What’s in a Name…?

Here’s a secret I don’t tell people often: I don’t like coming up with story titles. I’m bad at it. My natural verbosity makes summarizing a long piece difficult to the extreme, and boiling the story down to a proper title an exercise in extreme frustration.

Sometimes titles just come to me. “Holiday Magic” pretty much named itself (Hallelujah!). But most of the time, I fumble around trying to find a way to give a story a name that will give potential readers some basic idea of the story without spoilers (harder than you might think, at least for me). Sometimes I land on something easily, and sometimes a title is the result of oodles and scads and hours of deliberation.

When I came up with the title “Blights & Desires” I was super happy with it. It has a neat ring to it. It gives some idea as to what’s in the book without giving anything away.

But, as it turns out, it left a little too much to the imagination. It’s a great title for the book if you’ve already read it– makes a ton of sense. It’s a clever play on words once you know what all it’s saying. Of course, the problem is that the title needs to speak just as clearly to everyone who hasn’t already read the book.

So: after consulting with other professionals involved in the publication of my book, we have decided on a title change. I have been assured by many authors with multiple bestsellers in their catalogs that this happens routinely and the requested title change is in no way an indictment of my creativity.  And I’m going to take their word for it. It’s all part of the business, apparently.

I am pleased to announce that, after much deliberation on my part, and on the advice of people who know much more about these things than I do, “Blights & Desires” will now be known as…

Drumroll please…………………………………………..

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“Rites & Desires” !!

I know, right? Tiny change, huge difference. It’s a better representation of the action of the book for potential readers to assess, and yet it keeps all of the catchy goodness of the original title. I am thrilled and pleased. This is yet another example of trusting your team as an author. You will come out with a stronger finished product if you’re willing to listen, be humble, and think. Everyone is in the business of making this book as successful as it can possibly be, and it’s a joy to have these amazing people behind me.