TELEMAKOS THE VAMPIRE

[ewein2412]

This is a follow-up to my post requesting suggestions for a subtitle for the paperback edition of The Mark of Solomon. Viking has moved on again leaving me gasping in its wake, and maybe the idea of a subtitle is redundant (certain of you will be suitably rewarded for effort when the dust clears; I have not forgotten); in the meantime I'm throwing this out to the great collective brain again for further input.

Here's the gist of the note I had last week from sdn:

Your work is terrific but somehow it is just not getting into the right hands. So we're going to try this: We need to position this book as commercial, classy historical suspense. Something not forbidding, something not mass market, something not fantasy. How to do this?

1. New title. THE MARK OF SOLOMON sounds religious. THE LION HUNTER and THE EMPTY KINGDOM sound like nonfiction and fantasy respectively. We need to brainstorm. I am tempted by something as simple as THE EMPEROR'S SPY, but what do you think? Should we play up the King Arthur angle?

2. Cover image. Something strong and singular.

3. Blurbs. Whose readers would like this book? I'd like to try to for the boy market, and also wonder if there are both children's and adult authors we could recommend. M.T. Anderson comes to mind; are there others?

And here's the gist of my response:

Not a single librarian or child reader that I spoke to last summer could figure out the sequence of my books. Giving these books a FOURTH title is going to make the issue EVEN MUDDIER.

To me "The Emperor's Spy" is bland. It just doesn't say anything--it's neither exciting nor informative nor catchy. If you want to go for something sensational then how about "Spy Prince" (or one word... "Spyprince"? ...eh) or, ummm.... "Red Sea Spy" or "Lion Spy" or something. You know I used the word "spy" a total of SIX times in The Sunbird, so using it in the title smacks to me a little of prostitution. But hey. I'll stoop to that. "Telemakos the One-Armed Spy"!

Kingcatcher? Red Sea Kingcatcher? (sounds like a bird!) I'm brainstorming here... King of the Pearl Fishers. Red Sea Spy Prince, Spy Prince of Africa. Do any of those ideas spark the imagination?

OK, Next Question: "whose readers would like this book."

Readers of darkish action/adventure surely? Readers of Garth Nix, Anthony Horowitz, Lancelot Dulac JK Rowling, Philip Reeve, Philip Pullman, Kenneth Oppel, Cornelia Funke. Megan Whalen Turner (hmm, most of them are fantasy writers). Do we have some other examples of "commercial, classy historical suspense" or are we creating a new genre here? And of course I've undercut this entire project, curse me, by writing this article about my books as "historical fantasy" for the next issue of the Horn Book.

Cover image. I always say GO FOR VIOLENCE. or malevolence, at least. How about Abreha looming over Telemakos and Athena with his Unibrow lowered?

So, anyway, I am here and ready to engage. Fire away and I will try to fire back something sensible.

well, maybe something sensible.