Support for Indie Authors discussion

I am about to publish an adventure novel--Celestine Prophecy esque--and wanted to use the title The Mayan Secret. A search revealed Clive Cussler has a book out called The Mayan Secrets. Should I change the title?

If I were in your shoes, I would. Even if only slightly. But that's just my personal opinion. I always prefer to err on the safe side.

100% yes. The last thing you want is for google to say 'Did you mean the Mayan Secrets? Here is Clive's Book, not Kevin's.

Google is mean like that.

Yes, I agree. Change the title to avoid any confusion.

Yeah. Maybe "Hidden Temples of The Maya," but you'd better research that one, too. There have been a lot of books about Mayan secrets.

The Secrets of the Maya is not taken and produces no hits other than some documentary about the secrets of the mayan underworld.

I would agree with the general consensus here and change it. :)

Kevin wrote: " Should I change the title?
"

Definitely. For the reasons everyone else gave.

The secrets of the Maya is one of my favourite games of all time.
No wait, that is the Secret of Mana. Never mind.

There aren't too many multiplayer rpgs from that era.

I liked River City Ransom too, but that was NES.

The Hidden Temples of the Maya sounds good to me :-) Oooh...exciting!

Another vote for "Yes." Change it.

Yes, definitely change it.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Oh, I love this forum! "Thank you all for replying! This book just means so much to me. Consider yourselves hugged." Thank you.

I will keep you all informed. Kevin.

Consider yourself hugged back!

I think you should change it to:

SOME LIKE IT MAYAN

or

THE MAYANS ARE COMING

or

MEGA MAYAN MEXICAN STANDOFF GANGBANG

or

KUNG FU ROBOT SMACKDOWN: MAYAN STYLE

You're welcome.

First I should say thanks to everyone. Paul, you had me laughing!

It is a spiritual adventure. I'm thinking of this as the beginning pitch: 'Cops don't go crazy. But something sits on Sergeant Cody Brannon's bed each night and grabs his arm.'

Possible titles are TOUCHING SPIRITS, and THE POWER GRAB

Well, thanks for the help. It was a good decision to change the title. Thanks again.

So it's a cop story? What's the relationship to Mayas? I'm entering this late, but I have to admit I never guessed from any of the suggested titles that it was a cop story. A spiritual adventure but still a cop story? Maybe The Power Grab fits better.

Okay, so I've stumbled onto this discussion because I have a title question of my own, and I didn't find another discussion about titles. Could we expand this discussion to more books than yours, Kevin?

I have a YA novel about a 17 year old boy named Sky (Skylar) who is in a war with his high school's vice principal and eventually drops out. For a long time I've called it Living in Suspension. But now that I'm getting closer to publishing it so I'm thinking about a cover, I'm considering Sky Diving instead. Any thoughts?

Hi Winifred, Just out of curiosity, what is wrong with your original title. I like it.

I like it too. But thinking visually, I thought Sky Diving might make a great cover, and also be catchier. Some people think a word like suspension is too long to be in a title, especially for YA. On the other hand, Sky Diving might imply the book is really about skydiving and readers might be disappointed?

Winifred wrote: "On the other hand, Sky Diving might imply the book is really about skydiving and readers might be disappointed?"

That would be my concern. I like your other title better.

If it's really not about sky diving at all, then you shouldn't even be considering it. Plus, you run into that same problem that there's probably dozens of books with that same title. In my opinion--and this is just mine--an author should do everything possible to give their book a title not shared by any other. Run it through Google. Living In Suspension, not used! Go for that one. As for the cover, let whoever you hire to help with that worry about making the words look good. That's what they're trained to do and they're usually pretty darn good at it. I think you could do all kinds of stuff with the Long Short Long, even if you're doing it by yourself.

Some authors take one of the best written lines in their book and make a portion of it their title (or write the title and then work it into the book - either way, it works).

For example, Michael Connelley's The Gods of Guilt

"My pulpit is the well of the courtroom. I preach to the twelve apostles, the gods of guilt."

Do you have a favorite, well-written line in your book that you could use?

It's just a thought.