When Bad Titles Happen to Good Scholarly Books: What to Name Your Baby

The book is about what brings us together as Americans, the psychology we have in common. In an era where multiculturalism has shattered our sense of common American identity, Alaska, as the last frontier, helps us understand the psychology we have in common. But this last frontier is an inclusive frontier, with wilderness women as well as mountain men, and with indigenous people who have become power players in the land. Any suggestions for a better title? What mistakes am I making?

I have thought of other titles: Consciousness F: The Frontier Frame-of-Mind or What is an American? Searching for the Soul of America in the Heart of Alaska Are these any better? I have lost all perspective.

If you think you can deliver the goods, suggest the big title to your prospective publisher and see if the house agrees.

Yes, new Ph.D.'s do need to think strategically in selecting a subject. I meet a lot of young scholars who tell me that their dissertation directors were helping them to write 'a book, not a dissertation.' That's not foolproof, but it's a gesture toward strategic thinking. I'm interested in how that works, what those dissertation directors are saying, and what their advisees are hearing on the other end.

I think that the worst service the market can do to scholarship is to pry talented scholars away from highly specific fields -- areas in which they excel and can make significant contributions -- and bully them into writing for a broader audience to which they are ill suited and in which they have no real interest.

A groundbreaking study of Etruscan inscriptions could change how we think about the Etruscans. We need that study. The market may be tiny, and the book quite expensive, but I bet it can be published. Maybe that scholar has the skill and interest to write a trade book on Etruscan culture as well. But we would want both, not just the second, to be written.

Specialized fields have specialized publishers or quiet niches within larger houses. I'm thinking of small scholarly series. It's a matter of fitting the project to the publishing venue. I do believe that no truly outstanding manuscript ever goes unpublished unless the author simply gives up.

Series names are usually descriptive. A series called 'Studies in Small Notes in Haydn' will make it clear to music librarians -- the target audience -- just what to expect. Descriptiveness is a desirable feature for any hardback series aimed at library collections.

At the other end of the scholarly spectrum is something like Series Q from Duke, deliciously named and only semi-cryptic.

If you're writing a book that fits an existing series like a glove, why not see if there's room for your manuscript? In Getting It Published I outline pros and cons of series publication. Generally speaking, many series address quite specialized concerns. If those concerns are yours, you may have found a happy home for your book. If your project is small, as may be other similar titles in that series, publishing them at one house means that they can be marketed together. It should give your book a bit more exposure.

Most scholarly authors spell success with an s. They don't care all that much about money. Will 400 or 1000 copies sold make much difference in the author's life? Probably not. But publication may mean a job or more. It's my hunch that a scholarly publisher can be more effective in convincing an author to use one title over another by emphasizing not the financial result but the searchability, the appeal to library collections at various levels, the clarity and appeal of the preferable title. All of these should lead to greater income, of course.

Scholarly publishers are used to new authors and welcome them. I wouldn't worry over strategies. It's a matter of learning the procedures -- how publishers and editors work and what they look for. Getting It Published is set up to make this clear to the new author.

Many authors whose works are declined are frustrated that an editor doesn't explain why a manuscript isn't being taken on. This is a matter of workload and tact. The grim truth is that editors aren't paid to advise authors they are rejecting. They're paid to find good projects and then give them attention and care. Every so often, an editor will recommend another house or suggest that the book needs to be half as long and better written. When I can genuinely say 'Loved it, but the market's too small for us' I do.

Sometimes publishers finesse this problem by deploying what we call a 'reading line'. It's not the subtitle, but gives the publisher an excuse to describe the book on the jacket. So under "Peculiar Convictions" there's no subtitle but a breathless sentence fragment proclaiming "The untold story of two Lancashire farmers, a witch, a monkey, and a pot of gold" or something like that. Add a rave quote to the jacket front and suddenly the absence of a subtitle seems OK. But that really only works for trade titles.

It sounds like common sense. Scholarship frequently trumps common sense, though. I worked with Donna Haraway on Primate Visions. That's four syllables. Later we did Modest_Witness@Second_Millennium.FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse. And I've omitted the superscripts. It was a cyber-mouthful. But because of her track record, our sales and marketing departments supported the title and sold it confidently. I don't offer it as a model for anyone else, though.