Dear Thursday: A Molly Ringwald Ending No More…

So the tale so far for new readers: I wrote a book, named it A Molly Ringwald Ending, got an agent. My new agent thought the title, though awesome, might be a problem with the actress Molly Ringwald, the lawyer we consulted with confirmed that the name wasn’t fair-use in the title.  I sent Molly Ringwald a beseeching letter, asking if I could keep the title with her permission; her team of lawyers sent my agent a letter back basically saying “Hell No!” in legalese.  So as any good blogger would do, I crowd-sourced the problem and put the new title up for a vote.

The title choices were

a. The Perfect Ending

b. Sixteen Years Later

c. How it Ends

d. 32 Candles

e. Come up with your own title

First of all, thank you all so much for weighing in. Just to let you know how much influence you wielded over the process, I was leaning way heavily towards How it Ends. My husband, CH, came up with 32 Candles, and I couldn’t think of a fourth alternative title, so I threw it in, though I didn’t think it would gain much traction. But guess what, 32 won by a landslide!and when I sent my agent the FaN-approved title along with a few of the suggested titles I had gotten, she flipped for 32 Candles, saying that she liked it even better than the original title — though I don’t know how much that statement was colored by not having to receive any more letters from Molly Ringwald’s lawyers over this title. Noboby digs getting letters from lawyers.

Now that we’re over this hurdle, the next step is to send excerpts of the book out to publishers, who will hopefully bite, since the only things that seem to be doing consistently well in this terrible market are romance novels — 32 Candles isn’t a romance novel, but it does have a ton of romance in it. So fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, it looks like this is going to be a bit of a process. First we send excerpts, then if requested, we send the whole novel. Then we have to wait some more while the publishing powers-that-be deliberate. Have I mentioned that I’m not a patient person? CH and I are thinking of reshooting the cover to look more glossy, iconic and saleable in the meantime and maybe we’ll DIY a trailer next weekend. Either way, you know I’ll keep you posted.

100% thanks again!

etc