Subject:
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Re: Help me name Ikros!!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.castle
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Date:
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Sat, 21 Dec 2002 21:54:54 GMT
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Viewed:
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1076 times
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> But "The Chronicles of Ikros" is just not as marketable.
True. If I saw "The Chronicles of XXXX" on a bookshelf, I would think it was
probably number 23 in the series and since I hadn't read the previous 22, I
need not bother with it.
> Look at successfully
> published books and you'll see what I mean. "Jurrasic Park," "The Lord of • the
> Rings," "The Dragon Riders of Pern" to name a few.
Actually the first dragon book was "Dragonflight". It wasn't until the series
was well-established that the name "Pern" started to appear in the titles,
which is a good reason to leave Ikros right out of the title. However, for all
of the above books, they were not the first book by the author. So, to a large
extent, the books did not have to sell themselves on their title alone.
> Book titles really need to be something that makes the book stand out in a • book
> shelf. Something that draws the eye and mind to that book.
Try cover art. For this genre, the norm seems to me to be a woman with a metal
bra on a wild horse wielding a sword (think Xena Warrior Princess), or a woman
with a long flowing robe with a deep cleavage, standing at the top of a cliff
in an improbable landscape with light flashing off a ring or pendant. (Spot the
common element).
But back to titles. A quick scan through a fantasy catalogue reveals that a
disproportionate number of titles involve words like
dragon/lion/wolf/eagle/falcon, sword/crown/ring,
king/queen/lord/knight/emperor/god/warrior, tower/gate/hall, first/dawn/rising,
blood, dark, ...
so clearly readers go for that kind of imagery.
Blood of the Falcon
Wolf Lord Rising
Spires of the Eagle
Sword at the Gate
Dawn of the Dark Crown
Dragon's Deep
Of course, hinting at a bit of sex in the title probably helps too (just like
the cover art). For that matter, a bit of sex in the book helps too.
Queen's Champion
Temple of the Goddess
Sword at the Guarded Chamber
An advantage of using first/dawn/rising is that it hints to the reader that
this is the first book of a series (and not the 25th), allowing the back cover
to say "first of the inspirational Ikros trilogy/series by an exciting new
author" and "we predict Anthony Sava will be the leading fantasy writer of the
new millenium" and stuff like that.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Help me name Ikros!!
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| Well, not my story's country, Ikros. But my story, the Chronicles of Ikros As some of you may already know, I am going to attempt to publish currently web-finished story. I'm not ready to send it off to any companies yet, but while I was working on (...) (22 years ago, 21-Dec-02, to lugnet.castle, lugnet.general, lugnet.org.us.texlug, lugnet.publish.html)
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