The Trigger: Cover and Title... Finally!

by L.J. Sellers, author of provocative mysteries & thrillers

As only a writer could do, I spent the week obsessing about the word the. I’ve had a title for my new thriller for months—The Trigger. But I started considering those powerful one-word thriller titles: Stolen, Missing, Inferno, Bombshell, Shiver, Dust (seriously, a new Patricia Cornwall), and I thought maybe I should title it just Trigger.

We developed a cover, and the single-word title looked great. I asked people in my house what they thought, and everyone said, “Yeah, I like Trigger better.” But it bothered me. Whenever I would talk about the story, I would stumble over the title. It started to sound funny.

Then my editor questioned the new title and said it made her think of a name, like the horse. So I knew it wasn’t right. Especially for people who might only see the title in text  (sans cover) and be confused by it.

So I’m back to The Trigger, which works well with the story, which goes like this:

Agent Jamie Dallas loves undercover assignments that get her out of the Phoenix Bureau. But when a woman and her baby disappear from an isolated community of preppers in Northern California, she knows the risk of infiltrating the armed group is dangerously high.

Once inside the compound, she discovers that the brothers who founded Destiny are scheming something far more devious than kidnapping or murder. Meanwhile, her local FBI contact, Agent McCullen, is pulled from her team and assigned to investigate the murder of a woman with phony ID, found at the bottom of a motel pool.

Soon Dallas finds herself in deeper trouble than she's ever encountered—with no way to reach her contacts. Can she break free of the bunker and stop their bizarre end-of-world plans? Will Agent McCullen identify the killer in time to help?

The Trigger is a gripping story that highlights our greatest fear—how a hacker and a fanatic with grandiose ideas can threaten civilization as we know it.

The book is scheduled for release January 1, and I have a great contest planned with a huge prize—a trip to Left Coast Crime. More details can be found on my website.

If you’re interested in an early copy of The Trigger (ebook and some print) and are willing to be on my street team to help launch it, please email me. ARCs will be ready in about a month.

So what do you think of the title? The cover? Story concept?

Tweaking Titles and Covers to Improve Sales

by L.J. Sellers, author of provocative mysteries & thrillers

In December, I did Amazon-sponsored giveaways of The Suicide Effect and The Sex Club, and between the two, I gave away more than 55,000 ebooks, and they both have sold really well since.

So I thought I’d repeat the effort with The Arranger, a book with nearly all 5-star reviews that had never gained any traction. After two days, I only had about 2500 downloads. I couldn’t even give the book away!

Not everyone likes futuristic thrillers, but The Hunger Games is huge bestseller, so there is an audience for the genre. I decided that the problem was the name. The Arranger just didn’t have enough intrigue or power. It was one of two choices at the time, and my husband really liked it, and I let him talk me into using it—against my better judgment.

So I changed the title to The Gauntlet Assassin and did a two-day giveaway...with a terrific download response. The ebook has been selling steadily since at five times the rate of its previous sales. Yeah! But I think it has even more potential, so I’m having a new cover created, and I’m contracting with a new designer, one that specializes in thrillers. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with and how it affects sales.

I’ve also recently changed the cover of Secrets to Die For—for the third time!—and changed the font on all my Jackson books. They all instantly jumped up in the rankings on Amazon’s police procedural list.

This is one of the best things about digital publishing—the ability to quickly and inexpensively make changes. Sometimes I worry that it’s disturbing to readers but I hope they understand. I’m running a small business, and I have to ensure that my products are selling as well as they can.

Readers: What do you think?
Writers: Have you made cover or title changes and did it work for you?