Re-titling (....after publishing) and other Title Dilemmas

[FarmerBrown]

Hi, me again ;-)

I've already posted about a few issues with my book and I'm sorry to keep doing it. You guys are great with honest feedback so it's hard to not keep coming back for more!

Anyway, without going into too much about why I ended up picking "The Feast" as the title for my fantasy (I can give the backstory if requested, but I kind of just had to pick something...), I just need some opinions on:

1) without knowing anything about the book, would you read it based on the title? The cover image is a scene from the story, so looking at the title with the scene kind of discourages ideas of a big party centered on eating. Still, would you read it?

2) I'm seriously considering renaming book one ("The Feast") in preparation for the sequel, but I don't know what I would rename it to and I have no idea what I'm going to entitle the sequel to go with "The Feast".

My idea for the sequel title is possibly "The Salt Pine Prince" which is way more descriptive and intriguing than "The Feast", but the two do not really go together.

Today I came up with three titles that could work really well for a trilogy (no current plans for book #3, but who knows?) so the books could be titled
#1 Luna's Blessing ("The Feast") or Blessing of Luna
#2 Bane of Helix ("The Salt Pine Prince")
#3 Flight of Stigandar (??)
or maybe they could go in a slightly different order. I don't know. Book #1 is more centered on Luna, though.

2.5) Does anyone have experience renaming a published book? I know I'd have to give it a new ISBN and that original book really can't be "erased" from Amazon, but would it be worth it??

Thanks for any thoughts!

 

[Mythopoet]

Since you're looking for honest feedback I'm going to be very honest with you.

I saw some of your posts about your book. My first thought on looking at the cover was, "What a terrible title for a fantasy book." My second was, "What a boring cover for a fantasy book." So, no, I wouldn't give your book a second look if I was browsing. I wouldn't even click on it to find out more. The main problem is that book the title and the cover tell me precisely nothing about what is inside the book, which is their job. "The Feast" is forgettable and generic. It has no meaning, especially since the cover image quickly pushes away any thoughts about a traditional feast.

So I would say it's a good idea to rename it. I would urge you to consider different cover art as well. Your title and your cover are marketing tools. They need to convey a message to the potential reader about what they will find within the pages. Not in specifics (which is why illustrated scenes very rarely work) but in the general type of reading experience the reader can expect (atmosphere, theme, style) and most importantly genre. Your cover HAS to contain genre cues.

You want something that will make the potential reader curious and get them to start asking questions that they will want answered. But you don't want the question they ask to be, "what in the world does that mean?" So avoid using words and phrases that will have meaning only once the reader has begun reading the book. Don't use names or terms that are specific only to your world.

 

[ScipioSmith]

It says on your website that the book was originally called 'The Sowing of Rebellion'. I'd be interested to here why you abandoned that because, although it's a little on the nose, it does tell the reader to expect some exciting action somewhere along the line.

I haven't published, but the immediate thing that jumps out at me about renaming a book that's already out there is that if I, having paid for your book and liked it, saw another book out by you and paid for that too only to find out that it was the same one, I'd be a bit pissed and inclined to leave you a bad review. I'm not sure what you can really do to mitigate that, though.

 

[FarmerBrown]

Thanks, Mythopoet--that's exactly what I need to hear and wish I would've heard months ago. Maybe I just wasn't listening ;-)
RE cover art, my husband (the artist) has never been happy with his design (I told him to include the giant trees and that's what he did) so he will be re-working it. Can I call upon you for a future opinion?

ScipioSmith--the original plan was to publish "The Feast" as a duo or trilogy, and the titles for that were going to be: Sowing of Rebellion, Reaping of Revenge, and the Feast for Freedom. By book three, readers would be well aware of what "The Feast" meant, and it would've had the other two titles to help it make sense. As it happened, I published the whole thing as one book and, wanting to keep with the theme of the original titles, went with "The Feast", which I was never completely in love with but felt like I had to pick something. If you went to my website, you might also know about my Kickstarter project. I wanted to stick to my deadline more than I wanted to perfect my book (stupid choice!) so I felt rushed when finalizing the title.

According to my records, not many people have bought my book, so not too many would be upset if I re-released it with a different title and somewhat familiar cover scene. Coincidentally (if you believe in that...) I happened upon a book today (I work at a library) that had two titles on the cover: the current title in bigger font towards the top with the author name, and a 'previously titled as.....' in smaller font at the bottom. So, it has been done with big-name titles! I just really don't know how I'd keep "The Feast" and be happy with it :-( Regardless, I need to add a series title.

Another idea is to do a slight change to "The Feast of Shadows" or "The Feast of the False King" or something like that. Thoughts? I really am dedicated to making serious changes, at the least releasing an edition with a new cover (with series title). Thanks for your input.

 

[Mythopoet]

Thanks, Mythopoet--that's exactly what I need to hear and wish I would've heard months ago. Maybe I just wasn't listening ;-)
RE cover art, my husband (the artist) has never been happy with his design (I told him to include the giant trees and that's what he did) so he will be re-working it. Can I call upon you for a future opinion?

Oh certainly. I am always ready with an opinion.

the original plan was to publish "The Feast" as a duo or trilogy, and the titles for that were going to be: Sowing of Rebellion, Reaping of Revenge, and the Feast for Freedom.

You might consider going with that original plan. Divide the book back into three parts and publish them all at the same time. Because that is a really great progression of titles. I like it a lot.

According to my records, not many people have bought my book, so not too many would be upset if I re-released it with a different title and somewhat familiar cover scene.

Not a problem. Indies change things and do reissues all the time. Just make sure to say in the product description that this book was originally released as... Make it clear to anyone that bought the previous edition that they don't need to buy this one.

Another idea is to do a slight change to "The Feast of Shadows" or "The Feast of the False King" or something like that.

Those are much better titles as well. I especially like the second one, it's not as typical as the first.

But seriously, if the book has enough material for three volumes, I would totally break it up again and publish the three volumes separately but at the same time. If each one is still a reasonable length for a novel, then price them all at 2.99. And then do an omnibus edition at 4.99 using the series title. That gives you four titles in the store rather than one. And that's a huge advantage.

 

[FarmerBrown]

Original plan is, unfortunately, a no go. While there are three "stages" within the book (or perhaps "parts"), they can't stand alone without major surgery. There's even a clearer spot that I could divide it into two (I wrote a post about possibly doing that), but again that would require a lot of surgery, and I'd have to narrow it down to two titles :-(

I think I'll go with "Feast of the False King". It's been echoing back in my head the most and would be an easy transition, and it fits in nicely with "The Salt Pine Prince". Thanks for all your help! Now it's just a matter of when to change the title... ;-)

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I wouldn't change the title - it means nothing to me but it's out there now and I wouldn't want to confuse readers. I think the best thing you can say about the title is that since it isn't a cook book it tells me as the reader nothing about the book. However, this is not necessarily a terrible thing. Many novels have titles that explain nothing about the book. Catch 22, Carrie, Christine etc. You have to look at the title as part of the advertising, and the main part of the advertising is the cover.

In my view, having not seen the cover, you need to make the cover explain something about the story to the reader which the title does not. Also, it might be that a tag line could help. So for example if it was a book about cannibals, a tag line like "Look whose coming to dinner" together with a picture of a cannibal would work well with that title.

Cheers, Greg.