quote:

---

Barnes has his own experience of titles doubling up. "Originally, Talking it Over was called Love, Etc. I then discovered one day when I was walking past a second-hand book barrow in a London street, a book of that title and my heart just fell. It was by an American writer called Bel Kaufman, who was the author of a bestseller called Up the Down Staircase. Her Love, Etc. was out of print but I didn't feel I could use it. I came up with Talking it Over but by that time I had already given my French publishers the title of Love, Etc. and they refused to change it. To add to the confusion, a film of that book came out, also called Love, Etc. When I wrote the sequel, 10 years later, in Britain I decided that Kaufman's title had lapsed into forgettingness and decided to use it, except in France, where the book was called Dix Ans Apres [Ten Years Later]."

---

More at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/19/1071337141618.html

Whether the risk of confusion is one worth taking is, of course, a matter for the author and publisher.

I suppose you could even do a new twist on an old title -- "iRobot" ?

Pat

You can't copyright a title.

But you can try to protect it (or elements of it) as a trade mark. Wiley has registered "For Dummies", "Webster's New World" and others as trade marks, for example.
http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/Section/Legal-and-Copyright-Notices.id-100099.html

Hope this helps,
Pat