What’s in a name

As the old saying goes, don’t judge a book by its cover.

But, while that is good advice for life in general, when it actually comes to books then of course people do. I will not pretend I don’t. If a book cover doesn’t ‘speak to me’ I am unlikely to give it a second glance. I have long suspected the same applies to almost every reader, to one extent or another.

There are other factors. Is the author one I recognise and have read before? Because if its a book by Nimue Brown it could have a plain brown pager bag for a cover and I would buy it, read it, and undoubtably love it. The same applies to books by CG Hatton, Kate Baucherel and a whole host of authors you have possibly heard of.

Somewhere in the world there may be someone who feels this way about books with my name on them. Obviously they are dangerous people who should be reported to the authorities at once. But still, they may exist…

Then there is the title. Titles matter more than authors names, because you never by a book because of the authors name unless its a name you know. (This is except in the case of books by celebrities, which are sold almost entirely due to the name of the author, were seldom written by the named author, and interest me not at all…)

Titles matter, a good title will pull in a reader like a good cover and unlike a good cover a title is subjective to the artform inhabited by the writer. Getting the title right should matter more than anything else. A plain cover with a good title should be enough to sell a book (this has never been the case)

I do like a good title. For example ‘The Long Dark Tea Time of the soul’ is one of the finest titles ever devised, despite the fact its is my least favorite Douglas Adams book. Admittedly that is like saying a particular orgasm was your least favorite orgasm. Its still a fucking orgasm, ‘The Long Dark Tea Time of the soul’ is still a fabulous Douglas Adams novel. Its just not quite as brilliant as ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’…

In the past I have managed what I like to think of as some reasonably good titles. In particular I am fond of the titles of the Hannibal Smyth trilogy ‘A Spider in the Eye’ , ‘From Russia With Tassels’ and ‘A Squid on the Shoulder’ , some of the Hannibal short stories have titles I am rather pleased with too, The Cheesecake Dichotomy’ and ‘The Aspidistra of Social Inequality’ in particular. Yet the book that probably sells itself by title best is ‘Maybe’ because that singular word does a lot of heavy lifting. So titles matter, which is also why almost every novel I have written has started with a working title that has changed later down the line.

The working title for the Lucifer Mandrake novel has been ‘Lucifer Mandrake and the Hanovian Proxy’ since I first started working on the novel itself about three years ago, It has been a long road but mostly because I have run off and written other things a lot. The bulk of the first draft was written in three major bursts of creativity. The last one since early October this year.

The second draft took only three weeks because, because the first draft involved much redrafting as I went along, which is not normally how I write but has been on this project. Much about this project has been a tad obtuse in that way.

Lucifer Mandrake and the Hanovian Proxy’ remains a smart intelligent title in many ways, but it lacks for something. I like it because it is a very 19th century style title which fits the era of the novel, and it is very much what the book is about. Ergo a plot to replace Queen Victoria with her uncle Ernest of Hanover, which is not even remotely as far fetched as you might believe at first glance. Before she first took the crown Ernest had many who supported his claim.

If this had happened the Victorians would have been Ernestians, and the Victorian Era , the Ernest Era, which is an oddly delightful thought. As men in tall hats with beards are very earnest as a rule…

Early in her reign there were at least three separate assassination plots perpetrated with the expressed aim of placing the King of Hanover on the British throne. So the Hanovian Proxy is not even remotely far fetched as a plot… Of course the Newtonian Sorcery, necromancy, fae realms, undead Lords, and transcendent glamours that actively exists in novel may be slightly more far fetched and probably are not based on real events. Also this weird game call Cricket gets mentioned once or twice but that is almost certainly made up….

The problem is however while ‘Lucifer Mandrake and the Hanovian Proxy’ maybe a good title for many reasons, it just doesn’t pop, for want of a better word.. It also suggests nothing of the nature of the novel aside one major plot point, which is the most mundane plot point in the novel. So while I was focused on the second draft I also played about with titles. In the end I have gone with a subtitle that fits the novel better in my opinion and says something more about it.

Thus the none working, final title* will be ‘Lucifer Mandrake : The Esoteric Cricket Ball’ Hopefully that will inspire a few readers to pick up the book, but on that we must wait and see… But as I say, titles are important. The most important thing being that you as the author need to love the title you give your work. If others do, well that’s just a bonus.

I may have also finished the cover, after a lot of playing with the design aspects form the ‘first draft’ of the cover I posted bin a pervious blog post…. Or not as I am still fiddling with it (not sure about the authors name font, if it should be the same as the main title font , or the sub title font) Opinions on that may be helpful if anyone has one…