Thursday, May 6, 2010

It's all about the research

May 6, 2010



Do you know how many books have been written over the centuries? Me, neither. I won’t even venture a guess. I’m not even sure what brought the question to mind, except that I needed to do a little research last night and twiddled away three hours. Seriously. Three hours! And I never left the Amazon website! What was I researching so studiously? Book titles.

It’s amazing that with all the books out there, more titles don’t overlap. It’s reassuring in a way, that there is still some uniqueness in the market place, and what an author comes up with for a title can stand on its own. It also helped me repopulate my prospective title list, especially titles for the shapeshifter stories. Fallon still has a lot to learn about his new shapeshifter lover, and Sundown doesn’t give up his secrets easily, not even to Fallon. (And then there’s the fact that his clan needs Sundown for procreation. Can’t go there yet. That’s just a little tease for what’s ahead.)

So what did I find? That the word ‘under’ generated over 90,000 hits on Amazon. Guess that won’t be part of anyone’s title after they read that, eh? I scratched it off my list in a hurry. The word ‘seducing’ garnered 228 hits. That’s not bad. I’d use ‘seducing’ if I hadn’t already done so, which made me curious.

Sorting those 228 hits by ‘bestselling’ found SEDUCING LIGHT at number 31 of the ‘seducing’ titles. That’s thirty-one. T-h-i-r-t-y-o-n-e.

Yes, I looked twice. Three times, even, and it didn’t change. Do you begin to see how I frittered away the hours?

While it might seem like a total waste of time, it wasn’t. We authors spend a lot to time debating what’s the best title for our stories, all the while knowing that once we sign the contract with the publisher, they have the right to change the title. I’ve not had that happen, per se. The head guru at Amber Allure has discussed titles with me from time to time, and we have always agreed on the little tweaks. A good publisher is one helluva good resource.

The information absorbed last night will rest in my subconscious until I need it. I may not even be aware of it, when debating a new title, but that’s okay. For today, I’ll just be happy with the knowledge that SEDUCING LIGHT is doing well, and that Amazon is good for more things than taking my money.

Yes, I bought a few things last night, strictly for [enjoyable] research.


Life through the eyes of Greenbrier Smokey Deuce: deucesday.blogspot.com

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