Well, burst my bubble! I googled Amazon and found out there's already a book out, released in February 2008 with what's supposed to be the title of my book. Upon this discovery I moaned out loud my disappointment. My daughter responded from the other room, "Did you really think there wouldn't already be a book out with that title?" I guess it's only logical since it was such a great title, and I suppose I should have thought of that possibility, but just didn't.
The only reason I even googled it yesterday was because I tried to start a blog with that title only to be informed that it was already taken. Hrmph! I typed out the web address and was directed to a blog that was formed in 2001 and had just one post on it. Clearly it's been abandoned, but that doesn't mean the address is available. There is a way around this little problem as I could still name my blog it, but the address would have to have an additional word. No biggie really. Then it flashed on me, before I go through all this trouble I better check to see if a book has already been published with my title. That's when I went to Amazon.
Tada! There it was. Now the already published book bears no resemblance whatsoever to mine. That book is fiction with a likable female star. Mine is a memoir and I don't know how likable I am -- I do know my arch enemy is quite unlikable. Even though I'm only on my second draft the title has changed three times. This last one, was the one. All my files reflect that title. I want that title. Notice I still haven't even typed the title because I don't want to jinx losing it! You know how that goes when you talk about an idea and the universe picks it up. Too late I guess. I think I can get around this. Why couldn't I keep the title and just add :A Memoir after it? I think that would work.
You know for someone who has googled their own name and have had 4,900,000 hits come up (obviously they're not all me) you would think I would have done this as soon as I "thought up" the title. Damn, sometimes I can be so oblivious!
There's nothing that say's you can't use that same name. The are beaucoup of books out there with the same titles. If yours is nothing like the other one, anyone who goes looking for it shouldn't get confused.
ReplyDeleteI'm just saying.
Oh, that stinks! I've had the same thing happen. DL's right--there are many books with the same title. Perhaps the key is just being published in different years or something, since the genre is so different.
ReplyDeleteI guess at this point I should just worry about the rewrite more than the title!
ReplyDeleteOr you could keep it! I went through that once with a picture book idea. I asked an editor what she thought and she said that duplicate titles happen all the time!
ReplyDelete