Do you remember the moment when you discovered the perfect title for your book?
Author Scott Martelle created a great and catchy title for his biography of John Paul Jones. But then, working with his publisher, he made the agonizing decision to change his beloved title. He explained why in a recent blog post. Check it out:
First, the folks at Chicago Review Press, who are publishing the book (they did Detroit: A Biography, as well), had the same initial reaction to the original title as we all did. They loved it. But they knew the book was coming, and what it was about. They showed the title to some folks who didn’t know what the book was about. And after reading the title, they still didn’t. Because it doesn’t say which Jones, and old John Paul just doesn’t have the instant recognition of, say, Miley. Even adding a picture of Jones in his admiral’s hat didn’t help much. But getting the John Paul in there, well, that was instant recognition … Most significant, though, was that without John Paul Jones in the title, we feared search engines looking for his name would not find the book.
(Image via Horia Varlan)