Title Twins: What Happens When Your Book has the Same Title as Another Book?

Authors want their books to have a unique and memorable title. I know a lot of authors who will not even tell anyone the name of a work in progress until it is published because they don’t want anyone to steal their title.

It’s easy to understand why authors would feel that way. You can’t copyright a title and sometimes finding a good one is harder than writing the freaking book. That causes two things to happen:

1. A lot of books have the same title as at least one other book; and

2. A lot of books have bizarre titles that are hard to remember, like The Return of the Revenge of the Curse of the Son of the Bride of Vampire Ninja vs. Robot Space Monkeys, Part II.

So it is not that terribly surprising that Stephen King has a book with the same title as that of another author.  Emily Schultz published her debut novel, Joyland, in 2006. Stephen King’s Joyland was released in 2013.

What I do find surprising is that the coincidence seemed to result in a sales spike for Ms. Schultz. According to The Telegraph article, a lot of those purchases were made by people who thought they were buying the King book. I guess I can see how someone might make that mistake. Still, the author’s name on the cover should be a clue. Continue reading “Title Twins: What Happens When Your Book has the Same Title as Another Book?”