Well, it has been an exciting 24 hours. Susan Schulman, who has represented Julia Cameron, Artist Way and Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class- both NY Times Best Sellers- is going to become my agent.
I am THRILLED to have gotten this far as a new writer and even more excited to be working with someone who is truly passionate about the arts and will get my book sold and published at the right house. I have spent the last 12 months working on this book, investing my time, money and giving my soul to it, with absolutely no assurance that anyone would be interested or that I could even become a convincing writer. I got my good news yesterday morning, on the longest day of the year.
It is all good except for one small problem. Susan really likes my book, but unfortunately, she does not like the title. I suppose it’s better to have a good book without a title than the other way around, but this dang book has been so hard to title and I had hoped I had it figured out.
Marketing comes easily to me but this book has refused to be titled. I have spent countless hours brainstorming about what it should be called and every time I think I am close to a name, it wiggles away from me leaving me empty handed. It almost feels like a willful child, refusing to be called by name. Even after having spent a really good chunk of change with Sam Horn, www.SamHorn.com, to help me title it Starving Artist Not!, the first name that has stuck for more than 24 hours, (I think it has been called Starving Artist Not! for 2 months now), it appears, this willful child has managed to grow up still with no name!
According to Susan, the problem with Starving Artist Not!, is that a publisher might view it as slang and then assume the whole book is written in slang; which of course it is not. Frankly, that had not ever occurred to me until now, but that could stop the right publisher from even bothering to read it.
So for those of you who have signed up to be a reader ( I Need 50 Readers post), I am going to be asking for your opinion on what my book title should be!
1 Comment
Sounds like an interesting book. However, the title would turn me off. I’d assume it was about harnessing depression for creativity … ‘blue’ automatically means that for me!
Why not something more direct ?
Good luck,
Mac