Wonderful New Book Title

Here's what it's like when you sell your first book. At first, you dance for joy and make a commitment to be the most cooperative author your publisher has ever worked with. Then they put a title like "Play it Again, Spam" on your book, and the dancing stops, and you consider marching into one of their meetings with a shotgun in one hand and a severed head in the other.

They they go back to your original title, and you feel okay for a while. Then they kill it again and pick something you offered weeks ago, in desperation: "Spam Ninja." Okay, you can live with that. After "Play it Again, Spam," anything sounds good.

Until you get an email containing the following abortion: "The Good, the Spam, and the Ugly."

I shit you not.

I have an idea for an alternative which will make people considerably more eager to pick it up. "I Just Wiped With This Book."

If I live to be a thousand--which is the age I will be when I get my next book deal--I will never again criticize the title of someone else's book. I used to think authors were somehow involved in naming their books, but I was dreaming.

The only thing I can figure is that some PC avenger up there is deliberately trying to murder the book. Maybe some Nigerian immigrant. One day I'll get an email that looks like this:

DEAREST IN CHRIST:

COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON! HOW ARE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY DOING TODAY? HOW DO YOU LIKE THE WAY I KNEECAPPED YOUR STUPID BOOK? I HAVE SABOTAGED IT BY VARIOUS DIABOLICAL MODALITIES.

YOURS,
LIMFOMA MBWEEBWEE
HEAD OF MARKETING

Oh, God. Time to print up resumes.

The thing that makes this horrible is my determination to be cooperative. Editors are used to dealing with authors who are untalented and insane and overbearing. I want to spare them that experience. I want to be part of the team. But "The Good, the Spam, and the Ugly"? Is that title even survivable?

I know they're trying. Surely they're trying. They must seriously think they're helping. We're on the same team. We're on the same team. I will keep repeating that. I am grateful. I am eager to cooperate. I do not want to blow this opportunity.

Oh, God. Tell me they're going to come to their senses.