Rats. My title is taken.

Aww, I'm sorry. That must be so frustrating. I had a nightmare that someone else published my exact same book before I could finish writing it. Lol. At least that's pretty unlikely.

As for the title: don't get too discouraged. You'll find another one that's better. Just out of curiosity, what was the title you were thinking of?

Oh pants. There's always the worry that you've heard it somewhere before, isn't there?

Like you say, it'll probably get changed anyway. Good luck with it!

It's still a work in progress -- the title will come to you. I planned a series of 4 books, found out the title I intended for the 3rd one was used -- so now it's just one single book. I know this may sound strange but listen for your characters to talk to you - they'll tell you the title when the time comes. Could you possibly use anything with "shih tzu" in it??? Just wondering... Persi

The title will come to you in time, do not worry.

Soccer Mom -

I may be wrong, correct me somebody if I am...but, I read somewhere, and I think it was here, that titles are not copywrited and can be used over and over again...

Hopefully so, in your case!

Ummm, nothing like mom's homemade cake and frosting...heck homemade anything!

It is a great title!

That title may have just come out, but by the time your work enters the market...there may be enough time in between that it won't make any difference.

I've seen several books and films with the same titles, that's also where I was coming from.

Glad you had a great birthday!

A year ago is nothing to worry about. Even a title released today isn't anything to worry about. If you sold your book today, it probably wouldn't hit the shelves until AT LEAST 2008, putting it a couple years away from the prior use of the title. And unless the existing book is by a bestsellilng author whose backlist remains in print, it's not likely to be on bookshelves by then.

Of more concern is a title on a book that's released within a few months of your book, but it's not always possible to figure that out, even though editors (and authors) will check their sources. Crusie/Mayer had looked around and found no other books called Don't Look Down when they finalized the title, but sure enough, there was another book with the same title released a couple months before theirs. I believe Terry Pratchett said there was another book that was going to be called Thud! right around the time his book came out with that title, and he was able to convince the other author to change his title.

Anyway, unless it's something instantly recognizable like Gone With the Wind, don't worry about it. Just keep writing.

JD

It's really not critical. When our book, Hunter's Moon, first hit the shelf in December, 2004, we had NO IDEA that another, bigger-name author, had titled her book exactly the same. It was pubbed in January, 2005 (a MONTH later--not a year!) AND it's in the same genre, AND it's pubbed by a sister company to ours. So they often appear in the catalogues as the SAME publisher. But the covers were different and so are the author names and ISBNs. We had a little trouble with it that first month, but three months later, nobody even noticed.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you like the title, keep it.