the end the publisher and editors are the ones who make some of the decisions regarding my books, they create the titles and also are the ones who pay me. So I'm okay with it.
Thanks for reading my blog and reading my books. Without the fans, we writers wouldn't be out here.
Molly Evans