For my next book I’m trying to do that new experimental-for-me way of writing a book where I try to write something marketable, that sticks in a single genre, and is easy to explain. In addition to the book itself, this tactic simply must extend also to the related materials. ie: the title, the cover, the copy. I haven’t written the first word of the book yet (though I’ve been outlining the plot -hah! I’ve got a plot!- and working on some notes), but I’ve been spending the last week or two trying to come up with a title and to imagine the cover. Cover… I don’t know yet. But I think I’ve got my title.
Cheating, Death
I know, I know, because of the way search engines handle punctuation it’ll come up next to the dozen or so books whose titles also include the words “Cheating Death” – only a few of which appear to be fiction. Looks like two kindle-only books have the punctuation-free version of this title, a murder mystery and a vampire romance. I’ll gladly add a zombie book to that mix.
Definitely going to need a clear, distinctive cover that communicates ‘zombies’ though. If I could somehow depict the main character, his wife and his mistress on the cover, with zombies, the entire title would make sense at a glance. Probably not likely, that.
Oh, and by the way: I’m planning on putting this book up on Smashwords.com as soon as I’ve written the first chapter. I’ll keep updating it as new chapters get finished, so you pay once and can watch the book take shape as I write it. As soon as the book’s done, I’ll also make it available in print, on kindle, and then probably on Podiobooks.com as well. (Depending on time management, I may simultaneously release chapters on Podiobooks and Smashwords, as I write them. I’m still podcasting Untrue Tales… so that may be difficult.)
But keep an eye out for my upcoming zombie novel that is a zombie novel, Cheating, Death.
