A couple of years ago I had a book contract that stated, "Deliverables: (1) HALTING STATE, a near future thriller; and (2) UNTITLED, a space opera".
I tried, I really tried, but in the end my editors ganged up on me and insisted on making me pick a "real title" (in this case, SATURN'S CHILDREN). Apparently "UNTITLED: A Space Opera" would have confused the hell out of the store buyers and probably tanked my sales.
But I tried.
PS: The reason for the [COLON SUB-CLAUSE] run-on from the titles is apparently search engines. So I'm told. Amazon has a lot to answer for (see also: verbose run-on titles in contemporary non-fiction.)
We have a lot of verbose run-on titles on the scholarly books, but that's usually because we want the main title to be something catchy, and the author wants the "descriptive" title in there somewhere, so it goes in as the subtitle.
Search engines! Ah, that makes a bit of sense. Awful and annoying, but then businesses often do awful and annoying things in the service of scraping out one more dollar.
I'm afraid I must agree with your editors regarding calling a book "UNTITLED: A Space Opera." Though maybe they could have done like on the first edition of Whoopi Goldberg's Book and just put your face on the front, with no title at all.
Judging by Amazon UK, Gollancz at least is very OK with putting UNTITLED [Author's last name] X of [number of books in author's contract] in the catalogue.
China Miéville also seems to have trouble with the subtitles. The ": An Anatomy" never made it to the cover of Kraken, and I seem to recall from an interview that the publisher wouldn't let him get away with The City & The City: The Last Inspector Borlú Mystery because they were afraid the subtitle would be too confusing. Then again, such fears may be well-founded given how many people are still trying to find the unexpurgated S. Morgenstern version of The Princess Bride.
We do not publish books with titles such as "The Court of the Sun King: A Scholarly Treatise" or "Why Human Rights Matter: A Rewritten Thesis."
No, you publish books with titles such as Cutesy Title: Less Fun Subtitle That Tells You, Presumably, What the Book is Actually About!
Seriously, though, this trend (or whatever it is) annoys me, and when cataloging my books I almost never include ": A Novel" as part of the title unless there's a good reason for it to be there.
Do you feel so strongly about ": Stories" on collections?
We definitely do the cutesy title/descriptive subtitle thing. We have long meetings about those! Authors have a tendency to turn the books in with the descriptive bit as the title, and the cutesy bit as the subtitle.
I haven't seen ": Stories" very often, so it doesn't offend me. ": A Novel" didn't bother me the first few times I saw it. It's the overuse that makes it pretentious and annoying.
An interesting choice for Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker, because it's also "a novel," which is not often seen in YA. I wondered why his editor or designer decided to use it. Maybe to make it seem more literary (even though it's sf)? Or to appeal to adult readers (even though it's YA)? I'd think it'd turn off the actual YA readers, though. Odd.
The Indie Next list is, I think, chosen by a group of independent booksellers as books that they like and hope will do well. It's not a bestseller list.
Well, I'm receiving this summer's science literacy papers from my physics students **. The book list is a mix of fiction and non-fiction. Two things I see all the time: (1) all books are novels -- "I read the novel The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes" and (2) all books are non-existent -- "I read Jurassic Park. This fictitious book is about dinosaurs."
Dr. Phil
** This particular course is second semester Physics with calculus for scientists and engineers.
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I tried, I really tried, but in the end my editors ganged up on me and insisted on making me pick a "real title" (in this case, SATURN'S CHILDREN). Apparently "UNTITLED: A Space Opera" would have confused the hell out of the store buyers and probably tanked my sales.
But I tried.
PS: The reason for the [COLON SUB-CLAUSE] run-on from the titles is apparently search engines. So I'm told. Amazon has a lot to answer for (see also: verbose run-on titles in contemporary non-fiction.)
Reply
Search engines! Ah, that makes a bit of sense. Awful and annoying, but then businesses often do awful and annoying things in the service of scraping out one more dollar.
I'm afraid I must agree with your editors regarding calling a book "UNTITLED: A Space Opera." Though maybe they could have done like on the first edition of Whoopi Goldberg's Book and just put your face on the front, with no title at all.
Reply
China Miéville also seems to have trouble with the subtitles. The ": An Anatomy" never made it to the cover of Kraken, and I seem to recall from an interview that the publisher wouldn't let him get away with The City & The City: The Last Inspector Borlú Mystery because they were afraid the subtitle would be too confusing. Then again, such fears may be well-founded given how many people are still trying to find the unexpurgated S. Morgenstern version of The Princess Bride.
Reply
No, you publish books with titles such as Cutesy Title: Less Fun Subtitle That Tells You, Presumably, What the Book is Actually About!
Seriously, though, this trend (or whatever it is) annoys me, and when cataloging my books I almost never include ": A Novel" as part of the title unless there's a good reason for it to be there.
Do you feel so strongly about ": Stories" on collections?
Reply
I haven't seen ": Stories" very often, so it doesn't offend me. ": A Novel" didn't bother me the first few times I saw it. It's the overuse that makes it pretentious and annoying.
Reply
An interesting choice for Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker, because it's also "a novel," which is not often seen in YA. I wondered why his editor or designer decided to use it. Maybe to make it seem more literary (even though it's sf)? Or to appeal to adult readers (even though it's YA)? I'd think it'd turn off the actual YA readers, though. Odd.
The Indie Next list is, I think, chosen by a group of independent booksellers as books that they like and hope will do well. It's not a bestseller list.
Reply
Dr. Phil
** This particular course is second semester Physics with calculus for scientists and engineers.
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