This week I will finally take delivery of the first printed copies of my new book, Kidnapped: life as a Somali pirate hostage. Or should it have been Hostage Hell: Life as a captive on Somalia’s pirate coast? Or Warlords on the waves: how anarchy in Somalia spread from land to sea? Or how about Somalia: buccaneers of the 21st century?
Choosing the right title for a book isn't easy. All that time and effort sweating out 100,000 words or so on the pages themselves, and then all of a sudden you have to sum it all up in one single morsel. It's bad enough trying to do that ot in a single-side-of-A-4 publisher's proposal, or a few pars of blurb on the back, never mind a single, Tweet-length sentence. It's rather like those infernal competitions to think up a slogan on the back of a cereal packet: it must tell you what the product is, and why you might want to buy it, but all in a pithy, not-more-than 20, words manner.
The new book has been quite hard to get the title right on, mainly because it is, in a sense, not one story, but three. The first is that of my kidnapping in Somalia, the second is that of the piracy problem, and the third is the story of Somalia itself, and why it came to such a pass that people like pirates could thrive in the first place. In other words, it's partly a first person this-happened-to-me book, and partly a factual historical account, aimed at people who might have read about pirates in the news, and who want to learn a bit more about Somalia (but not in a heavy-going academic sort of way). Getting that all into a title is quite hard though, as the various options I came up with over time prove:
Lawless Land, Troubled Seas: Life as a hostage on Somalia’s pirate coast
This was my personal favourite, although it doesn't really make it obvious that the book is about anything other than the kidnap. Plus, my publisher at Monday Books, Dan Collins, felt we needed something more "direct". Which, in retrospect, may have been a rather politer version of what my other half, Jane, had to say about this title. Namely, that it was "poncey and overblown, a bit ridiculous, really."
Hostage Hell: Life as a captive on Somalia’s pirate coast
Punchy yes, but reads like a News of the World headline. You could imagine it squatting among the Len Deightons on the bookshelf at the airport, but not very sensitive to my aspirations to a literary/travelogue feel.
The Pirates of Puntland
A good generic headline, but once again, it doesn't mention my own personal experience, and in any event, has already been snaffled by another author. Plus, in an era of Amazon.com, "Puntland" isn't really a very Googlable term. It needs Somalia, hostage, and pirate in, ideally.
The Ladder Salesmen of Somalia
This is what I call a "cryptic" title, which are quite common in travel-type books. It's almost the opposite of the tabloid technique above. You pick something deliberately oblique and unexplained, in the hope that it will compel an intrigued reader into purchasing to satisfy their curiosity. Hence books like Salmon Fishing in the Yemen or The Sewing Circles of Herat, and, indeed, my own previous effort about Iraq, "The Curse of the Al Dulaimi Hotel".
Somalia: Failed State
My Dad's suggestion. He was pretty insistent about this, until I politely pointed out to him that the title "Failed State" has already been used in books on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, and numerous other countries. Even the USA, if you count "Failed States" by Noam Chomsky.
I could go on for much longer with these, but here are the best of the rest, if you can call them that, which degenerate into the faintly ridiculous.
Forty Days and Forty Nights: Had a vaguely Ali Baba-ish feel to it, I thought.
Then there was a few stabs at alliteration. Warlords on the waves. And Criminal Coast. Or Kalashnikov Coast. Hmmm...
Alternatively, there was the retro option, to go for one of those Victorian style "Explorer's Adventures-on-Dark-Continent of Africa" titles. I quote a bit from one such tome in the book, The Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of Henderick Portenger, written by some poor chap who got shipwrecked on the Somali coast in 1801, and who had an extremely thin time at the hands of the locals. The "retro-Victorian" technique worked well for Kate Summerscale, who won the Samuel Johnson non-fiction prize a couple of years ago for: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or the Murder at Road Hill House, a recreation of a real-life murder mystery at a country house in the 19th century.
However, my equivalent, I guess, would be something like: "The Narrative of the Sufferings of Colin Freeman: his ordeal at the hands of the wicked savages of Somalia."
Which, far from winning the Samuel Johnson prize, would probably get me banned from entering. So Kidnapped: life as a Somali pirate hostage it is.
Choosing the right title for a book isn't easy. All that time and effort sweating out 100,000 words or so on the pages themselves, and then all of a sudden you have to sum it all up in one single morsel. It's bad enough trying to do that ot in a single-side-of-A-4 publisher's proposal, or a few pars of blurb on the back, never mind a single, Tweet-length sentence. It's rather like those infernal competitions to think up a slogan on the back of a cereal packet: it must tell you what the product is, and why you might want to buy it, but all in a pithy, not-more-than 20, words manner.
The new book has been quite hard to get the title right on, mainly because it is, in a sense, not one story, but three. The first is that of my kidnapping in Somalia, the second is that of the piracy problem, and the third is the story of Somalia itself, and why it came to such a pass that people like pirates could thrive in the first place. In other words, it's partly a first person this-happened-to-me book, and partly a factual historical account, aimed at people who might have read about pirates in the news, and who want to learn a bit more about Somalia (but not in a heavy-going academic sort of way). Getting that all into a title is quite hard though, as the various options I came up with over time prove:
Lawless Land, Troubled Seas: Life as a hostage on Somalia’s pirate coast
This was my personal favourite, although it doesn't really make it obvious that the book is about anything other than the kidnap. Plus, my publisher at Monday Books, Dan Collins, felt we needed something more "direct". Which, in retrospect, may have been a rather politer version of what my other half, Jane, had to say about this title. Namely, that it was "poncey and overblown, a bit ridiculous, really."
Hostage Hell: Life as a captive on Somalia’s pirate coast
Punchy yes, but reads like a News of the World headline. You could imagine it squatting among the Len Deightons on the bookshelf at the airport, but not very sensitive to my aspirations to a literary/travelogue feel.
The Pirates of Puntland
A good generic headline, but once again, it doesn't mention my own personal experience, and in any event, has already been snaffled by another author. Plus, in an era of Amazon.com, "Puntland" isn't really a very Googlable term. It needs Somalia, hostage, and pirate in, ideally.
The Ladder Salesmen of Somalia
This is what I call a "cryptic" title, which are quite common in travel-type books. It's almost the opposite of the tabloid technique above. You pick something deliberately oblique and unexplained, in the hope that it will compel an intrigued reader into purchasing to satisfy their curiosity. Hence books like Salmon Fishing in the Yemen or The Sewing Circles of Herat, and, indeed, my own previous effort about Iraq, "The Curse of the Al Dulaimi Hotel".
"The Ladder Salesmen" is a reference to the fact that Somali pirates always carry grappling ladders when out on the hunt at sea, which they use to board boats during hijacks. When the anti-piracy task force does stop-and-search ops on suspected pirate skiffs, it's an obvious give-away. The story goes, though, that one occasion, a group of pirates who were stopped with a ladder claimed they were simply passing "ladder salesmen". When subsequently asked to explain why they only had one "for sale", they claimed to be running "low on stock". I thought this was rather a nice little detail, but then reluctantly came to the conclusion that it would have been far too obscure for a title. For a start, it would have taken half the blurb on the back of the book to explain it. Plus, there is the Google-search factor again: the only people who would find it, presumably, would be those browsing for ladders and/or general DIY equipment in Somalia. Which is a bit of a niche market, even by the standards of the internet. Back to the drawing board...
The Ballad of Pirate Yusuf's Cave: tales from Somalia's broken land and sea
Again, a cryptic title. Yusuf was the leader of the gang that held us, and we lived in a cave. Rather a nice literary twang, I thought. Or maybe not. "Even poncier", said Jane. And inaccurate, added my friend Neil. "Unless you spend part of your time in the cave as a bawdy singer, you can't have a ballad." Cringe city again. Somalia: Failed State
My Dad's suggestion. He was pretty insistent about this, until I politely pointed out to him that the title "Failed State" has already been used in books on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, and numerous other countries. Even the USA, if you count "Failed States" by Noam Chomsky.
I could go on for much longer with these, but here are the best of the rest, if you can call them that, which degenerate into the faintly ridiculous.
Forty Days and Forty Nights: Had a vaguely Ali Baba-ish feel to it, I thought.
Then there was a few stabs at alliteration. Warlords on the waves. And Criminal Coast. Or Kalashnikov Coast. Hmmm...
Alternatively, there was the retro option, to go for one of those Victorian style "Explorer's Adventures-on-Dark-Continent of Africa" titles. I quote a bit from one such tome in the book, The Narrative of the Sufferings and Adventures of Henderick Portenger, written by some poor chap who got shipwrecked on the Somali coast in 1801, and who had an extremely thin time at the hands of the locals. The "retro-Victorian" technique worked well for Kate Summerscale, who won the Samuel Johnson non-fiction prize a couple of years ago for: The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or the Murder at Road Hill House, a recreation of a real-life murder mystery at a country house in the 19th century.
However, my equivalent, I guess, would be something like: "The Narrative of the Sufferings of Colin Freeman: his ordeal at the hands of the wicked savages of Somalia."
Which, far from winning the Samuel Johnson prize, would probably get me banned from entering. So Kidnapped: life as a Somali pirate hostage it is.
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