I just found out what my title is...

[Firemeboy]

I'm pretty new here, and only know a few of you.  I have a book coming out in June and I just found out what the title is going to be (the publishers rejected my original suggestion).

I guess the committee put my title in their market research, but it didn't score well.  So, what title do you prefer?

Chickens in the Headlights
Chickens Don't Have Armpits

Of course if you pick theirs, I'll have to slink out of here with my tail between my legs...  

[House of Mustard]

I'm going to guess that they rejected Chickens Don't Have Armpits, because it contains the word 'armpit', which is the type of word they'd reject.  Also, it's a better title, so it's right out.

[Skar]

I would buy a book entitled Chickens Don't Have Armpits long before I would buy a book entitled "Chickens in the Headlights"

Chickens in the headlights just sounds pitiful and sad.  Poor chickens.

Now if it's the right kind of book and the picture on the cover was of a gaggle of chickens in a farmyard on a moonless night, staring fixedly into the camera/headlights, perhaps with some glowing chicken eyes not directly in the beam...I'd buy that one too.  But that's just me.

[Firemeboy]

Now if it's the right kind of book and the picture on the cover was of a gaggle of chickens in a farmyard on a moonless night, staring fixedly into the camera/headlights, perhaps with some glowing chicken eyes not directly in the beam...I'd buy that one too.  

Why do I think that's not going to happen?

The cover will probably be a cute chicken with puppy dog eyes, pecking at the ground with a butterfly on his back.

Readers will have to open the book to see that one of the chapter titles is "Day of Slaughter".

Though now that I think of it, that may get cut too.

[Fellfrosch]

Chicken in the Headlights is a little too droll--a little too "ha ha, get it?" So if that's yours, I apologize for mocking it.

Chickens Don't Have Armpits sounds like a book of mildly humorous homespun wisdom. I wouldn't buy either one based on the title, but I'm so far outside your target market I can't even see it from here. So ignore what I say.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Kind of what Fell said - Again I say (because I had to say this to HoM before) - what kind of book is it, and what's it about?

[Firemeboy]

It's fiction.  It's a humorous look at a family with 7 boys, and their adventures one summer.  

The purpose of the title, since nobody is going to know my name, is to at least try to get somebody to stop and take a second look.  Or maybe pick it up.  The title is actually used by a character in my book, though it’s not prominent.  I was aiming for something that people would walk by, stop, and return just to make sure they hadn't misread.

I’m not really sold on the title they picked, but don’t think I have any options, other than throw an unproductive fit.

[Skar]

From what you and HoM are saying about working with Covenant it seems like they need some serious help in the editor/marketer/business department.  All the decisions you two have described sound like they were made by MTC teachers in commitee.  Is it really that bad or are we just hearing the horror stories?

[Firemeboy]

I don't mean to paint them in that way.  In fact I wrote to one of the people on the committee and they seemed open about looking at alternatives...  

We will see.  There might be a better name for it, who knows.  I just don't know if I like the one they proposed...  Maybe it will grow on me.

[stacer]

Too bad The Hoboken Chicken Emergency is already taken. As is The Chicken Heart. (guh-gung. guh-gung.)

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Daniel Pinkwater rules!!

And I believe chickens' wingpits count as armpits.

[42]

a family with 7 boys.

That would be my family if you count my brother-in-law. Or that sixth brother I had that no one found out about.

I agree that neither title really grabs me. Can't they change the word "chicken" instead?

[EUOL]

Welcome to the forums, FMB!  It's nice to have another professional author around to tip our odds against those dastardly editors.  (We're tied up now, right?  HoM, me, and FMB vs Stacer, Brenna, and Ookla.  Poor 42, sitting all alone in the artists' corner.)

Anyway, we've all heard enough Covenant stories from HoM to feel your pain.  But, at least you've got a book coming out, which is an admirable accomplishment, no matter what they do to your title!  Congratulations!  

[Master Gopher]

Poor 42, sitting all alone in the artists' corner.

*comforts 42*
If a complete amateur is any company at all...

[Entsuropi]

I'd just like to accounce that the shiftless hobo corner - me, JP, Gemm and Spriggan (willing or unwilling as they may be) wins.