Less Is More

On the advice of the marketing department, the title of my new Peter Cotton book, due out next spring, has been changed from ‘London Blacklight’ to Blacklight. Here is the cover.

The setting remains London, of course, but the word Blacklight is, I think, seen as strong enough to stand on its own. Indeed the London part probably weakened it, possibly confused it. There is geography and there is UV light.

At first I was unsure – I had used place in the two previous books, Cádiz and Washington. Didn’t this break the map and pin look to the series?

I was also thinking of helping the kind of reader like my grandmother who had difficulty remembering whether she had or had not read a book because mystery titles do have a tendency to blur. I have some of this myself. Though I have read a few books by Dick Francis I could not, given a list of titles, tell you which ones.

So it has come down to a question of priorities. And one book title at a time. Blacklight it is. Be confident. Less is more.

I haven’t dare mention that some people have said – ‘Do you mean backlight?’

Yes, marketing is pretty tricky.