For the past several days, my editor, agent, and I have been working to come up with a title for Elemental Assassin #4. We’ve tossed around dozens of titles at this point and are still trying to find that magic title that really captures what the book is about and sounds cool at the same time.

I originally suggested The Silken Noose for the title. Some of the other ones we’ve considered have been Black Widow, Widow’s Web, By a Thread, Tainted Threads, Tangled Web, and Death Weaver.

There are lots of things to take into consideration when coming up with a title. In the case of the Elemental Assassin books, we’re trying to use a spider-related word in all of the titles, as well as words with an I or O in them, so we can continue to use the spider rune on the cover of the book.

The title also needs to at least hint a little bit as to what the plot is about (in this case, an assassin coming to Ashland to kill Gin). The title should be catchy, and the publisher’s marketing folks should like it as well (since they’re the ones who will promote the book to various sellers). And, of course, you don’t want your book to have the same title as another book that was recently released or will be released soon. That’s confusing for everyone involved.

All of which means that we’re having a tough time this go around settling on a title. There’s an old saying about how laws are like sausages, and that it’s better not to see them being made. I think we should add book titles to that list too. Sigh.

But we need to decide on something soon, so the book can go into production. I’ll keep you posted as to what we come up with …

Tags: About Books, Elemental Assassin series