A great deal goes into publishing a book.
The author spends hours and hours writing it. An editor meticulously goes over the manuscript. The author makes the necessary changes and eventually proofs the final pages. It goes to the production team, the art team, the marketing team and the publicity team. Dozens of people work on a book to bring it to final bookstore life, each step requiring professional focus and numerous discussions between all parties.
The most difficult stage I have witnessed in my ten years as the webmaster for Terry Brooks is easily discovering the title of the book.
I know what you are thinking:
“How can finding the title be hard? It’s whatever the author wants it to be.”
The reality is a great deal more complicated.
It is a common misconception to readers that authors have complete control over their work—although sometimes they do. The majority of writers I know, however, often lose their original titles, changed by their respective publishers. Some writers care about it and fight for it; others would rather spend their time writing the next book. Ultimately it leads to a book title that is produced by a committee of very dedicated book professionals—usually including the author, of course—who want the book to succeed as strongly as possible.
It begs the question:
Why is it important for the publisher to get involved with the creative choices of the writer?
As I said, it is a bit complicated. Like any business, there are observable trends the book buying public displays that publishers are wholly aware of—and try to take advantage of. This can be certain key words in the title to a certain cover design to even a prominent color used in the dust jacket. These kinds of details can help drive sales, believe it or not, as readers are drawn to specific constantly changing traits on the cover that lead to buying it.
Writers are usually not privy to that kind of information.
The publishers and the authors I know are very aware of that and want whatever is best for getting as many books into readers hands as possible.
As Terry Brooks said when he was first published in 1977, he “just wants to be read.”
That echoes the sentiments of most writers out there.
Title change is nothing new to Terry. I have been working with him for ten years now and many of the books in that time have had title changes. Although it can be rough on Terry, he is always gracious about finding a title that Del Rey can truly get behind and considers every suggestion Del Rey makes.
Here are some past title changes:
- Ard Rhys of Shannara became High Druid of Shannara
- Moric became Straken
- Child of Wild Magic became Armageddon’s Children
- In Search of the King of the Silver River became The Gypsy Morph
- The Princess and the Prism Cat became A Princess of Landover
As you can see, it doesn’t only happen with series titles; individual book titles are given the same scrutiny.
For his next published novel in August 2010, both Terry’s book title and the series title were looked at.
I visited New York City and the Random House building several weeks ago. Upon completing my original reason for being there, Del Rey editor in chief Betsy Mitchell asked me to coffee. She wanted to brainstorm titles for Terry’s forthcoming book. Since we both have read the book and have an understanding where Terry intends to go in the second book of the two-book set, Betsy thought it would be good to sit down, talk about the story and find terrific titles for it and the series.
You see, there are those at Del Rey who are not keen on Bearers of the Black Staff, the original title Terry came up with for the book that takes place 500 years after the events in The Gypsy Morph. There is just something about the word ‘Bearers’ that is not right.
Betsy and I spent about an hour trying to find the right combination of words that will represent the book correctly as well as help maximize Terry’s sales. We hammered out new titles and made a brand new thesaurus look a bit worn in the effort. It’s not an easy task finding a title. She has read the book twice, I have read it once, and we both know the major themes of the book, but coming up with a meaningful title that rings true is far more difficult than it sounds.
We came up with at least a hundred different possible titles for the book and the series.
None of them struck the right chord.
Several weeks flew by. Like all steps in book publishing, Betsy and Terry had a certain amount of time to find the new titles before the book moved on to other departments. It became crunch time, and both editor and author made their choices and took strengths from both:
Bearers of the Black Staff, Book One of the Legends of Shannara duology.
Terry got his original title, Betsy found a more than suitable series title.
These titles will now be used by the art and marketing departments. Publicists will begin preparing materials to reach out to bookstores about the book. Online booksellers like Amazon have already put up a pre-ordering page. Bookstores like B&N, Borders, and independents can update their systems and customers with the information. The wheels toward August 17, 2010—when the book will be published—have already begun to slowly spin.
Yes, more than nine months out.
I am happy the titles have been found. I think this duology—just based on the quality of the first book—is going to be one of Terry’s best. It has memorable characters, a great premise, and some of Terry’s most scathing literary criticism of our own world.
In less than a year we will know if all the cerebral energy that went into finding the best titles translates into positive sales.
I see #1 on the New York Times bestseller list!
Let this be a lesson, prospective authors. Don’t become too attached to your titles. It takes a legion of very dedicated and helpful people to bring a book to the reader.
Trust them and pick your battles wisely.
Very insightful, Shawn. A long time ago, I thought that writers got to make all the decisions – right down to cover art. But you know it makes sense when you think about it – after all, what’s a writer know about art or marketing? Some titles are obvious, but some are more ambiguous. It sounds like “Bearers of the Black Staff” is a great title, yet I can see why the publishers would want to change the word “Bearers”. I’m pretty pumped about the book, either way.
Personally, however, I still prefer the title “Elves in the Hood” for “Elves of Cintra”
I find it sad that an artist would have someone else force their opinion on him/her for any reason. No wonder Terry’s work always has a depressing undertone.