YA series--how important is it to have the protaganist's name on the cover?

Afalstein

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I'm working on self-publishing my book The Nephilim Protocol, and we're getting down to the cover design. The plan is for the book to be the start of a series, and for the series to be mentioned on the title.

My main idea for the series title was always "The Solomon Code Series" or "The Quest for the Solomon Code." But I'd thought that it would also be good to have the protaganist's name on the cover, so the other idea was "The Chronicles of Squire Chad" (yes, the name is intentional). The artist put both on the cover, and "Chronicles of Squire Chad" just looked ludicrous, so I thought I'd ditch it.

But I feel it would be important to have the protaganist's name on there somewhere. I think of the Percy Jackson series, the Alex Cross series, the Michael Vey and the Alex Van Helsing series. Harry Potter, obviously. The only exception in male-centric YA I can think of is "The Maze Runner" which is still sort of the main character's name. It seems people connect better with a series that has the protaganist's name on the cover.

But I can't think of a good way to incorporate it. Chad Dickson and the Nephilim Protocol doesn't make sense in the context of the story. Chad Dickson and the Solomon Code series doesn't work as a series title. I could just ditch "The Solomon Code" byline and instead list it as "The Chad Dickson Series", but I like the Solomon Code title. Also there's the obvious problem that "Chad Dickson" is a terrible name (by design) and while that works as a story device, might not work as a title.

Am I overthinking the importance of the protaganist's name being on the cover? Divergent and The Hunger Games don't have it, after all.
 

Brightdreamer

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IMHO, you're overthinking the importance of having character names on the cover.

Harry Potter and Percy Jackson start as MG, which is a slightly different target/criteria set, so I'm not sure they're the best comparisons. (Though even in MG, character names aren't required: off the top of my head, A Series of Unfortunate Events series and The Spiderwick Chronicles.) Hunger Games and Divergent started and stayed YA, and might be better examples. Also, Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave trilogy is just "The 5th Wave trilogy", Susan Beth Peffer's Life as We Knew It series... The Starbound trilogy by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner...

That's not to say you can't use the character's name on the title, just that I don't think it would be a make-or-break thing.

(FWIW, I like the flow of "The Solomon Code" better, myself.)
 

Staccata

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I'd second all of what Brightdreamer said. Also I really like "The Solomon Code" - that title would probably attract my attention if I came across it.
 

frimble3

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I also prefer 'The Solomon Code' - it sounds exotic, biblical, mysterious and interesting.
As opposed to 'The Chad Dickson' anything. Yeah, I'm sure there's an interesting reason he has that name - but I'm not that interested. It tells me nothing about the story.
 

A.P.M.

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To be fair, the name "Chad Dickson" makes me laugh. Is your book humorous? Consider keeping it on the cover. If not, go with The Solomon Code.