Someone must have put vinegar in my coffee today because I am not my usual sunny self. So, when the editorial assistant working on my book emailed me yesterday to say that "marketing" would like me to change the title, I wrote back to say that, well as I understood the importance of marketing, I felt that marketing was wrong and, furthermore, that I would not brainstorm three alternate titles before Thanksgiving.
Perhaps "marketing" has some alternates to propose.
I don't exactly feel better; I expect to lose; but I just could not cave in without an ardent protest.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Books, food, friends, and Virginia Woolf. "I spare you the twists and turns of my cogitations, for no conclusion was found on the road to Headingly, and I ask you to suppose that I soon found out my mistake about the turning and retraced my steps to Fernham."--Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
Posts
3 comments:
Don't give up, Anne!
And no, you don't need to reply before Thanksgiving. Have a happy one, by the way....
Yeah, think it over & decide what you really do need to keep and where you can be flexible. I had this with mine, too, and in the end got to keep the title I had, but with a slightly different subtitle ("Hypocrisy and the Politics of Politeness: Manners and Morals from Locke to Austen"). The title the marketing people wanted was "Manners and Morals in Eighteenth-Century Prose," which I didn't like at all; but to make sure I wasn't just being a neurotic author, I checked with a friend/colleague, who looked at me with horror and said, "That sounds like the kind of book you'd find in a moldy antiquarian bookstore." I do think, though, that the rule of not having a quotation in the title is a good one (for instance, there's a book I love that's called "Like Engendr'ing Like" with a subtitle about heredity and animal breeding that clearly is less easily searchable/rememberable because of this awkward title); but it is also possible to go too far towards the dry and descriptive...
Thanks Dave & Jenny! My in-person counsel is saying the same. And yes, Jenny, I think that perhaps a subtitle that hit the right notes for the database woudl be a workable compromise but, god, the one that marketing proposed for you is horrible. I fear they'll foist something horribly and musty on me, too.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Post a Comment