Thanks for the examples, Lee!
Everyone says they don't buy a book based on the cover, but let's face it - the title and the cover are what gets them to look at anything else. (Honestly, does anybody here actually read EVERY book description on Amazon? Really? No, they read the book descriptions of the books that caught their eye through title, cover, or maybe rank in the genre.)
I'm experimenting with my oddball books before I get out there with more commercial stuff, so it's really hard to take lessons from what I'm doing. People either love or hate my title (and unfortunately, it's turning out that the people who love the title are people who have already read the book which kinda takes it out of the running as a marketing tool). I've had people tell me that they didn't like the title, but when they saw the cover, they decided to buy it anyway.
Here's a question: when you changed the title, did Amazon and/or Smashwords let you just change it, or did they treat it as a new book? (I've got a little marketing going out there, and if I were to change the title, I worry that those efforts would be lost - but if the links at the same that would be okay.)
I'm thinking of changing it to "The Wife of Freedom" since that actually fits thematically too.
Camille