Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Titles

Anyone who's been around the publishing industry (or authors) for a while knows that there are certain thing beyond our control. Two of them are book covers and book titles. Now you can try to throw your ideas in the pot, but there's no guarantee your publisher will use them. I've been lucky so far to have three good titles and they've all stuck, and I must say (totally without bias) that Dorchester does the best covers on the market.

So imagine my surprise when I read a news article about the book that won this year's Oddest Book Title Competition. Heck, I didn't even know there WAS a competition for oddest book title, but I guess it makes sense.

The winner this year is a self-help book (probably appropriately) entitled IF YOU WANT CLOSURE IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP - START WITH YOUR LEGS

You have to smile. If you're interested in seeing some of the other past winners, check out the article.

5 comments:

Dru said...

A person could read a lot into that title of the oddest book title.

OMG! Did you see the other titles that have won? Amazing.

Anonymous said...

I know what you mean about titles and cover art. I read a lot and the disconnect between them and the story can be puzzling and/or frustrating.
My pick for the best/worst in this category this year is Bed, Bath and Beyond a very good urban fantasy with a cover and title that seem to have no relationship to the story. I also get amused when the cover shows a hero or heroin (sometimes both!!!) with hair a different color than that described by the author.

Jana DeLeon said...

LOL dru - yes, it is a fairly amusing list. I know I enjoyed it. :)

Hi Book - yes, it's very frustrating for the author when the cover doesn't match the story. My publisher has the author do an Art Fact Sheet to aid them with the cover art that gives specific descriptions of the Hero/Heroine, but I don't know if other houses do the same thing.

Anonymous said...

ROFL!!! What a title!

Jana DeLeon said...

yes, tori, I was most amused. And apparently the advice in the book runs along the same lines. :)

 
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