Publishing,  Writing life

From Magpie to The Memory Collectors: On Choosing a Title

Pictured right are notes from my attempts to come up with a title for what would eventually become The Memory Collectors. The working title for the book was Magpie, and it kept that name right up through the deal announcement and the editing process.
Once we got to the cover design stage, my editor and I started talking about whether or not Magpie should stick. I liked its simplicity, but I wasn’t sure it quite fit. I just hadn’t come up with anything I liked better. After some back and forth, we decided on The Magpies. That stuck for a little while, through the initial versions of the cover. But then the publisher and sales team suggested another change. They thought the title should hint more at the magic within the story.
I should confess here that decision-making isn’t one of my strong points. I started brainstorming, and so did my wonderful editor, Melanie Iglesias Perez, and even my husband got involved, until I had come up with a list of…108 possible titles. (To my editor and agents SO SORRY.)
I’d put the The Memory Gatherers on my shortlist, and Melanie riffed off that to come up with The Memory Collectors. That title got the most votes, and when I saw it on the book’s gorgeous cover, I knew it was the one.

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