Just when you think everything's under control, something comes along and slaps you in the face.
I came up with the title of Discord's Shadow before I even started on the first draft. At the time, I did an internet search, and was happy that it didn't clash with anything–book, song, game, anything else. At intervals, I repeated the search. When I put the novel on Smashwords and Amazon for pre-order I checked again. Now, only a week since Discord's Shadow was released, I put the title in on the Amazon search page, and up pops another novel with the same title by Caleb Smith, which is the first in the Nate Silver series, and was published in March 2020. Why didn't it show up before? I can't believe that I could have checked so many times and simply missed it. Caleb Smith might well be as irritated as I am. If he is, I'm sorry. However, the good news for him is that his novel appears before mine, so anyone doing a search will find his first. Not so good for me, so what should I do?
Changing my title at this stage doesn't seem like an option. It follows the other two books in the series, and I've spent months telling people about it. Legally, it seems I have as much right to use the title as anyone else, and although it's regrettable, books sharing the same title is not as rare as I initially thought. Another internet search showed it's happened to novels by famous authors as well. Stephen King's novel Joyland shares its name with one by Emily Schultz, and both A. S. Byatt and Ann Rule have written novels titled Possession. If it can happen to them, I don't feel quite as bad about it.
To avoid confusion, you can go to http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ksdearsley or on Amazon, search for K. S. Dearsley or go direct to http://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KNCZR3D.
I think I might need quite a lot of chocolate to get over the shock.