Put Up Or Shut Up

So I'm thinking it's time to start shopping the novel around to publishers and agents. This is a decision undertaken with no small amount of fear and trembling, but if anything that only makes me more certain that it is the right decision.

Here's the thing, though: I need a title. A real one.

The Honeythief was never meant to be more than a placeholder name—partly because, although it is a beautiful and evocative phrase, its literal relationship to the action and themes of the book is (to put it charitably) tangential at best, and mostly because there's been another book of the same name released within the last ten years or so: and although the chance that anybody would ever confuse the two is a slim one, it's enough to make me uncomfortable.

Now, a title is the least of any book proposal's problems, and I don't intend to get too hung up on this. But while I'm kicking names around, let me invite you to do the same. If you've read the huge portions of the first draft that I've made public (and if you haven't and would like to, the sidebar has links to all the chapters posted so far), I'd love to hear from you.

More generally, what makes a good title? Eric Puchner has some thoughts to start with, and while I don't subscribe to all his biases, his post seems like a good place to start the conversation…