heidi's blog

Today's bit of Tuesday Trivia has to do with titles.

Did you know that WHEN THE LIGHTS GO DOWN is actually my title...the same title that was on the manuscript when I turned it in? But this is somewhat uncommon, as publishers tend to change an author's working title before publication. They do this for any number of reasons--a title may be just plain bad...it may not suit the story...it may be too similar to another title coming out that same month or in surrounding months...the marketing department may think one title will sell better over another...etc. But for some reason, I lucked out, and my October book remained WHEN THE LIGHTS GO DOWN.

That wasn't the case for the preqeul to LIGHTS, however. That one was originally called The Night the Lights Went Down in Georgetown. Get it? A play on the song "The Night the Lights Went Down in Georgia"? In fact, at one point, I thought it might be neat to have a series of books that all took place "the night the lights went out in Georgetown." I thought it would be fun to set up several stories where the city-wide blackout played a large part in the romance. But instead, I ended up doing only the two connected books. And, as you can imagine, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgetown was a bit long to stick on a book cover, so it ended up being shortened for a while to The Night the Lights Went Down. Thankfully, my brilliant editor came up with an even better title than that, and the book eventually became BLAME IT ON THE BLACKOUT.

This--among other things--is the reason I never get emotionally attached to working titles. I slap something on that I like & think suits the story, but I'm never upset or offended if my editor asks me to come up with something else or tells me they're changing the title. Heck, they come up with better ones than I do, anyway. :-)

Next week: a costume change.