I understand that cultural differences make editors opt for different UK and US covers and titles, and in the age of the IT they even adapt the spelling; but why change ‘Eight Detectives’ to ‘The Eighth Detective’? It's confusing and dumb. Doesn't an author nowadays have any power in establishing the title? Should we expect a children's book to be ‘Eight Little Ducks’ in the UK, and ‘The Eighth Little Duck’ in the US?

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5 years ago
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Christina The author Charles Stross has addressed this in his blog, where he from time to time explains the publishing industry. And the answer is no, the author doesn't have much power over the title unless their name is Stephen King or J. K. Rowling. Most authors get to suggest the title they would like, which the publisher is then free to change for a variety of reasons. A book with that title may already exist and may cause confusion to buyers, or the publisher may feel the title needs improvement for marketing reasons. I don't know what the exact reason was in this case, but I'm guessing someone at the US publisher thought "The Eighth Detective" sounded better than "Eight Detectives." As a first-time novelist, Pavesi would definitely not have had final say over it.

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Denise Thank you for the clarification. When I went to search it on Goodreads I thought I had misremembered the name of the book!

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Steve Davidson I agree but I could easily believe the author did this on purpose. This book is complex and is deliberately inconsistent on many levels, Having two titles with significantly different meanings relevant to the story perfectly complements the rest of the book.

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Lisa 'The Eighth Detective' rolls off the tongue much better than 'Eight Detectives,' and really, are there eight detectives? Or are there more, or are there less? It's more about the number of murder mysteries than the detectives, whether eight or two or twenty.

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