S&L Podcast - #152 - Peter V. Brett is the Dark David Hasselhoff of Fantasy

[Veronica, Supreme Sword]

http://swordandlaser.com/home/2013/12...

We talk with Peter V. Brett about his Demon Cycle books, the grim world of dark fantasy, his old HP iPaq and why he's so big in Germany.

[Sean Lookielook]

I'm amazed that publishers have entire meetings just to discuss the title. You'd think that the author just picks one, and if there's no problem with it, that's what gets put on the cover. I wonder if it's a case of industry bureaucracy where executives are trying to justify their paychecks. It seems to me that having two titles on the same book would be one of the things they would try to avoid.

[Sean Lookielook]

Louise wrote: "Yep. One of those bits of advice..."

I get that it's an important part of the marketing, but meetings? (emphasis on the plural) This is not something that should take months to decide.

[Serendi]

I get the impression that publishing people meet at regular intervals and discuss whatever books are in process. So it might not be that the focus was the book's title, but that the book's title got brought up at multiple meetings (discussing many books) before they made up their minds.

I might be entirely wrong about this, however.

[Tamahome]

Did Veronica say she wants to woo bar wenches?

[Veronica, Supreme Sword]

Tamahome wrote: "Did Veronica say she wants to woo bar wenches?"

I may have said that.

[Tamahome]

Interesting.

[D. E.]

I'm so happy that you did an interview with Peat! The Demon Cycle is one of my favorite series. I wish I had looked in to the group sooner and saw that you were going to interview him, I would have submitted a question or two. I didn't find out until I downloaded the podcast Wednesday morning.

I hope more people go out and read his great series! I want more people to talk about it with.

[Tamahome]

I listened to a Graphicaudio sample of The Warded Man. It sounded pretty scary.

http://www.graphicaudio.net/demon-cyc...

[Joe Informatico]

Sean wrote: "I'm amazed that publishers have entire meetings just to discuss the title. You'd think that the author just picks one, and if there's no problem with it, that's what gets put on the cover...It seems to me that having two titles on the same book would be one of the things they would try to avoid."

But we're talking about two separate publishing companies serving two different markets. The UK publisher was fine with the original title; the US publisher felt the original title would make the book less marketable in the US marketplace.

It's certainly an annoying situation, but I have a feeling it only affects us readers who are informed customers who learn about authors, read reviews, seek out interviews, and follow dedicated genre fiction sites and blogs. The title, the cover art, and everything else on the outside of the book is marketing aimed at the impulse buyer, who doesn't care if the book has a different title an ocean away.

Brett's actually in good company in this regard:



vs.



and



vs.

[Tom, Supreme Laser]

I have *some* experience in media and creative companies and my guess is what happened is that Serendi is right. There are regular meetings where many things are discussed and the titles of upcoming books is one item on the agenda.

It may seem odd to spend a lot of time on the title but I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that its's just people justifying their jobs. The title probably has an index in somebody's P&L. If they get the title right it increases sales by X percentage. They know what words are movers and what words are not. Publishing companies do this kind of analysis and it's one of things that makes them money.

And I think Joe Informatico is also right that having two titles in two different regions has not usually been problematic because most book buyers in each region are unaware of the other title. However this is changing. The internationalization of sales brought on byt he Internet makes that confusion a bigger deal as well as making floating release dates a bigger deal.

My theory is eventually all media will realize there's really just one global market as far as releases go, and the only regionalization worth pursuing is marketing. That could still mean alternate titles I suppose but I doubt they would continue to be profitable. Just my 3 cents. Sorry for overspending.

[Tamahome]

To me titles are as irrelevant as book covers. They're only to attract casual book buyers. But maybe that's the majority of sales, who knows.

[Mpauli]

Tom wrote: "The internationalization of sales brought on byt he Internet makes that confusion a bigger deal as well as making floating release dates a bigger deal."

This is especially true for non-english countries. Here in Germany we have access to most english language publications from different countries. You usually get the UK and the US version, sometimes also the Canadian or Australian version.
It's quite comfortable, cause whe never have the UK/US publishing issue with waiting of on a US version for a book that is already released in the UK and vice versa.

So in Germany you can get both "The warded man" and "The painted man". Maybe that's why Peter is so popular here, cause he has two chances of recognition.^^

[Dave]

I can't comment on other books with changed titles, but I have read both the UK and US versions of a few of the Harry Potter books, and you have to realize that not only the title changed, but they actually translated the books from UK English to US English... Revised = Studied, Public School = Private School, etc.

[Micah]

Dave wrote: "Dave Packard | 3 comments I can't comment on other books with changed titles, but I have read both the UK and US versions of a few of the Harry Potter books, and you have to realize that not only the title changed, but they actually translated the books from UK English to US English... Revised = Studied, Public School = Private School, etc. "

Well they would have to do that wouldn't they? Otherwise we Yankees wouldn't have a clue what little Harry was actually doing when he was eating his bangers and putting his luggage in the boot of the car. LoL.

Note: I may have googled the word "britishism" to insure that I used those words correctly. :)

[Dave]

You could have just gone to google.co.uk, but then it probably wouldn't know what you were asking!

[Dave]

Louise wrote: "So...in the US version, does Harry end up putting his school trunk in the tunk of the car or do you have a different word for trunk? ."

That would be a footlocker.

[Micah]

Louise wrote: "So...in the US version, does Harry end up putting his school trunk in the trunk of the car or do you have a different word for trunk? "

I do not know....

[library_jim]

I know Stephen King's original title was The Shine and the publishers changed it to the clunkier "The Shining" because they were worried some considered "Shine" a derogatory term referring to black shoeshine workers. He said he wished they'd just scrapped it and come up with a different title altogether than go with just anding "ing" onto it. So yeah, good company.

[Sean Lookielook]

I didn't mean to imply earlier that I thought a bunch of people got together at 2 o'clock on a Tuesday just to discuss the title; I was just being hyperbolic to emphasize the attention given to what I think is a trivial issue (and a creative one that should be more at the discretion of the author). It's just a part of the business mind set to squeeze the most money out of a creative project. It winds up backfiring as often as not, and ultimately it's the quality of the work that suffers.

The supposed need to translate English to American (and vice versa) is just such an example. Why shouldn't an English character in a book set in England use English vocabulary and cultural references? Because an American reading the book is momentarily distracted when they use extra u's or say "lift" instead of "elevator"?

Changing the words in this way compromises the work. It mutes the author's voice and robs the reader of a chance to experience the culture as it was intended. It is also sets a bad precedent; if publishers are comfortable changing a few words, then it is not a far stretch to start removing whole ideas they think might be upsetting to a buying audience. Then you get situations like Time and Newsweek magazines dumbing down international news for American subscribers.

[Kevin]

What about the current alternative book club pick, it is known as His Majesty's Dragon, but in the UK it is known as Temeraire, which is just the name of the series.