Monday, November 20, 2006

Can You Guess the Titles?

Every now and then, someone asks me why I changed my mind about putting Irene's name in the title of my books. The short answer is, I never planned to put her name on more than one title -- Goodnight, Irene. My publisher eventually agreed with me that putting her name in every title was not for the best.

That is not to say that I am good at coming up with titles. I'm horrible at it! I am so glad I never had to name children. I'm quite grateful that Simon & Schuster has talked me out some of my seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time titles. In fact, Goodnight, Irene is one of the few books I've written that kept the same title from the day I started writing it.

When some of you who met me on tour asked about this matter of, I said I was going to list some of my working titles, so that you could try to guess what final titles replaced them. Some were "placeholder" titles that I knew I'd never use, others -- let's just say I was talked out of them. Here you go!

1. Fall From Olympus
2. Under Deep Sky
3. Harm
4. Three Kind of Lies
5. Season of the Witch
6. Imperfect
7. O'Connor's Tale

6 comments:

Megan said...

I know you're a west coast girl, but we'd really like you to make it to the east coast on a book tour someday!! :)

GeekyDad said...

hmmm I read where one person said that you should try and contact a store. If they can maybe get her to stop by. Also too -grins- buy lots and lots of her novels. That also dictates where author's and such go to. If they notice that.. Huston has had a Huge increase of books sold they will mark that as a likely place to stop by.

Which if you think about it makes sense. Even though can be a pain in the rear.

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only writer and person out there that well has a hard time coming up with titles. But, anyhow I like the titles you have so it's all good.

Elizabeth Foxwell said...

I'm betting that #7 is _Bloodlines_...

Jan Burke said...

Hey there, Megan! I do want to tour there. (I don't suppose you're thinking of the east coast of Florida?) I was in NYC for a day and signed some stock, but that's as close as I've come recently.

Thanks for your support!

Jan

Jan Burke said...

Aaron, you're right -- asking a store to put in a request for a signing does help. And sometimes, if there's an event -- for example, a conference or convention -- I will travel to a city for that. (I hope to be in NYC for Thrillerfest in July.)

Jan Burke said...

Tough one, wasn't it, Beth? :-)