What's in a Title?

psychotick

psychotick

Dangerously confused
Joined
Apr 8, 2011
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Location
Rotorua, New Zealand
Hi,

Odd question. I'm just finishing up my next epic fantasy "Shavarra" ready for editing, and got the cover back from my artist (An elf holding a flaming sword). I put the cover out on a facebook group for comments and the one comment that kept coming back was Shannara.

Now my book has no relation to Terry Brook's works - it's just a similarity of names. But it annoys me that the issue came up because I don't see the connection. (It annoys me too that I didn't consider the similarity since I have the Sword of ... sitting on my shelves.)

Anyway, now having gone through my irked phase, I've sent off an email to my artist to change the title. Lord help me if "Samual" is too close to the bone!

But my question is this. How close is too close when it comes to titles? I mean I'll take the hit for changing the title since it is my decision and I don't want others making the same incorrect connection. But at what point do you sit there and say it's just a coincidence? Yeah the name sounds similar but that's it?

Cheers, Greg.
 
I think part of it is to do with the distinctiveness of the title you're close to, if that makes sense. If you were close to something like Destiny's Child there are probably a million titles like it. But Shannara is pretty unique - and high profile at the moment - plus in the same genre which makes it much more evocative when something is like it.

(It's a real gamble, going with something unusual as the title. We umhed and ahhed about keeping
Abendau in my titles. If it does well, distinctive is good, if it bombs it actively works against it, I think.)
 
Have to confess I immediately thought of "Shannara" too.

I like titles I can spell, or I get confused when I try to look the book up online.
 
I think it's as Jo says, and a matter of balancing the equation of creative desire vs business success.

With names, I often find switching diphthongs for plosives and vice versa helps. For example, if you'd changed to Shavatta, the T's give it a massive difference. Also a sense of India.

The problem comes when your name choice has an etymology that's crucial. In my main wip, the house name Riffy Grange comes from old English meaning dirty, and as a theme in the story is of appropriation and theft, a lot of the names are reflective of that in terms of their origin. It's subliminal I suppose, but I'd be reluctant to change it.

pH
 
psychotick said:
Hi,

Odd question. I'm just finishing up my next epic fantasy "Shavarra" ready for editing, and got the cover back from my artist (An elf holding a flaming sword). I put the cover out on a facebook group for comments and the one comment that kept coming back was Shannara.
Click to expand...

I like your artist. What's the cover?
 
I'm in my week off FB and twitter, but I did tweet an author whose title was identical to a book I'd already read. 'Ties that Bind' vs 'The ties that Bind' and she and a couple of others tweeted back there were loads of books with the same titles, and they didn't think there'd be noticeable confusion. Then I went to Amazon and on the first page of 'Ties that Bind' in the book section, I found five different books with the same title!!

If people accuse you of deliberately trying to rip off 'Shannarra', it will be because of the uniqueness of that title, as Jo said. If it was my book, I'd change it, because I couldn't handle any nastiness that jumped-up defenders of Shannarra would unleash on me. Samual should be fine, don't see anything remotely like that on Amazon.
 
As others have said some people might find it too similar. Myself I wouldn't have a problem with it personally.

Great cover by the way, and the new name you have chosen is good and distinctive, good luck with the editing :)

Cheers, Vaz
 
Why not CH instead of sh? It makes the same sound. And its hidden in plain sight, as it were.
Its only one letter to change then and won't bollocks up the spacing.
If there is another famous Samuel book, you could try Sabuel or Sebuel. Even Sevuel.
 
Hi,

The artist for those who asked is Stefanie Fontecha of Beetiful. And yeah I think the cover's great. It has the one thing a cover really needs - eye catchiness. And it tells something of the MC and the genre.

I'm not crazy about the new title, but it's the MC's name. (He's only half elf.) Shavarra was the name of a realm and had an elven feel to it that I liked, but I just can't risk readers even imagining that there's a connection to another work. It's like justice I suppose. It's not only go to be done it's got to be seen to be done. But it is annoying.

Cheers, Greg.
 
It won't let me on to Facebook to see the page. It wants me to create a page first.

I am in the minority I realize, but I do not support Facebook twitter tumbler or instagram.
I am sure its a lovely cover and I am glad you have solved your title. Problem.
 
'Tis a striking cover, but as a Shannara reader I can see why you're getting the feedback you are. Even the colouring could be claimed to trigger the connection (High Druid's Blade cover is predominantly green)
It could work in your favour leading readers to pick up the novel because of the similarities, but it will I don't doubt bring you plenty of one star reviews because it's not what they thought they were buying.
 
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