One of the great things about living in Los Angeles is that people visit from all over the world, and there are always events going on that bring people in. This past weekend was the annual SCBWI conference in Los Angeles, and I took the opporunity to finally meet the illustrator of The Prince's Diary, Elizabeth Dulemba. I also got to see Holly Thompson, the author of The Wakame Gatherers, who was visiting all the way from Japan to attend the conference.
Holly and I got to talking about multiculturalism at the SCBWI conferences, and somehow the subject of using foreign words titles came up. When she originally submitted the manuscript for The Wakame Gatherers, she was fully prepared for her publisher to change the title. She had been warned that publishers were loath to use foreign words in titles for fear of scaring off readers. When she mentioned that to me, I immediately assured her that I would not be changing the title, and I had no problems with using "strange" words. Can you imagine if the book had been called, "The Seaweed Gatherers?" Ugh!
Using a foreign word in the title of the book may be akin to depicting a person of color on a book's cover. The recent furor over the cover of Justine Larbalestier's book, Liar, which depicted a white teen even though the book is about an African-American girl (causing Bloomsbury to redesign the cover), reminds me of the inherent beliefs that publishers have about what will sell and what won't. Bloomsbury didn't come out and say so, but we can all see that someone in marketing believed that a book with a black girl on the cover wouldn't sell as well.(The Ya Ya Yas, on their blog, show the same cover bias for books about Asians.)
I would venture to say that titles are treated equally by the publishing industry. The unspoken argument is, if the customer sees a word that they don't know in the title, they won't buy the book. The problem is, if we never introduce new words and concepts to the marketplace, there will never be any new understanding or change in the minds of readers. We need to reach a place in our culture where foreign words and new ideas impel readers to pick a book up and look at it, not drive them away.
Frankly, "The Seaweed Gatherers" would drive me away if I saw that title on the cover of a book. Eew. But "The Wakame Gatherers" might make me think something vaguely Japanese. It might subconciously remind of that Japanese restaurant I love, and, drawn in by curiosity and a vague sense of adventure, I might take a closer look.
The truth is, so many of our book titles include foreign words and names (Selvakumar Knew Better, Angkat, Abadeha, Jouanah) that the word "wakame" never even registered in my brain as worthy of being replaced. I was actually surprised for a moment when Holly asked if I wanted to change the title. It had never occurred to me.
Holly and I got to talking about multiculturalism at the SCBWI conferences, and somehow the subject of using foreign words titles came up. When she originally submitted the manuscript for The Wakame Gatherers, she was fully prepared for her publisher to change the title. She had been warned that publishers were loath to use foreign words in titles for fear of scaring off readers. When she mentioned that to me, I immediately assured her that I would not be changing the title, and I had no problems with using "strange" words. Can you imagine if the book had been called, "The Seaweed Gatherers?" Ugh!
Using a foreign word in the title of the book may be akin to depicting a person of color on a book's cover. The recent furor over the cover of Justine Larbalestier's book, Liar, which depicted a white teen even though the book is about an African-American girl (causing Bloomsbury to redesign the cover), reminds me of the inherent beliefs that publishers have about what will sell and what won't. Bloomsbury didn't come out and say so, but we can all see that someone in marketing believed that a book with a black girl on the cover wouldn't sell as well.(The Ya Ya Yas, on their blog, show the same cover bias for books about Asians.)
I would venture to say that titles are treated equally by the publishing industry. The unspoken argument is, if the customer sees a word that they don't know in the title, they won't buy the book. The problem is, if we never introduce new words and concepts to the marketplace, there will never be any new understanding or change in the minds of readers. We need to reach a place in our culture where foreign words and new ideas impel readers to pick a book up and look at it, not drive them away.
Frankly, "The Seaweed Gatherers" would drive me away if I saw that title on the cover of a book. Eew. But "The Wakame Gatherers" might make me think something vaguely Japanese. It might subconciously remind of that Japanese restaurant I love, and, drawn in by curiosity and a vague sense of adventure, I might take a closer look.
The truth is, so many of our book titles include foreign words and names (Selvakumar Knew Better, Angkat, Abadeha, Jouanah) that the word "wakame" never even registered in my brain as worthy of being replaced. I was actually surprised for a moment when Holly asked if I wanted to change the title. It had never occurred to me.
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