So, a few weeks ago, I'd posted a blog note about how an episode of CHARMED is named "Carpe Demon." So you don't have to scroll down to find it, basically, I said that when I'd first picked the name, I was the only "Carpe Demon" out there, and when I saw the Charmed title, I felt a little proprietary. Like, man, that's my title! Sulk, Sulk! But then I stepped back, thought about it, realized that was a totally whiney attitude ... and realized that cross-promotion is a good thing!

Surprisingly, though, I've now gotten a few emails from folks asking how Charmed can do that. Isn't my title copyrighted, they ask? Isn't whoever named the show a copycat? And the answer is nope. Absolutely not! You can't copyright a title! (Even if you could, I still don't think I'd complain. I figure folks who search the Net for references to Charmed might run across my book and be intrigued. The more the name is out there, the better.)

The fact is, titles are used and re-used all the time. So I can't copyright CARPE DEMON or THE GIVENCHY CODE or NOBODY BUT YOU or any of my other titles. Authors do feel proprietary about titles, don't get me wrong (well, sometimes the book ends up with a title they don't like, in which case the author might not be so proprietary!).

In the case of my summer books, the titles fit beautifully. "Carpe Demon" is a perfect fit for that book. "The Givenchy Code" is a perfect fit for that book. But at the end of the day, the title is just a title. It belongs to the book, but not to me. It's what's inside the book that matters. And if I get a little cross-promotion by having something out there with the same name (like an episode of an extremely popular tv show) then great! (Hey! Maybe I should thank the network for helping me cross-promote!)