One thing that has surprised me about the publishing world is titles. I had always thought I'd be basically assigned one by my editors. I have sold 4 fiction pieces now, and haven't experienced that. My short stories are untouched so far. My novel had the "The" removed from the title, because that causes problems, apparently. So my March release will be known as Cards Never Lie. Not much of a change.
   Today, my Ellora's Cave editor told me my novella title had been rejected. This is the first time "rejection" had come up in relation to one of my titles. But the rejection was only because I have to lose another "The" and a colon. Should have guessed that! They don't like colons in publishing these days. We ended up changing most of the title as we emailed back and forth. I didn't want to mislead readers, and I wanted a good title! We settled on Aphrodite's Necklace. Apparently there is another Aphrodite title in the line, but I can't find it, so I'm guessing it isn't out yet. Hopefully it isn't too similar to my story.
   I also have control over the back cover copy and the excerpt. That's a lot of power I didn't know I was going to have! I hope I'm making good choices, because I don't really know what I'm doing.
   What makes a good title, cover copy and excerpt? Opinions are welcomed.

 

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