Why do books published in the UK get different titles in the US?

Question

This is so annoying, you think your favourite author has written a new one and it turns out to be the same with a different name. Gr.

Answer 1

There are at least four reasons for UK and US book titles often being different.

1. The original title (whether in the US or the UK) is the same as another book in the other country.  To prevent confusion, the importing publisher will change the title. Say a new novel in England is published with the title "Gone With The Wind."  In the US, the publisher would change its name to something else, to prevent confusion with an already published book of the same name.

2. The original title might mean something naughty in the other country. The title will be changed to prevent any problem.

3. The original title might not have any "legs" in the importing country. That is,,the marketing geniuses at the importing publisher might say that the original title  simply will not arouse any interest.  So the importing publisher might change the title to something more "exciting and marketable" (often to the distress of the author, who may have given the title a good deal of thought.)

4. The importing publisher might have slightly different plans for the imported book. Very often, a publisher might have a scheme to publish a series of books on the same subject and might have an overarching title: "History of Mankind Round Three" ... "History of Mankind Round Four"... etc. To round out this series, a similar book -- with a far different title, "Where is Man Headed?" -- might be imported. That title would never do in the scheme of things, and might be dropped in favor of "History of Mankind the Final Knockout"

Moral The author's wishes and reasons are rarely considered in publishing,whether in the UK or the US.

Answer 2

Because the US don't understand some of our expressions (or at least the publishers think they won't). They like to go for the literal meaning- they didn't think people would buy Northern Lights, so they called it The Golden Compass. Stupid.

Answer 3

It's mostly the publisher's choice; for example, HP and the Philosopher's Stone was changed to HP and the Sorcerer's Stone simply because the publisher thought the latter would sound more magical to Americans.

Answer 4

Not eveyone in America would understand proper English.

Answer 5

My first thought is read it again as there may be an answer in there for you, or if you are lucky maybe even a good question.

My second thought was that maybe reading this author is a waste of your time and that you may have outgrown him/her.

You see, in my opinion nothing happens by accident and all is well.

Cheers!