Last week, if you recall, I asked you fine folks to vote on seven title possibilities for my first novel releasing next summer. A total of 135 people completed the survey, and it became clear three of the seven possible titles were singled out as favorites: Reprise, Signs of Life, and Waking Lazarus.

My publisher further narrowed this down to two (Signs of Life and Waking Lazarus), and as of Friday, we have a winner: Waking Lazarus.

I love this title. (It was, in fact, my working title.) Some of the fine folks at Bethany House thought it might be confused with another competitive title (one that also has "Lazarus" in its name), but everyone ultimately felt this was the best match for the content: Waking Lazarus is a good trigger for a story about a man who has died and come back to life three times.

A few interesting tidbits about the survey. First, participation among women was much higher than among men: 65% to 30% (5% did not answer this question). The single most popular category of fiction "most often read" was SciFi/Fantasy/Horror/Spec at 53% of the responses, and 57% of the respondents were 25-44 years old. Each and every title was the favorite (or least hated) of at least one person; each and every title was the least favorite (or most hated) of at least one person.

Now we begin the cover design process, which I'm very much looking forward to. In fact, that's why I'm writing this entry from beautiful Minneapolis, Minnesota, just a few miles from Bethany House headquarters. I'll be meeting the Bethany House team (including Dave Long, my editor) in person for the first time this afternoon, and one of our topics of conversation is cover design. So, if you have any favorite covers, would you mind pointing them out to me?

I'll update you on my first meeting with Bethany House later. Hopefully, I'll be hearing from some of you with cover thoughts, as well.