*quiet screaming*

[sholio]

Why is it that I have months to work on this stuff and then I do everything at the last minute?

Case in point: retitling a book 2 weeks before I'm releasing it.

I'm finally going to get my urban fantasy novel GATEKEEPER self-pubbed; I want to release it on the 26th, my birthday, because I kinda have a habit of launching new creative ventures on my birthday. (I debuted my Lauren Esker pen name on my birthday too.) So I'm working on final edits on that, but I'm seriously thinking about retitling it, even though it's had the same title since I started writing it in 2009. My thought process went like this:

- Gatekeeper is also the name of the series, I can't come up with something that works better, and I don't like the way it looks having the title and series name the same on the first book.
- GATEKEEPER, as a title, is really too long to fit comfortably on a book.
- All the other books in the series have titles of at least two words and they all look better, especially in the curly font I'm using. The titles of the other books are bigger and easier to see.
- Gatekeeper, as a title, doesn't even fit the first book that well.

So I've been frantically brainstorming titles, things to do with swords, iron, shadows, magic ... and I've kind of settled on this?



Pros: I really love how it looks on the cover!

Cons: ... I don't know if I can start thinking of the book as IRON IN THE BLOOD after nine years of calling it something else. >_> I'm also not sure if the title implies that the series has way more to do with fae/fairies than it actually does. That definitely is a thing in the book, and it's a thing to do with the book's main Maguffin, which is a magic Celtic sword. But the book is not all fairies all the time.

Comments

[lunabee34]

I like it!

I wouldn't think it would be all fairies all the time with that title.

[sholio]

Thank you! :) That actually does help a lot. I think it's a very appropriate title otherwise, if that not a major association for people. (Minor association = fine, that's actually intentional, but maybe not so much if people think it's going to be focused entirely on a fae plot and would be disappointed otherwise.)

[lunabee34]

I also just really like the title; it's a very good title. :)

[sholio]

YAY, thank you, that helps a lot too. :)

[lunabee34]

Also, I know I don't always comment on your writing posts, especially since Life Got Real with house buying and etc., but I am so impressed with your writing career and avidly read all those posts.

[sholio]

Awww! Thank you so much!! I haven't commented much on your posts lately - I'm really just too busy for doing DW a whole lot. But I'm really glad you're having a satisfying house experience. :)

[lunabee34]

*hugs*

Thank you!

[leonie_alastair]

Great cover! I like the title - I don't think it sounds particularly fairyfull.

[sholio]

Awesome, thank you! :)

[arianna]

I had not even considered this might have something to do with faeries until you mentioned them so I don't think the title or picture immediately brings them to mind. I think it looks great. (Lol, you know our blood is mostly iron, right?)

[sholio]

Thank you! :) And ha, yeah, that is very true re: blood. :D (In retrospect I wish I'd done something with that in the novel.)

[muccamukk]

That cover is badass. I wouldn't think it would have to be about fey, though I'd expect either fey or blood magic of come kind.

[sholio]

Thank you! :) It does involve fae/fey/fairies as part of the plot - I don't think it would've occurred to me to use that in the title if it didn't - but I just didn't want to mislead people about how large a part of the plot it is.

[abyssinia]

1) That cover is awesome
2) That cover + that title doesn't scream "fairie" to me - iron is important for fairie mythology, but it's also important for other things.

[sholio]

Wonderful! Thank you! :)

[kore]

That cover is GORGEOUS. It also really doesn't remind me of fairies at all.

[sholio]

Excellent to hear. Thank you! :)

[madripoor_rose]

That is an awesome cover!

And probably just because I'm more scifi than fantasy these days, but Iron In The Blood says more 'nanite cyborgs' than the Fae to me right off. ;)

[sholio]

Thank you! Haha, it does work for that too, doesn't it. XD

[sheron]

the cover looks great.

you already know why i like this title.

it did not make me think of fairies even with what I know about the contents, i thought about the sword being the iron in her blood. But it does make sense with the faeries too, so after reading the book the reader would probably think title fits.

[sholio]

Thank you!! <3 (also, LOL.) But yeah, the sword was what I was thinking of with the title.

[lady_katana4544]

I think that the cover looks really snazzy and awesome! :D

[sholio]

Thank you! :D

[rachelmanija]

I like the cover and title!

What are the titles of the other books in the series?

[sholio]

Thank you!

Echo City and Hollow Souls are the second and third books. (I planned the series originally as three trilogies, with a built-in stopping point at the end of each one. I'm definitely writing the first trilogy, and I'll see how I feel about it at that point.)

The thing is, I did actually want the first book to break the pattern slightly, because the next thing I publish under my real name is a different series that also has short two-word titles (those ones have a certain pattern; this series is a little more freeform), and I wanted to make it clear at a glance that the two weren't connected. I like this way of breaking the pattern better than the way I had it before, though.

[winter_elf]

hm... it does look good on the cover, but Iron & blood are used quite a lot as book titles (I know you have Iron IN THE blood - but close). It says Fae to me - and those two words would make me look closer (Ie, read the back/description/first page), because I like Fae, so a pro for me.

looking around... I see what you mean - iron (and blood, and magic, and shadows are popular :) )

I think it sounds good - though I can't think of something that would match your other two right now.

I can't wait to read it though :)

[sholio]

Thank you! :) Yeah ... iron, shadow, sword, magic are all things that refer to specific things in the book, so I wanted to use at least one of them (and the fact that they all sound very urban-fantasy-ish is a bonus). It is kind of generic, though - I liked Gatekeeper because it was more easily identifiable and unique, but I like the way this fits on the cover, so ... choices. XD

[ratcreature]

I don't necessarily think fairies, but the iron+blood combination seems very common to me. The "in the" modified it slightly, but often when I search book titles I just type in the nouns.

Also I can't help but cringe slightly at combining the two, but that's a German thing because the connotation of combining the two. (That famous Bismarck speech and everyone after who ran with the term "Blut und Eisen".)

ETA: That is probably why I don't think magic or fairies or anything because my overwhelming first association seeing those two nouns is war and nationalist aggression.

[sartorias]

Terrific cover!

[trobadora]

I think it looks great!

[schneefink]

If you can't think of the book as "Iron in the Blood" (at first) you could just think of it as "Gatekeeper (Book) one." -and that plus the iron made me think of Puddlejumpers, and that plus the cover made me think of SGA AUs, and I'm so there for a SGA fusion with fairies and a magic Aancient sword. Um. *goes back about ten steps* I really look forward to the book :)

[frith_in_thorns]

I think that the cover image actually breaks some of the fae associations, since it primes me for sword associations instead. So that works :) And I'm really excited to read the finished version of this!

[ranalore]

That is a fantastic cover! I like that the title takes two words common to urban fantasy and reverses their usual order, so it signals the genre, but with a twist. Because of the sword, my first association with the title is that, though since it's urban fantasy, I suspect your readership might be disappointed in a complete lack of Faerie even without the title (unless, of course, you signaled the book were all vampires all the time). Just a tangential or tiny bit of fae would be fine, though, I would think.