Does the book title resonates with readers?

#Book titles are important sales tools. Most editors agree on the following statements. 1) #Titles should give a hint about the protagonist, the setting, the theme or the plot of the book. 2) Short titles are best. 3) Titles should catch the reader’s attention. 4) These rules are meant to be broken.

The net result is most writers spend hour ruminating over the title of their next novel. I’m no different. I always name a novel when I start working on a project. Then I rename it at least twice as I write and edit the novel. How about you? Maybe you’ll find my process of titling my adventure novel IGNORE THE PAIN useful or amusing.

I started out with the title Why Does It Hurt So Much? because I wanted the novel to address how individuals differ in their responses to physical and emotional pain. But that title was too long. I’d learned from my experience publicizing another novel Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight that long titles even if they’re funny are hard to fit the title on the spine of the book or in twitters. 

That title also gave no hint to the inner strength of my heroine — Sara Almquist, an epidemiologist and world traveler. Sara is a tough cookie. She knows being a public health consultant in Bolivia, where over 6% of the children before five years of age, won’t be a picnic when she accepts the assignment. The title also didn’t fit a suspense story with lots of action. Sara is chased through the Witches’ Market of La Paz and fights to avoid a trap in the silver mines of Potosí as she helps to capture the drug czar Mazzone, who used to be her neighbor in New Mexico. 

The next title I chose was Dull the Pain. It was short, established pain as recurring theme in the novel, and hinted the heroine was tough. Amazon listed no other book with that title. 

I include tidbits of science in all of my novels and really strive to get the facts correct. Thus, I had Sara learn that laborers in the silver mines of Potosí carry little food or water into the mines. In order to endure the pain caused by thirst, hunger, and heavy exertion at a high altitude (13,000 feet), they chew coca leaves. The active ingredients in coca leaves and its derivative cocaine are not analgesics; they do not dull pain. They are stimulants and help users ignore pain. 

I changed the title from Dull the Pain to IGNORE THE PAIN. 

Now after all my explanations on the title, do you want to read IGNORE THE PAIN? Or would you give it another name?

Why don’t you enter the ebook #GIVEAWAY for a chance win IGNORE THE PAIN at: https://www.amazon.com/ga/p/367493f0856741b2

Or buy it at:https://www.amazon.com//dp/0960028501

SHE DIDN'T KNOW HER PLACE

One of the most universal themes in literature is alienation. How much of personal isolation is due to making unpopular moral decisions, to being an outsider, and to being stubborn? This is the theme in She Didn't Know Her Place. 

In this mystery, Dana Richardson faces two dilemmas in her new job as VP of Research at State U. The Natural Resource Center, which reports to her, is alleged to be "doctoring" data to help industrial clients meet federal pollution standards. Her boss Guy Beloit, the president of the university, doesn’t care. Really no one, but Dana, cares. That's not true. Sally Stein cared and she died under mysterious circumstances, and others are too scared to talk. 

This mystery can be viewed on several levels. Dana's attempt to uncover and eliminate the scientific  and financial fraud in the Natural Resource Center is an example of a different type of police procedural. You'll be surprised how complex the laws governing research are and how they can be used to ensnare the villains. You'll also wonder how much of Dana's efforts are driven by inner demons and the fear of meeting the same fate as Sally Stein. Thus She Didn't Know Her Place is a bit of a psychological thriller. Then too Dana faces the problem of being a woman administrator in a predominantly male world - the academic scientific community is not kind to feminists.

Ultimately, themes are what make reading so satisfying. They make us think. 

Here's how to get She Didn't Know Her Place. The kindle and paperback versions are available at  Amazon: https://www.amzn.com/ dp/1979733112

GoodReads is doing a free giveaway of three signed copies of this mystery. Enter before December 22 at: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/267677-she-didn-t-know-her-place.