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| ...not the actual cover, the actual cover is much cooler but I'm not allowed to use it yet cos they havent quite got the colours and the car sorted... |
No. They're not. My new Duffy novel has a nine word
title. This is most unfortunate. Everybody hates long titles: book buyers,
publishers, editors, marketers, amazon, audible, book reviewers. . .you name it. If your book
has a long title, especially in genre fiction it is a sign of amateurism. I was at
the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival last week and when I told a prominent
English reviewer the title of my next Duffy book she visibly winced. My editor
was with me and she gave me a knowing look after the wince. My editor and
pretty much everyone at my publishers have been trying to talk me out of the new Duffy title for months now in the nicest possible way. They are all wonderful smart,
intelligent people and they all, of course, are quite right about the title. Crime fiction is
not literary fiction where you can get away with long titles. (Unless that is you're doing a long title as a mode of Spencerian signalling telling customers that your book is so bloody good that you can even throw away the title.) Some of my
favourite books with long titles are Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in
the West; By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept; I’ve Been To Sorrow’s
Kitchen And Licked Out All The Pots; Another Bullshit Night In Suck City, but
all these books are literary fiction. Crime fiction mostly has two or three
word titles often with the words “blood” “death” or “girl” in the title. Long
titles are off putting. But then
everything about my fiction is off putting. I set my books in Northern Ireland
rather than in reader friendly Scandanavia, England or Scotland. I usually have
long titles. I almost always begin my books slowly with description and with
weather rather than action (in strict contradiction of the rules for writers
laid down by Elmore Leonard and Stephen King). What all this self sabotaging
does is winnow my audience to a core fanbase. No one casually grabs an Adrian McKinty novel at the airport. And you know what? that’s fine
with me. If you get me you get me and if you don’t you don’t. If you're a crime author from Scandinavia you can write any old shite and the punters will buy it. Where's the challenge there, Sven? I’m sorry about the long title, I really am, but that’s the book that was
inside me and that’s the book that wanted to come out. And to potential readers out there....if the long title or the
Troubles setting or the boring beginning prevents you from becoming one of my
readers that’s entirely ok with me – we weren’t destined to become simpatico and
there are plenty of other books on the shelf at WH Smith called The Girl From....that you'll prefer. Please read one of those instead. We'll both be much happier.
