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Stephanie asks:
In my Amazon.com "Recommended for you" section today, they recommended a book also titled "Queen of Swords" by Judith Tarr. The subject is very, very different from yours, but I was just wondering about the duplication of title - can you do so, and if not, who gets to decide the new title? You, the publisher, name out of a hat?
By law, you can't copyright a title. They get reused all the time, as a matter of fact. A year after Into the Wilderness came out, there was another novel with that title. Fire Along the Sky was used as a title about fifteen years ago.
The only time the publisher hesitates about this is if they have another book with the same title on their own list. I wanted The Farthest Shore as the title for Dawn on a Distant Shore, but I couldn't have it, because Ursula LeGuin, who is also published by Bantam, had a book by that title. If she had a different publisher, I could have had it.
I wasn't aware of the Queen of Swords title, though. Thanks for pointing it out.
December 7, 2005 12:42 PM
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Comments
My goodness you're speedy. Thanks much!
Posted by: Stephanie at December 8, 2005 09:33 AM