So, how does a novel change it’s name?
Well, in my case, it was quite a long, drawn out procedure. I sold the trilogy to HarperCollins in July under the name The Balance of Power, with the title of the first book Love in Control. The book’s title existed a long time before the trilogy title, and points quite clearly to it’s beginning as more a romance in a fantasy setting than a strong fantasy romance.
One of the first things the publisher said to me was ‘There’s been some comments about the name of the trilogy – bit too close to a big name author's book’. Well, I was quite happy for the title to be played with. One thing I know I’m not good at is titles – a lot of my short story titles get changed and when I was a journalist writing headlines – well, many many changes there.
After acquisitions, it was decided to change all the titles – too romancy, not matching the urban fantasy marketing that was being planned. I sent in some suggestions. They weren’t suitable. I sent in more suggestions. They weren’t suitable. I sent in more and said ‘That’s it – I can’t think of any more. You guys are the experts, if none of these work then you do it and I’ll be happy.’ This process took several months and during that time, the 2010 publications catalogue went out with the title Love in Control.
By the time the copyedits were being sent to the typesetter in January (so six months after the title change first came up), deciding the title became very important. It turned out that they did use two of my suggestions, although in ways I hadn’t anticipated. The Dream of Asarlai, the new trilogy title, came from my suggestion Asarlai’s Dream – HC didn’t like the apostrophe s. The book title, The Secret Ones was actually a suggestion for the trilogy title. I have to say, the reaction everyone’s had to the title of The Secret Ones is great – people really like it, which only goes to show that HC are the experts in this, and I don’t have a clue.
What all this means, of course, is that books two and three don’t have a title yet. I did have what I thought might be a brief flash of inspiration regarding book three yesterday, but of course didn’t write it down and now it’s gone. But in a few months time, the angst over titles will start again as book two moves through the production process.
Hopefully, thanks to the great folk at HC, I’ll get as good a title as The Secret Ones. Maybe some of their brilliance will rub off on me too.