From: mbottorff@lshelby.com   
      
   Brenda  wrote:   
      
   > Over on Book View Cafe's blog we are starting a series in June. It will   
   > be Write Hacks -- hacks for writers. And the first one is by me -- about   
   > using Amazon or Goodreads for your titling needs. If you put a title   
   > into the search window, you can see precisely how many works have been   
   > published through the ages with that title; the number is nearly always   
   > larger than you expect. (I write as the author of HOW LIKE A GOD.)   
      
   For the purpose of determining over-done-title-itis, I have been using   
   LibraryThing "touchstones": which attempt to automatically identify the   
   book you have just mentioned so that it can insert a link to it.  If it   
   gets its first guess wrong, there is a widget that allows you to pick   
   from a list of likely alternatives.   
      
   I only actually started worrying about this problem because of the   
   touchstones.  I would be making lists of books by other members, and   
   occasionally I ran into one where the title was so common and the author   
   was so obscure that the right book never showed up on the list of   
   alternatives at all, and I would have to manually hunt down the book id,   
   and use it to "force" the touchstone to pick the right book.   
      
   So far, all the books I've published the touchstone software immediatly   
   recognizes from the title as being my books by me.  No big surprise   
   there, I guess.  How likely is it that any other author has named their   
   book _Cantata in Coral and Ivory_?  But even _Treachery's Harbor_ and   
   _Fealty's Shore_ are registering as unique in the system.   
      
   The one I'm currently supposed to be writing, (instead of posting to   
   usenet, oops!) has a working title of _Lioness_, though, and there are a   
   few other books with that title out there.  On the other hand, it's not   
   so common that I'm desperate to avoid it.   
      
   But "Smoke and Mirrors" was a working title for something in the queue   
   that I have already dumped, after realizing that I'd never find my book   
   in the touchsone list if I used it.   
      
      
   As an aside: my brain, being my brain, has been whispering at me saying   
   "And other good titles for books in the same series as _Lioness_, would   
   be _Jackel_, _Gazelle_ and _Cheetah_."  *What* other books in the same   
   series!!???!!!  This is a stand alone.   
      
      
   --   
   Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby   
   L. Shelby, Writer  http://www.lshelby.com/   
   Livejournal http://lavenderbard.livejournal.com/   
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)