BLAZE vs. FANGIRL [Laurie Boyle Crompton]

My first book, BLAZE (or Love in the Time of Supervillains), took a very windy path to publication and was originally submitted with the fun title FANGIRL AND HER SUBATOMIC SWEATMOBILE OF DOOM! After it sold, the title was shortened to FANGIRL and below I have pulled from the depths of my iCloud storage the Original Cover. It. Was. Awesome.

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Wait for it...

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BAM! POW!! Right?

FANGIRL was ready to go and she got a nice amount of interest and buzz from the sales team. Yay! It looked like she may even be a breakout hit. "But wait," someone in some meeting somewhere said, "What if readers are confused by the cover?" They feared my nerdy, funny comic-book drawing main character, Blaze, would be mistaken for an actual superhero. I disagreed, but as a new author I didn't want to be difficult and besides, those someones know best about these things, right?

And so my kick-ass cover was changed. And then of course once the image was changed, the title had to go since the hair-blown image with the title FANGIRL would imply a literal fan's involvement which I think we can all agree would be just plain silly. A number of new titles were discussed, a fun contest was had, and finally the simple and to the point BLAZE was decided upon. At which my editor and I rallied to have the "(or Love in the Time of Supervillains)" added since we felt Blaze was a bit too bland. Right?

My original cover made great buttons!

And I love my final cover. I truly do. The book's release was delayed by eight months so my publisher could commission an (amazing!) artist, Anne Cain, do some interior art. And some of the anticipation and buzz died down and in the end the book sold... okay. But we'll never get to know how FANGIRL would've done on her own. And since we're discussing what we'd change about our debut books I can't help but wonder if maybe I should've fought for her just a little. I'm not sure if I could've convinced my publisher to give readers just a bit more credit, but I maybe should've tried. Right? 

Would you have picked up this book?