Things To Think About When Naming a Book

You know, every once in a while, I out-stupid myself. Stick around for this story: you'll love it.

As you all know, the title of the second book in The Asphodel Cycle is The Gift of Redemption. Naturally, I have "The Gift of Redemption" on my Google alerts because I like to know when my books pop up on the web. (For all of you aspiring writers out there, ALWAYS set up a Google alert for your stories--that way you can find out if someone is selling it illegally. This is especially important for e-pubbed stories.)

At any rate, the title stems from the theme of the book--the gift of redemption occurs when the Virgin Huntress accepts the only sacrifice that can redeem the race of Elves. It was a natural title for the book; that's what the book was about.

What I didn't think about was what else would pop up on Google alerts with the phrase "the gift of redemption."

Do you know how many church blogs I find out about every day talking about the gift of redemption? How many priest's personal blogs, how many printed sermons, how many religious sites use that phrase every single day? Whenever I get a Google Alert for The Gift of Redemption, I usually discover that *this is all made up* Father Stanley Bingo of St. Jehosephat Parish in Kansas City has delivered an entire sermon about the gift of redemption and, just in case you missed it on Sunday, printed it in its entirety on the parish blog on Monday.

This is particularly bad around Easter and Christmas, as I discovered much to my chagrin this past year.

Every Monday, my Google alert for "The Gift of Redemption" is usually fifteen to twenty posts long. Hidden amidst all the church blogs are a couple of ebook sales distributors and maybe a review or a post from this blog. So let's get something straight here:

The Gift of Redemption by Celina Summers is about Elves, a fictional race of beings that are an archetype of the fantasy genre.

When you're naming your stories, future and present writers, take a moment to think of what you're getting into in the wonderful world of Google. The final installment of the Asphodel series was originally going to be called simply "The Apostle."

Ummm...we're not going that route. Hopefully, The Apostle of Asphodel will protect me from the influx of church blogs that I'm quite certain will be just as relieved not to have "Elf Killing and Other Hobbies" showing up on their Google Alerts in the future.

See? I'm doing it all for religion. That's okay though; the Pope can thank me later.

How ELF-Killing Took On A Mountain Bike

Okay, enough nostalgia. Let's get back to what I do best.


Which is....?

Ah, a sea of hands waving frantically in front of me, like Horseshack with a bit of a digestive upset. (You have to have watched Welcome Back, Kotter at least once to get that one, kids.)

Yes, yes--you're right. I'm best at ranting in a pseudo comedic manner. Why don't we get started? So anyway, I just checked my blog stats, hoping that they were a little bit higher and guess what? What a spectacular explosion of interest in my blog! Naturally, modest little me thought, "Wow. That's a hell of a lot of hits coming from the Preditors & Editors or LoveRomances and More sites. I'm liking this nomination thing A LOT."

So I checked the reports, to see which of them was the bigger referring site and Lo and Behold! A HUGE report comes up. My weekly average went from 200 weekly visitors to SEVENTEEN HUNDRED unique views. I was so excited I spilled my milk and dropped my Geritol.

Until I saw the referring sites.

Now those of you who really WANT to be here, riddle me this. What, if anything, does my blog have to do with mountain bikes or environmental defense groups?

What really killed me was that people googled in order to get here. Want to know why? Because 'elf' correlates closely to E.L.F.--the Earth Liberation Front--and also the BMX Elf, a popular mountian bike. Now as to why they got directed to my site I have no idea. All I know is that somehow in the cyber-world, some wire got kinked and now I have a bunch of eco-defense people and biker dudes and chicks stopping by my blog.

Welcome by the way. This blog is about ELVES and killing them; it's certainly not about trees or off-road trails. Hope you enjoy your (brief) breeze-by and if you find one of the Elves run over the pesky little bugger.

Now maybe YOU guys can answer just one question for me. How in the bloody hell did you end up at my blog, for Chrissakes? Possibly only Brittany Spears' site is less related. I beat that one because I spell correctly and have all my hair. But seriously, I appreciate the hits and all that but------

-----WHY?

Don't get me wrong: I like mountains, and bikes, and trees. I don't really even have a problem with sand if you get right down to it.

Ahem! Now that you're all here, you might as well look around. Be sure you follow the links in this post. They'll get you where you want to go.

Or at least, where I want you to go.

Trust me. My youngest daughter broke her patella and tibial plateau while riding a mountain bike in the woods yesterday. Just....trust me. If you don't believe me, be sure to check out the keywords I've left for this post. Happy eco-defending and/or mountain biking. Just be sure you buy my book.