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Wattpad is very pleased to bring you today’s guest post from author Margaret Atwood. Ms. Atwood has recently embarked on a new adventure in online publishing and we’re happy to see her dive in! We are also incredibly happy that she has been generous enough to share some advice and insight with the Wattpad community on the process of selecting a title and cover for her latest original short story. 

Choosing the Title and Cover Image for Byliner’s I’m Starved For You

Choosing a book title is sometimes a dream, though more often it’s a nightmare. The title is like a doorway: it’s the first thing a reader sees in addition to and the cover image. Whoever decides on the title of a book hopes that it will invite the reader to open the door and go in.

Sometimes a writer has the title very early, and knows it, and the publisher’s enthusiastic. But if there’s uncertainty, the process of deciding can be nerve-racking, because not everyone involved – the publishers, the marketers, the editors — will agree. 

While I was writing I’m Starved For You, I called it Consilience, which is the name of the town where the story takes place. This word has a comfortable, friendly feel to it, though what it actually means, according to Wikipedia, is “a ‘jumping’ together of knowledge by the linking of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation.” This kind of fits what’s going on in the town of Consilience, where the justice system and the economic system are linked by turning a prison into a full-employment scheme, with cost savings and other benefits. These include house-sharing by its citizens, who take turns being prisoners.

But who knows what “consilience” means, right off the bat? So I changed the name to Lockers. This seemed fitting as well, since each of the four characters who share a house has a locker in which to stow the clothes they won’t be wearing during the months they spend in the prison. The lockers are different colors: red, green, purple, pink. Stan’s wife, Charmaine, has the pink one; she briefly considers putting Stan into it, though she realizes she would have to cut some pieces off him in order to cram him in. As a title, Lockers also dovetailed with the prison theme, for prison is a place where people are locked away.

But the editors at Byliner felt that title didn’t jump off the page. They wanted something “sexier,” more alluring; something that would evoke all the longing in the story. We all cudgeled our brains, sending titles back and forth by email – Shackle Day, The Red Locker, Purple Kiss, The Heart Goes Last, I’m Starved For You.  Finally we narrowed it down to the last two. Then we voted, and I’m Starved For You won by a narrow margin.

It’s a line from a note Stan finds hidden in the house that he and Charmaine share with their “alternate” couple, whom they are never allowed to see. The note appears to be from the wife, Jasmine, and is addressed to her husband Max. It’s sealed with a purple lipstick kiss. At the beginning of the story, Stan falls in lust with the imprint of this kiss, and determines to track down the woman who has made it. 

Once the title was decided on, it was the turn of the cover image.

There was a brief flirtation with a picture of a red scooter on a deserted beach – the mood was “escape” – but as there was no beach in the book, I wrote to my editor, “Never promise a beach when you don’t have one to offer.” It didn’t take us long to decide on the final image, which was the purple lipstick kiss itself, on a folded and slightly crumpled piece of paper.  It fit the title – the final title – because an open mouth can be sexy, or it can be hungry. As for the dark pink color, it can be seen as provocative or maybe a little vampiristic. “Starved” implies desperation, and viewed from a certain angle the vertical creases in the paper slightly resemble fangs.

A title and a cover image are indeed like a doorway; and doors are gateways to the unknown. I suppose that’s one of the reasons we read: to follow mysterious pathways; to be taken somewhere we’ve never been before. It might be a little dark in there, but that’s always the chance you take, with doors.

Margaret Atwood is the author of over forty books, including The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake. I’m Starved for You can be found at www.Byliner.com/originals/i-m-starved-for-you. Read an excerpt here.