I had a positive response from a regional publisher after sending in three sample stories of my memoir of growing up in an isolated village on the west coast of Canada in the 1950s and 60s. This publisher specializes in this kind of local material. He asked (without commitment) for the completed manuscript for scrutiny. I'm ready to send it in. I am struggling with even a working title for the manuscript. Should I try for a clever title like "There's no road there you know" or just call it "Stories from Alert Bay" for now? Also should I write "Copyright 2021" and my name on the manuscript?
I think those that have beta read it would be the best to give suggestions because they will know the stories and any consistent themes. Do they need a descriptive working title now?
Let's see: Stories such as two 12 year olds "borrowing" a rowboat and rowing out to an island 5 miles offshore and barely making it back in the rising wind and waves for example. A description of commercial hook and line fishing in an old wooden boat with a one-cylinder gas engine. Various hunting stories, shooting first deer, and first black bear. Various other juvenile adventures into the bush alone or with friends. Coastal life, descriptions of abandoned settlements that failed in the wilderness and the last remaining structures falling into the ground....
The Wilderness Chronicles of H. U. Blocker < Insert real name here (and add an invented middle initial if you don’t have one).
I don't think such vague information is going to help. When I find a perfect title for something it's often a passage I wrote somewhere in the text itself, and I can't usually do that until the entire thing is all done and edited a few times. It's not until you've got all the basics worked out and are editing for the fine tuning, coming up with the absolute perfect wording, that your title pops up. In fact sometimes after I think I'm all done editing and I'm looking for a title, something occurs to me that makes a perfect title and also needs to be added as a line in the text. But it doesn't always work that way. I never know where a title is going to come from, and there isn't always a really great one.
What is the theme of your memoir? I struggled with self worth throughout my life, hence the title of my memoir. A friend of mine had spent his youth helping his father build a boat, so he titled it Boat in the Attic. There will be a constant feature and maybe a character arc. Play with the things you know, especially in a memoir.
That's vague? Okay. Sorry. I've have been fine-tuning this thing for two months now. Thanks for the tip on something out of the stories themselves rather than trying to describe the package. but I have to admit that I'm liking "Beyond the end of the road" or "You can't drive there" because there was in fact no road to this place, it was air and boat access only.
Yes, compared to being intimately familiar with every line in every story, as you are. You did see the rest of what I wrote right? The way I generally name my stories isn't going to work just by reading a brief synopsis.
If I were browsing in a bookshop, this is definitely a title I'd pick up to check out, and my favourite of the number you've mentioned as under consideration.
The second post made little sense to me vis a vis the original post. It reads like a list of things you want to write about and I saw no connection with the questions in the first post. Information on the title page of a manuscript should include In upper left corner list the author's name, address, phone number, and email address In the upper right place the word count. Centered in the page the title with author's name beneath. Unless you distrust the publisher, a statement of copyright is not needed. If you don't trust them, consider finding another one or self-publishing rather than slapping them in the face. Titles on submissions frequently do not survive if the publisher doesn't like it. Maybe give it a working title and wait on the publisher to comment.
