Winners!

After throwing the names into a hat, Monday's winner was Janime. Congrats, Janime. When you get a chance go over to Tuesday's post to pick your prize and as a special bonus, you'll also receive an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of T.A. Barron's "The Great Tree of Avalon". As for the best goofy title, I pick Alex's "That Burnin' Don't Mean I need Penicillin". Pick a book, too. Whoever contacts me first gets first pick, and if the second contacter picks the same book, I'll ask them to choose another.

Thanks to everyone who participated.

As for the title I've decided to go with, it was none of the above. A title I loved came to me as I was trying to fall asleep the other night. The title of choice is...

:drumroll:

Dying Embers

Now, back to your regularly scheduled program. ;o)

.

Goofy Title Contest

In keeping with yesterday's hunt for a new title to give Manhunter, I thought we'd have a little fun today and come up with some goofy titles. (Besides, I'm feeling generous.)

Feel free to add as many as you like in the comments. The best one will win a prize (also to be drawn Friday) and if I can't decide which one I like best, I'll do the good ol' hat thing.

Here's a few to get you started...

I Burned For You, So You'll Burn For Me
Flamin' Hot Mama
Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love
Trophy Wife Seeks Fireman
The Pyrophobic's Cookbook

Come on guys, you can do better than that. If I think of anything else, I'll add it to the list along with any of your suggestions.

Now, as for prizes... Still stumped, but I have some idea of things you might like. The winners can each chose one from the following for either contest:

Allison Brennan: The Kill, Killing Fear, Tempting Evil
Allison Brennan, Karin Tabke and Roxanne St. Claire: What You Can't See
Karin Tabke: Master of Surrender
Lynn Viehl: Evermore, Twilight Fall
Edward Willett: Marseguro (hardcover)
Isaac Asimov: I, Robot

Or you could just say 'grab bag' and get three old paperbacks of my choosing.

I'll add to the list if I find any more good books laying around. (BTW, I've read all of the above in the past two years, so if you're not sure what they are check out my lists of books read over on the right. Those posts have links.)

Oh, and you can enter both contests. If the same person wins both, they're lucky as hell and they get two prizes.

.

Title Contest

Yes, folks, you heard it right. I'm having another contest, and it has to do with titles. Now, I know most title contests you read about on the blogosphere are held when the book is already in the publisher's hands and close to being a real book. (That statement makes me think of Pinocchio.)

In my case, I'm just not jazzed about my working title on Manhunter. Sure, it fits the work, but it just isn't zippy enough. And if I don't think it's zippy, no agent worth his/her salt is going to get grabbed by it either. So...

I'm giving you all the chance to pick a title, or to suggest your own. And since I'm not getting reams of blog traffic lately, the chances of winning should be pretty good - unless you're all peaches and point some people in my direction. The more the merrier on this one.

First, the book... Here's the blurb (subject to change):

***Blurb deleted because it sucked eggs.

12:30pm - Trying again...

Jace Douglas is afraid of fire, but as an agent with the Serial Crimes Unit, she doesn’t get to pick her cases. When a series of seemingly disconnected men turn up dead, but the method of their deaths is very connected, she has no choice but to follow this string of fiery murders. With the help of the best back-up crew a woman could ask for, as well as one pushy but altogether too attractive local cop, she sets off on a cross-country journey to catch a killer before another man dies.

Emma Sweet looks more like a trophy wife than a murderer, but as she watches her husband burn alive in his Mercedes, she knows her trophy life is over. So many more men deserve to share the same fate, and although the specifics may be different, the pain they caused remains the same. As she meanders from state to state, crossing the names off her list while she ends their lives, she knows she’s only one step ahead of Agent Douglas. She doesn’t care if she gets caught really, as long as the last name on her list—the first one to break her heart—gets the justice he’s earned before justice catches up with her.

Here's the logline and hook instead:

After infidelity drives a trophy wife to take ‘carrying a torch’ one step too far, Agent JD must follow a string of fiery murders across country to catch a killer before the past engulfs them both.

Dwelling on the past can be murder.

(Not the best blurb in the world, I know. I'm working on it. Did I mention how much I hate blurbing?)

Now the possible titles:

Serving Justice
Sweet Revenge
Sweet Fire
Revenge is Sweet; Justice is Sweeter
Fiery Vengeance
Car-B-Que
Vehicular Man Slaughter
Jace’s Justice
Fire In Her Eyes
Deadly Revenge
A Woman Scorned
Predators
Predator and Prey
The Fairer Sex
Gender Bias
Past Mistakes
Sweet Killer
The Weaker Sex
Old Flames

As for the contest, pick a title you think works for you, or offer one of your own. If I use the title you pick, you win. (Or if more than one person picks the best title, I'll just throw all the names in and draw from a hat.)

What do you win? Well, I don't rightly know at this point. I have a boatload of books I could give away. (In fact, I have a store's worth.) So, by the time I announce the winner on Friday 8/8/08, I'll have a list of potential bookish prizes for the winner to choose from. And if you know what you might like from my store, put it in the comments along with your title choice.

Let the games begin.

.

Chapter Titles

I've been working on AWJ over the past few nights (when I can between thunderstorms, that is) and that's my only explanation for the lack of blog posts this week. Sorry guys, some things come first.

Anyway, I was sitting and smoking just now, thinking about how to best get my book together, and it occurred to me that I've got two storylines running side by side in this book. (Or at least I will have once I develop the second one.) As such, I have two beginnings. You can't really have two Chapter Ones, or two prologues. Right now, though, I do have two. I was thinking I could make one a prologue and the other the actual Chapter 1, but neither really reads as a Chapter 1, so I thought I was stuck. Then I was struck by a flash of insight.

Instead of going with the typical means of denoting chapters, why not just give each chapter a title! I'm feeling pretty brilliant about that idea until I realize how horrible I am at titles, but that only took a little bit of the shine off my brilliance. (I think.) I even had the title for the second scene pop into my head. =oD

So, what I'm asking this morning is: What do you think of books with chapter titles instead of numbers? Have you read any books like that? I'm thinking I have, but I can't remember any exact titles right now.

Title Bout Pt 2

To give you a little background, here are the books and their title ideas:

-------------------------

Spectacle - Literary Thriller - 124K words and shrinking:

Logline: “When a renowned scientist’s deceit ignites a worldwide panic, a substitute anchorwoman and an obscure astrophysicist risk everything to fight for the truth and to save mankind—not from a devastating comet but from itself.”

Blurb: "After news breaks of a comet’s collision course with Earth, Dr. Michael Montgomery has proof the comet is harmless, but when his data threatens to interfere with Dr. Kingsley Hall’s plans to control the nation by manipulating our fear, Michael’s attempts to divulge the truth are blocked. Discredited by his peers and made to look foolish by the media, his last chance is Alexandra McKenzie, a reporter with the integrity to risk her job and the courage to risk her life. In a fight for the truth, Michael and Alex find themselves battling men who would rather see civilization destroyed than lose their control over it. In a spectacle of this magnitude, the real danger lies not in a comet’s path but in mankind’s ignorance of the facts."

Potential Titles: Fear Itself (thanks to Alex) / Absolute Certainty / The Fearmongers / Mass Hysteria (thanks to Jan for that last one)

--------------------------

Caldera - Thriller - 91K words:

Blurb: "Beneath Yellowstone National Park simmers a volcano 2400 times more powerful than Mount Saint Helens. The question is when, not if, the volcano is going to blow, and when it does, millions of lives could be lost. As implausible as it may sound to the experts and politicians, Dr. Myke Hughes’ plan to drain the magma bubble will work. However, when eco-terrorist "Fisher" decides nature is more important than human life, Myke and a handful of allies face a disaster of a different kind, and this human eruption may be more than even Myke can divert." (Edited to delete unnecessary sentence.)

Potential Titles: Path of Destruction / Destructive Forces / YNP / The Nature of Destruction / Deadly Nature

-------------------------------

So, what say you out there in blogland? Any thoughts or suggestions?

(And yes, I know. The blurbs need work.)

Title Bout

It seems I'm always fighting with my titles. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don't like them, and almost always they just seem lame. Lately I've been wondering if the lameness of my titles is effecting how my books are perceived by the people I'm querying. Lame title = lame book?

Spectacle originally started out as "The Comet" - which if possible was lamer than usual. Then it moved to the title "The Doomsayers", spent a few weeks as "Fearmongers". Both of those titles were more geared toward the original premise of the book, and since I changed the basic slant, neither of those worked. Finally, I settled on Spectacle. (Because the fear instilled in us can make the world seem little better than a spectacle. Deep? Yes. But it's also lame.)

Caldera never underwent any title changes because I was fed up with trying to find something snazzy, and Caldera, if nothing else, is an accurate title.

Blink's actual title is "Blink of an I" - because the premise behind it speculates on what would happen to the world if mankind gave their individual rights over to the government.

And AWJ originally stood for "A Widow's Justice" until I changed who the bad guy was. Now it means "A Warped Justice".

Finally, the little story waiting to happen is "Bloodflow", but was originally called Nano. It's about nanotechnology being used for evil. The name Nano fell by the wayside when I realized that if you pronounce it with a long A, it becomes my baby-hood word for the belly-button. (I couldn't say navel.)

Oh, and I can't forget the novel that's waiting in the wings... P.S.S. Redemption. Originally just Redemption until I found out about Leon Uris's novel by the same name, and now Karin Tabke has a novel with that title, too. P.S.S. Redemption is the name of a submarine in the novel, so I guess it works for me. (You'll have to read the book to find out what the P.S.S. stand for, so I guess I have to get cracking on that one.)

I wish I could come up with something snappy like To Kill a Mockingbird or Atlas Shrugged. Nothing too cute, just something that'll attract attention, like Tutu Deadly or Fear No Evil.

What say you? How are you on titles, and what are some really good (or really bad) titles you've come up with? Or even what good or bad ones have you read?

How about

"The Smell of Intent"?

I've been thinking about this since I wrote the last post. 'Intent' is a more accurate word, since the MC isn't really certain it is murder, but it doesn't take him long to start thinking the deaths are intentional. *shrug*

On the downside, my online buddy, Alex, posted a link to something called Lulu Titlescorer and it tells me that either way I write it only has a 26.3% chance of being a bestseller. Although, I plugged in some actual bestseller titles, and none of them did very good. For instance, The Great Gatsby was only a 69%, Jurassic Park was only 41.4%, and The Hunt for Red October only netted a 10.2%. So needless to say, I'm a little suspect of the validity of their numbers. (If nothing else, the titlescorer is fun.)

From what I understand, though, the title you give your work doesn't really make a difference anyway. If it makes it to publication, the publisher is likely to change it to something else anyway. So, I think I'll just keep my working title as AWJ and then I won't have to worry about renaming all my files. =o)

ETA: I just scrolled down the the bottom of the Lulu Titlescorer page and read their caveats. I suggest you do the same... Especially before you junk what may prove to be a very good title. (Maybe even one the publisher will let you keep.)